Making Friends...

As soon as I came to Switzerland I didn’t really know many people here and was very keen to make friends, especially as I came here alone without family. So I started going for many random events just to get to know people. But recently I found myself thinking… I’ve been so busy running around trying to get to know more people, but can I really call them friends, I often go to one of these events and talk to a number of people for a few minutes and often have forgotten even their names by the time I leave the party. I think that out of fear of being alone I have just gone to the other extreme, going for every event and party organised to make sure i meet new people, but not paying enough attention to the friends that I already have...

When we say 'How are you' do we even stick around for the response, do we really care how the other person is, or just asking mechanically? I recently found myself saying 'I'm good and you?' in response to 'Hi' that was when I started to think about how mechanical this has become!

To make real friends, you have to listen, pay attention and remember what the other person has said and build the relationship, so similar to improv... not just say something like a reflex action while thinking of many different things. Otherwise these friendships (can I even call them friendships) are on the surface and not deep, I've often wondered why I don't make the kind of close friends that i used to make at school, some of whom are still my best friends. .. I guess one major difference is that in those days we said what we mean and meant what we said…today we're so busy and we are often pre occupied...There's the TV, Radio, thinking of other things, we're bombarded with so much information...

So I decided that I should try to give more time and effort to my existing friendships, and really get to know the friends that I have made recently rather trying to meet so many new people, but not really know any of them.

Happiness is the journey, not the destination...

I came across this verse by Alfred D. Souza about how happiness is the journey not the destination... It is so true, you can't keep on waiting for something to happen to be happy, but just enjoy the ride, with all the trials and tribulations. So I thought of sharing the verse.

For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So, treasure every moment that you have. And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time … and remember that time waits for no one…
So stop waiting
until you finish school,
until you go back to school,
until you lose ten pounds,
until you gain ten pounds,
until you have kids,
until your kids leave the house,
until you start work,
until you retire,
until you get married,
until you get divorced,
until Friday night,
until Sunday morning,
until you get a new car or home,
until your car or home is paid off,
until spring,
until summer,
until fall,
until winter,
until you are off welfare,
until the first or fifteenth,
until your song comes on,
until you've had a drink,
until you've sobered up,
until you die,
until you are born again
to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy…
Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

Connection

I'm just back from the 'Connection' Festival. It was a day of getting together with people of different Christian denominations in the Geneva/Nyon area, and celebrating what we have in common as well as the diverse ways we have of expressing our common beliefs.

It was nice to spend some time getting in touch with my Spiritual side...This was one of the areas of my life that I have been neglecting for sometime... I have been trying to work on developing my Physical and especially my Intellectual side trying to learn as much as I can from the people I meet and the new experiences I come across, but have not really thought much about the Spirit...

Most of the day was discussing about Hope, Faith and Love, and just thought of writing down some thoughts that came to my head...

One of the first things that I thought of, was a verse from the book that I just finished reading; 'The fifth mountain' by Paulo Coelho

"Souls too like plants need a different kind of rain: faith, hope, a reason to live. When this did not pass, everything in the soul died even if the body went on living, and the people could say, ‘here in this body there was once a man’."

When I read this I thought how true... What is life without Faith, Hope and of course Love? In my life I have see these people who's souls have died, even though they are physically alive, some due to poverty, distress and suffering who have lost all hope and others ironically who have too much money and have become so greedy that there's nothing else in their lives and they are always unsatisfied...This is one of the things that worries me about being successful, about earning too much, about being too comfortable and maybe starting to think that the purpose of life is just about material things and about pleasure...Especially when staying in a country like Switzerland, which sometimes feels like a fairy land to me with all the beauty, cleanliness and everything working on time...I want to make sure that I do not forget that there is suffering and pain in life...and that the purpose of life is not about having the best material things or having the most fun (not that it is all bad, as long as it is in moderation), but what's much more important are the relationships that you make and how your life impacts others...

Well I went off on a tangent but thought I'll close this post by going back to the original topic and giving two definitions of Love.

One of the speakers summed it up beautifully as "To see or seek that which is true, beautiful and noble in the life of another"

And one of my favourite passages from the Bible, which is the one written by St Paul on Love,

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. "