When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching – they are your family. – Jim Butcher
1) Take a Good Book and Take Some Time to Think
John C. Maxwell said: “Thinking is hard work; that’s why so few do it”. Become one of the few. Replace the TV-hungry guy with a friendly educational-video buddy. It is another way to fill in your brain with useful information and ideas for self-development. Make conscious choices when you are going to feed your mind. This is crucial, eliminate controlling forces from outside and take the reins into your own hands. Do not just turn on the TV and allow yourself to take what you are given without your sensible approval first. You will find by doing so how growth begins.
2) The Effect of Building Slowly Will Work Its Magic
You cannot build a castle in one day. It takes small steps to create a piece of art. Your mission is to invest your time and energy in building a mansion of unseen beauty that will be able to withstand any weather. This architectural masterpiece is you. When you make that decision, life changes and people suddenly want to confide in you and ask for your opinion. Provide your expert advice with thoughtful appreciation.
3) Your Circle of Friends Will Change Considerably
People you surround yourself with are supposed to help you accomplish your goals. They make you or break you, so choose wisely. You will be amazed to find out that people you thought “fly-too-high and out-of-the-way” are actually very responsive when asked to help out.
Successful people have gone through a lot of hardships on the way to the top. Now they know the path and can tell you the shortcut. It is vital to frame your life in a “better-people-around-me” way. Your social environment is as important to your mental health as nature (the outside environment) is to your physical one. It literally determines the trajectory of your life. Why?
Conclusion
“Eventually, we start to eat what they eat, talk like they talk, read what they read, think like they think, watch what they watch, treat people how they treat them, even dress like they dress.” Darren Hardy gives enough reasons to be selective in this respect. Do not let yourself just drift with a stream of life, paddle the way You want to go.
Become strong enough to learn how to fail skillfully and get up with grace
Introduction
A. is a 26-year-old office worker who is bored to death. When her boss is looking the other way, she switches the screen of her computer to the pages of her book. She downplays herself and often in conflict with her protagonist. We are going to witness a drift of her thoughts during this process.
If you downplay and mock yourself – you lose self-respect. The agonizing self-rivalry exists in almost everyone. If considerate, it is very productive. Learn what price to pay to become a winning party always.
Become Strong Enough to Learn How to Fail Skillfully and Get up With Grace
We had our annual ‘all hands’ office party yesterday. My colleague Josh was making eyes at me all night. And near the end of the party, he approached me with words: “Look into my eyes – they are so kind.” I responded with mitigated reality: “They are drunk.” He mumbled: “Weeeell..works both ways, doesn’t it?” I’m afraid to say that I was so close to agreeing. Was I that lonely? No way! I came home took my little old bear off my laptop and finally got to work.
When you try to control areas in life that are out of your league, the world goes completely mad and may drag you to the depth of insanity, unless you become strong enough to learn how to fail skillfully and get up with grace.
When you try to write about things that do not interest you, the book becomes a dull play and not one reader will be determined to sit out the performance. Start all over again, and this time you should be armed at all points with full information about your topic and passion for the depiction of it.
Let Life Give You Wings to Fly
I feel overwhelmed with work duties, cannot put them out of my head even for a couple of days. The company I work for is shrinking, and I may very much be the next one to be laid off. Oh, well… My skin feels the wind of change. The touch of it is a little chilling, but I am going to tune my senses to the wave of it and make the best of my life. At any rate, if I lose my job, I will devote more time to writing.
Life can be a fairytale or a nightmare. It can age you, kill you or give you wings to fly. The good thing about it is that the choice of what to get is yours. And the bad thing is – no one does it consciously.
Every trial in life is not a limitation, but a kind of self-developing advantage. Consciously accept it and your writing spirit will be always bright, free, and generous. Do not let everyday disheartening occurrences distress you. Your ability to work depends on a healthy state of your mind and body. Cherish those with utmost care.
Control the Mood That Reigns in Your Reality
Today I forgot my wallet at home. When I was standing in front of the vending machine in our office lunchroom I was close to staging a hungry faint just to see if this soulless ‘food dealer’ had some mercy for me. My protagonist found his love. Will I?
Your reality is the best thing in the world because you control the mood that reigns in it. Be unpredictable and you won’t get bored. Your state of mind is the source of life energy and food just keeps your body in a functional state.
Recognition is a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to have. The chase will exhaust you. You need only art, temper and talent to meet all the illumination of wisdom and the rest is destined for you.
When you control your mood, you are always able to stay remarkably fresh to your readers, and remarkably well-seasoned to your critics.
Conclusion
Today is just the day when I feel so manly with all the responsibilities I have. My main priority – my book – is slowed down by them. I’ll keep my job if I make an extra effort there, somewhat here, and chiefly everywhere. To pay the bills means to work more and write less. I wish I could trade my skirt-manliness for the one that wears pants.
You can be irreparably older than your peers. And years have nothing to do with it. You age faster with the questions you ask yourself. If accustomed to asking and listening, you will easily mystify and captivate your readers.
Your book will come to houses and feel at home. It will change the interior with new impressions and experiences. Everything will feel familiar and at the same time strange. And although the outside stays the same, the change inside will make people feel cozy in their chairs, reading away with a cup of warm beverage in hand.
A. is a 26-year-old office worker who is bored to death. When her boss is looking the other way, she switches the screen of her computer to the pages of her book. It gives an anxious, haggard look to her gentle face. A. writes away with an odd mixture of the detached and the involved. We are going to witness a drift of her thoughts during this process.
When you look at a beautiful hand embroidery, you see cross-stitching and think that if you had patience enough, you could do that. The multitude of colors may scare you at first, but you know that to master the skill itself you just need a little training. The reverse side of it, though, looks eerily tangled. And that may add the fear of new and unknown to your feelings.
Life is a custom masterpiece, and the beauty of it is inspiring. The confusing opposite side is a mere bunch of knots that are made along the way. Many or a few – they keep the picture in place – when a thread is over, you make a knot, get a different shade, and keep going.
Never be disheartened!
You Have Power to Grant Eternal Life by a Simple Touch of a Pen to a Paper
“Mat is cheating. The girl he met at his best friend’s birthday party was paid by his wife to seduce him so she can tarnish his image in her father’s eyes. This way her lover, not her husband, can get that important promotion. But they truly fall in love with each other…”. I keep talking in this way for a little longer before I realize that my cat Rob is no longer listening to this nonsense. He keeps nodding as if understanding while struggling to keep his eyes open. I laugh and affectionately kiss him. He is now so used to my ‘crazy moments’ that he can play the game of ‘attentive listener’ any time when I intensely get to my work.
You have the power to grant eternal life by a simple touch of a pen to a paper. The idea will shine with profound meaning, a character will look at you from a page and walk away to the depth of the narrative to suffer and love, struggle and succeed.
You should unite the intrinsic and the extrinsic while building the net of your story. It will be in the highest degree engaging and attaching if you play it in your mind (intrinsic) and aloud to an attentive listener (extrinsic). Keep your narrative in admirable order, constantly improving it till it becomes full of light and incapable of blunders.
Important to Get Away From the Techno-World
Today I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop and racking my brains on how to put another plot twist in my book. A handsome guy entered the shop, got his coffee, and took a seat. No laptop! No smartphone! He was just simply drinking coffee! It looked a bit insane.
Our world is overflowing with information. It’s all the more important to get away from the techno-world and escape to the peaceful embrace of the natural world to recharge your inner batteries.
People in an advanced stage of inspiration had better not be interrupted at all. If you can help it, try to isolate yourself from unnecessary intrusion. Allow yourself to be politely absent from social life for a few productive hours and you will impute ample worth to anything you do.
Find Enough Power to Push Your True Essence
I was so excited to print out almost all my earlier stories for the first and dearest reader. “Interesting,” my mom never was eager to squander praise, but just one word, which is not even any definite evaluation of my work –is discouraging, to say the least.
It is not easy to enter the backside of your reality and find enough power to push your true essence out and change the shape of your life. You may find little encouragement from your family and some friends. That just means that they care about you but see a lot of pitfalls on your writing way and want to protect you. Cleverly mend your wounded pride and try to be the most comfortable and amenable person to spend time with. No need to prove anything, save your emotional energy for grander deeds. No one, save infinite good time and yourself, can perceive the events of your life.
Something Old and Stale and Faded
Today two-year-olds can unblock their phones and get to their games, plug in their tablets when the battery is low, and switch on videos on the kids’ YouTube channel. What was I doing at that age? I was eating chalk and cuddling my bear. This no longer fluffy, one-eyed, stitched belly little friend is still sitting on my laptop. I haven’t been writing for three days now. Feeling disappointed in myself.
Some object in the cupboard – the quiet, dusky cupboard where there’s an odor of stale spices – can listen to your chatter with infinite good nature. If you cherish and love that inanimate object, it also becomes affectionate towards you. And when it does, you feel kind protectiveness it irradiates. You can use it as an amulet.
Something old and stale and faded can be of more beauty than the latest fashionable adornment. The connection to such an object is very gentle and gracious. You cultivate it by sharing memories and impressions with it, by expressing your gratitude every day. This relationship is binding you both like a good book. A simple touch to such a thing can give you inner peace.
Your Book Is Something You Want to Be Seen
Rita texted me today: “Are you okay? How are you doing? I haven’t seen you for a while.” Marketing never was my cup of tea. I haven’t been active on my Facebook, barely posting once a month or even less than that. So when I started to emerge every day across all my social platforms, my friends got worried thinking I had family issues and was now spitting my grief in verbal diarrhea.
Someone’s knowledge about us is a power that is hard to confront. Your book is something you want to be seen. You shouldn’t be too insistent, yet, not too quiet. You need people to remember who you are and what are you up to. So when the time comes for announcing the publication of your book – the audience is ripe with curiosity.
Alterations That Only Experience Can Cause
I often talk to myself while driving. Sometimes I talk to other people, real and imagined. Today I was answering some talk show host’s questions about my book. She was reading some excerpts, and we were discussing her insightful ideas about them. We were laughing a lot and agreeing on almost every idea she had. What a smart person she was and how nice of her to spend that time with me!
Time is irrelevant unless you not only feel the outside changes but the inside, not obvious and even almost imperceptible, alterations that only experience can cause. When you have enough inherent strength to get in with a person whose virtues of the heart serve as an example for you, your personality will muster depth and complexity. This inner change is a precious and welcome sign of the passage of time.
To boost this magical transformation you need to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you are in areas you want to learn about, wiser than you are in areas you had no idea being existent. If no such people are present in your life at the moment, even self-conversation with an imagined opponent can be a great beginning. It is not insane; it is very normal.
Conclusion
Can silence be unpleasant? It can. My skin feels the cold touch of it in the room full of people. When two are silent, it can be shared friendly and all understanding stillness of like-minded souls. I have nothing to say to people. A crowd started to be distractive for me. I feel a need for time off work and off people.
Often you see how silly bird coming from someone’s mouth to the freedom of open space is flying long distances and singing her song loud enough to spoil life for as long as memory is living. And this thing is highly resilient. People love talking, labeling, and stigmatizing. Is it good? Of course, it’s not! But this is the way it is… Like destroying water, one verbal mistake can crush the sturdiest human rock.
Words that were said mean something, even if YOU didn’t mean anything. Your intellectual standing in the eyes of people around you can be proved by the thoughts you share with them. Your book is a product of your mind. Do your best to make every word in it worth to be said.
Your story will rank with the deepest art of all times if you have the command over the written word. – Olya Aman
Introduction
A. is a 26-year-old office worker who is bored to death. When her boss is looking the other way, she switches the screen of her computer to the pages of her book. Everybody knows about it and nobody seems to believe that she’s capable of writing it. But she’s determined to stick it to her friends, family, and her cat Rob – an only faithful companion in her lonely one-bedroom apartment life. We are going to witness a drift of her thoughts during this process.
As you lift your head a particular ‘Writing-Sunday’, feel the grandeur of your idea that you desire to communicate to other human beings. Your story will rank with the deepest art of all times if you have the command over the written word. Many fascinating things are still in the regions of the unwritable and the unspoken. Astonish your reader in the interests of truth – things you perfectly, even to the most exquisite nuances, understand.
The Story That Becomes History
I decided to start telling everybody that I am writing a book to push myself to action. I thought about it for a couple of years and it never went farther than just a dream that I was too afraid even to make an effort to fulfill. When at work, family gatherings, and friends’ parties people started to ask me: “How is it going?” “What is it about?” “When will I read it?” – I was too embarrassed to keep lying and STARTED WRITING my book.
Every person is a living myth where the real and imagined blur together. It does not matter if the story is not yet the truth. When a lot of people consider it so – it becomes history. We should learn to tell our story confidently and convincingly. Only then does the desired reality becomes your present.
People should find your story easier to remember than to forget. If you have the ability to control over the ghost of an idea, make it meaningful, depict all unutterable communications, and add a few well-chosen silences, you are a poignantly skilled writer. The best you can do is to encourage your talent.
Your Life Train Can Go Only Uphill
If I have a thought, it keeps buzzing there like a hyperactive bee confusing the web of my life with that honey bucket bouncing from each strand. When I empty it – write it down, the ability to concentrate and function is back. I was driving from the coffee shop and that idea about Death almost blurred my vision and I, only by some miracle, didn’t miss my turn. I came home and took off my second shoe only when the thought was transferred to the screen of my laptop.
Your train cannot go downhill, only uphill. If your life is a happy creation, the passage of time makes you wealthy with new impressions and knowledge. You trade aging not for fear but for the coin that feeds your curiosity. And the simple magic of being always inquisitive is in sitting in an uncomfortable car of the upward bound train with a magnificent view from the window; dreaming about a comfy sleeping compartment and never getting into one.
Coping with writing-related-difficulties is a game of hide-and-seek. You never know what is wrapped around the next problem. The way you deal with them tells tomes about you as a writer. You should be inexorably grateful for the gift of overcoming the obstacles on your way. You become utterly curious and utterly hungry during this process of personal development.
Everything Can Be a Source of Energy and Inspiration
My life reminds me of a Rubik’s Cube: one side is red and the others are all messed up and never get into order. I am behind the plan my relatives have for me: 1) to find a job that my father will approve – done! 2) to marry the guy my mom will like – not yet there and often seems never will be 3) to have kids to please my grandma – need to deal with the second point first! Why does even thinking about it makes me sick? The guy in my book is looking for his lifelong partner and failing constantly as well.
Everything can be a source of energy and vigor: passion, rage, and even fear, but never guilt. Guilt deprives you of the healthy engagement hunger, which is the only source of creating freedom.
Everyday life has the territories of characters, the acres of concepts, the meadows of thoughts, and the domains of ideas. And I tell you: Why don’t you let them free with the help of your artistic pen?
When You Know What to Talk About
My best friend Sasha has the look of a naughty baby that just broke my favorite cup with the picture of us smiling. “I read the title and I liked it,” she says. “Next line makes me think that the second sentence will be easier to digest and I will start understanding. When I was done with a paragraph, I went back and read it two more times – and still had no idea what it was all about.” A lump of desperate powerlessness and frustration is blocking my throat and my vision. “You are so smart, so wise and intelligent. Everybody will love it and will be amazed by your style,” she squeezes my hand. “It is just me. I do not know English well enough. You know this is not my strongest side.” I go to the bathroom and switch the water on so that the sound of it will muffle my sobs. I look at my eyes. Tears make them turn from the juicy greenery of young leaves to the mature dark color of ready to wither grass. I love to watch this transformation. Sometimes, just for that reason, I like to cry.
When you know what to talk about with a person – you feel mutual affection. This chemistry between you can grow into true friendship when you drink tea with saffron, cardamom, and ginger in silence that is full of shared beauty of common understanding that whatever is kept quiet has the meaning you can read with every breath. This music does not need words.
There are people that swagger in your memory as the finest. Read the ready chapters of your book to them. You will get on famously with the feedback from a trusted circle. Do not turn a deaf ear to their response.
Fear Comes From the Knowledge
I am my worst enemy with all those excuse-walls I build on the way to my artistic calling. Where is my much-valued deviousness? I used to be so inventive playing ‘school game’ with my grandma for two weeks before she realized that she was doing homework for me.
Fear comes not from the pain of a strike, a fall, or a loss but from the knowledge that the one who did it to you is out of your reach or, what is even worth, you don’t even know who that was.
Inhale the very fragrant of your fear and toss it out of your heart. It should help you to move ahead, not to force you to stop completely. People will judge, some favorably, others – otherwise. There is no product of imagination and experience that will suit everyone. You may make yourself famous with particular chosen people of similar mental construction. So much the better.
Conclusion
I had a nightmare today. I was skiing and looked awesome in my gear: ski goggles, helmet, and fashionable ski suit. While cruising down the hill, I jumped on a trampoline and I crashed into a tree. I got up: my ski poles were crooked and my skis – broken, my suit was torn and my goggles were smashed, my face was bruised and some teeth were missing. I dusted myself off and looked up, saying: “Still better than at work.” My life is so predictable that even this dream is a breath of fresh air. Still struggling with the second chapter of my book.
Sometimes we need Novocain blockage for emotions to cope with our daily tasks. If everyday life brings sad thoughts, we need to find something to smile at, even if this something is ‘you getting left behind’. Humor – is the best cure for depression. And to know how to be funny is a great achievement.
You may judge of the success of your efforts by two things: the number of pages written and the vastness of pages crossed and rewritten. This process is laborious and requires a great deal of patience and self-control. You are naturally born to great things. But those things are placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the fear to act and the bravery to dash headfirst. The wise man should have both in moderation and make progress with some fear and a bit more bravery. This way you get moving with more consideration and contemplation.
O. looked at things in a funny sort of way, even going home from school with her was an intellectual research of a peculiar kind.
Introduction
She was curious about every little thing which made an ordinary spider seem an amazing creature. Her sense of humor made a simple sentence from a school dull textbook an anecdote that made us laugh till stomachache and we often ended up expelled from the class. She always knew what to say at the right moment. I do not think she ever had that notion of coming out with a trenchant response, but the dispute was a week ago.
Imagination helps to cope with everyday repetitive activities. It gives flexibility to your dreams, form to your ideas, and direction to your actions. Good humor in the face of boring certainty spares you the anguish of delay. You see success in every direction if you accompany your actions with delightful excitement.
1) Collect a Good Bunch of Friends and an Imposing Burst of Laughter
We shared one desk for three consecutive years in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. These years were the most refreshing from all my school experience. Being best friends while sitting together, we didn’t even talk much neither before no after those years. I believe some people come to our life like a fresh breeze from the sea and as easily go away. They bring that cooling sensation to the skin and mind, fill in the world around with stars you haven’t seen, juicy grass you haven’t touched, and aroma of wild flowers you didn’t pay attention to before.
Do not fail to find words of comfort and encouragement when your friend needs it. That same person will do justice to you when an unfortunate time comes. The depressing influence of loneliness brings a grim look on everything. Joyous laugh in a good company makes you feel untiring. And a constant repetition that is going on in life will not be able to disquiet you when a warm company is present.
2) Wrap Your Senses in New Fresh Sensations
Being a shy teenager, I came to be boisterous with her. She used to shake any mishap rather as a terrier shakes himself with ease and grace. The moment I used to start to complain about being bored she would raise her voice so either by hook or by crook I had to hear what she was going to fire on me. “What the-dickens, did you imagine this thing dull? Let me put you wise how things are,” she used to say in Agatha Christie’s perfect traditions way. And in a telegraphic manner she recounted the same events I was perfectly aware of, but word by word her interpretation served to whet my curiosity to hear more and learn her version of the same scene.
Give a new turn to your thoughts and senses. Decorate your days with fresh sensations. Open your eyes to see the scenery around you. You need to tear away the veil of monotony that obscures your view. With a deeply positive turn of mind your cheerfulness will be growing bigger by the moment.
3) Let the Faintest Thing Amuse You
The simplest pleasure was a trip home from school in her company. Every time adjusting the root O. brought a different perspective to the view I used to consider established. I became a fan of a village humble life when I saw back allies and sheds along an earth road, the smell of fresh cow’s milk and newly cut grass, potholes of rainwater with flashes of the afternoon sun in them. I had half a mind she had some magic stick in her sleeve as every time she managed to show me something new in a place I considered completely explored a long time ago. O. helped me to learn how to break some routine behavior and recharge my mind so that it starts to function in a manual mode rather than living on autopilot.
Habit is rust that eats through steel. It can be the most dangerous thing in the universe. Often it denies the possessor from the joy of seeing the beauty of life when you look it in the face.
Little pleasurable moments appear as merely part of the background if you do not pay attention. Let small things find an echo in your soul. This will help you to kill the dullness. Do not receive life gruffly, bear philosophically the rain and wind, and smile to the sun and breeze.
4) Venture Dreaming and Achieve an Inner Burning Desire
I remember on one occasion when we decided to have a day off school, my mom at that time trusted me with such decisions, as I used reason explaining why the history lesson and coming right after the one on physical education ccould be missed, and the time could be employed with so much more profit at home getting ready for some interesting project or other.
O. came to my place, most likely not letting her parents know that she was going NOT to school, and we had an interesting conversation about our plans for the future. Time suited perfectly as we were in the 9th grade when a lot of students decide to enter a world of professional education and leave school behind. I was still in black on what to do with my life, but I thought my idea of O.’s future was clear enough. So, I laid out a plan for her life adopting her way of telegraphic speech. I said: “Future is flexible. Project it in your mind. Start acting today. Make your dreams come true. You want to share how you see things. So, do it.”
I used to outwear through the books about the power of attraction and considered myself an expert in those things, so my language flourished with affirmations like ‘thought vibrations’, ‘energy’, ‘manifestation’ and the like. She said she wanted to break from the strong hold of her parents rather sooner than later and would rather go to college that year. We’ve looked through the list of opened professions and picked newspaper editor, radio host, and TV host. Although, I’ve lost sight of her when she left school that year, for some reason I was almost sure she succeeded to fulfill our plan for her future. But to learn for a fact what became of her I managed only very recently.
Give free play to your imagination. Turn your life into a romance with the flexible flow of your dreams. Bend a listening ear to the faintest lovely vision. And a sudden fit of joyful spirits will come over you. You should hear yourself repeating, like a man conversing with yourself about his bright future.
5) Rush to Attack Your Dreams with Plans and Actions
Since the time of my move abroad I stopped following the development of television life. I find myself watching some show or other only when I visit my parents. A year ago, I happened to stumble on a TV program which the first time in many years gave me a vague desire to put a huge cinema set in my apartment when I get back home just to be able to see the landscapes of my native country in that interpretation. The notion that the voice behind the camera was painfully familiar almost tickled me to death, and I tried to rack my brain in vain hopes to remember where I’d heard it before. What my amusement was when I read the name of my school friend in the movie ending credits.
O. was in her yarn being a well-known journalist that traveled the country and showed the ordinary life of simple people in her signature TV show. I knew her medical family wanted her to continue the family tradition, and I’m happy she finally did what she was intended to even against her relatives’ wishes. She might not have confidence at the time in the success of that new plan we drafted, but she was stubborn enough to act without the belief, knowing that faith would pave the way from words to the heart later, over time. Her bold determination opened the door to her dream life. The one in which she can share her inexhaustible resource of vigor that always was contagious to the ones around her. The way she chose to spend her life proved to be the best as now she could reach more people, showing them the way how to look at the familiar scenery in a new refreshed way.
Your customary activity may fatigue you, do not lose yourself in this dreary feeling. Add sunlight to your days by planning things you like. Schedule steps that will get you closer to something you like.
Restore your energy with an activity that always makes you feel good. It may be a desire to shoot your own movie, a dream of your own book published, or simply a refreshing vacation. Enjoy making plans and start implementing those little by little.
Conclusion
Even now many years after when the ongoing every day routing becomes unbearable and the feeling that everything should be turned upside-down immediately – for example, I crave to bring down the sky to the earth and see what happens – then simple delight can be found for me in choosing a different route to a known place so that life can be seen through the eyes of new impressions, spooning with mysterious turn in an unusual place, holding hands with a randomly picked way that leads only home. A minor change in things that used to be boring repaints those in fresh colors and it comes to be an interesting task to observe familiar repeated life so recently you’ve been fed up with.
A dull, dreary life is an impossibility and can exist only in the minds of people. If you want to be a true master of yourself you need to rule over your thoughts first and foremost. The imminent danger of boredom is a possible condition of clinical depression. You need to take every precaution that is possible to add a cheerful touch to your daily life. The wearing elements can be great, but if you let yourself to be every now and then lost in dreamy wonderings, you will feel like an air of ease is winning the mastery.
My face is different. But ‘different’ doesn’t always mean ‘worse’
Olya Aman
I was shocked and, due to that, felt no pain at first. People were shouting and gesturing to one another, trying to figure out how to distract the furious beast. Somehow, I do not recollect exactly how it was pulled from me. The man who helped me in an old blue ‘Zhiguli’ and drove to the village dispensary and later to the nearest town hospital was the owner of the dog. In the hospital, I got nine stitches in four places on my face.
The doctor that performed the work of reconstructing my face did not know about cosmetic stitching. He simply decided the way he would do it was going to be sufficient. During the procedure, I concentrated on his deep, fine-tuned voice. To listen to him was like drinking warm ginger tea on a frosty winter day, and very likely it served as the best anesthetic for me. His work was not bad, just not good.
I have the scars, one is very visible, and people often ask about it. I consider it a part of my unique personality. I like my face. I love myself the way God created me and the way life, not always gentle, adjusted the sacred work.
Thoughts about my mother, her loving face darkened by suffering because of the incident, overpowered the fear of thread, needle, and pain. And even during the recovery, when the only recollection of the event made me shake with uncontrollable sobbing — the result of a great fright — I tried to compose myself with enormous energy. One glance at my mother’s eyes with a distinct element of worry pulled me together, and I did my best to laugh.
Providence is often a cruel teacher. The life-threatening experience I went through was there to spirit me for what was before to come. I had bad days, but not too many. I had loss enough, but too much. Although, I feel completely miserable at times, I do my best to not feel depressed, rather unite the best blessings of my nature and learn to be a gainer in every situation.
Sometimes I think, I am made practically entirely from one heart, and often it thinks itself far too clever and shuts the rational mind up. But it did me a good service so far by helping me to get over emotionally and physically painful moments.
3 Lessons I Learned
Painful experience often is the strongest building block of a prominent personality.
Everything happens for a reason and your inner and outer looks depend on it.
Moments of struggle open the best (or the worst) in people.
I didn’t react to those unfortunate circumstances with deliberate self-pity. I thought of my mother and not of myself. From then on, my desire to give overpowers the desire to take. Lack of selfishness gives me the strength to withstand many of life’s calamities.
Whatever happens, I only need to understand how things are and accept the change, because ‘different’ doesn’t always mean ‘worse’.
Find charming weapons in your posture, gestures, and mimic
You must possess a great deal of inner strength to fight for your true essence. – Olya Aman
Experienced the poison of my own personality reflected and redirected at me when I was eight.
We were sitting on a balcony on the 6th floor of a nine-story quiet building and shelling peas when the boy, my distant cousin, the exact relation of whom I am not able to disclose, promised to marry me once we grew up. He was 6 years old, I think, and for me, that was the main obstacle to matrimony. I couldn’t bear my husband being a whole 2 years younger than me.
The boy was petite and skinny, dressed according to the latest style with a modern haircut. His eyes were flickering like quiet water at the bottom of the well. I don’t remember his name, only the electrified tenderness from the combination of sounds that caressed the roof of my mouth.
I used to be a shy girl and I couldn’t imagine anybody might take a liking to me. This first occasion indulged my vanity and coupled with that raised right eyebrow and light tilt of the head to the left made magic. He unconsciously copied all my gestures, like the one of bringing the tips of my fingers together in a thoughtful manner.
That skill of sweet murderous attraction (and my distant cousin undoubtedly possessed it) sometimes takes ages to master. By listening with all six senses, adding full awareness to this mutual process of comprehension, and giving yourself in full to the moment of wisdom, you may be highly rewarded by obtaining a grateful and affectionate friend.
Unfortunately, the relation, if any, was very distant and I haven’t seen my first admirer for many years. Our encounter lasted about 4 hours and was limited by that romantic adventure with peas.
However, the ability to see, or rather to sense with your entire body the inner rhythm of any living being could be a curse rather than a blessing. One day about six years ago when I visited M. I met a good-looking man at my sister’s place. What struck me was the familiar flickering in his eyes. “I’ve already seen that watery gray color somewhere”, I thought.
His wife was a big woman with unusually dainty ankles. She had a style about her, and I could almost call her dazzling but for her loud voice, just a touch above average, with an expression of power and force in it.
Magnetism seemed to radiate from her, and it outshone her husband completely. They both made a curious movement of their shoulders when being introduced to me. At the dinner table she talked a lot and each time her husband wanted to add something, she interrupted him deprecatingly. It looked like she didn’t care even two straws about him when he was completely determined to obey her in every way.
This man was lost in his wife’s charisma, modeling her movements and intonations in vain hope to be heard by the object of his admiration. It can be easier for a person like that to vanish in search of identity and never discover the true self within.
This encounter made me think
1) Enigmatic individuality.
A child, when born, is a little unique flourish. Growing up, he still seats apart from the rest of humankind in the secret tower of his individuality. Looking down at the world and people around, he longs to be accepted and gradually loses the sharpness of his personality.
2) Ability to listen and ask questions.
Every movement is marked by your personal touch when you are relaxed and free from any outside influence. It is, though, hard to always feel comfortable when people are around. You stay conscious of the opinion of others, trying to read their minds and predict reactions to your next words and actions.
How can you keep your composed self and, at the same time, be conscious of the presence around? Indeed, with more self-confidence and less opinion-dependence, you will be completely fulfilled as a personality.
3) The art of attracting attention.
Your vitality and easy confidence of manner flourish when you add to your skill-set and ability to attract people. This is a learned art, and everyone can master it with enough desire and persistence. Sincere appreciation and willingness to understand always help to establish contact with anyone.
People are like parallel straight lines, and they meet only when willing to incline to each other. Some people are more parallel than most, which can be a challenge. You either need to savor this or seek a way to make them curve in your direction.
4) Dominance with body language.
Your body language grants you with an attitude of indolent grace if you listen with it. We should never take the process of communication for granted. It is a talent almost all species have, and we are gifted beyond anyone.
Invest your time in every conversation fully. Listen with your eyes, ears, and posture, and your presence will become irradiation of any gathering.
5) Mastering personality can teach you the skill.
It is a stroke of great luck to meet a virtuoso in any field. Such people go through life in a never-ending state of self-improvement. It is axiomatic that such people are great resources for valuable information. Feeble envy, in this case, is a motivation to record useful knowledge and implement it to your advantage.
Surround yourself with strong, intelligent people. They represent all the vast conscious world of the best in men. Strive to be on the same level.
Final thoughts
Some people possess that engaging gracefulness that makes them forever moving around other people. They seem to be fed by attention and admiration. And if the energy from others is not present in their life, they fade away. That happened with my distant cousin. He was desperately in love and lost himself in this feeling. I’m sure he engaged all his inner resources to win this beautiful and vigorous woman. When done and married, he disappeared, became her shadow.
Don’t make this mistake. The atmosphere of your unique inner strength should be your main source of energy. That state is obtained only if you are in love with yourself. This way if you are forced to stay for some time in your own universe with only you for a company, this experience becomes enriching.
Life can be cruel in its passionate desire to come true, where one theaters an exciting play, changing himself on the go to satisfy the need to be like others. While the other lives in the earnest struggle to protect his individuality. It is easier to continue one’s way by adopting a false personality — effort takes time and energy.
You must possess a great deal of inner strength to fight for your true essence, and most often the reality around you is a rival, not an ally.
To be the butt of everyone’s ridicule could be a symbol of all that is truly beautiful and stylish… – Olya Aman
Introduction
A. had the territory of curves, the acres of curls, the meadows of fresh grassy aroma all about her, and the domain of a bit sarcastic but still kind attitude towards life. There was no way I could forget that tremendous display of the whitest teeth on Earth and a lovely cascade of laughter. Of all the fine people on board of Eleanora, the cruise ship going to South Africa, A. swaggers in my memory as the finest.
On the board of that liner we shared the adjoining compartments and for some strange coincidence, the door between them was not bolted. The very first day of our voyage I tried it and slipped right into her room just at the time A. was getting ready to go out to have dinner. She laughed approvingly, saying that she was just thinking to try that door herself. We had dinner together that evening and all the consequent ones that followed.
The definition of beauty breaks under the test of each individual. Out of this word one forms numberless associations and correspondences. The countless varied impressions, experiences, concepts are formed by society. Out of these materials, every woman strives to take the best to be considered beautiful by society standards.
1) Pursuing Status and Popularity Throughout History
19201960
We invented a game to amuse ourselves during our meals and strolls, solving imagined mysteries and inventing detective stories with crimes and murders. A. had a peculiar mind, reading people and situations promptly and to the point, never being in the wrong. And I was the Hastings to my Poirot friend, always naïve and always in the foggiest to what was truly going on.
It amazed me how A. turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to all those demonstrations of society accepted beauty standards. A. always wanted to partake of the forbidden pleasure of being remarkably loud in her self-expression. She was inhaling the judgmental fragrance coming from other people, and I doubted if ever she was quite through with it. A. enjoyed it, not able to toss the desire to shock out of her heart. It is my opinion that people judged her boisterous manner because they envied her bravery.
Debbie ReunoldsDoris Day
The history of makeup is charged with a constant change in society. Exquisite soft colors of the 1940s and post-war 1950s are rippling in our memory. Sweet ladies, such as Debbie Reunolds and Doris Day, recall in a flash years of longing for simple, natural, clean and conservative beauty.
Peggy MoffittTwiggy
Later in the 1960s and 70s, the splash of idealism and feminine protest required to see instantaneous, fleeting, and slightly boyish faces. Twiggy and Peggy Moffitt pretty nearly summed up the philosophy of that time. The views of masculine touch in a woman’s appearance grew habitual to everyone.
Falling early into the 1980s and 90s, and into loud and louder everything about the face. All that little sense of propriety in makeup was laughed out of that time by a hardened, bright, colorful specter. Doubting how to distinguish men and women one needed to accept eyeliner, big hair, and lipstick on both sexes.
Tyra Banks (2000 – 2017)
Alessandra Ambrosio (2003 – 2017)
Doutzen Kroes (2005 – 2017)
Daria Werrbowy (2004 – 2015)
In the 2000s, women started to feel the wide world. Technology and the internet started to make them dream of the heights they never thought possible for themselves before. Ladies escaped the clutches of seriousness and added a female touch to their business look. Who could be timid in the presence of glossy, glamorous and sexy in a smart way businesswoman? Healthy, organic air prevailed in the makeup industry.
Gliding neatly and softly into today, a beautiful woman is striving for a healthy look and a healthy life. The trend was started in 2000 and was culminating in now. The exterior is natural. It resumes the contours of normality. The interior is enhanced by workouts and good food. We do still see the hurls of the 2000s somewhat heavy looks, but more and more additional genuine light is brought into the lives and on faces.
Today we strive to believe that any troubling feeling is flitting. Sadness, fear, frustration like a storm, cannot last forever. As our experiences broaden and deepen we tend to see the beauty in absolutely everything and everyone. This inward knowledge creates freedom of expression. A woman looks within herself and in time finds the measure and the meaning of the inward and outward beauty.
2) Chasing After Favored Status in Different Countries
There were many men and women on board our vessel. All dressed up and, so to say, made up. The company was diverse: European women were stunningly attractive, high hills on dainty long legs, red lips on oval faces, big lashes on colored sparkling eyes; Asian ladies had unusually white complexions, Western beauties were tanned and blushing with rouge on their cheeks.
A. was an accomplished woman with enough means to be able to buy all the makeup possible, and yet, she never bothered to wear any at all. She looked quite all right without it, as far as I could judge, with all those unruly locks, thick black eyebrows, and long shadowy eyelashes.
Being successful at investing her own money and advising others on how to deal with theirs, A. possessed the brains of a wise man. She could not care less for the opinion of others and loved to be in a company of strangers, people who didn’t know who she was, and thus, looking at her very often disapprovingly. She loved to trace the signs of transformation. It solaced her mind to see how people, almost against their will, were eventually attracted to her, admiring her truthful nature.
There might be some allowance for error in depicting the looks in different countries. To avoid it I will only try to point the way for the beauty qualities that are considered attractive in some distinguished places.
For the lovely ladies of the US suntanned skin, fuller lips and the longest eyelashes ever seen are a splendid example of attractiveness.
The bulk of Brazilian woman strives for a natural, effortless look with the most significant accent on a bold matte lip that commanded over light and harmony of naturally colored skin and eyes.
The colors that count in Canada are beige nudes and deep reds. Here the secret of attraction is in brows. Bold or barely there, they present a perfect addition to the color choice for the lip.
In the UK and France women are willing to be natural, more real. The forces of makeup are now equally with contouring and highlighting that looks less artificial and more enhanced.
Anyone can trace here that the secret inner wish of every woman from every country is to display the treasures of their personalities. Smoky in India, dramatic in the Middle East, intense in Mexico – eyes tell a volume about female vitality. Red and beige, loud and dense, expressive and accentuated lips feel and tell, whisper and shout about a sensuous force of every woman’s nature.
What a glamorous masquerade is this makeup business. It entices women to sail forever in the abundance of color with sense and feeling and mind to be her selves and yet different, to imitate and be unique, to be seen and most important – remembered. The secret inner will that controls this industry is a fateful desire to make the time still and our nature silent, to preserve the beauty and to fool the life.
3) Makeup as a Tool for Gaining Lofty Titles and Increasing Self-Importance
A. sensibly tasted the sweets of living without deceitful colors on her cheeks and looked somehow visibly more honest than others. She considered makeup an instrument of woman’s destruction. I was not of the same opinion; we argued with zeal and friendly passion. I spent quite a number of years selling makeup and I loved to play with colors, although I got tired of it long ago and at the time wore nothing but for a bit of mascara and a liquid liner on my eyes and a trace of lipstick on my lips.
A. had sense, and energy, and spirits, and character – she needed not any additional color to the abundance her personality presented already. A.’s universal good-will and contented temper attracted people not from the first glance, that was for sure, but from the first conversation. With her, every day flew away at a very unusual rate. Forming all those playful schemes in a perfect Agatha Christie’s fashion we made a lot of friends in-betweens.
The makeup industry is equally charged with the odors of camouflage and deception. It pulsates with buoyancy and desire. It is an art so wonderful and with such power of creating rather than enhancing, that to recognize an infinite nature that is hidden under it is almost impossible – a person becomes a new made-up incarnation of herself.
After the makeup is washed off, women feel insecure, as if an essential part of their character is missing. This sensation is close to the feeling of loneliness. It creeps over dear ladies with false statements that exquisite beauties cannot be discovered when makeup is not present.
Even such sensations as business success and accentuated beauty became undividable nowadays. Piling foundation on concealers perceived as professional and may very much likely to help a person to be more successful.
4) Media Troubling Representation and the Need for Importance
A. took delight in putting me wise on how things were and why she despised wearing makeup. You see, in her early days she had quite a taste of misery when working in an investment firm her vanity was not once pushed, or rather dashed down by her male senior manager in front of other female colleagues due to her ‘lack of femininity’. For some reason, he thought it would make A. more successful with clients if she had furnished her bag with necessaries of some beauty enhancing tools.
Eventually, A. called a council in her thoughts whether she needed to take the advice or toss it overboard – and did the latter, leaving the office and opening her own business. It was vain to sit still and wish to be yourself in the surrounding where you were pressed to be someone else. She encouraged herself to go beyond what she would have been able to have done upon staying in her firm.
A. was contented with the discovery that women loved to confide in her with their thoughts, and… with their money. The husbands, they thought, were in the safe, dealing with a woman with no makeup. It just happens so that men will not be nice to you if you are not good looking, and women will not be nice – if you are.
We lose imagination when an instinctive desire to follow the creed promoted by media is overpowering the other senses and emotions. It compels women to look for the pictures of accepted standards and try their best to be counted as “similar” and “like” the person on the cover.
If for some reason a lady cannot find her resemblance vividly displayed she feels left out, forgotten, not accepted, not beautiful. Seeking the favor of others, women strive to obtain the same shades for the eyes and lips. But the reality is that whatever approval is supposed to come her way will move her farther from her unique nature.
Pursuing the status of prettiness and loveliness, the natural flow of beautiful energy of independent mind and soul is often stopped. This chasing is alarming, regardless of the outcome. If you gain approval, you will become a slave to outside messages of praise. Do not let someone else’s opinion direct your life. Only when you adjust the obtruded belief to a heart-felt individual one, your understanding of attractiveness changes.
Conclusion
A. always had something to talk about that no one else had monopolized. She created a sense of power and incongruity. Being kind of shut out from the region of the beautiful, A. had a freer mind. She had not a smooth story to tell about herself, and who did? She played a game of life into her own hands with the help of her brains, not her looks. Her road to success might have been easier the other way around, but she would have been a different person then.
Makeup, as a tiny fragment of our life, is not as significant anymore. It still has a thousand hues that are blended in various substances. And women play with it, experiment, hide and sick themselves in the process.
Beauty takes shape of joys and sorrows. It has the poignancy of heart-satisfying inner emotions. A strive to achieve a way of life that guarantees integrity, joy, peace, and balance is depicted on modern faces.
When you create a family — you become one organism, breathing through one source, looking and moving in one direction. – Olya Aman
I formed the habit of sticking my attention into the venerable instrument of our diverse family. I feel the impulse to pull out our story of my head and heart because I know you can make better use of it.
My Afro-Asian husband
Everything about my husband is a bit stupefying. He has a large, square face, with a massive projecting nose and narrow greenish Asian cut eyes. Black hair brushed back from a broad but low forehead open two distinct parallel straight lines, that meet only at infinity. Grave and weighty in his manner and body, he does everything slowly and massively. Like a locomotive, he melancholy moves through life. Within his setting, I feel indolent and silenced.
Zac’s family, that is his name, is a unique example of the ‘cafeteria culture’. And the only idea of it is beautiful. His father was born and raised in Mexico in a Muslim family. While his mother is a daughter of a Methodist minister. They adopted Zac when he was 4 years old. He identifies himself closely with both cultures and religious beliefs, never feeling pressure coming from either side. The inner climate of their family is always mild and comfortable. They love each other and accentuate their family values on common grounds, minimizing the importance of the differences.
Our union
When Zac was 20, I got pregnant with our first child. We got married for love and forever, family values prevailing in Zac’s perception of the world. I am a woman of a European origin with deep cultural ties and beliefs. My cultural and religious sentiments are softly echoed by his acceptance and loving understanding.
Zac’s interracial, interreligious family experience made him flexible and adaptable to the changing world around. My family got to love this young-looking man with old wisdom lurking in his Asian eyes. Zac’s family accepted his choice with loving humor and serious understanding. The colors of our faces are diverse, the shades of our philosophies are controversial in many aspects — but we have a common universal understanding of the family values.
We have a family brunch once a month, to which all relatives bring their specialties. We celebrate our diversity and remain faithful to our histories.
What I’ve learned from my multicultural ongoing experience
Form a brilliant scheme to focus on shared pricks.
We are all enveloped in and on and under our histories. To make life easy, we slide gently through every circumstance, stressing our common patterns, and minimizing the importance of our differences. Close personal ties with each other are the sweets of life for all of us.
The focus on critical dissimilarities gives the bitter taste that disagrees with any family union. That is why we never cross the line and always stay in a circle of peaceful, polite conversation.
Rejoice at the contrasting blessings of your personalities.
Together we monopolize our differences and celebrate them with respect in our minds and love in our hearts. Because the family union is like a union between two countries — with unique histories and traditions, views and life principles. To maintain peace may be a laborious process, but it for sure is rewarding.
Respect has a lot of hand in building our family union. We learn to accept the cultural identity of each other and have judgment enough to distinguish between historical and religious differences that are important and those which are not. Any dissimilarities are not the instruments of destruction, but the triggers that move our curiosity forward.
Artlessly admit extended family connections.
We united the best blessings of existence when we decided to raise a child. We care a great deal for each other, that is why we are open to connect with members of our extended families and are eager to introduce our offspring to the variety of family relationships.
The chances are that the child will be a gainer if loved by many relatives and experienced in various cultural situations. Life with little and sometimes bigger difficulties and privations is not damaging but strengthening if you can look at your family and see the rock that will always hold you firmly on the ground.
To pursue a happy family union, everyone in it should help each other out of the deepest gulfs of human miseries. In the sequel of life, the family union is the only harbor that can give us the taste of happiness and peaceful harmony. – Olya Aman
I wanted to be a creature whom ‘Smart’ does not even slightly describe… – Olya Aman
Many years prior to the days of our acquaintance, my mentor was considered a dyslexic child. He had trouble matching the letters, struggled to read fluently and spell words correctly.
My mentor, Maks, can intoxicate every person individually with his great bright voice, hoarse and rich, sudden, and intensely accurate. Saying things enlightening and captivating, he can describe any event from his life and the life of the world around fully and without hyperbole and still catch unmitigated attention of everybody around.
My notebooks, one in particular, are covered with expressions of his wisdom. I’m the witness of his ineffable teaching — How to eliminate our troubles by growing a hunger to read.
I will put you wise using his own words:
Read a Good Book and Energize Your Brain
Reading makes our brain omnipotent. By processing written material, we encourage our brains to work harder and better. Almost like after a visit to a gym, when our muscles still remember the strenuous stretch and weight, our brain expresses a shadow activity at a specific region that was stimulated.
Maks has a great understanding of the brain and his learning disability. He explained to me that dyslexics are visual and multi-dimensional thinkers.
“Although I excelled in hands-on learning and was highly creative, I needed to put a certain dangerous effort into mastering the art of reading. I was long past the school-age when I finally could claim a label ‘normal’ for myself.”
Maks was hard, immeasurably hard on research, finding the best ways to rewire his brain. “I tried all kinds of remedial reading programs that could help me become a better reader. Every single day I was working on changing the way how my brain was processing information.”
Remedial Reading Helps to Diminishing Confusion in Our Lives
Reading decreases stress. You transport yourself into a different situation and positively affect your daily life with uplifting literature.
Maks made his Dyslexia (‘word blindness’ — how it is called sometimes) not an insurmountable obstacle in a process of education, but a problem to be solved — an opportunity to express personal motivation; a trigger to combat an enemy and win the battle on the arena of education.
“I’ve discovered the relationship between reading and stimulation of particular regions of the brain. Today it is a base for the emerging field of literary neuroscience. My life is an example that even a dyslexic reader can fix his problem with the right approach to a book.”
Maks often stresses that by challenging our brain, we keep ourselves upright together with our cognitive abilities. “There are many benefits in the ensemble of mind improving reading exercises. It even can ward off dementia.”
“Behind our eyes lives a world of undiscovered. And to start a journey of self-digging and improvement is never late. There are special techniques, new emerging programs, even specifically created fonts to help us become better readers.”
The Value of Close Reading
Reading is not just fun, it is beneficial for our mental health. Reading stimulates our analytical abilities, heighten our focus and concentration.
Breakthrough information emerges every day. Maks keeps finding new ways to improve memory, reduce stress, decrease depression, enhance imagination, improve sleep, and many more — all with the help of books, chosen smartly and intentionally.
“Reading every day not only makes our feet travel in countries not easily imagined but also explore the grounds of our abilities.”
Methods of Keeping Our Brain Active
When crossing the threshold of a new book you should think what benefit you are expecting to get from it. Making a choice in a library, you pick, quite literally, a kind of cognitive brain training, a way to use new brain regions, and it is in your power to decide where to put your focus on.
“Scientists work extensively, developing new ways to train our brain.” says Maks. “There are numerous books on simple math problems and short brain-training sessions with puzzles. By challenging ourselves, we strengthen the connections between brain cells. Devoting our time to learning something new and complex like a foreign language can protect our brain from aging.”
Conclusion
My mania for the world of reading results from the prolonged conversations with my mentor. I love the state of focus and concentration I feel every time we meet.
I think that being a victim of a great book is an honor, and I wish to get into such captivity often and do so at my leisure. There is about the entire process of reading something irretrievably and positively self-imaginary. It punctuates our lives with novel ideas and educates us in unknown areas of life.
By mastering a new field of study, we heighten our opinion of ourselves and our capabilities. Reading manifests refinement to our brain and enjoyment to our life.
A final work from Maks:
When working with great workout tools our body responds more quickly and easily to the exercise, the same happens with our brain when we chose a quality book to read. You may even feel a bit exhausted at the end, as if your body went through the exercise along with your mind.
Olya Aman 