For me, It's a privilege to talk with people who went thru some kind of personal hell and despite all unlucky circumstances they went thru they found the hidden power in themselves. I see them as fighters. They kept moving forward every day. Those people are like walking libraries, the living inspiration for their surroundings.
I am very grateful I have learned how to observe people. The way they talk, the way they walk even the way they think. Some of them are hiding behind big words, some of them are giving all of them on a silver platter. Depends on the time, and on the person. I'm trying to learn how to listen and how to hear.
I'm trying not to judge, I like to listen with an open heart and with the closed mind. Observing the games we play and the colors we show just to present ourselves as something we are not. It becomes more and more clear that all of us are more or less the same. But with the first rain drops colors start to fade...
Recently I found myself in a company of a young man who is my inspiration for this text. With 19 that wonderful person became a single parent to a little boy. He is a professional athlete and 3 years ago he got a chance to move out of the country and play for the international team. He accepted the offer and now he lives in a foreign country where he is trying to build his peace of heaven in this world for him and his son.
You see, he is all alone. No friends or family in that far country. No one he could rely on. He can't call his mum to make lunch for him, no wife to take care of his son. He is his own mother and his own father, he is father and mother to his son. Every day he is the cook and the nanny. He is an athlete and a friend and a teammate.
Source: http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/family/daddy/on-being-a-single-dad
After getting to know each other we touched some subjects which lead to discussion and this is how we came to the topic Giving up.
Truth to be told, I gave up my college and he makes it crystall clear he WOULD NEVER give up, how he said; " I would rather die than give up. I hate giving up." While he was making his statement you could see the fire in his eyes. His voice got louder , forehead got full of wrinkles. Was very impressive reaction. In that moment I've realized he is talking from his own experience, carrying pieces of his past where ever he goes. And then you have me on another side of the table, saying quitting the college was one of the best decisions in my life!
So, to give up or not to give up?
"I hate giving up" is a very strong message. When he was saying that, full with fire, I could feel it. I do understand giving up is manifested as a failure, well giving up is seemed as a personal failure, failure...
Back then, when I was in college, giving up was very negative in my head, just like it is in his today. That believing kept me in college longer than I should have stayed in a first place. It was wrong place and wrong time for me. But ok, step by step I did realize what I wanna do and what is important to me. It took me a long time to understand, giving up is a failure, wasn't my thinking at all. It was forced upon me by the society. Following other people dreams will never make me happy. So I gave up on their dreams and started following my own.
As time was passing, and my new friend was slowly eating his sandwich. I was sitting and staring at him. We said some harsh words to each other in such a short period of time but again I felt something warm about him. I felt close to some one I just met. A person who says he would rather die than give up and me who is calling giving up (on college ) best decision of her life are some how fitting together just fine.
Giving up on college for me it meant to give up on illusion, to give up on the wrong choice, to give up on the act I had to put up, to give up on depression, lies, and unhappiness. I felt like with staying there I was giving up on myself.
On another hand, he didn't give up on his son, and he could like lots of fathers are doing. He didn't give up on his carries, and he could like lots of young athletes are doing in when shit gets real. He didn't give up on a better life in a new country and he could like many are doing. His not giving up I saw as giving up. Giving up a bad relationship. Giving up on the wrong woman. Giving up on being immature. And thenI'vee realized his definition of not giving up it the same as mine of giving up. We thought the same, limited with our personal experiencee we couldn't see different. Looking just from our own perspective we were unable to see any further. Realizing that opened mind held me back from interrupting him and judging him. Opened mind helped me realize, we do think the same.
At the end, we are the same. Marked by the wrong choices but lead with the smell of our own dreams. Altho we talk different languages we use the same vocabulary. We define wrong definitions so we are able to give our feelings names. Don't allow you to lose yourself in "right names" and other people dreams. Don't allow your ego to judge people around you just because they didn't have the same life as you are having. Don't judge people when they talk from they own perspective.
Give up on a man who disrespects you, give up on women who doesn't cherries you, give up on a friend who is not a friend, give up on jobs which doesn't makes you happy, give up on marriages who are that just on the paper, give up on hate which is not yours. Just give up.
But never, never give up from yourself ! Never. For no one. For nothing. !
