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I regret saying „No!” to some opportunities.

Similarly, I’ve said „Yes!” to other opportunities, another thing which I regret.

What’s the solution?

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ― Søren Kierkegaard

It’s actually quite simple – can I change the past? No. Therefore, I must not regret things from it.

Can I learn from the past? Yes, I need to think about the past, to understand it. But without regrets, they won’t make me a better person.

Also, accept that I will make mistakes.

Each time I look at my past more than 5 years ago, I think something in the terms of „boy, was I silly 5+ years ago”. It makes sense, then, to think that 5+ years from now I’ll look at 2021 and say „boy, was I stupid in 2021”.

But this should not stop me from trying.

How does the spirit enter the world? (Cum pătrunde spiritul în lume? – Blog de Olivian Breda and «There’s nothing better than reading» – except, there is – Blog de Olivian Breda)

Yes, you can read things, but also by doing things, living, having conversations, engaging with others – that’s how the spirit enters the world. You can listen to a great song or to a less-than-great one.

One bad way of having the spirit enter the world, and myself? Just contemplating on the past, and doing nothing.

A, most likely, better way? Focusing on the future, acting, performing, doing things, yes, reading some things, watching movies, listening to music, contemplating arts – that’s how the spirit enters the world. Making mistakes is part of this, you can’t do anything without mistakes.

Sure, you need to focus on making as few as possible, sure, it will definitely hurt, but you need to make mistakes.

So, coming back to the theme of the title – The error of saying No, the error of saying Yes – the larger error is not saying Yes / No, the larger error is not saying anything and contemplating on the past.

You do need a strategy, thinking, planning, reviewing, analysis. But, most of all, you need action.

31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. (Luke 14:31-32, NIV)

Thinking is necessary, you can’t just act. But action is also necessary, you can’t just think.

(the above sentence may look, at the same time, both smart and silly)

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During a TV show – „Garantat 100% cu sociologul Gelu Duminică” (@TVR1), Gelu Duminică said something like:

Rolul meu nu este să te învăț, rolul meu este să te provoc / I’m here to provoke you, not teach you something.

When I think of flaws in the educational system, most of the flaws refer to things that I didn’t learn well enough – „Oh, I wished I had more room to learn Mathematics better”. But that was not the purpose of the education system. It was, indeed, just put there to create a spark. To incite my curiosity.

When I look at the situation from this perspective, I find that I spent four years in college, and during that time I found out about NGOs, about having an Internet connection, about attending conferences, about spending time online writing (forums, Yahoo! Groups, later blogs), about promoting things. All of these evolved in my life, I did some things afterward.

There was no class in college for photography, we barely connected online for official purposes, NGOs were 100% optional, communicating online, and promoting things were mostly not part of the courses.

While I did learn some things in the actual classes, most of the things came from human interactions – to see a teacher devote her/him self to creating a wonderful experience, to meet people from NGOs, to see people at conferences, to put some passion in your work, to love to find out more. Things like these were not taught directly, but indirectly.

And I’m grateful for the college years, from this perspective.

Following that, I did three Master’s Degrees, had some professional experience, and did some things with NGOs / events / online.

I owe it, partially, to the educational system in college.

I used to be critical to some things in the educational system, I’m less now, after that I heard the speech above.

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“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

I don’t think people should go through traumas. I don’t think it’s necessary to go through lots of pain, sufferance, difficulties to be a good person.

On another hand, living with everything you want at your disposal, no stress whatsoever, no limitations nor boundaries, being allowed to have, do and experience everything – I also don’t think that is the right path.

Tough experiences should be avoided. But a minor inconvenience, a limitation, a self-imposed limit, a boundary you choose not to cross – this might make you a better person.

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It’s my birthday today, and I can’t stop but think at this – some people don’t understand why I say I’m not good enough for some things.

I posted some photos online, some people liked them so much that they thought I should print them.

I don’t think I’m an artist-photographer.

I look for beauty, I’ve done more than 100,000 photos until now.

But I’m a beginner, still.

I haven’t studied things a lot, I just got some experience.

I don’t even look at a lot of other people’s photos, and, even if I do, in a lot of things I’m a beginner.

For example, shooting images in a room with low light or images in a theater, where’s there’s both a lot of light and not enough light should be a task for a beginner, at most a medium photographer. I’m not that good, I don’t shoot photos so well.

Even at composition, while I do know the basics, I’m not an expert.

I also don’t like to spend a lot of time on a photo, both when taking it and when editing it.

I don’t think that everybody should do everything. Yes, photography is a hobby, but I have some criteria in order to publish something, and that criteria has not been met until now.

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There’s a speech I like a lot: Charlie Chaplin – Final Speech from The Great Dictator.

I’m thinking a lot about launching a business.

Two things stop me from doing so:

• I totally refuse to pay others a small amount of money. I don’t like this habit I see a lot in „I, the entrepreneur, drive a Mercedes, the employee can walk”. But if I pay big wages, it’s hard to stay competitive.
• I don’t have an idea to sell others as a perfect gift. I don’t have anything which is really moving the needle in „I want to give the world the gift of …”. This isn’t present in my life. There’s nothing I wish to sell others. Sure, I exaggerate, there are some things, I would like to make the world better, but, mostly, I can’t find a lot of things to sell that are part of my emotions. I don’t wake up in the morning saying „World, listen to me, I want to offer you the gift of …”. If I have some ideas, I put them on this blog, but there’s none with huge importance. Sure, I’d wish people would help one another, but I somehow feel that if I want to sell this there’s some sort of imposed ideas, which I dislike.

Still thinking about this.

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“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” ― Sun Tzu

I do get some ideas, I am creative at times. But there are plenty of times I’m not creative at all, I follow rigid procedures, having a poor memory sometimes is a burden.

But when I do get an idea on how to improve a procedure, what to write on a blog post, I generally tend to write that idea down and follow up with a blog post as soon as I can.

Writing an idea down helps me clarify it and save it for later. Not for too much later, as I tend to forget things.

But once I write an idea down, generally more of them follow suit.

I’m not at all at Seth Godin‘s level, but I do my best to make the world better, and also work on myself.

How to get more ideas? Not only by reading more books, or watching movies, or reading the news, but also by doing things.

You tend to get more ideas if you expose yourself to things. Sure, reading helps in some aspects, but just by reading, in my opinion, you won’t solve lots of things. You need thinking and immersion, and for that a job well done is a great tutor.

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“I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” ― Mark Twain

FEAR: False Expectations Appearing Real

“Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre

I have some dark emotions. I don’t like rats and bugs.

But they are pretty much innocent. Most bugs fear me, and most rats will run away from me.

I have only encountered them a few times, and most of the time it was me who started the process (I ran after them, not them after me).

Yet, I fear them, and I associate them with dark emotions.

That’s irrational, I think.

The solution?

The first step is acknowledging the issue.

The second step might be trying to change what I can – how I look at the world.

I can’t change the existence of rats and bugs. But I can look at them in a friendlier way.

In a poem like „Gândăcelul” – by Elena Farago the little bug is presented nicely.

In a book like „Papucii lui Mahmud” by Gala Galaction, the rats are around a monk living in solitude, and they are considered to be part of this world, they are not abnormal creatures of which we must get rid of.

The third step is reinforcement. Meet a rat, don’t run away from it. Meet a bug, don’t kill it, and don’t be afraid to touch it, or, at least, don’t look at it with disgust.

That’s it – three steps: acknowledge the issue, look at the situation differently, and reinforce the way of looking at the situation.

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There’s a book called „Partea nevăzută decide totul”, by Horia-Roman Patapievici.

The unseen part determines everything could be a possible translation. I’d like to adapt that in the current blog post – The emotional part determines everything.

Everything is related to emotions. Your ethics code, how you see success, how you prevent failure, how you fight for your rights, how determined you are to do a good job, how you view your role in society. Emotions are pretty much everything.

I can’t stress this enough.

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