It's not enough

To be enough

These days

Or do enough

Or make enough

We are trapped

Completely

Inexorably

In the culture

Of more

And more

And more

A better job

House

Car

And what have you

Things outwear

Their welcome

Soon

We seek

New

And better

And shinier

Why can't

We live

Satisfied

Content

With little

With what we

Have

Why must we

Go after

Pursue

Fight

Compete

Why not

Grow

Foster

Nurture

What's

Inside

Will we ever

Stop

Our quest?

Where

Can it lead

Running

Round

And round

In circles

Finally

To rest

In one spot

But alas

Too late

~Me

Typically when I feel that I have not performed at my best or failed at something, there is a temptation to wallow. I don’t usually blame myself because I trust that I want to do my best, even if it isn’t objectively the best. But I can’t help feeling sad and the mind always starts going over what I could have done differently. I wonder how it might be possible to simply hold things very lightly. If it wasn’t my best, maybe it was not meant to be. And if it was meant to be, my less-than-best will also be good enough. Ultimately there is something more to be learnt from these events when things don’t go as well as planned than when they did. Maybe the point of some of these events is not success or failure but enrichment of experience. No experience is a waste in that sense. It introduces you to something, teaches you something, shows you something, gives you something etc. I already know a few things this experience gave me… one must be happy and grateful for those things. Why want success at any rate or every time? When it is meant to be, it will be… at its own time, when the time is right. And if it doesn’t, then maybe that’s just as well too. As I think sometimes when I am trying to be grateful in spite of myself, at least half the world’s population isn’t as fortunate as I am. Back in India, I only had to look around me, to not need more evidence of the fact. Out here sometimes I miss those signals but they don’t need to stare me in the face for me to know that all said and done, there’s much to be grateful for.

I wish I could be more like Miranda in that British soap...here's the kind of things she gets up to… having fun even with goofing things up big time…!

I am a firm believer in the power of persuasion. It's not hard to convince reasonable people if you use logic, argument, and rhetoric to good effect. Mind you, part of why they work for me is that I believe in the soundness of my position. I couldn't ever try to convince anyone if I wasn't convinced myself. Which perhaps means—now that I think of it—that the power probably lies in my authenticity. Authenticity invites trust. Rhetoric probably would fail if it came from an inauthentic place. People can see through fake. Or at least some can.

Well, my point was something else. Recently someone said some things to me that made me want to jump to my usual habit of defence through logic and argument. Make them realise their position is wrong. Show them evidence. Beat them with counter-examples. You get the drift. I had a lovely essay in my head to put to them and it almost seemed criminal to waste this masterpiece. But I stopped myself short... ironically with an argument. I felt in this particular instance I must resort to a more difficult technique. Silence. Not silence to prove a point but because it seems to me that in certain cases if people do something because you persuaded them with logic, their doing isn't worth it. The emotion of the thing is where it really is at. And it needs to be felt naturally. To give a bad example, if someone came to drop me at the airport in the middle of the night because I asked them to... wouldn't be the same as someone who did it because they wanted to! My silence is an invitation to let them figure out what they would rather do.