I have met with my high-school classmates just recently. It was an anniversary of our graduation from the so-called International Baccalaureate Program. We told each other what kind of jobs we have naturally. I said I was a writer. Naturally. What else could I have said? Well, it’s not exactly a job. I am a financially supported wife. But it’s what I do. Deep inside I have my doubts though. Am I really a writer? Well, I am writing this blog post, aren’t I? Does this make me a writer? Am I a bad writer? Do I really really suck as a writer? Maybe. But I try to do my best. Scout’s honor. In the...

I try to publish a new blog post every fortnight, but I do not force myself to do it, if there is no inspiration to write. One post every second Monday amounts to about 25 texts a year, which is my usual amount. If you check the last two years, you will see that I only posted 15 times in 2017 and only 7 times in 2018. I embraced it. I believe inspiration is a gift and should be treated with gratitude, when it happens. But, of course, I do not make my living by writing, which makes this whole thing possible. I always expect the inspiration with joy and fear, the fear of not getting one before two weeks...

Reading the Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I find that pride is not an esteemed quality in a person. I also remember reading about how pride is a vice and not a virtue in the Buddhist tradition. While Wikipedia for example states both a positive and a negative connotation of pride. What to do about pride then? It has dawned on me the other day, that what we need is to see pride as a spice. Only a smidgen of it will do. What do you think about that? I find it hard to be proud of myself, even a hint of it. I just do not feel any of it. I can well be proud about others, but never of my own...

While some degree of the fear of mistakes is useful and healthy, too much of it can prevent our actions. We might never change things for the better. Or we might never meet new friends for instance. It is true that we can avoid pain by not taking any action and thus omitting mistakes. Yet, the moment we see pain as experience, it might decrease the ‘wrongness’ of a mistake. Of course causing a car accident for instance will always feel wrong. But what about changing a job for example? You earn less at the new job and the change might feel as a mistake. Is it really? Is money everything?...

Some time ago I got this idea that life as such could be compared to a math task. We all get an individual task to solve of course. The starting data differs from person to person. One either has had a happy, a mediocre or a difficult childhood. They say everyone is born with a talent, but we have different ones from having a leader personality to the delicate capabilities of an accomplished bobbin lace weaver. Some people end up being single, while the others struggle with the complications and joys of a partnership. Each and every person on Earth gets a unique task and has to sail through sunshine...