| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| mala |
Posted - 10/01/2012 : 21:42:33
Originally posted by mala
So I have looked at the link that you sent about the meditation course & I am enrolling in the one in Oct. The latest one started 2 days ago. But Gosh they do have a strict adherence to all kinds of rules.
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The Buddha had to meditate for years before he was "awake"
By the way, from reading many of your posts I kind of guessing your family is belonging to the Upper class in Hong Kong. (travel, maid, convertible...) for many years, in my learning about mindbody I have notice that people in the upper class also have a much higher rate of tms/anxiety. I don't know why but I'm guessing:
- compete with the jones. You have to act in a certain way, dress in a certain way... You have so much to worry about. your look, your finance, your status, your safety,... -> stress, strain,...
Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, Carpenter, Brooke Shield, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_major_depressive_disorder
It must be hard to be rich and/or famous.
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience.
OK this is gonna be a long post and a kind of personal bio but let me first clarify something. I am in NO WAY like the people in that list you have posted. First of all I don’t have a severe depressive disorder. I started having anxiety & depression only about a year ago that too after 12 years of being in chronic pain. I think I only ever saw a doctor 3 times up till I was 40. Before that I did not know what pain was.
I am 3rd generation HK. An Indian. My grandfather an Indian Sikh (think long hair & turban) immigrated here shortly after he got married & his 8 children including my father were born here. They were middle class running a small business, which was successful. It is the trend in many countries in this part of the world to have live -in maids & my grandparents had a couple to look after the children. My grandfather whom I did not know well was a tyrant. He was also president of the local Sikh Temple for many years. My grandmother whom I very vaguely remember was dead scared of my grandfather as was everyone else in the family.
My father was the second youngest & was a rebel. When he was 12, he had his long hair cut as he hated being the odd one in his class at school. He was kicked out of the house and was only let back in after my grandma begged & begged my grandfather & he promised to grow his hair back. My dad was not a happy man. He had issues, big issues and as soon as he could he left home & worked in the British Army in the Ordinance Depot as a clerk. He was young when he started drinking & smoking heavily. He wasn’t a bad person, just a very confused one.
Fast forward a few years & my grandparents decide to go back to India and pressure is put on my dad to get married. He has an arranged marriage to my mom who was born & brought up in India & he brings her back to HK.
He was physically abusive to my mom. Thank God my mom had a good job as a civil servant here in HK but things were bad for her & she even tried to kill herself once. When I was born the maid who had looked after my dad when he was growing up came & lived with us to look after me while my parents worked. She would carry me on her back in a sling while she went about her daily chores. She stayed with us until I was 8 and she was 66. I was much loved by her & is the reason I speak Cantonese.
My dad never lifted a finger on my younger sister or me. My mom put up with his crap till he died at the age of 50 when I was 18. Her life began after he died. Its awful, but its true & she has made it a good one.
I realize that my past was very traumatic but like you Balto I believe that we need to get over things and move on. The positives in my life far outweigh the negatives.
When I was 11 I went on holiday to India on my own to visit my maternal grandparents & decided I wasn’t going back to HK. I lived there for the next 12 years, the happiest of my life with my grandpa till he died. That’s where I learned to read & write Hindi.
I have a BA, a B.Ed, MEd and an MA in Applied Linguistics. I worked from 1983 to 2006 as teacher in 2 different schools
I met my husband when I was working in an army school. He’s a Brit and was a Major in the Army. I had opposition from my mother & well as his about the marriage. We got married in 1995 & the British Army was winding up to leave HK before the 1997 handover to China. My husband Bob left the Army & retrained as a teacher too.
Something I did on the side was to invest in small properties, do them up & sell or rent them according to market sentiment. Again you’ll have to understand that the HK property market is like no other in the world. Prices can double in a year or even less. I did it so well that it allowed Bob & I to retire in 2006 before we were 50. Today we have a comfortable lifestyle living off a number of properties & other investments.
The comfortable lifestyle that I have today I have worked hard at. Having no children also makes a huge difference, as we have no one to think of but ourselves. Our biggest luxury is having time on our hands to do what we want. Keeping up with the joneses is not what we do. Bob spends most of his day in scruffy shorts & although I do like to look good, believe me I do not spend a fortune on designer crap. There are no worries. My mother earns a comfortable pension from Govt & lives in her own house. My convertible was a present to myself for learning how to drive at the age of 50 first time round.
There is no doubt that our lifestyle in the Far East is very different from yours in the west. We live in small apartments and it is ironic that over 300,000 domestic helpers from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand & India work here for a population of around 7 million people most whom live in apartments of around 500 sq ft average. These helpers are vital, a godsend to us as they allow both husband & wife to both work & earn a good living. They cook, clean, look after children 6 days a week and live in with the family.
We pay low taxes. The max for income & corporate tax is 16%. Education here is free for the first 9 years unless private. We are among the few places in the world that have a huge budget surplus. For the last 4 years all HK citizens have been given HK $300 electricity subsidies each month & $1500 property tax subsidies each quarter. Plus last year each citizen over 18 got a $6000 rebate from the HK Govt. Medical is free at all Govt hospitals & Public transport is heavily subsidized too. We are unique.
I speak 6 languages & read and write 4. I don’t smoke, drink socially & have never tried drugs. At this point in my life I have a good relationship with my mom, its not ideal but its good, excellent relationship with my sis & her family & my husband is my best friend. I keep in touch with a lot of my students from my past that are now all grown up & in general thank God every day for his blessings.
You can’t to compare me with the likes of Kurt Cobain, M Jackson & others. I am not in any way like any of them & actually am a bit disappointed that you have put me in the same category as them.
If you want to know more about me you can Facebook me by looking for Mala Singh Barber.
Honestly, I sometimes really get fed up with my subconscious. It's like it's got a mind of its own.
Alexei Sayle
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| 16 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| tennis tom |
Posted - 10/06/2012 : 06:55:27
quote:
Originally posted by tcherie
... TMS is a unique experience to the individual. You can't necessarily say who will get it...
Yes, that's greatly true, but SteveO on page 106, in his book "THE GREAT PAIN DECEPTION" writes:
"Everyone holds anger, but most people don't internalize it at such high levels. Chronic symptom sufferers normally have much better capabilities to quickly recall past traumas or memories. In speaking with people who have few symptoms, it's quite clear that they simply don't remember little things. This is why it appears that type T individuals have more detailed memories since they don't let go as easily."
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DR. SARNO'S 12 DAILY REMINDERS:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0dKBFwGR0g
TAKE THE HOLMES-RAHE STRESS TEST
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale
Some of my favorite excerpts from _THE DIVIDED MIND_ :
http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2605
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"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Jiddu Krishnamurti
"Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional." Author Unknown
"Happy People Are Happy Putters." Frank Nobilo, Golf Analyst
"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint." Mark Twain and Balto
"The hot-dog is the noblest of dogs; it feeds the hand that bites it." Dr. Laurence Johnston Peter
======================================================
"If it ends with "itis" or "algia" or "syndrome" and doctors can't figure out what causes it, then it might be TMS." Dave the Mod
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TMS PRACTITIONERS:
John Sarno, MD
400 E 34th St, New York, NY 10016
(212) 263-6035
Here's the TMS practitioners list from the TMS Help Forum:
http://www.tmshelp.com/links.htm
Here's a list of TMS practitioners from the TMS Wiki:
http://tmswiki.org/ppd/Find_a_TMS_Doctor_or_Therapist
Here's a map of TMS practitioners from the old Tarpit Yoga site, (click on the map by state for listings).:
http://www.tarpityoga.com/2007_08_01_archive.html |
| balto |
Posted - 10/06/2012 : 05:31:15
quote:
Originally posted by Ace1
Maybe their expectations are high here in the us, but most of the patients that I see with tms are poor, not rich
I don't remember in which book but Dr Sarno wrote about "whiplash" in Norway and Lithuania. Whiplash is widespread in Norway, where medical insurance is widely available but don't exist in Lithuania where there is no health insurance.
Your patients although poor but being in the US they probably qualified for medicaid or some kind of help from the government or from their job. There are no free health insurance in most other third world countries, somehow the mind know and the poors don't get sick much.
One time I talked to a priest in Washington DC, His church often work with immigrants from S America. He told me illigal immigrants rarely get sick, but as soon as they became legal and have legal job, status, and health insurance they get sick much more often.
Somehow the mind know when you can afford to get sick.
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience. |
| mala |
Posted - 10/05/2012 : 20:22:33
tcherie
That's interesting point. What that emphasizes to me is that TMS is a unique experience to the individual. You can't necessarily say who will get it, because there are alot of factors involved. Maybe the personality traits that Sarno identified, and the experiences that the individual has had over a period of time, and how they internalize those experiences is the only determining factor.
Very good point about the internalization of experiences as being a key factor.
mala
Honestly, I sometimes really get fed up with my subconscious. It's like it's got a mind of its own.
Alexei Sayle
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| tcherie |
Posted - 10/05/2012 : 10:43:18
Ace1,
That's interesting point. What that emphasizes to me is that TMS is a unique experience to the individual. You can't necessarily say who will get it, because there are alot of factors involved. Maybe the personality traits that Sarno identified, and the experiences that the individual has had over a period of time, and how they internalize those experiences is the only determining factor. |
| Ace1 |
Posted - 10/05/2012 : 04:18:53
Maybe their expectations are high here in the us, but most of the patients that I see with tms are poor, not rich |
| balto |
Posted - 10/04/2012 : 20:34:44
quote:
Originally posted by Ace1
Balto I think what you just said makes a lot of sense. I'd have to say that the poor also may have a lot of hardships and a lot to worry about. This definitely leads to TMS, so I think the extremes on each end add to the likely hood for TMS.
That is what I thought too, but I was surprised to read that even with all the hardship the poorest of the poor in india and Southeast Asia have to endure everyday, the rate of tms/anxiety is 3 times higher in the middle and upper income than for those in the bottom of the economic ladder.
Joan Chiao, PhD from Northwestern University did a study and I think it explained why:
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2009/10/chiao.html
Unique, privacy, individualism, me, me, me ... are highly value in the west and that maybe why the tms rate is so high in the west. When people start to adopt a western life style that's when the illness rate go up.
We are herd animal, we belong in a herd.
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience. |
| balto |
Posted - 10/04/2012 : 20:25:36
quote:
Originally posted by mala
Hi Balto.
Balto I get your point & I'm also really touched by your desire to want to help me & others here but you also need to get mine. Those people on the list have major major depression, are on all kinds of drugs/medication, have been depressed most of their lives and some have even committed suicide. They take pills to sleep, pills to get up, pills for everything. The only pills i take are vitamins for crying out loud. They are also highly creative, intelligent, artistic, temperamental & face a lot of time in the public limelight. So pls don't compare me to them. Coz if you do then you don't really know who I am despite my trying to tell you.
Mala, if my post appeared to compare you with those people, it was unintended. Sometime no matter how hard I tried, my English is just not good enough to express exactly what I want to say.
Anyway, that link is just to give an example of people with fame and fortune do suffer from tms/anxiety/depression... nothing more.
I don't have the high education like Ace1 and many here. I don't have the exposure and connection to tms experts like SteveO here. But I love to learn about mindbody illness. I learned to get rid of my tms/anxiety through books and trial and errors for many years. I am strongly influence by many mindbody teachers in the East, mainly buddhist monks and Yogis. Many of their study and research is unknown in the West but I found their teaching very effective in solving my problems. Your case is very fascinating to me because of your background. India and Hong Kong have one of the lowest tms/anxiety related rate in the world. People in the East in general are more open to the idea of mindbody medicine than people in the West. and so I'm at a lost of what is holding you back from healing.
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience. |
| tcherie |
Posted - 10/04/2012 : 08:37:09
I felt like I understood Balto's post. While some of the examples can be extreme, they are just publicized realities that people who have acquired things in life feel.
When you are in the public eye and scrutiny there is pressure to always be perceived a certain way. That is a different type of stress that those who have not acquired certain things may not feel (its just different, not more or less).
For those of us who may not be celebrities, but we have done well for ourselves or have reached a certain comfort level in life, is there not pressure to maintain? What about fear of loss of _______(fill in the blank). Maybe the pressure to always be a good spouse, dependable child, etc. I'm the one that my friends and family sees as always making logical decisions, not needy, self-sufficient, etc. Even though I am not married, I find that I am attracted to men who have a caregiver personality, stable, just take care of business mind-set. Why? Because I am tired of being all those things, and I want somebody that I don't have to be strong all the time with, I don't have to be the constant decision maker, etc. Because I do those things all day long.
I think Sarno in the MindBody Syndrome spoke of personality traits that lead to TMS. Usually people, such as celebrities, who have reached these levels have these personality traits. The pressure to always be viewed a certain way, when deep down you just want to be nurtured or not be "on display" all the time can cause deep anxiety and depression. Then it becomes a love/hate situation. Yes the rich may have more money to deal with their issues, but at the same time they have become defined by their status. It becomes difficult to walk away, because you may start feeling like a failure. How many times have we seen celebrities disappear for a while, then try and make a comeback? Its that constant struggle between the pressure to maintain what you have, and just wanting to be... |
| jennypeanut |
Posted - 10/03/2012 : 21:08:29
I also think Balto has some good points and am confused as to why this sparked offense. I have often thought of the celebrities and their tumultuous lives. We think they would have everything one would need in life to live happily yet many of them live short lives full of misery. They seem to lead lives full of heartbreak, depression and chaotic behavior. I feel compassion towards them because I think that fame comes with a heavy price and they often fall so publicly. It shows me that money and fame are not the paths to happiness and like Balto says, having more stuff, stigma, etc leads to more tension. I believe that defining success by money or fame is a trap. We are meant to worship not be worshiped and I think it crushes people.
On the subject of the poor - the poor I have known - and I'm talking homeless or on government aid - also have loads of tension, hurting backs, depression, TMS. I don't think TMS cares how rich or poor you are but I think it helps to have compassion for all people struggling, even the rich. Money can't buy you happiness. And it must be a pretty daunting realization for those people when they reach the top that they are still not happy and still not feeling good. |
| mala |
Posted - 10/03/2012 : 19:37:58
Hi Andy,
Mala wasn't it a struggle and didn’t we both do well?
Absolutely & I wouldn't do it any differently.
Yes its worrying, a whole generation of baby boomers getting old many of whom are in debt & many pension schemes that have failed. Not to mention people now living into their nineties needing medical attention. It scares me.
Andy like you I have also tried to be as unlike my parents as possible. Its ironic that despite my mother's education & background & her negative experience with her own arranged marriage, she very much wanted me to have an arranged marriage with a nice 'Indian' boy but that wasn't going to happen & it caused many problems with my aunts & uncles & cousins who thought I was being difficult.
There is definitely a lot of truth in what you say about family members being jealous & almost wanting to see you fail. Maybe its the fact that we are willing to take certain risks that they are too scared to. I think the whole psychology of that is rather interesting.
I'm really happy for you & Sheila
Take care
Mala
Honestly, I sometimes really get fed up with my subconscious. It's like it's got a mind of its own.
Alexei Sayle
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| Ace1 |
Posted - 10/03/2012 : 19:05:23
Balto I think what you just said makes a lot of sense. I'd have to say that the poor also may have a lot of hardships and a lot to worry about. This definitely leads to TMS, so I think the extremes on each end add to the likely hood for TMS. |
| mala |
Posted - 10/03/2012 : 19:03:09
Hi Balto.
Balto I get your point & I'm also really touched by your desire to want to help me & others here but you also need to get mine. Those people on the list have major major depression, are on all kinds of drugs/medication, have been depressed most of their lives and some have even committed suicide. They take pills to sleep, pills to get up, pills for everything. The only pills i take are vitamins for crying out loud. They are also highly creative, intelligent, artistic, temperamental & face a lot of time in the public limelight. So pls don't compare me to them. Coz if you do then you don't really know who I am despite my trying to tell you.
Also you comments about about the rich or more fortunate having more problems shows a rather simplistic view.
The media frequently focuses on the rich & famous. So we don't get to hear too much about what is happening to the poor. Their problems are sometimes more serious than the problems of the wealthy. They just don't make for good reading. Ordinary people are far too obsessed with the rich & famous.
First are the economic problems. Many struggle to fulfill basic needs like obtaining food, housing and health care. Some things in life that rich people take for granted can be completely out of reach for less wealthy.
Then there are the psychological consequences of being poor and having less options in life. Poor people are more likely or just as likely to suffer from low self-esteem, stress and depression. They may feel less optimistic about ever being able to improve their lives. Even when they work hard there is a high chance they will never be able to escape poverty or help their children to do so. In India many many farmers have committed suicide in the last few years becoz they were in massive debt, their crops failed & the Govt. did not do anything to help. They leave behind families that are doomed to another generation of poverty.
The more fortunate can easily get help for their problems if they want to. For any problem in life there are experts they can turn to - doctors, psychologists, financial and career advisers, life coaches. Poor people can't and are left to fend for themselves with very little help. Their peers are in the same boat & can offer very little help.
Poverty can cause serious psychological social and economic problems for people. The severity of those difficulties make most of rich people’s problems look almost ridiculous. Which is why I have no sympathy for those kind of people who have everything & yet still screw up & lose it all. You know the Lindsay Lohans, Amy Winehouses, Whitney Houstons etc.
Mala
Honestly, I sometimes really get fed up with my subconscious. It's like it's got a mind of its own.
Alexei Sayle
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| balto |
Posted - 10/03/2012 : 14:59:35
First of all, if anyone got offended by this post of mine, you need to really work on not being so sensitive. I don't know what is in my post that would offend anyone, it is just a thought of what might be another cause or contributed to tms/anxiety.
Hi Mala, to me, depression, anxiety, tms, ocd, ptsd, cfs, .... are just different symptoms of the same illness, they all caused by our negative emotions. The link I gave is just an example of people of fame and fortune who suffered from tms (depression).
The reason I posted that because I thought we together maybe able to some how find all we can about what is holding you back from healing. You are here for a long time, you should be an expert in tms/anxiety by now, then what is holding you back?
Many of my friends, my siblings and relatives are very well off and successful. But Many of them also suffered from symptoms of tms/anxiety and the more I learn about tms the more I question if somehow their fortune, their life style, their fame contributed to their illness. the life style they have is somehow produced stress which result to negative emotions. There are study done in Thailand (I had post about this before) that showed when people move from the farm to the city to work in factory, their rate of back pain increased. And when those factory worker moved up the ladder and achieved some success in term of position and income, again, their rate of back pain increased. Why?
There are a variety of studies, looking at a variety of entirely different Thai populations, and showing a variety of rates of prevalence.
- Tomita et al. 2010 - Thai and Myanmar seafood factory workers (13.8%-68.2%, see table 2)
- Janwantanakul et al. 2008 – Thai office workers – 12 month prevalence 34%
- Sopajareeya et al. 2009 – Thai nurses – 12 month prevalence 61.5%
- Chaiamnuay et al. 1998 – Rural Thai – Lifetime prevalence 8.2%
- Osaka & Nanakorn, 1995 – Rural Thai – 30 day prevalence 0.7%
And manual farming is not an easy job.
After the VN war, many Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodians immigrated to the west. After a few decades many of those became financially successful. A researcher in my community did a study and found that the rate of anxiety and chronic pain is 3 times higher in the upper income immigrants than the lower income immigrants. Why?
I thought about this a lot and my thought is the rich just have a lot more pressure, more tension, more stress in their life than the poors. I remember when I bought my first car, it was $500. It run but it look very very unattractive. I never worry about locking the door because no one would care to break in or stealing that car. I washed once a year and never care what people think about it. My friend just bought a nice Lexus. The car already has a good alarm system but she still bought a club to lock the steering wheel. She has something called Lojack to track the car if it is stolen, she wash and wax the car every week, she has it tune and care for more than what the owner's manual recommended.
I think when we have more we just worry more. We worry about loosing our money, our status, our house, our security... We worry about how to fit in with people of the same income and status, we worry about how our investment do. We worry about what our neighbor think about our house, our car, how we dress, how we live our life... If we still work we usually hold important position and we worry about our work performance, we worry about how people under us perform and how people above us think about our work...
The more we have the more we worry about keeping it, insure it, protect it,... and that is stressful.
We are all different, this is just another look at what else can contribute to causing tms/anxiety. I think if we can adopt a "don't care attitude" it may help elliminate many of our life stresses.
Your life story is very impressive and interesting Mala. Thanks for sharing it and I'm sure you will find a way to heal.
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience. |
| andy64tms |
Posted - 10/03/2012 : 13:05:14
Hi Mala,
I enjoyed your post very much. I was interested to hear about the lifestyle in Hong Kong and the life you have made for yourself there. From your post I recognize that you are indeed self made, and that you have looked after your financial health and future well being. Here in the USA we have millions of baby boomers coming up to retirement with little or no savings for the future, yet they have posh houses and new cars, and carry unbelievable debt. Think of the stress they are under, I am glad I'm not one of them!
When Balto mentioned those comparisons, I felt “Ouch”. There are things you just don’t say, as well as many topics we should avoid. While attending Job hunting seminars I learnt what many of these topics were, and actually had a list of things “Not To Say” in an interview. I know Balto meant well, and I think he knows you better from this post. I enjoy his posts and his sig comment. “No I don’t know everything”.
Your story also rang true with me in many other ways, we have much in common. There seems to be a “British” theme to your background and the unhappiness that is associated with alcohol and smoking. Two habits that are centered around the self and one’s own ego. In this regard I too had unhappy parents, though they were loath to admit it. They learnt to be unhappy with each other, and lasted in denial, bickering for 65 years, never trying to improve their relationship. I have made supreme effort to be as unlike them as possible with Sheila as my guiding light. I was recently touched by the section about this in SteveO’s book, and I agree the family unhappiness has to stop here with me.
My family’s opposition to my marriage was a major turning point in my life. I realize now, also thanks to SteveO’s book that the opposition was indeed a “casting” of their own fears of what I was about to do; marry a woman with two children and immigrate to USA. Over the years it became obvious that my parents, brother and sister were jealous of our success and happiness. - Go figure that one!
The word "forgiveness" comes to mind, but I'm just not there yet.
Mala wasn't it a struggle and didn’t we both do well?
Andy
Past TMS Experience in 2000, with success.
Back on Wiki Edu Program day 12
Charlie Horse on neck for 20 years. (to be evicted later.)
Books:
Healing Back Pain
Unlearn your Pain
The Great Pain Deception |
| mala |
Posted - 10/02/2012 : 18:59:09
Hi Shawnsmith. Thx for reading the post & replying.
I think it is important for our own sense of inner well-being not to begrudge other people's good-fortune or to assume that just because they are materially well-off that everything is fine in their personal lives. Comparing ourselves to others is a losing battle and can lead to inner rage and a sense of inadequacy in oneself. No matter how good I do something, someone is going to do it better with less effort. No matter how much I have, someone is always going to have more......etc etc.....
Very well put. Comparing oneself to others is a surefire recipe for unhappiness. However in today's materialistic world, this has become the norm. So many unhappy people becoz they can't have what they want or want what others have. Where does it all end. I see so much of this around me & I despair sometimes.
It happens a lot here in HK where people live in very very tiny flats. 6 people say in 500 sq feet. Home is really just a place for taking a shower & sleeping. There is no entertaining done at home, no inviting people to yr house for dinner. So all the attention goes on showing off the latest acquisition at work or school. The latest fashions, the latest gadgets. Paying a premium say for the I phone 5 just to impress friends is the latest.
I've always been lucky with languages & it didn't have to do much with traveling really. I'm just one of those people that God has been kind too in that dept. I learned Cantonese with our helper here, English & French at school in HK, Hindi in India, Nepali working with Gurkhas in HK , Punjabi from my parents & Urdu just for fun from my mom who was born in what is now Pakistan.
I have an extremely weird trait Language wise. I always take on the accent of the person I'm talking to. In the beginning my husband used to think I was taking the Mickey but soon realized that it was totally unconscious. He can now predict quite accurately after a few minutes who I'm talking with on the phone. LOL. My grandpa in India would tell me that I used to talk in my sleep in 3 differnt languages!!.
take care
Mala
Honestly, I sometimes really get fed up with my subconscious. It's like it's got a mind of its own.
Alexei Sayle
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| shawnsmith |
Posted - 10/02/2012 : 12:07:39
That was an amazing post Mala, thanks for sharing. I printed it out and read it from beginning to end.
I think it is important for our own sense of inner well-being not to begrudge other people's good-fortune or to assume that just because they are materially well-off that everything is fine in their personal lives. Comparing ourselves to others is a losing battle and can lead to inner rage and a sense of inadequacy in oneself. No matter how good I do something, someone is going to do it better with less effort. No matter how much I have, someone is always going to have more......etc etc.....
I always looked upon those people who speak several language with awe and respect, and even jealousy, for there is nothing I respect more than those who have taken the time to educate themselves. Then I came to recognize that to be multi-lingual is associated with a lot of personal pain and turmoil, ie moving around a lot and sometimes political instability.
I think it is better to be happy with what you have and if it is necessary to compare yourself with anyone, then think of those worse off and then be thankful.
I don't always practice what I preach and it gets me into a lot of trouble.....LOL. |
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