All what plants have taught me about life

The banana plant, the one in my living room, has taught me a lot more than I could've imagined about life. One year ago, we brought an almost dead plant in a big pot. Suddenly in the new place, with some sun, the old plant died, giving birth to three little banana plants. I couldn't believe that from an almost extinct plant, three more could grow. Just as plants are resilient, we humans are. We do not imagine all what we are capable to go through, and sometimes we need going through very tough times to discover how resilient we are and allow us to grow into what we are supposed to be.

We gave two of the plants away, giving more space to the plant to grow. Plants remind me to humans, specially in the forming years; if you give them space, they will grow. Leave them in a small pot, they won't. The same with water, it needs a balanced amount of water. I see it like the relationships we have. If you give too much water, the plant will die. If you don't give any, it will die as well. The plant will only grow if there is a constant caregiver there, watering it. It needs maintenance, like any relationship to be able to grow.

The plant has been growing for a year. On the top, leaves grow big and fresh. On the bottom, older leaves look smaller and weaker in comparison. The life cycle can be observed anywhere. The old give space to the young. What is young now, won't be tomorrow.

According to psychologist Peter Kramer, resilience, not happiness, is the opposite of depression: Happy people know how to bounce back from failure. Resilience is like a padding for the inevitable hardship human beings are bound to face. As the Japanese proverb goes, “Fall seven times and stand up eight.”


*Taken from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/16/happiness-habits-of-exuberant-human-beings_n_3909772.html

New year wish

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

- Neil Geilman

"Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present."

Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength. No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster.”

“A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.”

“The goal is not to be better than the other man, but your previous self.” 

― Dalai Lama XIV

That's so right

“I used to think the years would go by in order, that you get older one year at a time. But it's not like that. It happens overnight.”   

―   Haruki Murakami - Dance Dance Dance

Chow Mo Wan: Love is all a matter of timing.
Chow Mo Wan: It’s no good meeting the right person too soon or too late.
Chow Mo Wan: If I’d lived in another time or place…
Chow Mo Wan: …my story might have had a very different ending. – 2046

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.

 - Daniel Borstin, in The Discoverers (1983)