Tag Archives: relationships

Blame.

Our family eat a lot of fresh fruit, so, as is typical after a big shop at the markets the Esky came in as temporary overflow. I was digging through the Esky to find an avo for guacamole and saw that 4(!) punnets of raspberries which we bought for Christmas Day pavlova had quite significantly put down roots. It wouldnt be unusual for my brother to eat 3-4 punnets of berries in a sitting and I assumed he would have eaten one of the many punnets of blueberries spread around the raspberries since we had bought them. I immediately thought “how could he not notice!” Followed by “how could he not tell anyone! We could have put them in the fridge.” I told Mum and she wasn’t happy, mostly that the raspberries had gone mouldy but was also annoyed at my brother. When he came down later that night we both had a chat to him about how could I realise that they were mouldy and he couldn’t and continued having a small dig at him about it all. He had a good reason not to, he had some blueberries on the top of the esky that afternoon and didn’t look at anything.

After this short encounter I thought, “why did I automatically blame him for this” because it clearly wasn’t his fault, it was the fact we had humid weather and no space in the fridge, as well as just bad luck. Nobodies fault, just bad luck. I think we blame people automatically for mistakes to remove any accountability from ourselves. In this scenario, it may have been a minor percentage my fault for not thinking to make some more space in the fridge, thus the raspberries stayed out in the esky longer than they had to; if it was my brothers fault, then any slither of blame was off my shoulders.

I realised that sometimes these things happen, things that are nobody’s ‘fault’ go wrong, for no reason other than a slight oversight or sheer bad luck. Resorting to blame is a very unproductive but also unfair move to make because it doesn’t change the outcome. At the end of the day, even if someone is to blame from whatever has happened, if my brother saw the raspberries getting mouldy and did nothing, yes its a bit annoying, yes he’s lazy, but it doesn’t change the fact that we can no longer eat the raspberries. Therefore, there is no point getting worked up about because you cannot change the outcome.

Similarly, I find we often get worked up about the smallest thing, continuing with the raspberries, they are just raspberries, we can very easily go 5mins up the road to buy some more. Yes they are just about the most expensive per/g fruit you could buy but it’s a very small expense at the end of the day. Life would be so much more enjoyable if we didn’t get fuss the small stuff. This is what I’m hoping that meditation will help with, and I think the fact that I realised this soon after means I was being more mindful.

P.S. Raspberries is such a weird word and I’ve never seen it written so many times before, what makes them rasp-berries, what does rasp even mean? what a weird thing language is hey, and we don’t even notice this stuff!

Investing in Relationships

Over the past few years there has definitely been a significant increase in the productivity sphere of social media, with the rise of people like Ali Abdaal and Thomas Frank. They are very insightful and have many great tips on strategies to improve your output, but I’ve found this can lead to the pursuit of becoming a machine which churns out study or content for business or social media non stop for 16 hours a day. I love both their work but it can be easy to ignore their advice for achieving balance, which is certainly a trap I’ve fallen into.

In the pursuit of becoming a productivity machine it can be easy to forget to invest in your relationships. My girlfriend told me to have more emotions the other day, “it was like I was a robot” she said. This made me think about the balance in my life. In my mind I was meditating, studying a lot and generally being very productive. I felt like I was on top of everything, but I realised I wasnt devoting enough mental space to my relationships, and this showed in me not showing too much emotion, which certainly isn’t me.

This isn’t a long one, nor a guide at how to be more in touch with your emotions, this is simply a reminder that relationships are arguably the most important thing in life, and producing more content or studying more won’t improve them. It’s important to take some time off, spend uninterrupted time with your friends or significant other, being vulnerable with them, and be willing to divulge as much emotion as you recieve.

Friendships are inevitable with enough time, but they are fast tracked or cemented when you are both vulnerable with each other, when you are willing to listen to their issues but also lay out your own. this is something I’m definitely not putting enough time towards, and am going to focus more on in the future.