Enquiring Minds

I have some questions I want the answers to, in fact, I am demanding the answers to them!!!!

I am standing up and shouting; GIVE US THE ANSWERS!!!!!!

Some might suggest that answers won’t make any of us happier; well funnily enough I disagree! I want answers because I like reasons for things. I don’t wish to merely accept anything, not without a reason.

Surely we all deserve the answers to the questions that plague us about our lives? I mean, who are we if not the ones in charge of our lives, right?? Or, you would think we are the ones in charge in any case wouldn’t you?

So, all I want is to be enlightened, PLEASE, enlighten me!!

I am left wondering, have any of you out there ever asked why is it we just have to accept things in life? 

Might sound a tad on the depressing side, but sometimes it seems life is not on our side. Why? We don’t always know! AND we should!

So, I ask, and no doubt naively;

Why should we always have to smile in the face of adversity?

Why is it we are told things happen for a reason?

Why can’t we call the shots in our own lives?

Why is it that things are out of our hands?

Why are we at the mercy of others?

Why must it be a rough ride?

Why doesn’t happiness last?

Why must we keep hoping?

Why do black clouds follow all the time?

Why do we end up with the poop end of the stick?

Why must everything turn sour?

We are told we have to fight, to keep smiling, to keep our heads held up high, but what happens when you run out of strength? Fighting sucks, especially when all you want to do is just live a peaceful life!!

So, what are the answers?? Are there any??? Can any answers actually help us???

 

I wonder; if we can’t have the answers we need then where do our dreams, hopes and plans go to? What happens to them in the end? Do they merely dissolve? Is that something else we all have to just accept?!  

Perhaps, none of us have the skills we need to really bring anything in our life to its full realised potential, to fruition. Are we all destined to be blind fools veering from one misery to another?? Is that our fate???

I want answers.

I for one don’t feel OK with just living and not knowing WHY! When things happen, why do they happen and why can’t we know why? Where is it written that we should just lie back and accept and smile and pretend everything is going to be OK?

Has any one out there got any answers??

Enquiring minds want to know!! 

Best Laid Plans

Do you plan your life out to the letter? Do you see your life as some sort of map to follow, whereby you carve out many paths to lead you on to something specific?

You do? And how does that work out for you? 

I have been told that planning in life is a good thing. By planning we gain control of our lives, we have something to work towards, we can succeed instead of floundering. 

Well, in my experience, this is nonsense!

Some things are just out of our hands, we cannot control them regardless of what plans we put in place.

Just when you think you know your life, if you ever allow yourself to be assured of such things, this is when a curve ball comes right at you with gargantuan force! 

Life is made up of the unexpected, I have always known that. I have never really relied on or been assured by plans. They provide no guarantee that things will run along smoothly. They are only plans, and not exactly divine intervention! 

So, why do people make plans?? Why do they swear that such things can guide you and help you control events? Why do they lie?

Best laid plans are always laid to waste eventually. This is where fate comes into play.

I am always then reminded by a saying my great-grandmother used; ‘If something in life is meant to be it will never pass you by’. Exactly! 

We may not always understand why things happen, but they do, and no amount of planning can prevent them from coming to fruition. 

So, plan all you want, but sometimes life has alternative plans for you. Remember this, and you won’t ever feel too disappointed! 

 

Turn Over A New Leaf

Since my last post ‘A Helping Hand’, I have been trying to reconsider my position or imposition.

I do not propose to dwell upon what I wrote, although I realise it will take time to change what I feel I might be missing within myself or my life. Yet, at the moment I am looking at reassessing myself. I am on a mission of self discovery – I want to relocate exactly what I am all about as a person, to try and redefine me. Since I last checked – I have changed, just as my situation has. This is something I have to accept, come to terms with, work with and not run away from.

So, I took on some advice from those bloggers who responded to my last post (BY THE WAY – THANK YOU!!). I have obtained a copy of ‘What Colour Is Your Parachute’ – which is helping to push me into quantifying myself, to ask myself questions I might be a little afraid of.

I am looking into what ‘meet up’ groups are out there in Madrid for me to get together with people who might be of interest.

Once again I am looking at volunteering positions, and perhaps taking on whatever part time jobs might be available.

I cannot say for certain if any of these things will bring me what I look for or indeed even come to fruition; yet, I will try.

What I do believe is that where I am now, is where I wanted to be. I have gotten exactly what I required, and also, what I needed. I shouldn’t therefore see this as a wasted opportunity – it is a gift of time out from things that injured me. When I am ready to re-engage with whatever I lost or left behind or I buried inside – I will, and not one moment before. I can’t force myself to do, be, or become anything until I am ready, until the time is right. So, I accept what is, I will try to progress and find a direction, BUT, I propose to just enjoy what I have, as that is all there is.

Thank you, sincerely, to the bloggers who responded and provided advice and expressed concern.

I appreciate your input and all you shared with me.

THANK YOU!!!!!!

Karma Killer

Pic from: bellezayalma.com

I don’t want to make this a running theme, but recently I have been considering how the ‘fair share’ of rough deals in life are divvied up.

Hearing from other people too, how recently things haven’t been running so smoothly for them either, I couldn’t help but wonder if these events have something to do with fate, coincidence or even karma.

If it is bad karma or some twisted fate, I don’t know whose I have been drawn into; mine, other peoples, or what! I wonder too, as I know the people who have also experienced bad things recently; could it just be some rotten coincidence we all faced at the same time? Yet, in my eyes nothing happens randomly, it all has a connection and meaning.

How could anyone draw the unlucky card out of the hat so often in just a few weeks; without something else presiding over the events???

I know I don’t feel I have committed some dastardly deed. I don’t feel I need to reap poisoned seeds that I have sown! I know that those other people haven’t either, and yet nevertheless, we have all faced some bad experiences very recently.

Yet maybe the world has to merely apply some equilibrium, where not one person can be left untouched or unscathed for too long a time scale??? We all have to take our share of the bad in life, or do we?????

Isn’t that a fallacy? Something we tell ourselves to sweeten a bitter pill??

The order of the universe, the fine balance, yin and yan – it all has to add up, square off and match.

Admittedly, what has occurred isn’t all as bad as it could have been, but it is pretty unsettling, and it did occur.

I only hope that now the balance of the unseen world has been redressed or appeased; and no more strange happenings will unsettle anyone else’s apple carts!

See related articles: And That’s All She Wrote

This Is Hell

So, waiting for my flight back to the UK to be confirmed, I am left cooling my heels and feeling the angst of the mini catastrophe awaiting me there, build about me like a dark shadow.

I truly am angry and upset. I am shocked and looking for revenge – yes, revenge!!!!!!!

After posting ‘M’ Is For The Many Ways I’d Maim ‘Her’ , and re-reading what I have stated there, I could laugh!!
“Rise to the bait and it is you who are maimed” said I, even though I knew I would always respond so angrily; even if someone had crossed me half as much as they have this time!! At this moment I really couldn’t give a damn if I burn in Hell for feeling so angry or so full of malice. I mean at the moment I feel I am in Hell, so why not consider the many ways I could maim those people who have hurt me. They deserve it for what they have done; how they rip people’s lives apart in one moment, and don’t care.

Basically, if I could grab the very fabric of the ethereal world that surrounds me, and use this as a weapon to wrap around those people, I would try to suffocate them, I would!!!

I really have seen this as a final ‘slap in the face’, the last ditch attempt of some messed up universal plan to ‘pull the rug’ out from underneath me. I feel I can go along and all is fine, and then suddenly, wham, bam, slap and down I go. It is like the universe is saying; ‘Hey Bex, you can’t have too much of a good thing. We have to ensure you get slapped back in line’.

I mean if I explained to you all the dirty tricks I’ve had played on me you’d probably say; ‘no way, I don’t believe it’. Yet, life, me and cosy and wonderful don’t go hand in hand. Never or ever!

Yet, until now I haven’t mentioned it, I haven’t harped on about it, I haven’t been sour over it – I just accept that is life and move on. Yet, this time, I feel my level of tolerance and the ability to move on has suddenly vanished.

I am truly dented; angry, hurt, and I am fed up with being pushed around by unseen decision makers who govern ‘fate’. Why is any of this considered as character building?? I could live life quite happily forever and ever without any more such ‘character building’ antics, thank you very much!

I am left feeling paranoid – this could happen again, I am at the mercy of things I can’t control. I have no power to alter anything. I am just me and I am not enough. I just want to go back to before this – so I don’t have to feel this way.

I have posted this, because I need to get some of these emotions out in the open. Stating them to the whole world (OK, exaggeration I know), but letting others see how I feel at this moment, well, it might just help me to release the negative and damaging vibes. I can’t explain in any detail anything that has happened, so I am just miscellaneously venting in a way, but that is OK, as I feel a weight could be lifted from my soul by merely doing that.

I basically need to vent!! I need to scream how I feel from the roof-tops, but I am trying to keep a lid on it too for everyone else’s sake. Others are worried and affected by all of this also. So, it isn’t so fair to load them down with my own selfish needs.

Consequently, you my wonderful WordPress readers are my free counsellors, my helping hands, my sounding boards, my sanity.

THANK YOU FOR READING!  Though I know none of it really makes a whole lot of sense!

Two Pairs Of Eyes

Pic by: http://www.ayurvedalive.in

Walking around often I will catch the eye of a stranger. It is completely normal, an everyday occurrence. The eyes are our first real sense of ourselves, others and our environment or situation. Yet, it always makes me think, ponder these everyday slight, but not quite interactions; perhaps they could even be precious ‘on the brink’ connections.

Sometimes eye contact, and then a smile can spark a conversation from nowhere. You get to have a few moments of connection, and gain a smidgen of trust from people you may never ordinarily converse with.

Travelling back to Madrid this happened to me. I begun talking to one lady in the airport waiting lounge, and another lady 10 minutes before boarding the plane. It is strange, but often this eye contact, that leads to a friendly discourse can be the most enlightening or nicest interaction of your whole day.

WHY??

What is it about our eyes, that can draw another in and spark a connection of friendship or even love??

Just two pairs of eyes can meet across a room, a street or a wide open space.

What does the silent glance mean to each person, who, in one moment have become caught up in each other’s gazes?

Does it signify the owners of those eyes are sharing the same emotion, at the same moment, with the aid of some unseen force guiding them to one another for whatever reason?

Does it even involve emotion, or is this something more deep seated and innate? A strange unspoken connection perhaps or is it merely an empty, and cold stare meant for lust or as a passing ‘who is that’ glance.

Why do we emphasise and connect to the eyes; to make friends, to be friendly, for desire, to covet? Is it more than merely some ancient mechanism of evolution and survival?

What is it about the eyes that tells us so much, and yet doesn’t even speak a word?

In one glance sometimes there is a host of wonder to behold, and yet unless you look up, you will never see what is there to be seen within a strangers eyes.

Belated HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK people I am back in Madrid, and looking forward to resuming my online presence!

I trust all of you had a fabulous Christmas?? How about those New Year celebrations, were they wonderful and joyous??
May I ask, has everyone sufficiently recovered from the festivities?! I feel fresh as a daisy, well, at the moment anyway!

I thoroughly enjoyed returning home to see my family, unfortunately time escaped me once more and alas I wasn’t able to meet up with any friends. Regardless of that my Christmas was good and enjoyable 🙂

I have to admit though, since returning to Madrid I have become ever more increasingly aware that this MY home. Well, I get mixed emotions still; as I love the scenery of Wales, but I love my life here in Madrid. I think returning to Wales confirmed that I want to keep moving, travelling and exploring; I don’t enjoy a static existence! I also realise, more and more unfortunately, that there is so much I dislike about the UK!!!! The NHS, the welfare state, unemployment and the general misery – doom and gloom (or what I perceive as misery and doom and gloom)!

In short being back in Madrid for 2013 makes me happy 🙂

I am optimistic for this year, don’t know why, but I am! I feel for the first time in a long while that anything is possible and I am hoping to move on and up and firmly commit the past to THE past!

Hope you can all join me in this positivity (whilst it lasts)!!

7 Things I believe In

I have seen this type of post attached to blogs who have been nominated for or won blog awards, and I felt inspired by them! I wondered why wait for such an accolade to impart to one and all the things I believe in?! Well, I am not waiting! Although I am in no way being facetious or mocking such awards. In fact, I want to take the time to say congratulations to all of those who do receive blog awards!!! You will get no queries from me as to why or how they have, because some of those nominated and winning blogs I myself read and LOVE!!!!! Any award gained is deserved in my eyes! However, I myself am not expecting any-time soon, or ever in fact, to receive such an award; but I think that doesn’t mean MY beliefs or YOURS for that matter, are any less consequential.

So, let us CELEBRATE our beliefs, whatever they may be!!!!! I would like to begin by asking anyone who reads this to do the same; post a post about your beliefs on your blog! If I can do it, and I am so cagey about giving myself away online, then you can do it!

 

1)      The true believers:

Now this is a broad ‘statement’, but I refer to those who are there for you in your life regardless of the situation or circumstances. These people who give of themselves tirelessly, and don’t expect a thing in return are the true stars in the world. Somewhere, at sometime they appear and for as long as they remain with you cherish them and their presence; as they are part of a rare breed worth celebrating.

 

2)      Value yourself:

I am the worst critic of myself, and do the most damage to myself. I can be my own worst enemy. I think this is quite normal for most people though. Regardless of this, I still believe in valuing who I am and what I stand for. If I am against myself then how can I expect others to be on my side? There is only me, I can be no-one else, and really and truly I don’t want to be anyone but me; for all my flaws and quirks!

 

3)      Come what may:

I am a firm believer in ‘right place, right time’, or fate. Elusive as the terms seems to be I believe that somewhere there is a guiding force leading us on; and I don’t mean religion either (though each to their own). No doubt we make choices in our life, but somehow I always find that old saying ‘whatever is meant to be never passes us by’ holds true. Getting hung up on things never makes things any better or easier, so I try to always believe in ‘come what may’; usually then the most unexpected, but good things seem to flourish! Being in the moment and accepting things for what they are, for me is a better option than working my mind up into overdrive, whilst I try to fathom out all the details!

 

4)      Be kind not cruel:

I don’t understand people who are nasty for the sake of it. I believe in being kind to people until provoked otherwise. What is the point in wasting time being wrapped up in hatred? Where does that get anyone? I believe in accepting people for who they are, enjoying people’s diversity, and being happy for people’s good fortune. Life is after all too short and too precious!

 

5)      Live life:

I believe in living my life, or at least trying to! Regardless of how frightened, anxious, down or diverted I have been, I believe in living! Being receptive to positive experiences, opportunities and the possibility to develop makes life worthwhile. I think regardless of how out of my depth I have felt I have taken those things as a challenge to grow. Nothing comes easy, things are stressing and confusing, trying can seem impossible; but giving up = gaining nothing.

 

6)      Be content:

I believe in contentment, but admit it is hard to obtain all of the time! Contentment for me is more than happiness; it is fully immersing myself in a moment, and embracing the time and place I am in without wanting anything more. Whenever I feel this all things just click into place, and I am at peace with myself. I think we are so used to trying to attain goals and so on, busy rushing from one thing to next that we don’t take the time to evaluate what we have. We should realise more often just how lucky we actually are, and stop wishing our lives away.

 

7)      Love:

This is not last on my list because it means less to me, it is THE most important. I believe in love, and feel lucky to love and be loved J Love for me can be demonstrated in many different ways, but it is always; unconditional, will weather any storm, lift me from the darkest depths and flood my life with something no words can really express. You have to love, love!

 

So there are my 7 things, now, what are yours?!  

 

If you like my post please share it 🙂

One Good Run

Aspire to climb as high as you can dream

‘Without pursuing our dreams we might as well be vegetables’, Burt Munro who set the fastest land speed world record in 1967 on a 1920 Indian Scout Motorbike; he was 68 at the time.

Following a dream that others might deem improbable or ridiculous; dedication or delusion?

I constantly talk about following a life path or feeling like I am losing my purpose, and people, even those close to me, look at me like I’ve gone crazy. The concept of a life ‘path’ or ‘purpose’ seems alien to them.

I strongly believe there is more to life than the mundane day in and out routine; shopping, the 9-5, paying bills, and so on and so on. I refuse to believe there are people out there devoid of dreams, ambitions or without ‘illusions of grandeur’. How can people be happy or satisfied with merely the ‘norm’?

Everyone surely harbours some dream, grew up wanting to be something; a teacher, a politician, a dancer or an astronaut?

So, when did these dreams and ambitions cease to exist, and become condemned to the vault of the unobtainable?

Is there something wrong with wanting more or holding onto your life dreams?

Is there a time to merely give up and accept defeat?

Well, Burt Munro never gave up. He began his dedication to racing Motorbikes in 1926, and all the while he searched for new ways to make them perform faster. This relentless pursuit of his dream led him to make a world record that still holds today.

Burt Munro held onto the idea that he had one good run left in him, until the very end of his life. He didn’t abandon the verve required to succeed.

He never gave up, never relinquished what he felt he had to do, never wavered over what was right for him; and that to me is admirable, and to be honest awe inspiring.

Burt surely proves it is never too late, and that you should never give up on your dream or yourself.

Burt Munro never gave up his dreams.

Copy Right Notice:
© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

‘What Dreams May Come’

When I dream I enter a vivid and fantastical world, where anything, quite literally, is possible. I see scenes played out in places, with people, characters and ‘things’ I don’t even recognise; the colours and images are wonderful, delicate, intricate and complex, as are the languages and actions. It’s as though my brain becomes home to a tiny film production company overnight without my knowledge! My dreams could rival any Hollywood blockbuster, and I just wish I could record them to show to everyone else! I look forward to dreaming, I love the experience. I was under the impression that everyone’s dreams were in the same type of quality, and had the same weird scenarios playing into miniature films like me; yet, apparently not.

I couldn’t imagine going to sleep and merely dreaming about the mundane or constricting my imagination to only what I know such as; work, home, friends and family. I mean that would be severely boring and uninspiring!!!! If I wasn’t flying through the sky, being a vampire, running and fighting Zombies and Demons, climbing mountains, meeting aliens, spaceships landing in my garden and being a professional singer I’d not want to go to sleep again, it would disappointment me beyond belief!

What are your dreams like; weird and wonderful or run of mill?

What do you think your dreams say about you and your life?

Feel free to leave your comments.

Copy Right Notice:
© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.