WAYS 10 – THE INHERITANCE

Motto: 

We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children. And we do so with a sense of sacredness in that reaching.

Paul Tsongas

As it has been a while since I have shared with you any thoughts on this topic, it may prove useful to remind you why today’s post bears the number ‘10’. It is not only the number of perfection from my childhood memories (best school grade, best gymnastics note), but it is also the 10^th writing from the ‘Ways’ series. It is the last from a collection of personal views about potential ways out of the contemporary mess which the humankind has created for itself over the last decades. The thoughts sharing started actually with the ‘Roots’ series, consistent with my professional habit of diagnosing the causes and status-quo of any mess before recommending alternative ways out of it…

So … here I find myself today, striving to bring a nice final touch to a collection of uninvited advice to humanity, to be either appreciated or disregarded (time will tell!...). And the ‘inheritance’ topic carved its way, first into my head and then gradually into my heart this week, just like all the other topics did over the past four years.

Why would the inheritance aspect be so important for our future? I would love to take you beyond the beautiful message lying in the motto, as today’s choice of topic is somehow larger that the noble ‘legacy’ idea.

And, as you are reading this on my good friend Peter’s EGO-OUT blog, I will start today’s inheritance story, by describing to you the exact opposite, respectively what EGO-OUT means: the quantity of information, knowledge and wisdom lost by the death of an individual. It encompasses basically that spiritual part, which people either omit to (or purely cannot) pass on to other people before their death.

Inheritance has many components. The most tangible and obvious to the naked eye, and also the most exposed to fierce fights amongst surviving relatives are … the material things - such as real estate, jewelry, cars, books, trousseaux, kitchen ware and so on. The most resilient and (still!) difficult to manipulate are the genetic ones – such as physical appearance, intelligence, skills, health risks and similar. The most sensitive to the environment are the spiritual ones – such as education and moral standards, traditions and beliefs, scientific and cultural wealth etc.. Last but not least, another interesting category, both sensitive to the environment and volatile from a public perception point of view, is the social component of the inheritance – reputation, credibility, fame… This last component is usually formed within a specific niche of activity, within a specific social circle and it has very much to do with family bonds. This part of the inheritance can be wasted easily with hasty or reckless behavior…

Except the genetic component, inheritance is not necessarily connected to a certain blood line or official family bonds. There are relationships in our lives that bring us close to other people that may bestow on us material, spiritual or social welfare, some following certain interest, and some out of pure generosity or kindness of their hearts. On the spiritual side especially, some do it intentionally, others just by being themselves. Some inheritance we accept, some we reject, consciously or not… Inheritance is also not necessarily good – we may inherit expensive properties which we cannot afford to keep and cannot manage to sell … we can get stuck with weak genetics or pick up silly behavior and lousy habits …

There is also the other side of the story, the ‘taking back’ story. It cannot be applied to all the inheritance components, as some are not within the control of ‘the giver’ after being given… Materially or socially disinheriting the unfit or disobedient heir may bring some immediate effects in line with the deciding party’s interests, but genetic and spiritual inheritance is certainly not reversible. I would dare to speculate that when the genetic and spiritual inheritance is strong and of good nature, the material effects of the disinheritance may be reversed in no time, while the motivational effects of challenged pride make the ambitious heir more prone to succeed in the long run.

Why should inheritance be considered as one of the most important ways ahead?

The globalization has transformed most developing or under-developed countries into consumer markets, pushing the families beyond their real purchasing power, by encouraging excessive debt and waste, and by gradually turning this into a socially gratified behavior. Sometimes such vicious circle ends up with a negative inheritance situation, when the assumed debt stretches over to the next generation... by accepting the material inheritance, one must take on responsibility for the related debt also.

Therefore, it has become essential to understand the importance of sustainable wealth accumulation in such economies. The prosperity of a nation is largely dependent on the strength of its middle class. Such middle class grows stronger by accumulating material wealth across several generations, gradually passing it on as inheritance to the next line of legitimate heirs. A healthy mix of family expenditure with long-term savings is one of the most important engines for progress on a macro economical level. To increase awareness about the importance of building material inheritance for the children is an important way of influencing the savings and investment behavior of families.

Moving on to the next components of the inheritance, the spiritual and social parts of one’s inheritance are highly sensitive to both the material side (as education, culture and exposure to global environment are rather expensive treats), as well as social environment (starting with family, school, works, other social circles). 

Without a constant focus on what we expose ourselves and our children to, we will gradually lose control over what we shall leave as inheritance to those who follow… And our world is being tested nowadays, on an unprecedented level, at least for this century. We are witnessing a material, cultural and social clash of civilizations, with one major stake: our INHERITANCE!

And, same as with all important things in life, it is hard to define the right balance. Pride is the most resilient genetic inheritance of all mankind and it rules a lot on the other inheritance matters. We have a fundamental need to be proud of our children and the legacy we leave behind. We cannot postpone the focus on individual, family and social inheritance, we must wisely listen to and harmonize an entire chorus of mostly contradicting voices (pride and prejudice, material interests and needs, survival and tolerance boundaries, generosity and humanitarian spirit), while not forgetting to re-visit the lessons of history!

If we believe to be our ancestors’ most honorable and ambitious dreams turned into reality, we have a duty to prevent our children to turn into our worst nightmares!

Georgina Popescu

WAYS 8 – THE DREAMER

Motto: Pay attention to your dreams - God's angels often speak directly to our hearts when we are asleep (Quoted in The Angels' Little Instruction Book by Eileen Elias Freeman, 1994)

One year has passed since the previous posting under the ‘ways’ series, as I shared with you ‘The Give and Taker’, exactly on December 31, 2013.

It is now January 2, 2015, midst of the yearly season for balancing past achievement with future plans, old learning with fresh expectation, and memories with dreams. During such period, I find myself thinking about time and its effects on people perception of live. I like to watch this short, interesting and funny video whenever I wish to re-visit life from a new time-perspective: The Secret Powers of Time.

Most people believe in living the moment to the fullest, as it is actually the only timeline in which we experience reality. The past is usually distorted by perception and the future rather unpredictable. Thus we hear a lot of advice about how to best ‘seize the day’, ‘let go of the past’ and ‘embrace the future’.

I found myself thinking today about the good old Master Time from a different perspective. It suddenly occurred to me that it is the most reliable lifetime partner that we have. It is always around, not going anywhere until we take our last breath on this Earth. It clearly has split personalities (past, present and future), shifting moods (boring or exciting, predictable or fascinating, good or bad), destiny-harmonizing skills (right or wrong), and variable driving speeds (flying by or juuuust staaaalling…).

Master Time is largely unpredictable, however in a manner that (have you noticed?...) is strangely harmonized with our own unpredictability. While I mostly agree to the general idea of living each day as it comes, (reasonably) letting go of the past and not worrying (too much) about the future, it happens that every year, on and around New Year, a little miracle affects the Master Time. The ‘now’ personality disappears for a little while. For some days around New Year, it is dominated by its past and future components. It is a time for smiles of acceptance and hope and for big dreams about the future.

There is however one other little miracle that combines the various personalities of Master Time into a strange and miraculous blend between past, present and future. It does not come to us only once a year and it is called the DREAM!

Have you ever noticed how our dreams tend to be timeless? How people from the past are sitting next to people from the present (even if they never actually met!) or how the future seems to be already happening as we dream? Sometimes we wake up with a slight confusion whether what we were dreaming actually happened, and it takes a while to re-adjust. Other times the dreams have no face, no color and no time, they are just a bundle of feelings and sensations. If we pay attention to those dreams, we may wake up knowing exactly what and who was the dream about, even if it had no such content.

There are many proverbs and old sayings that try to explain dreams and what they are all about. Starting with things that were forgotten and should have not been, answers to questions that we did not dare (or did not know how) to ask during the day, warnings coming from the future or cries for help from our past or present. What is obvious to everyone is that dreams have a strong hold on our daily live, no matter whether they are nice dreams or nightmares. They each have their own distinctive contribution to our life. While the nice dreams come as a reward or recognition for our peace of mind, kindness and happiness, the nightmares come as warning signs and make us attentive to whatever is wrong in our lives, address our fears, and make us change our mindsets and even our lives for the better, in the pursuit of happiness. Dreams seem to be the best yet unexplained soul monitoring tool given to us by the Universe, a fine reward scheme complementing our day-to-day life.

The Internet crossed my search for a motto with a Talmud reading: ‘A dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read.’ 

There is some truth in this, as many dreams have day-life translations. On the other hand, I do not trust universal dream-reading rules (even thou some may have empirical experience behind…), but am more inclined to believe that each dream is tailor-made for a dialogue with ourselves and with those intimately connected to us beyond reason. As we are both the creator and the beneficiary of our dreams, we are obviously the main piece of the puzzle in interpreting it. As such, we should probably go beyond simple viewing towards focusing on the feelings we experience, trying to ‘read’ between the lines whatever our subconscious mind is telling us.

Well, I should get ready for closing this New Year dream exploring adventure, however it cannot be complete without mentioning the so-called ‘day-dreams’. I am referring to those great hopes for the future that we have with our eyes wide open and our minds very much awake. We cannot call them plans, as there is a big difference, which has to do with the feasibility of the day-dream. In other words, what we wish to achieve but we are not quite sure if or how or when we will, we call ‘dream’. What is obviously within our reach, we call ‘plan’. The big challenge ahead, for strengthening our capacity to build a better future for ourselves is to rely more on our ability to dream, to properly read our dreams so we can translate them more often and faster into plans. And to further make those plans come true, in a manner that would feed better and more beautiful dreams for a happier and healthier future!

I wish for you in 2015 to become skillful and beautiful DREAMERS, no matter if you dream while asleep, half asleep or fully awake. And enjoy the experience of making them come true, as a way out of any personal of global crisis which you may experience in your long, healthy and beautiful life!

Hugs and Happy New Year!

Georgina Popescu

A Traveller's Note

Motto: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.Lao Tzu

About one and a half hour away from the polluted, noisy and traffic-jammed Bucharest you can take a deep breath of fresh (not squeezed...) forest air. The sky has a more intense blue, the Sun is burning more efficiently and broken clouds look lighter when you look at them from the mountains. At night more stars are shining in the clear sky and also storms are more spectacular, with lightening and thunder definitely more impressive than back in the crowded city.

It was raining a lot in Bucharest in the past couple of months and the specific smell has triggered in me some serious mountain nostalgia.

I remember from my childhood that there were 1-day excursions organised by the school. Other times we would go for longer times, during summer, spring or winter camps. Every time it seemed like an adventure, with attached emotions and fears. My biggest fear was the one of not being sportive enough compared to other kids. I was striving to minimize the probability of either being left behind or delay everyone climbing the mountain. Later on I developed another concern, connected to associating proper clothing and the right shoes ... to be honest, this did not go away with age ...

Years have passed and the pattern of my trips to the mountains have changed. Getting to the same childhood destinations nowadays has to do more with a set of wheels and a pair of sunglasses. But the specific smell of the fresh air still reminds me of the school teacher, telling us children to empty our lungs of residual air and fill them with clean forest one.

The grass usually invites either bare-foot walking or plain sleeping on . The scenery always brings big stupid smiles on my face. I drift towards another distant memory, in a place close to Vienna, back in 2009. A car and then a funicular, took us in less than 1 hour somewhere higher than 1000 meters for sure ... We set then a reasonable destination target for light walking. It was not supposed to be a huge climb, it looked quite ambitious only compared to the passivity of the last years - it was supposed to last for about one and a half hour. So we started enthusiastically... After about 20 mins, our path reached a nice mountain cottage. The Sun was smiling at us, the food looked quite inviting, we were already tired (!), so we decided to have a rest ... I took a blanket to lay down on the grass away from my friends, just for a couple of minutes... Then I turned on a side, covered myself a little better, got warm and relaxed and ... when I opened my eyes again, I felt strangely well rested... my friends told me they did not have the heart to wake me up ... for about one hour!...

I felt like doing this again today, but had a plane to catch... I know however that I will have a good night's sleep, with a smile on my face, grateful for another beautiful day, because ... my hand took a dive in the cold water of a small mountain creek, my lung took deep breaths in fresh humid forest air, my face felt the warmth of a loving Sun, my eyes looked up to the Caraiman cross and then all around to the mystic mix of shades of green and grey on the mountains surrounding it; then my whole heart enjoyed a show of light and shadow mixing through some fluffy clouds. Later in the evening my entire body was lifted above the clouds and I witnessed once more an incredible sunset from the airplane. And before going to bed, I went out to enjoy the beautiful night vision of Karlskirche, mirrored in the calmness of a small pond in the middle of Vienna.

All those above crossed my path within one day... It made me realize how important it is to remember to daydream while carrying on our tiny life. To acknowledge that all the beautiful things in the world are there for a myriad of reasons, among which filling the eyes of hasty travelers with beauty and their hearts with gratitude - just for being alive!

Good night!
Georgina

WAYS 7 – The GiveAndTaker

Motto: The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.

John E. Southard

Today is the last day of 2013. Austrians call this day Silvester, which always makes me think of the cat chasing Tweety in a Looney Tunes cartoon, even thou the spelling is different (Sylvester). All in all, it makes me smile and, together with the nice atmosphere which invades Vienna in this period, contributes much to giving me an optimistic disposition before New Year Party.

For celebrating the night between the years, there are some pre-requisites which cannot be cheated: a little trip down the memory lane (what did the ‘old’ year bring, compared to what I wished for last year), a little peek into the future (what would I kindly ask from the ‘new’ year), food and drinks in the stomach and on the table, some money in my pocket, funny outfits (especially on and around the head…), lots of noise and lots of hugging, kissing and hoping.

I spent the morning enjoying a late breakfast in a wonderful place (Beaulieu in Ferstel Passage), focusing on the memory part. Then I strolled a little through the town, went home for a hot bubble bath (thus coming back to enjoying the present). Then I decided to take a glimpse into the future, before I get out and loose myself into the present again - by eating, drinking and fire-working into the New Year. So I started writing ...

I cannot say I have completely stopped making wish lists and plans for the next year. I have however learned that lists are mostly useful for putting things into perspective when you look back on them … and smile while remembering the ‘old you’ who created that content... Time has a way of sorting through what is important and lasting versus short day-dreaming, and revealing what is good for one versus what is just meant to become lesson-learning...

Those being said, I should focus now on the message I wish to share with you today...

While sitting and enjoying my hot chocolate cup this morning, I looked around at the crowd which was strolling up and down the Ferstel passage. Some people were working this morning, such as the waiters and the singers. There was a small piano and a violin exquisitely playing music of various backgrounds – from classical to Elvis ballads. Those people were giving us food, drinks and music, in exchange for a few euro and applause. We were giving them our money and admiration in exchange for nurturing and beautiful future memories. Everyone was giving and taking, in a nice set-up and with a smile on his or her face.

Why is this so important? … Quite simple answer … It is one of the easiest ways out from the contemporary self-induced and self-perceived ‘Crisis Ages’. As pointed out in a previous posting (Ways 6 – The Teacher), our future has the face of our children. If we raise takers, we shall provide tyrants and feed abuse, intolerance and inequity in our world. If we raise givers, we shall provide martyrs and feed more abuse, intolerance and inequity… If we raise give-and-takers, we shall provide leaders and people striving on generosity and freedom of choice, thus feeding love, tolerance and prosperity in our world.

For all religions, races and cultural backgrounds, the past has proven over and over again that the only way out of any crisis created by inequity was for people to come together when they have hit the bottom of despair and start to give to and take from each other in an equitable manner. I am not referring here only to tangible goods, but also to housing and hospitality, moral support, love and trust and the list can go on.

Life is a multioption, multichoice and multipeople game, which should find its own balance once people learn to accept that happiness comes from within. The give-and-take mood has more to do with feeling, perception and expectation than with any material thing one may see around. Material things could be used to achieve internal aspirations but not the other way around. Material things could be used to achieve higher spirituality but not the other way around. People should regard taking as a way to improve their giving capacity but not the other way around. By taking love, trust or knowledge from others, you will enrich yourself; by further sharing this love and trust and knowledge, you will enrich the world around you.

I will share with you now my short list of wishes for 2014. May this Year bring health, wealth, respect and happiness to all the genuine give-and-takers of the world! And may this Year bring health, wealth, respect and happiness also for all the others, so that they may learn to accept and value what they are offered, so that they may start giving things that matter in exchange. And ... may 'wealth' go way behind the material component of its meaning!

Happy 2014!

Georgina Popescu

CHASING THE SUN

Motto: If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up (J.M. Power)

On Sunday evening I took the last flight from Bucharest to Vienna, as I almost always do. I do not like to cut Sundays in half and waste both halves, therefore I usually spend the entire day in Bucharest and go to bed late at night in Vienna.

I love this time of year, as I can witness the sunset for the entire duration of this late flight. It does not matter whether it is a cloudy or a clear sky, as the plane does its little miracle, taking me above the clouds and showing me the reddish Sun, just a minute away from sinking beyond the horizon. Such wonderful minute lasts actually almost an hour and a half on the board of an airplane flying west at the right time of day.

I witnessed this several times but I still consider it a unique heavenly treat. The clouds are never the same, the colors are mixed in different proportions every time and … my mind feels free to stroll around dreaming, while my eyes stay wide opened. However, I have to admit that I could not keep my eyes glued to this incredibly beautiful image for the whole time it was there. I also experienced a couple of short naps, and then read a couple of lines from a newspaper offered by the flight attendants, and finally looked around to other fellow Sun-chasers in the plane. The fact is that people get used to beauty, just as well as they can get used to noise, pain, welfare or injustice...

Just one week before, I have experienced the sunset in a car, together with the nice young family of my sister. The colors were so astonishing, so the father stopped the car to go for the camera and get some snapshots. The kids were anxious and enthusiastic, yelling “Come on, Dad, hurry up! It will be gone in a minute and you will miss it!...” The story ended nicely however, as he managed to get a couple of nice shots. The car drove then away into the (almost) night…

Today on the plane I started to smile, as I realized all of a sudden that I am actually chasing the Sun in a Fokker 100. I knew from one childhood story that the Moon has been chasing the Sun from the beginning of Time, even thou they were never allowed to meet. The Moon has to reign the Night while the Sun has to reign the Day, in an orderly manner. As a grown-up, I have reasonably determined that the story is quite a white lie, as sometimes I see the Moon perfectly fine during daylight and the Earth has not fallen from the orbit yet…

Anyway, the physical chase reminded me of the idea of metaphorical chase mentioned in a TED’s video that I have seen recently. The presenter, psychologist Shawn Achor, was describing how our contemporary brain-wiring disabled us from experiencing happiness, as it was always just ‘behind the horizon’. It was a funny and at the same time amazing video, as the guy managed to squeeze in 12 minutes a presentation which would have taken at least 20 minutes to a normal speaker, with regular speaking speed… I will say no more; let you enjoy the experienceof watching him here.

Shawn basically advises people to be happy with their achievements while still spinning the wheel of dreams, wishes, goals and plans. And of course advertises some ways in which his business can assist people in doing so, which is fair enough as he is quite honest about it.

The idea of ‘stop and enjoy’ is not new to me, just as the secret of happiness, which is related to the ability to still want a thing even after you got it. There can be additional traps in enjoying a wish come true, one being to recognize your own wish behind whatever you actually get…

Coming back to the heavenly sunset, this Sunday I understood that I was privileged enough to artificially extend the duration of my enjoyment of a spectacular experience. Shawn on the other hand was privileged to condense his speech in order not to lose the attention of his audience, thanks to his perfect speaking skills. Both interventions on time created beautiful results.

Life does not usually offer such opportunities to play time master with all those hundreds of small little things that are responsible for our general happiness. We cannot extend our first kiss, our kid’s graduation or our brief moments of glory. It would dilute the satisfaction if we did that anyway… On the other hand, we cannot speed up the building of rewarding relationship, accumulation of wisdom or simple cake baking. There are things in life which purely fly by and some other things which take their time if you want to get them right – and we should not tamper with the wisdom of time.

What we can and should do is learn how to master the three time components of happiness – the future (dreaming and planning), the present (recognizing and enjoying results or lessons) and the past (reminiscing the successes and learning from the failures). Those time components feed on each other and are different for each of our plans of existence. They can come successively or concomitantly, waiting in line for something else to happen or overlapping and creating a sense of lovely chaos in our one and only life.

In the end, the beauty of life lies in enjoying every second, every event and every person as it comes. We may find no reason for happiness today, but if we open our heart to the day’s lessons, it will help us become wiser and get happier as the time goes by. Things usually happen for a reason which we will eventually understand, given time and meaningful circumstance. We cannot hurry the understanding of those reasons, but we should not forget to open all our senses in order to let happiness come in.

Today I have had a fair share of happiness and lessons. And (do not forget!) I have been chasing the Sun in a Fokker 100. I have not caught it, however this was never the point…

Georgina Popescu

Rain

Motto: The Sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do (Galileo)

Today, after several days of blue sky and hot weather, release of a heavy rain over Bucharest was decided on a very high level. By the intensity I would say it was an unanimous decision. It started abruptly and went on so intense that I would not be surprised if its efficiency levels raised beyond most expectations of the decision makers. It may have cleaned tons of dirt from streets, cars, buses and trams, stray dogs and any other usually dirty Bucharest items - in just a few minutes. Of course deep cleansing is still required, but most things will get quite a shiny look - at least for a while.

There was a secondary result, quite hard to notice for those categories which remain only with the polishing effect out of a heavy sudden summer rain. For those who genuinely love this simple and quite common natural phenomena, such a breakout is a moment of pure timelessness - our tiny but overactive lives are set on hold for a few minutes. It just sweeps away time and space. It is a window of fascination, with people stopping whatever they were doing, either to run and find shelter or just to watch that force of nature unraveling. It comes along with a perfect smell and with a symphony of sound and visual effects. Free spectacle with guaranteed front seat, no matter from which angle you watch it.

I realized today that heavy rain plays with time in a manner and with a frequency hardly comparable to anything else in our lives (and even more in its 'snow' version). We can always count on it to seemingly spoil plans or at least reshape our priorities. We are unhappy when it blocks us on airports or highways and delays us from reaching our destinations. On the other hand, it bring us closer to our families and friends when we are all stuck in the same place and we are forced to remember how to genuinely communicate. It has been 'accused' of favouring sleep and also some other (more active) bed-related pursuits. It is a famous cliché on which we can count in all romance movies to bring lovers together for their 'first time'. It is one of those things which we invoke when we don't have it and wish it goes away when it is too much. It is unpredictable and disloyal, it steals our attention every time we are on holiday and it diverts our conversations every other day (but we need to admit it also helps when we have no topic whatsoever).

Heavy rain stops the time, cleanse the matter, refreshes the mind, while at the same time generously gives back to Earth the very indispensable matter which is presumed to be the source of life on this planet. So many wonderful roles for just one natural process, which is allah so unpredictable, disloyal and moody. Thank God we have not figured out how to control it too much, and so it can continue undisturbed with its majestic power, without failing us on a planetary scale yet ...

Georgina

WORRIES

Motto: The past is the future which already happened
Georgina Popescu


One thing I love about my closest friends is that they always prove to know things about me which are obviously true, no matter how much I believe that I manage to keep them locked and hidden deep inside my soul. Whenever I hear them saying those things to me, it reminds me of my childhood, getting caught snooping around in a special place where my parents used to hide the "goodies". Usually my mother somehow knew when I was checking on the 'treasure place', and she always had a special smile when looking away, allowing me to save face...

I knew where delightful surprises were hidden and liked to check on them regularly. I would just take them out, make sure of their integrity and put them back. I knew that I could not subtract and eat any of them until they were officially and lovingly given to me. Still, the knowledge of them being stashed in a safe place, as well as the anticipation of the moment when they will be given to me, always gave me comfort and a sense of security. The reward was safely deposited within my reach, all I had to do is have patience and behave properly, in order to gain access to the goodies when the time was right.

What my friends have revealed to me recently is that fear is a natural part of someone's life - mine in particular was the topic. I often think of myself as being rather fearless, as I do not have a problem with tackling conflict and getting to the root of what I believe is truthfull and reasonable to tackle.

What came as a surprise to me was however the understading that I tend to put my worries to silence exactly by this active way of approaching problems heads on. I believe the idea that 'the best cure is prevention' is familiar to most people. I seem to live by this phrase, respectively feel a need to asses potential future problems in order to address them before they actually pop up. Sometime this translates into literally preventing the future to happen, whenever I believe a bad turn is about to hit. However it may happen that bad things need to be allowed for a while, just as an intermediary way towards improvement. Therefore, one may also stop nice things from coming true in the process of preventing bad things to happen.

I am definitely not alone with this dillema. This is a basic survival and self-protection instinct, but this does not mean that change cannot be triggered in one's life. Would it be a better way to live? Accept the worries and just alternate the reaction to them? Sometimes act and prevent, other times react and correct, and others just ignore and go on with the flow.

I have no answer for you tonight. Worries are natural, therefore we should welcome them in our life, just as we welcome hunger, thirst, nervousness or hope. Worries are a mix between state of mind, soul and stomach, helping us staying aware of how smallish is the part we play in the general order of our universe.

Our future is becoming our past, with every present moment which we experience. And thus our worries, hopes, dreams and fears are gradually turning into feelings, events and reactions, and then become experience, with a reasonable mix of nice memories and regrets. Those become then the basis for our new worries, hopes, dreams and fears and so on ... It seems that we keep on experiencing similar challenges until we find a way to turn regrets into memories and fears into hopes.

Let's look upon the future with a mix of worry, anticipation and faith in our ability to deal with whatever tomorrow will bring, either by ourselves or together with our true friends.

Let's learn to appreciate our past, love our present and welcome our future! Every day.

Georgina Popescu

WAYS III – THE PATIENCE

Motto: How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?  Paul Sweeney

It should be generally accepted as a universal truth the fact that with every day of our lives, we are getting older. We can of course chose any other word instead of ‘older’, there is quite a wide range - smarter, wiser, nicer, richer, fatter. However those would be no longer acceptable as universal truths, because we evolve differently during our timeline, depending on a great number of factors.

I have browsed through the Quote Garden this evening, like every time when I plan to write something, in search of a nice motto. As expected, patience is regarded mostly as a virtue, the aptitude of wise people. Perfectly qualifying as one of the ways out of the so-called crisis (or better say one of the ways to survive in the new world paradigm which we are experiencing lately).

Why choose ‘patience’ as a way ahead? First reason that comes to mind is because I admire it in some people around. Of course not all people who do not (re)act can be qualified as patient, there is a fine line between virtue and weakness, just as in all character features. 

What would then be the definition of patience in my view?

I would describe 'patience' as a certain type of action (or even a certain lack of an obvious action), at a certain moment, sustained over a certain time, triggered by a certain evaluation of a certain situation, correlated with a certain decision regarding the best choice of action, with the ultimate purpose of achieving a certain goal in the wisest possible manner.

Have I lost you already? ...

Have a little patience and try reading it again, perhaps even putting it in a certain context relevant for your own experience (sometime when you really believed you were patient...). I strongly believe that if any of the components in that phrase are missing, then the action cannot be qualified as patience and the person is not really patient. If the time line is wrong or if the evaluation of the situation is not proper or if the choice of action (or lack of it) is mistaken or if the purpose is not achieved, then we actually deal with bad results or at least with missed opportunities.

The most frequent mistakes made by impatient people are either uselessness (unneeded actions which do not harm but also do not help anyone, are just a waste of energy) or even destructiveness (usually actions without reasonably understanding the situation). The difference is most important for the impact on the community around the impatient person, as some actions which seem just useless for some, are destructive for others.

Sometimes the actions of the impatient can be constructive, but this would be mostly triggered by coincidence. A chain of lucky coincidental events can trigger the persistence of the impatient in his / her behavior and even a gradual worsening of the destructive potential. Usually such person is not even ill-intended, as in case of planned destructive behavior we usually deal with patient planners.

On the other hand, patience does not mean just waiting loooong before you answer a question or endlessly gathering data before acting in a certain direction. The patient’s wisdom comes from knowing exactly when is time to act and when is time to wait and see or listen or gather more information. This knowledge is partially inherited, partially educated and partially driven by experience. Therefore the sooner you experience harmful effects of your own impatience, the faster you get better at feeling that right moment or at choosing those right battles. Just like John Dryden said almost 400 years ago: ‘Beware the fury of a patient man’.

And so, the second reason why I have thought about this way ahead was because I have begun to build on my skills in terms of patience and have already learned that the best possible teacher is the negative experience.

And cooking... well, this is a big part of it, and the motto is very much right. And I realize more and more how much I miss the regular patience lessons from my kitchen. The childhood for example was a constant lesson of patience - either queuing for food or waiting for miracles to come out of the oven. I was always amazed about how long can half an hour really be, when you are not allowed to open the oven door, no matter how curious you are whether the cake is really growing. Because once you opened it prematurely, the disaster was guaranteed. And back in my childhood there was no glass window on the oven door… There was also clear for how long you have to mix the eggs with the sugar so that they become puffy enough. 

I also knew how long it takes to get to my grandmother by train and already learned that sleeping and talking makes the time go faster. And I was never really a train sleeper …

Usually there is a direct (but reasonable!) correlation between good things and waiting time.

When I was very young, there was one Romanian movie called “Hurry up slowly!” My mother liked the title so much (the movie was also nice…), that she tried for years to carve those words into my mind. I believe she was never really happy with the results of her efforts, as I was always more the type ‘Oh God, give me Patience! NOOOOW!”

Lately I have seen that it is better to slow down and take more time to understand things before acting based on my emotions. I believe this is especially important when people experience negative feelings, which are usually bad advisers. There is something to be learned from stones, rivers and trees, but also from birds and bees, or from predators and prays. We should learn to be patient without forgetting that we need to act in time, efficiently and in the direction of our purpose.

The way in which a wisely patient person chooses to live his/her life should be highly correlated with one of the roots I approached last year, respectively ‘the tolerance’. Such a person should know just how much he/she can tolerate without action, what action needs to be taken and why, when and for how long, so that the result is consistent with the intended purpose. And this can be best achieved when it comes naturally, part intuitive and part reasoned, in a beautiful combination of self-confidence, maturity and courage. And in order to achieve this, some of us need a lifetime, some less and some even longer than that.

This Christmas I wish to all of you that you may learn the lesson of patience early enough in your life so that you can contribute in teaching it to others.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Georgina Popescu

ROOTS VIII – THE WASTE

Motto:

The gap in our economy is between what we have and what we think we ought to have - and that is a moral problem, not an economic one. Paul Heyne

Today I decided to go back to the ‘roots’ series, as I have suddenly realized that I missed one of the main causes of our current troubles. It came to me just like that, in the morning...

The motto comes from a guy who died in 2000. The biography on the Wikipedia is not long, however seems that the guy made a professional choice that enabled him to fight the war of morality in a certain age segment, where he probably believed he can induce greatest change – adolescence.

This reminded me of my mother. She was also a teacher in the same field and also has chosen the undergraduate segment, even if she could have taken the university (much better paid, and with higher recognition). Probably the reasons behind their rather similar choice were a little different, however the fact remains – they did exceptional work in their field and, as far as my mother is concerned, I have seen some of the people that came out of her ‘hands’ and they are great individuals, with good moral standing and healthy family lives.

Coming back to the motto, I have to admit that it was quite a challenge to pick one today, because there were so many great quotes I found. So I decided to share with you also the other finalists:

He who buys what he does not need steals from himself (Author Unknown)

The hardest thing is to take less when you can get more (Kin Hubbard)

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell (Edward Abbey)

As you may suspect from the title, I decided to dig out today the WASTE root of the crisis.

It happens to be one of my biggest weaknesses and probably this is why I have not singled it out before. I live with it every day. Even thou I am trying to overcome it, it is a very powerful enemy and it frequently gets the best of me.

This morning I just realized how much it has become like a cancer for our current way of living. The sad part is we got so much used to it, that we are not even aware of the damage it actually does. The trigger for realizing this may seem strange…  I was unpacking a simple ordinary pack of toilet paper – nice and pink, slightly scented. And suddenly a big part of my childhood started to pass before my eyes...

I got transported back into the 80s in my home town (Bucharest), when toilet paper was also pink, but not so soft and funny scented. It was sold in bookstores next to other paper products and was a very scarce resource. Just like food and electricity and a lot of other things which we now take for granted. We used to be very careful how much we use and we actually had a lot of jokes about alternatives to toilet paper – will not bore you with details.

Basically this is how we managed to overcome the scarcity of resources back then – with a lot of humor and love. We were happy and valued everything in a different way. Bananas were shared between me and my sister and I can hardly remember my parents having any. Cakes were made in house once or twice a week, as sugar was rationalized per person. We were actually sharing with some of our neighbors, nice old ladies who also had great skills for sweets-producing, so they were also sharing their cakes with us. Pop-corn was the result of team work for preparing and we had a special supply of it, so were very popular amongst other kids for having it.

Cooking was in general carefully planned (as gas was scarce), food variety sometimes optimized also by cook-times criteria. On special occasions we would indulge with oven-cooked meals and also some ‘fire intensive’ specialties. Heating was confined to the ‘winter rooms’ and the kitchen was quite an adventure for my mother in cold season, but she managed it with love and dignity (results were always tasty, no compromise on quality…).

My father was also cooking, but he was the ‘bad boy’ of the family in this respect, as he was not so economical with either raw materials or cooking times. He used to display 2 or 3 cooking books when he was ‘creating’, so he optimized only the tasty outcome. This is why my sister and I were so delighted whenever he performed one of those acts…

Now when I think back on those times, I believe that the variety and at the same time scarcity that was blended by our parents into our daily meals really ensured the healthy growth of both our bodies and minds.

Clothing was mended with love and care, passed on from older to younger siblings, always clean and sometimes transformed, so it does not look exactly the same. Soap was also made in house for washing clothes and was excellent disinfectant (good for hair-washing also). We had some hens in the courtyard that were giving us ‘natural’ eggs for years (the birds were already too old to be eaten and were family members anyway...).

In school, apart from the standard subjects, we were also learning basic housing skills (cooking and sewing) and were creating some nice things that we still have stashed somewhere in the attic.

What is happening today? Various forms of creativity are certainly encouraged also in today’s schools, even wider choices that in our childhood. However the abundance of disposable things is gradually eating up many hard-working ways of collecting memories. It is difficult to choose a favorite doll when you have tens of them, or to look forward to eating your half of a banana, while your parents are begging you to eat healthy from hundreds of options.

The older we get, the more we are drawn into the waste tornado. Some of us are swallowed by it in our daily personal lives, others in our professional lives, many of us in both areas. Some give in to this temptation on daily basis, some less frequently but with bigger collateral damage.

But… what exactly am I thinking about when saying WASTE?

About buying too much food and throwing it away. Using too much paper and throwing it away. About getting the newest and most technologically advanced piece of equipment and throwing away the good old one which is still fully functional. About manufacturing things for single use, just to ensure permanent sales (in this category I include not only those official one-use towels or similar, but also those things for ‘long-term’ use, which actually break immediately after the warranty expires, just because they were not really designed to last).

I am thinking about all those billions of options in terms of cosmetics, clothing, accessories, food, medicine, cars and IT gadgets, wondering what happens to all those who are not chosen to come home with us. About millions of things which are chosen from billions of options to come home with us, just to sit on some shelve and never get used, and then get thrown away (or in the best case donated to some charity which usually proves to be just another business, that re-introduce them in some second hand stores in a distant country, waiting again for someone to pick them and take them home...).

I am thinking about the billions of residential, office and commercial square meters which are being built as I write, to add to the offer of already vacant billions of residential, office and commercial spaces that wonder if they would ever be chosen by the less and less wealthy ordinary people, as well as by the less and less successful middle businesses. I am thinking of businesses which over-expand, counting on their product being better than the competitors, but then killing each other in the process, as the prices go down for everybody.

I am thinking about the waste of our beautiful imagination, which is blown away every day by a civilization which creates more and more brain robots. About a month ago I was sitting in a bus, next to a kid and a young man. The kid was talking about the most recent movie he has seen and the guy next to him asked him something else instead - when did he last read a book. The kid was rather confused and replied that it is much easier and entertaining to see a movie. Then the guy told him: ‘yes, but a movie will never give you what a book can. In a movie you see a very narrow world – the one which the director imagined for himself and imposed then on his public. When you read a book you can imagine things the way you like it, in the colors you choose, and you can make the character as beautiful or as ugly as you wish. In a book you read with your own mind and feel with your own soul, therefore build your own world; while in a movie you are just a passive observer of someone else’s world.’

I wish there were microphones in that bus and this creativity lesson coming from a simple (but wise) young man was broadcasted on all TV channels during prime time. However this could not happen in this world, as we are only programmed to waste that prime time with negative news which turns us into passive observers of someone else’s perception of world events. This is what modern communication channels make of us, correlated automatic answering machines, triggered by certain stimulus which the owners of this channels orchestrate - negative, panicking, gloomy, “global-crisis-self-fulfilling-future-losers”. It is indeed a waste of our creative, positive, loving, solution-oriented and long-term surviving selves.

What else do we waste, apart from material things and spiritual potential? Basically we experience a huge waste of our otherwise very limited… TIME.

We spend it nowadays in so many funny ways that do not enhance our spirituality. Let’s take for example politics. In the good old days when media was not so wide-spread, this used to be a necessary evil of the organized society. A handful of people were paid from contributor’s money to spend their time playing political games with a reasonable outcome, which I suspect was to preserve some ground rules and proper order in the society. Nowadays, apart from the fact that the purpose of the politicians is not very clear anymore, we also have another systemic problem: every citizen with voting right is now wasting time on politics. I believe nothing more needs to be said, readers should know already why I would categorize this as a total waste. And for this waste we pay very much, much more than we can even begin to imagine.

Plus that the term ‘politics’ does not refer only to government, as it is a much wider area of our life – we have to act political at work, in our personal circle, sometimes even in our home. A reasonable part of this politics is good and brings positive result; however making it the main driver of our life would really turn it into a big waste. As with everything else in life, finding the right balance is the real challenge.

And I could continue on many other forms of waste in our day-to-day life, but then I become guilty of the sin of a movie director – imposing my view on the story and thus stopping your imagination from running wild, all by its own. I bet you can come up with huge number of waste examples of your own, so I will invite you to do just that.

To wrap this up, I would just ask myself how did we get so fast from there (childhood scarcity) to here (current waste)? In the case of the former communist countries this change was much faster, in case of the more advanced economies the transition happened slower. In some case the scarcity is still there and it is another proof of the cancer-like waste which we experience (as we do not have enough will and determination to put our waste to a good use and help them…).

I believe that the transition, from scarcity to wealth and then further to waste, is connected with human need for comfort and security. This was originally a good and desirable evolution, if only we knew when and where to draw the line before switching to waste.

The difficulty is connected to the fact that temptation has become a global business. Behavioral economics is one of the recent trends in economic science, basically revealing how our faulty human nature rules our choices, how manipulation games are called “marketing”, and how silly we can behave when we face of our own weaknesses and are addressed with the right temptation (‘right’ meaning a mix of dosage, place and time plus ... as someone said so nice ... lack of witnesses!…).

More than that, modern financing schemes really disconnected our purchasing power from our real net worth (and more sadly also from our social and health insurance schemes…), creating a bubble exactly from what the motto points out: it made some of our dreams become possible even in those cases when they shouldn’t have ...

It is nothing wrong with dreaming, as long as we can still distinguish between dream and reality. Unfortunately, the good old sense of responsibility and accountability got diluted in this process and people took what they thought they deserve without asking themselves who will pay for this in the end. I do believe that the bill will be paid by all of us and even sadder is that it will be paid by our children, unless they rebel and refuse to pay for the waste created by the ‘old folks’.

Therefore, with the risk of repeating myself, I will say it once again: we are not living a crisis, but a paradigm change, something that happens almost every century, a transformation which will give birth to a new world. For better or for worse – this remains yet to be seen. I hope we have become wiser at least in the way that we should not shed blood for cleaning ourselves. We can still do it with water, soap and self-control.

We need to wake up and re-assess our behavior according to our needs, both material and spiritual, and also both as individuals and social-wise (addressing all the dimensions of our societies). We need to bring back the reasonable into our lives, to search again the long-lasting sense of satisfaction, which got lost in the run after the quick sense of easy pleasure.

There is also some good news in today’s writing and thus a glimpse into some ways ahead. First of all, I know that not everyone has given into the temptation of waste; there are deep roots of morally healthy people which are raising beautiful kids. There are also beautiful teachers still fighting for the morality of our future generations.

And the greatest news is that this is a global problem for which no global resources need to be identified. This one we can and need to tackle individually by ourselves, in our family and circle of friends. It is also the hardest part, because it means we should all realize that every one of us is personally responsible for our own choices, but this is also where our hope for the future lies.

Yesterday I bought a very nice Jiminy and I hope it was not a waste, but a helpful material representation of a friendly consciousness.

I wish us all good luck!

Georgina Popescu

WAYS 2 – THE LESSONS

Always when judging
Who people are,
Remember to footnote
The words "So far."
~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

Last month I took a 3-day trip to Barcelona. Nice town on the seaside, where the landing happens from… the sea side. Also most of the flying happens above the sea, thing which made me quite nervous, because I do not like flying over deep waters. I know it is silly, as I would presume that crashing over water brings more probability of survival than crashing over mountains, but anyway… my complete lack of swimming know-how just turns my stomach into the home of a hundred ants when I fly over water. While we were coming close to the city, I started to relax and tried to enjoy a bit the view –exquisite otherwise.

I will not get into details about Barcelona and my holidays as I suppose no one is interested in this so I will get to the return flight. This time I was really nervous, that ‘kind-of-I-have-a-bad-feeling-nervousness’. Just in front of me while boarding there was a Russian family with a little daughter. At the entry, the door to the pilot’s cabin was opened and a nice voice from inside invited the little lady to look in without being shy. The father was impressed and thanking the pilot for this and the immediate effect was that … the whole family got invited to look in. I started to wonder if the pilot was some terrorist who was planning to blow the plane up and this was his last good deed before the final gesture…

We settled in, and then the plane started to move. While we were still on the runway, the captain started to talk to us. He welcomed us on board, told us that we are flying to Vienna (good-at least I was on the right plane…) and then informed us that there is a storm ahead and that he will try to go around it. Also good, so perhaps my bad feeling is not connected to the bomb but to a storm… this one is better, I already survived some of those…

Then the same voice invited us all to look to the left immediately after the take off, as we will fly along the coast and have the chance to say good-bye to the nice beaches of Barcelona. I thought to myself ‘ok, nice relaxing exercise’ and prepared to extend my neck as far as socially acceptable without biting into my left neighbor’s right ear. And then the funniest thing happened – the guy actually turned the big plane to the left so suddenly after we rose from the ground, that I thought for a second he will dip the wing into the water and we will actually shake hands with the people on the beach to say an official goodbye. And then another funny thing happened – after we did the grand tour of the beaches, he turned again … to the right! This time really heading home…

Well, now I started to wonder whether next he will tell us his wife dumped him, this is his last flight and he wanted to let us die with a nice memory of Barcelona beaches in our heads. But then quite soon after this, the nice voice started to talk to us again. This time he was mentioning the fact that the travelers can actually see the day – night limit line on one side. Then he told us on which side we can see Nice. By that time I was already more than relaxed, thinking that as long as he is flying that plane nothing wrong can happen, as he obviously loves to do it. I started to feel like in a hop-on / hop-off trip only nicer and wondered if we shouldn't tip the pilot on our way out.

Later on he apologized that we will feel a little shaky, kindly asked us to buckle up and at the same time pointed out that to the left there is the big black nasty storm that he told us about, with nice lightning illuminating the clouds from within, a unique spectacle under which (unfortunately not possible to see) there was another nice town (cannot remember which). Interesting was also that I felt no real shaking compared to what I have experienced in some other cases on clear weather …

And so, he kept on showing us amazing things out of the window until we arrived in Vienna, and the flight attendant said her routine ‘thank you, hope you fly Austrian again and goodbye’. Then, immediately after landing, his smiling voice also added simple but warm “thank you, wish you good night and a nice stay in Vienna”. I must say that night I saw a complete different face of Austrian pilots - even thou I should not use the plural. I am not sure I will have a similar flight again soon.

I was not surprised at all (I almost expected) to see the cabin door opened when we left the plane, him standing with a big smile on his face in the door and saying goodbye to each of us. I did not expect him to be so young and tall, suntanned and blue eyed (or maybe not blue but nicely eyed anyway...), but I managed to close my mouth and put my eyes back in their respective eyeballs rather elegantly, probably I also shared a smile in return (even if I could not swear to that...).

I arrived home late at night, with a big smile on my face and with some lessons learned.

There are still people that can do their ‘routine’ job, without forgetting that for others the same sequence of events is nothing short of a miracle. And so someone can make the best of it – not only focus on delivering highest professional standards in their work, but going one step forward and bringing a human dimension, care about the smiles on people’s faces and the drops of happiness in their blood.

The second lesson was that we can fly through life at high speed, not looking left or right and believing that reaching the destination is enough; sure way to miss a lot of spectacular views…

Third - that sometimes we cannot see for ourselves, so there is a need for someone else to guide our eyes to the right picture.

The fourth lesson was that 'detour' one: the shortest way between two points and the nicest way between two points are very different things. Taking the time to see the beauty of a place (or in case of relationships of a person) enriches the life, no matter if the detour is short or long. Sometimes a nice detour may prove to be the actual way. From the detour I also learned a secondary lesson, to always expect the unexpected (why on Earth did I assume that the beaches were in the direction of our way home?...). So, whenever you find yourself somewhere else than intended please regard this as a 'detour' and enjoy - it usually comes in nice packages. Or at least with good lessons.

And finally the fifth lesson was that one hundred ants in the stomach can also predict something nice or cannot predict anything at all. The feeling can be related to the pure fact that I must have probably just swallowed one hundred ants over dinner.

And those were only one afternoon lessons.

I will now take you to another place - a nice quiet restaurant in Bucharest, where I was with a dear friend of mine. She told me that the ‘most beautiful age’ from her point of view was 43. I immediately perceived it as good news, as it is still slightly ahead of me; then the question popped up rather quickly – why 43 and not 40 or 45 or 36? … The answer: because that was exactly the age when she became really comfortable with everything about herself – inside and outside. Well, perhaps the words were not exactly those, but anyway…

And then I started to wonder if I have not already passed the best age, as I realized it had nothing to do with the calendar. The lesson I learned that day was that the sooner you reach the most beautiful age, the longer it may last. It can be a couple of years, a decade or even more. I started to better understand why women tend to omit mentioning their age as they grow older, and it seems to me is because they try to avoid labels and conventional judgment. Then they reach the beautiful age and it does not matter anymore, obviously until… it starts mattering again. Because everything in life is cyclical and so I come to the second lesson at the same table: the link between personal life and career.

She made me open my eyes to the fact that if you live a long life (which I wish to all of my readers) then you will inherently encounter ups and downs. Career path brings you challenges followed sometimes by satisfaction, other times by disappointment; sometimes you just get good money out of it, other times status or just peace; sometimes respect, other times humiliation; sometimes power, other times endurance. The most important part is to take the lesson out of each of those phases and to move on, which may very well mean enjoying some periods of quietness, taking some steps back, recharging your batteries from the other side – the personal one.

Even from the school years, but most strongly in university and after that in our professional life, we learn that in this global economy the most valuable features of a winner are cold head (for thinking clearly), decorated with big eyes and even bigger ears, small mouth and educated nose, two strong feet (for stepping over others) and agile hands (for grabbing opportunities).

On the other hand, most undesirable features for managers are usually connected to everything which is soft, sensitive and oversized, such as the chest (may be fostering a big heart…), and the behind (it is difficult to cover your a.s if it is oversized…). 

There are of course exceptions, like in every rule, and I have been professionally blessed to work with many of them, while I also like to believe I have grown into one of those exceptions, by learning as much as possible from my past bosses and experiences.

Putting a piece of your heart and soul into day to day work, adding passion, strong beliefs and ethical principles usually make the difference between management and leadership. At the same time, such approach may have unexpected outcome bordering to professional self-endangerment, as you gradually create an eye of a storm, in which others may easily push you or you can even get pulled all by yourself. In any case you get exposed to changes in career that have greater amplitude and lower predictability than the average, such as going to sleep in Kansas with a promising career and waking up next day away from Kansas and without your red shoes. Therefore, if you build your whole life around Kansas dreams, all those storms may have a tribute on your health, ability to give and accept love, to forgive and forget, to accept and embrace.

The holidays actually ended with one of the greatest lessons in life. While preparing to go to the airport on Sunday evening, a sweet beautiful dog that was safely playing during the day got somehow out of the comfort of her courtyard and the next thing we knew was we had to find a place to bury her. Very sad, I got on the plane and got back to Vienna. I could not think about holiday ending any more, as it seemed so petty compared to a life stolen from us in one second.

However I did not want to let this week pass without sharing with you this holiday’s lessons. They made me realize this is also one of the ways ahead. I started to count the number of lessons I get in a day. The good news is that it is hard, as they are so many. Usually they come associated with physical sensations and the memory of hits or hugs (imaginary but feeling so real).

So, the way which I want to share with you today is: take the time to learn some lessons every day, apply as much as possible from them starting tomorrow. Recognition for being the pettiest and meanest will always be subject to harsh competition, while for wise and kind people the world is always big enough. Look out the window, upon that part of the human kind which is good and beautiful. Join them and trust that together we can overcome any crisis and then also take care of healing the wounds of those who are now so busy competing against each other…

Georgina Popescu

WAYS 1 – THE MIRROR

This one I dedicate to my sister. I wonder if she will be able to recognise herself in what is written here (a little from our grandparents, a little from our parents, a little part of me as I am travelling around the world and smiling to the new places I see, always thinking of my home...). She is one of the only people I know who overcame all the crises in her life, with three of the most powerfull weapons, which she inherited from our ancestors: love, hope and strong will.

Motto: What we are is God's gift to us, what we become is our gift to God – Eleanor Powell

In order to restart my dialogue with you, I need to take you back almost a year ago, to a late summer day when I started to write about my understanding of basic roots of current global crisis. I have written altogether seven roots and have still a long waiting list set aside for other triggers of the current mess. The first writings came quite close to each other and rather critical with our world, our priorities, our bad habits and overall ourselves - as human and faulty, as beautiful and crazy, as talented and rotten as we are. As guilty for our current troubles and as hopeless for a better future as we seem right now.

Gradually, my need to explore and uncover the dark side of us started to faint away. Lately I haven’t actually been writing much. I could of course blame this on the intensive travelling, busy hours - working late and still getting almost nowhere with my work. There are days when I wonder why I run so fast, why I spend so much energy and time to get somewhere and … where do I actually want to get?... I remember reading some words of wisdom few years ago and how this message seemed really abstract to me: ‘All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.’ (James Thurber)

Yesterday I got the very distinctive feeling that I am coming close to some tentative answers to the first part, respectively the ‘running from’ part. I would still need to determine the second and third, however I also realized this is actually not only difficult, but also volatile. I remember my grandmother saying that her sleeping time got shorter and shorter the older she got (and I can assure you it did not affect in any way her high energy levels). She always ended up saying ‘I will sleep long enough when I’m gone’. I know it’s a common saying for many old people, but still it touched me. For me, finding the answers to the three questions about our running through life is almost a similar exercise with the sleeping one. Once we will get all those three answers we will probably stop running and just go to the long sleep...

Last month I went out with some friends on a wine tasting trip on a Saturday. We left the town early in the morning and returned late at night. We experienced extreme heat and witnessed drought conditions during the day, specifically integrated by one of our hosts into the story he told us about the vineyard, the workers, the plants and their self-protective approach to survival in difficult weather condition. He also told us how the grapes and then the wine have everything to do with the passion for work and a sense of mutual respect, understanding and loving communion - between people and nature. It may sound silly and outdated for current world, however the age of the vineyard and the passion of the guy were convincing enough to make me feel part of something that will last - longer than our global crisis, local political conflicts or cultural prejudices. I mention culture as he was not originally from that region, but has travelled from another country and has chosen that land and those people to stay, build, love and enjoy the fruits of their work together.

After the intensive heat during the day, an incredibly heavy rain came down in the evening, on our way back. The minibus actually slowed down close to stopping, the road seemed to be passing straight through the heart of a cascade for a while, and lightning and thunder surrounded us, while we passed by two gas stations that were out of service – electrical power failure. Finally we arrived back in town, where it was again dry and hot, no rain and no wind at all. Hot night followed.

The next day (a quiet Sunday) I went to visit a part of my family somewhere close to the mountains – quiet and not so hot, rainy but not so heavy… I am not sure how we got to that point, but my cousin started talking about our grandfather. I always knew he was an orphan, but I never asked my mother about details, somehow I presumed he was born without a family, as this was my definition of ‘orphan’ as I was growing up. I just learned on that Sunday that actually ‘orphan’ meant that he arrived in Romania (in the area where he would later meet my grandmother) after both his parents were killed in the war and he crossed the war line (coming from the Russian territory). He came all by himself to the village as he had an aunt there, who took him in her household. He was a teenager at that time.

Then I also thought of my grandmother. How she defied the rules of her time and refused to enter an arranged marriage, how she dreamt about getting married to a ‘town boy’ instead of a village land owner (mostly vineyards in that area…) and how she waited until she got her dream, even thou the family was quite outraged (she was the older sister and there were rules…). She also survived a war experience with hostile soldiers chasing her down in the mountains, which she escaped but with serious physical and mental shock. Yet I always remember her beautiful laughter and positive energy – she never compromised on optimism, even her favorite cursing exercises made us laugh our heads off…

Those two simple people had four kids and lived long, healthy and happy lives obeying by a basic honorable principle: being poor while affording to get whatever they reasonably wished for. All four kids were sent to school up to university, they were always respected and helping others within the community.

My mother also had learned quickly to walk her own way. An early marriage was followed by divorce because she refused to accept an abusive husband, no matter how dramatic the implications of her decision seemed to be (including life threats from a lawyer with a gun permit…). She wanted a family and especially kids and she finally had all that – even thou quite late in her life. She was always opened and truthful even thou it wasn’t the safest way to approach career in a communist country… she was a teacher and a mother, purely refusing to compromise on what she believed was important, and thus she has educated generations of good people. She was always proud when a former pupil recognized her in the street and stopped to tell her how his or her adult life has shaped out. She was as generous with her heart and with her material possessions as anyone can be. She used to tell us girls that it is better to lend than to borrow, but be careful to whom we lend. She also taught us to set aside some ‘white money for black days’ and also not to expect anything back once we help someone in distress. With money we should be careful not to lend again to whoever did not honor their previous debt. All those still sound like sound principles today.

And then there was my father. His parents I never met, as they died when he was a kid. He is quite an enigmatic person for me, partially because I had little time to get to know him. He only walked next to us until I was around 14, then he went on taking care of his family from a different level… He was quite stubborn. For example he never wanted to join the Communist Party even thou was required for his job (they never fired him however, as he was good in his job…). I remember his sense of humor but also his quick temper, his art of story-telling, his passion for food and wines, and his poetry – everything in his life seemed to be as big as his heart.

And of course there are also my uncles and aunts, cousins and nephews, all with their own stories and their own personal and family virtues and flaws, all of them starting from the two grandparents who were so close to getting killed in the war but they managed to survive and smile upon their future with hope.

I got here from exceptional parents, who went through failed marriages and surfed through tough communist time in a wise manner (probably we would call it ‘zen’ nowadays), managing to create and harness a happy and self-protective family oasis.

Why did I tell you this story? Because when I came back to my current home after that week-end, on the way from the train to my apartment (which is cca. 15 mins. walk) the rain started. We are experiencing quite a hot summer in Vienna this year, with evening rain quite often lately, coming from almost clear sky, without any warning and without an attached estimate of how long it will last or how heavy it will get. On that rainy Sunday night I looked around me and I saw people hiding from the rain, running and looking for shelter. And I thought of my grandfather crossing between the two enemy lines during the war. I do not know if it was raining that day or week or month… I also do not know for how long he had to run and hide and keep on running until he got ‘home’. I just knew that I am 15 minutes away from my home and that I know where that is and how to get there. And yes, it was raining and the wind was blowing and I was basically freezing after the hot weekend which I left behind on a distant airport just a couple of hours ago. So I looked up to the sky, smiled to my grandfather and started to walk through the heavy rain. I got completely wet and took a dive straight in the bath tub when I got home, appreciating the fact that everything was safe and familiar.

And then I realized that we perceive the current crisis in accordance with our comfort circle, with our expectation of normality and with our very demanding life standards. And I decided to take a break from the “roots” series and start looking ahead, how we can get out of what seems to be a pessimistic circle. How we can bring the morale back into our life, reasonability back into our expectations, humility and altruism into our attitude.

A friend of mine told me something interesting a couple of years ago. I asked him what he finds most scary in life and he told me (and I apologize to him if my recollection of his words is somehow distorted): ‘the thought of waking up one morning and not being able to watch myself in the mirror because of something I have done’.

This is how I wish to start the “WAYS” series – by inviting all of you to think about your morning mirrors. If you like what you see there, please start tomorrow focused on that. Do not focus too much on the thousands of other mirrors around you, where other people look and see whatever you want them to see or whatever they want to see in you. Just make your own reality and morality check, ask yourself what you would do better today to get a better mirror image when you wake up tomorrow.

That would be all for now. It will certainly not solve the global crisis, but should bring a slightly different perspective on it.

Have a good day!

Georgina Popescu