Belief Makers

"The future is brightly illuminated by the burning bridges of the past."

Teflon

This is a quote that I have come to love more and more deeply. As I said goodbye to my old colleagues to begin getting ready for my new job, I was enjoying myself. I reflected on the year that had past, the challenges, how I'd handled them, the colleagues who supported me and those who didn't.

It felt good to say goodbye. I didn't feel like running away or being pushed away.

Don't Slam the Door
Next day, as I was walking the dog, I remembered the quote from Teflon and smiled as I thought "YES, this is it!" I was raised with the expression 'Don't slam the door', meaning that you should never leave a place in an angry manner. So far I would agree, but the way the phrase was interpreted by most people meant, "be sure they'll take you back if you ask."

I did not slam the door, but I did close it! I told them how the new company has made the effort to create a position that will fit me. How I am looking forward to it.

When I leave through my front door I do not slam it, but I also don't leave it wide open. I close it. I lock it. (I never used to lock my door, but this one will swing open if I don't so I lock it.)

But you know what? I've always been able to unlock it when I returned. What I am trying to say is that burning the bridges doesn't mean that I cannot build them again if I want to. It might not be exactly the same bridge; it might be stronger and more beautiful; the new bridge could be unstable and break.

Yes or No
Burning bridges also means that, when I get a question, I give a yes or a no answer; I don't live in the maybe's. When I decide to leave a job, I leave it. When people say that they would like to see me back, I'll smile and say 'thanks'. It doesn't mean that I'll never be back. But for now I'm gone.

If an ex-employer offered me an old job back the answer would be 'no' -- that bridge no longer exists. However, if they offered me the opportunity to join a new venture with them, I would definitely consider the possibility.

Doubting
Burning bridges is new to me. It feels good, but there are times when I ask myself whether or not this is a bridge that I now want to rebuild, or, what would happen if others still believe that there is a bridge?

Last year I said goodbye to some old friends. Now they just sent me an invitation. This time the invitation included a girl who is now living in Australia and hasn't been back in Denmark in a while. My inclination was maybe, to keep the door open, to not decide, yet.

However, as I reflect on this, my answer has changed. I burned those bridges for a reason. Spending time with those people is like eating an ice cream: the taste is sweet but it isn't really nourishing.

They tell me how much they want to get together, and yet they often hesitate when I ask to set a time. Their way of keeping friendship with me is to meet once a year and have absolutely no contact in between.

I am actually really clear that this is not how I want to do friendship. I like to spend time with people who I find interesting and inspiring, and who want to spend time with me. To accept an invitation from this group of people I would need a bigger reason than a person returning from far away, a person who I stopped writing to because she didn't return my letters.

I guess that the kind of friendship they are offering is just not for me.

Now it's clear: if I had the choice between a day with this group or to spend an hour in the playroom, I would chose the playroom without hesitation. If I had the choice between a day with this group or a cup of coffee and a deep discussion with my girlfriend and her husband, I know what I would choose.

Are you clinging to old bridges? Living in maybes? Often? Sometimes? Never?

Big Love

Joy

Labels: all blogs, burning bridges, change, choices, joy vigh strand, solar system, wants

In the 90's I was a big fan of Tori Amos. For the ones who don't know Tori Amos, one of her big hits was a song called "Me and a gun". It was a song about how she was raped in the rear of a car, and for her writing the song was a way to get out of being a victim of what had happened. The line I remember most from the song was "But I haven't seen Barbados, so I must get out of this".

I didn't know where Barbados was - and for some reason I didn't look it up. I imagined that it was a tropical island somewhere in the pacific. I pictured beautiful beaches, palm trees and sun; the sea turquoise blue and the wind soft. Thinking of this picture of the island I could feel the warm sand between my toes as I walked towards the sea...

I decided that I wanted to go to Barbados. I imagined that going to Barbados was "out of my reach"; something that I would never be rich able to do. So I didn't even look it up. For a long time I didn't realize that it was in the Caribbean and not in the pacific!

Time passed and so did the music. I moved on to listened to Heather Nova, Joni Mitchell, Suzanne Vega, Lisa Ekdahl. There are so many women singing angry songs about how they used to be victims, and I loved all of them!

Last year I met my old pen pal. When we were teenagers we wrote long letters to each other about what happened in our lives. Mostly about the boys we were in love with but too afraid to approach, or about how our parents had been so unfair. This was long before I became a fan of Tori Amos.

It turns out that my old pen pal never heard about Tori Amos, but guess what: she did live a few years at Barbados. To her Barbados is also a dream: she loves the beaches, the people, the music, the nature, and she has some great memories of Barbados. Now we are dreaming of Barbados together!

She wants to go back and I want to go for the first time. And this time I'm actually determined: I will go! Why? Because I'm prepared to die! Not that I'm ill or have any reason to believe that I will die anytime in the near future, but I have come to a place in my life, where I feel happy and I feel that there is nothing more that I need in my life. There are things that I want, and I'm perfectly happy pursuing what I want.



Writing this I am wondering about the difference between wanting to go and wanting to go back. I used to have a lot of things I wanted to go back to: being fit, being married (not to the same man though), having a house, being a manager, being with old friends...



Now I don't want to go back. I still want to be fit, but I'm going towards being fit. Not in the same way as I used to do it, but in a way which works for me. I want to see Barbados, and I'm closer now: I know where it is. And I have more knowledge: I've seen pictures, learned about the seasons and when to go...



I wonder how often we hold dreams without knowing how to find them at the map. I have done dialogues with people who say they want to "work with people", but they do not seem to know what that actually means to them. One example was a man who worked as a manager, but who didn't believe that motivating his employees was part of "working with people".

So how clear are you about your motivations? If you have an addiction, do you know why? Do you know what you'll miss if you let go of it? Do you know what you want to get instead? Do you want to be happier? What does it mean? What are you doing to get there?
Can you describe the details of how to get there? Can you draw a picture of how it looks once you've reached your destination?

I believe that going to Barbados will mean that I don't have anything I have to get through before I can start living my life. I don't have to be thinner, fitter or happier. I can live my life right now! I can go to Barbados first thing in the New Year.

Do you wanna join me?

Labels: adventures in happiness, all blogs, joy vigh strand, wants

Sometimes I like to stop and check how I changed over time.

This Friday was a great opportunity. We had the company's Christmas party. This is a very popular tradition. Basically you eat, drink, have fun, and hopefully nobody will remember afterwards what you did!

We call it "Christmas lunch". It is a “dinner”, but in the tradition of a Danish Christmas lunch, which means:

Appetizers
Herrings (and other fish) and with this you have a lot of "Snaps" and Christmas beer
Diner
different dishes based on pork and duck (greasy heavy food) and more snaps and Christmas beer
Dessert
cheese - snaps (you are now to full to have more beers)
...and more dessert
"ris a l'amande" - the game is for one of us to find the one not cut almond, hidden in one of the puddings

Snaps is a strong alcohol made on potatoes and which has some cummen added - you might have to be Danish or Finnish to tell the difference between snaps and Vodka. The tradition is that if anyone says cheers everybody at the table will empty their glass of snaps.
Christmas beer is a beer only produced at this time of year, and it’s stronger than normal beer.
"ris a l'amande" - which is a rice pudding with almonds and cherry sauce (and one not cut almond, to be found in one of the puddings by us)

Yes, I changed #1
My first "challenge" was that half of our table was empty. We were supposed to sit with the agents. These are sales people who are normally not at the office, so we don't know each other very well.

The sales people had all gathered at two other tables and the ones who came late were placed with us. And after my table was first quite empty, later it was populated with men who had spent hours getting drunk during the dinner.

It's not that Danish people always gets drunk. For many people this is the only time of the year. I guess they just want to see themselves as young and reckless; at least for a night! For many people this night is the night you say the things you usually don't say, or just the night you act crazy.

I've gotten so used to saying what's on my mind that I don't save it for this one special day a year, so you can put me in the second category! And so I had decided to enjoy my table company and it turned out that I was so good at acting crazy that some people believed that I had been following the drinking tradition! I only drank one strong beer and a few light beer and then tap water, but I was having crazy fun!

Yes, I changed #2
I'm working for a company owned by a British company, and the head of the Scandinavia part is Swedish. The Danish employees of the company regularly joke about the "Scandinavian strategy" implemented into our company: it is trying to imply in Denmark what worked in Sweden ten years ago.
This is probably why they booked a Swedish band that was popular at the summer party in Sweden; regardless of the traditions at Danish Christmas parties.

The music was nice but colleagues started to complain about it. For example: “Only one of three singers is singing as much out of tune as I do!”

After listening for a few seconds to the music and the people around me I took a decision: "I want to have fun. Listening to the music and my colleagues will not provide me with the typical atmosphere of a Christmas party”. So while others were entertaining themselves by complaining about the music, I started dancing with one of the secretaries.

Yes, I changed #3
When someone joined me happily and talked about having wanted another music during dinner, I supported his or her view. When someone was complaining about the Swedish invasion (and some of the Swedish employees literally did use these words) they would smile when I would respond: "Nothing new. We always have to try what they are doing in Sweden. And in spite of the initiatives that do not have the same effect in Denmark, we still are able to create the best results, so it is not going to keep me from having fun.”

Differences
This might be a shock to people outside Scandinavia (it even is to many Scandinavian managers):

It might be that

• Scandinavian people LOVE each other when we meet anywhere in the world, and
• we all pay high taxes and want the state to pay for education, hospitals etc, and
• in general we are highly educated and highly independent individuals
• We are all starting Christmas early (the 24th)

But

• we do not share the same kind of humor, and
• we do not have the same way of working.
• we don't eat the same kind of meals for Christmas!

Yes, I changed #4
After the Danish dinner and the Swedish music, there was a band. And it turned out to be a Danish band that didn't play ABBA or other Swedish hits, but stayed mainly with wonderful American and Canadian tunes.

I love dancing, so I decided that I wanted to dance some more. This might have sounded easy to most people, but I have a history of back pains, which has not always been comparable with dancing. I had my back adjusted the day before the party and I woke up the same morning with pain as a reaction to the adjustment. So I had done an extra treatment the same morning and taken some painkillers.

Labels: acceptance, all blogs, joy vigh strand, wants