Reflections of when You're Bored Stiff

It's that time of year, isn't it... The time of year where exams come along once again. And, as usual, an element of unproductivity has come about, especially for the last hour and a half or so, as I haven't been able to concentrate to save my life and have hence resorted to the evil machine that is called my laptop. Unlike in May last year, where blogs seemed to become everyone's common factor because everyone seemed to post something due to exam stress, this time about, minimal posts have sprouted up and indeed, reading and delving in other texts has been rare at most. Oh well. At least the headache is nonetheless finally subsiding and I believe that I should soon be able to (unfortunately) get back to the books.

Time for a period of self-examination, methinks. (Thanks Krissie, by the way, for kind of confirming that I had to write this after reading your blog!)

Yesterday I was reflecting about life had treated me over the last few years while have a couple of drinks with some friends of mine, and it dwelled on me that I have been truly lucky and blessed to have a life that really never has a dull moment. I looked back at the relatively recent past and saw that I have had people around me who have really been a positive influence on my life, and for this I am really thankful. I'm so glad that I didn't go down any path that could have resulted in having severe consequences in my life and so thankful that I wasn't brought up in that manner either. It felt so liberating to confirmedly know that when walking back to my car, I was walking in the company of people with a similar upbringing to mine and that such people would never try to explicitly take advantage of me or influence me to do something that I would regret in the future. To the contrary, if I were to do something of the sort, I believe that such people would actually persuade me to not carry out such an activity and try knock some sense into my admittedly hard head.

Then, when I got home, I turned the spotlight onto myself for a few minutes - literally, as this was rather late at night - and looked at how I saw myself in the light of other people. Weirdly enough, I realised a couple of paradoxes vis-a-vis what I said in the above paragraph. Firstly, I noticed that for all the positivities that I outlined above, I didn't warm up to the people I was surrounded by - with the possible exception of a few - with immediate effect, and had to actually 'gel' with such people before being myself with them. I've realised this on countless occasions, that being the fact that initially, I'm quite cold with people, and will continue to be unless I really get speaking to someone or finally learn how to appreciate and understand them. Secondly, and perhaps this is where I was a bit shocked, I felt that in quite a few circumstances, when I did indeed warm up to those people, I've been a better friend to them than they have to me. Rarely have my friends been entirely mutual, in the sense that giving and taking was equal among both people involved. It's a weird scenario and one that perplexed me, and still does, in all fairness. I tried putting my finger around it and put it down to perhaps being someone that people look up to, a role model of some type, but I believe that that's being rather boastful of myself and so I am more than willing to discard this theory. The case in point is though that often, I feel that it's other people that throw sticks and stones at me first for some odd reason, when I wouldn't have done anything of the sort to them. And other things, obviously. I'd really like to be enlightened on something like this, though, because it did play on my head and indeed, still is.

But overall, I can't complain. Things have really fallen into place for me over time and I believe will continue to do so in the future. I know about, and am conscious of, my various faults and indeed, am constantly trying to make an effort to improve them; but I am only human at the end of the day, and us humans err.

And on a side note, as for the recent derogatory remarks that have been sprouting up, with the perpetrator obviously hiding behind an anonymous mask due to extreme cowardice... Get a life. It's my blog so the posts that go up are what I want to write - if you don't like whatever is posted, you don't have to read it and furthermore uselessly comment on it.

God Bless You all,
Matti