When it all makes you numb...

We visited a village on a work trip and one of my colleagues seemed so fascinated by something. I saw her trying to take a photo but I hardly paid attention as there was a lot happening.

Much later she showed me this photo:

Look closely at the drawing 

Your guess is as good as mine! My heart broke at the realisation.

Since coming to this country, many things that seem to be normal to people here are things that I do not find normal in any sense of the word.

Could this be a generational thing?

Someone contacted me out of nowhere to ask what options her cousin who studied French and had just graduated from university had in terms of work. 

She also mentioned that some other people they knew who studied French ended up teaching. Then she ended her message with this question: 'What can she do with the French?'. What I drew from her message was that she didn't want her cousin to teach.

I asked her what her cousin's interests were and if she had asked her cousin the same question. She seemed to be getting frustrated with my questions but I didn't see how I could help, because in reality, my thinking was that her cousin would be in a much better position to know what her options were and what she might like to do.

I told her teaching was one option (and what if that was what the cousin wanted to do?!) but there were other things to do. Another thing was that I didn't know her cousin or what she liked so I was unsure how to respond. She was contacting me obviously because I studied French and was not teaching I suppose...

Behind the mask

Are there times when you question what all the efforts you have put into literally everything you have ever done in your life is for?

It is especially distressing when all these efforts do not yield the kind of results the one putting in all the effort expects. Someone told me what her motivation was, she had lost a sense of who she was because it was consuming her, and requested that I publish this to help her heal...

Sometimes people hide behind their fears and insecurities, they live life seeking approval or trying to prove a point to others by everything they do. Then at the end, they realise that all that energy was wasted and it was not worth it afterall.

Fear, insecurity, those are monsters and those feelings can kill. They can kill your drive or drive you to your ruin.

Behind smiles, there could be deep issues of insecurity, hurt, pain, fear. 

Let it go, sometimes you just need to stop, breathe, re-evaluate your motives and decide whether your motivation is in order. Work on your shortcomings and be the best you can possibly be, then live, just live…