365 days project 2. Day 37. Decisions, decisions

   Life is formed of a series of decisions. Along the years, people will try to influence you one way or another. And at some points it will be so much easier to just ask others to choose for you when you have no idea what to pick. But will you be able to live with THEIR decision? What if you hate the outcome? What if it's disappointing? What if it doesn't make you happy no matter how hard you try? 

   You have to make decisions every day. So take them yourself. You always have the answer inside. Just that sometimes you have to dig deeper to find it. 

   I love making decisions that are food related. And adding new ingredients to a dish that I found online. Sometimes I have a feeling the outcome won't be as pleasing as it looks like, but other times I am pleasantly surprised. Today was one of those days. This stuffed pasta with chicken, broccoli and Alfredo sauce (plus garlic and leek - own version) is SO delicious I have to say I am proud of the result. 

   It's good that we have to make decisions every day. It means we have options. And options are amazing no matter how hard taking a decision feels like :) Do you feel the same?

Day 318. Bits and pieces

   We aren't completely our own. They have bits and pieces of us: our friends on Facebook, our best friends, our boyfriend, our parents and our siblings, that cute girl we want to be like, our co-workers or maybe even our neighbors. 

   Even if we believe that we are all unique human beings, we are actually very much alike and the ones around us influence our life in ways we don't even acknowledge. Think about it. Every step of the way we compare ourselves to them. And it's a natural process our brain got used to. 

   We take decisions that virtually involve people around us. Even if we don't consciously know it. We just do it. Every. Single. Day. The question is... do you follow your OWN dreams in all this process or do you live THEIR life and follow THEIR dreams because you're too afraid you're going to be judged? 

   Now you know. They have bits and pieces of you. Mostly because you allow it. And you'll allow it for the rest of your life without knowing. But will you give yourself completely to them or will you save some for yourself as well?:) Food for thought:)

Day 242. The help

   We give pieces of advice every day, some because we're asked for and some because we want to prevent something bad from happening. 

   I get it, we care about our close ones and we want them to be happy, but many times we give advice generalizing our experience into an absolute truth. So we tell people what to do, forgetting to take into consideration that they are not us and they have free will. I mean, giving pieces of advice is OK, but we shouldn't expect people to closely follow our ideas. Also, we should prepare that our advice might not always be the best. 

   Giving an advice is tricky. You never know if it will help or actually do harm so it's better to let people take decisions alone, because the answer always lays inside of us. We're just too afraid to admit its presence and follow it. 

   So let's rather follow our inner intuition and be more cautious when asking for and giving a piece of advice.

Day 221. The path

   I had a bittersweet day today. I found out things that were both good and bad for me. 

   I got upset with people, myself, life. Then I took another breath and it was like I was talking to God who was telling me: "Do you trust Me, Dana?" and I said: "I do." "Then, give up on your anger and sadness and just enjoy the good things you found out today. I'm going to take care of you, don't worry." So I listened to that inner talk and I enjoyed the sunny day while laying on the bench with my eyes closed. 

   Today, more than ever, I had reasons to believe that everything happens for a reason and that there's a path written for every one of us before we were even born. When we come to this world, we walk on it without knowing that all our future decisions are already known and somehow through all the great uncertainty of this world, the big puzzle keeps being solved. And people end up being happy. If that's what they seek. I certainly seek happiness. And happiness I shall have. 

"Everything will be okay in the end.

If it's not okay, it's not the end."

Day 88. Faith

   Today I got scared. Like most people do. I felt that things didn't go as planned. That they didn't go my way. I know... irrational thoughts. But once I make plans or decisions, I like to see them happening. And when they go their way, I get confused. Of course, I have the ability to come up with solutions or secondary plans but those feel somehow unconfortable. 

   So, there I was, in the middle of the awkward situation trying to soothe myself. Then it came to me: "Take it easy, everything happens for a reason. If things didn't go your way, a lesson might be just around the corner. Have faith, it's supposed to be happening THIS way. I know you'd like to control it, but it doesn't have to be that way. Breathe. Everything is going to be ok."

   Some say that we attract negative energies if we feel scared, angry or guilty. So, I decided to leave the bad feeling behind and I found myself smiling: "I can do this. It's gonna be ok":)

Day 75. One of those movie moments

   Today I had my last class with the kids from my high school. It was ambivalent. Very nice and rewarding but also very intense and full of shouting too. We had some activities together and they went by just as you would expect some 4th graders to react at 2 PM after a day of classes. Nevertheless, at some point, close to the ending of the day, they  all broke into a noisy mess. It was more than I could normally handle. And I showed it to them by ending everything we were doing. They immediately noticed and I could read on their faces that they were sorry. But I couldn't just leave it at that. They wouldn't have learned anything yet. So I went on and after some moments of complete silence, I told them what I felt. That I was sorry we had to end our meetings like that... being upset and not happy and thankful. And then I let them go home. So they started packing their schoolbags and then they slowly left the room. I started being disappointed that they didn't really feel sorry for what they did for leaving like that.  

   Some minutes passed and while I was thinking about what had just happened questioning myself if I did the right thing, the door opened slowly and, ashamed, all the children stepped inside and told me with a cute guilty face that... they were sorry. One of the girls was teary and that moved me very much. It made me almost cry. They did learn their lesson in the end. 

   Sometimes it's all about taking the right decisions at the right time for people to learn something valuable. So today, I was the bad teacher, but that moment when they came back regretting, that was one of those moments you can only see in movies:)