The sadness of being

John Paul II memorial, St. Anne's Hill

When I was in Poland two weeks ago, my friend showed me some pretty interesting places. Her Grandma lives in Silesia and my friend visits her a couple of times every year. It was my first time in Poland and the only negative thing about this trip was, that I don't speak any Polish. Luckily my friend's Grandma spoke some German and her husband some English. I enjoyed my stay there, and I met lots of nice and friendly people.

One day we went to St. Anne's Hill. its chapel is an important destination for Roman Catholic pilgrimage. I took some pictures of this amazing place and also the John Paul II memorial they built to remember his visit in the 1980s. 

Besides all these good impressions, there was one thing that keeps me thinking. My friend showed me her Grandma's neighborhood and where the kids lived she used to play with. We went to the cemetery and she showed me the grave of one of her friends. He wanted to save someone from drowning, wanted to rescue the kid in a nearby lake. The kid survived but my friend's friend died, he drowned. Her best girl friend died in a car accident. Her mother was with her in that car, she survived but will never fully recover from this and what happened to her daughter. Both friends of my friend were only about 18 years when they passed away.

St. Anne's Hill chapel

Too often I don't think about how soon life can be over. I read an article about a girl who died because she was texting while driving. It only needs one second of carelessness, not paying attention what's happening. A crash. People can be injured or even die. More and more often I hear about persons who use their phones while driving. No matter if they "just" want to call someone, write a text or whatever. They underestimate the danger, not only the one they put themselves in, but also other people. You can easily lose control.
Imagine you are driving and then, in the blink of an eye, you see lights coming closer and there is no way for you to avoid a crash. It's not your fault, but the other one's did something on his phone instead of paying attention to the street.

Car accidents happen way too often, and many of them can be prevented. Why do some guys think it's cool to text and drive? Is it necessary to take life for granted and to not think of the risks? Or maybe to think that nothing will happen because nothing happened all the times before? Misbelief.

I think a lot about life and what really matters. I also go often to my Grandpa and my Grandma's graves, just because I want to "see" them. And I think of my time with them, how much we laughed and how much fun we had. Then I think of how many years have passed since then, and that it doesn't seem to be this long. It was like they were just here, and then they were gone. Your eyes can't see them anymore but anyway I can feel that they are still here with me. And when it comes to my Grandma, I'm happy I had these 12 years with her, because the doctors said she will only live a few months more after her cancer diagnosis. She lived more than 10 years longer. So at least we had that time together.

Life is unique, it's special. And once it's gone, well you can't buy a new one or fix everything. It's not like a car or something. Life is precious. And I realized too often how soon it can be over. But it's not important how many years you lived as long as you actually lived. You can only do that when you love, when you embrace and enjoy your life. Be yourself, leave your own footsteps in the sand of life. The people who only follow someone's traces never dared to be themselves.

No money can buy what really matters in life. You're born naked, you enter this world having nothing, and you can't take anything with you when you have to go. But while living, many become greedy, they want more and more. More money, more wealth, more luxury. Sure it's better to have a bit more than a bit less, but having too much can destroy people. They start thinking more and more about making more and more $$, and forgetting about the rest. Friends and family are the ones who won't forget you, who love you for who you are. That's what money can't do. And only true love and someone who really cares for you, makes you happy and alive. Don't take that for granted!

Happy new year!!!

This is my last blog post this year and I wanna wish you all a wonderful and happy new year 2014!!! May it be joyful and successful. When I look back I realize that it wasn't an easy and definitely not the best year of my life. So I really hope for a better 2014!!! But it wasn't that bad and it was another chapter of my life who made me the person I am today.

In 2014 I wanna travel more, earn more money to see the world and meet my friends who don't live pretty close where I live. I also wanna show them more how much they mean to me and how blessed I feel to have them in my life. I spent Christmas with my family, and it was great that my cousin came from Crete to celebrate with us. She, her hubby and their son leaved this morning. Next year I plan to visit them!

I took some time this holidays to think about my life, the things I wanna change but also the things I'm glad they happened. My time at college is almost over, and I hope to finally get some positive feedback and get a chance to work again. I also wanna write more, I have so many stories in my head, so I wanna take more time for me and do what I love so much. I think sometimes it's important to switch the everyday stress off, as hard as it is. Sometimes it could help to only switch off my phone one evening because I really don't like it to be permanent online because I think this can cause stress too. I mean when something really important happens these people can reach me without whatsapp or what ever.

For me the greatest joy is when I see a smile on the faces of the people I love. That is the greatest gift, and as important money these days is, I try to remind me more often next year, that everything that really matters is not a thing and can't be bought.

Do you have new year's resolutions? How was your 2013? I hope you had a great year and find something positive that happened this year, and I wish you a great new year 2014!!! Take care!! xoxo San

Life on the fast lane

When I look back at my childhood I remember having a pen pal living in Eureka, California and an other one living in Scotland. I wrote them letters by hand, not on the computer, and I sent them by mail. It took a while till their letters reached me, but I had something to look forward to. Waiting for an answer, what might be in the letter? What will she tell me? I was excited and when the letter finally arrived, I opened and read it, and reread it. But what happened to that? People send emails and texts, they don't have to wait for an answer that long. Once they sent a message, a few seconds later their phone blinks or makes a sound, and ta-dah there is the reply.

These days everything is fast, you have no time to rest, and no time to waste. We are all busy and we are always a step ahead. Yesterday at college our lecturer told us, that we can only do something well when we are completely present and aware of what we're doing in that very moment. Only when we pay full attention to it, we can reach the best results. But the problem is, as I said, we're mostly a step ahead. He explained it that normally when we sit we should just sit, when we stand we should stand and when we walk we should walk. But how is it really? When we sit we already think about standing and when we stand we already think where to go.

spend some time with your friends and family
picture by D. Sharon Pruitt

Many people don't allow themselves taking some time, they say: we don't have time for this, no time for that, they are all in a hurry all the time. Everything has to be fast. Sending a letter is for many people a waste of time, because till it arrives and till they get the reply, well that all simply needs too much time. So they grab their phones, type just a few words, but don't waste time writing full sentences or even complete words, and click the "send" button. But by doing that, they already think about the next message they have to send, then the meeting with the boss, then the birthday party of their kid. They are always a step ahead.

Working and doing stuff is great, but imagine a world without waiting. Would it be really that great like many guys think? Is it important that everything is that fast? Is waiting really that bad? When you're waiting till a good book will be released, waiting for a new song to come out, waiting for the new episode of your favorite TV show, waiting for the letter or a phone call or meeting your best friend or relatives again who you haven't seen in a while. Isn't it great when you can take time and wait for something to happen? I guess for soon-to-be parents pregnancy is something very special, when they wait for their kid to fulfill their lives. Imagine there would be a app for your phone and you click on it and ta-dah, your baby is there. As much as you want to meet her, see her and hold her in your arms, you also want to wait, because waiting is part of the whole beautiful experience. 

And isn't it the waiting that makes so many things just easier? I just recently read "The Little Prince" and if you haven't you should do it. There is so much truth in it, and in my next posts I will write about them. When the little Prince meets the fox, it told him that it wants to be tamed because only then, when the Prince takes his time to tame the fox, it will be important to the Prince and the Prince will be important to the fox. Otherwise the Prince will just be one of many princes and the fox only one of many foxes - the time we spend with someone makes this someone special to us. But people have no time to meet new people, to get to know new things. They want everything fast, they buy online instead of going to a mall, they buy instant meals instead of cooking for themselves. But they can't just buy friends, because a good, deep and long-lasting friendship needs time, so many people don't really have friends.

Tame an animal and it won't be just an animal, but a friend
pic by D. Sharon Pruitt

It's even more impressive to read the "The Little Prince", because it was written in the 1940s and it's still relevant. People are busy at work, busy all the time, in a hurry, always a step ahead. But you live right here, right now, so take some of your time to rest, to spend it with your family and friends. Get to know new stuff, new people, don't be in a hurry all the time. Have no time for being in a hurry. Take time to be there for the people you love, and when you're with them, don't think about your next appointment or your job. 

And when you know you will meet someone at a special time, then you can wait for that moment to come. And you will extend your happiness while waiting.

The ability of liking someone or something

Have you ever asked yourself why you like someone, or not? It mostly happens in the first few seconds. Imagine you are sitting in a bar, having a drink with you friend and then you see this person. You can't hear her voice yet, because she's too far away, but coming towards you slowly. The closer she comes, the better you can see her. And already in that very moment you have made your first opinion of her. At college we learned that communication already starts the way we are dressed. Clothes showcases our personality to others. Clothes represents us. So when someone wears something that you would wear too, it's more likely you think positive about her.
And what is you meet that person on the internet? Well, more or less it depends on the person's writing. Does she use similar words like you, you keep writing with her, also when you figure out she likes the same things or she went through the same, like getting through a divorce.

But back to the bar. Imagine that person sits right next to you, talking to you. Now it's not only her clothes that you recognize, it's her voice, the way she talks, her gestures and her smell. In the German language there's the saying "Ich kann dich gut riechen", which simply means "I like you", but when you translate it word by word it's "I can smell you well". This might sounds weird to you, but it makes sense because several studies proved that smell is also an important factor if you like someone or not. It reminds you of a good childhood memory, or this person just smells like someone you know and like. We don't recognize this actively, but passively. I guess you all smelled something and then remembered something. For me it's like when I use the scent I used on a vacation. So every time I smell it, my memory of the vacation comes back, so I love it now even more.

Who are the reasons we like someone or something?
picture taken by D. Sharon Pruitt

But what is about Sheldon, the quirky character of the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, played by Jim Parsons? Is he liked by more and more guys because so many people already like, write and talk about him? I guess if he would exist the way Jim plays him, he would be as popular as in the show. So can it also be possible that someone who is liked by many people, will be liked by even more just because of that? Yes. We are interested in what others like, especially if it's liked by someone we like because of the above mentioned things. So we keep focused and even though we don't understand what people like about that person at the beginning, we stay interested. And some day, we start liking that person, maybe because we wanted to know more about him because so many guys seem to like him. And then these facts we learned about that person, make us feel we know him well, and maybe let us realize that we have more similarities with him than we thought at first.

It's also about other stuff for sure, not only people. So often that some friends talked about something like a book, a movie or a TV show, then I was curious, started to watch or read it and liked it, or not. It's not always working, because we are all different, and it's not the worst thing when two people who like each other don't agree with everything. Sometimes it's good to have a different opinion on something. Maybe this interest will bring you to someone else who also is a fan of that. So you meet people in your life. Sometimes the more you know about them, the more you like them, and sometimes people drift apart because their interests changes too much and they have less and less in common.

What do you think of that? How do you know when you really like someone or something? What's important to you?

The grown-up simulation

Kids want to become an adult as quickly as possible. But what when they are one? When they reach a point in life and want to be a kid again? Having such an easy-going life, a huge fantasy in which everything can happen. What a peaceful world. They don't have responsibility for anything, they just live and every single day is a new adventure. Children play the whole day, they get a register and play bank teller. And the next day they are a doctor. Kids can be whatever they want, whenever they want it. Isn't that great? And their parents protect them no matter what they do.

It's great to be a kid, but so often we want the opposite of what we have, of what we are. So a kid wants to have more rights, makes her own decisions, and doesn't want to hear stuff like "this is a grown-up talk, go playing". I heard that when I was a kid, mostly when we visited my grandma once a week. So my mom wanted to talk to her mom, which I can understand now, but back then... Well, when you are a kid, you have to be the number 1. You want your family to go where you want to go, you want to talk with them about your favorite topics and play with them when and what you want. But one day you'll realize, life is not only about you.

When I started to watch The Big Bang Theory about 1 1/2 years ago, and saw some videos on youtube afterwards, I could not understand why so many guys like Sheldon. He seemed to me the weirdest person of them all. But after I saw Jim doing interviews, I started to like him and so I kept focusing on Sheldon. I still see Jim in him, and so I like him now too, but I think people like Sheldon for what he is. Just himself. He is like a kid, who loves to play and who loves to be the number 1. And to be honest: who doesn't like that?

The thing is when we get older, we try to fit in, like to a group of people. We want to be liked by others, and because they are not our parents of who we can be sure that they like is no matter what we do, say or how we look like, we start acting. But sometimes when we act too much, we can lose ourselves in it. And this is when we stop being who we really are. The best thing of being a kid is, being simply yourself. They do not care that much what others think about them, because they know one thing certainly, and that is the only thing that really matters: my parents will love me.

Acting the whole time can be exhausting. It's a hard job, but we want to fit into the society, and so we go out, every single day, not playing, but acting. Life is a play, the stage is everywhere we go and we are the protagonists of our own play, doing our best that the audience, the people around us, like what they see. That they want to get in touch with us, maybe even work with us. We want to be loved, and think the more people love us the better. You can see that on Twitter or Facebook. When kids grow older and become teenagers they mostly think they are only great when the have thousands of followers or friends. But is that amount important? Does this mean I am not likeable only because I don't have as many followers as Lady Gaga?

Even Sheldon is growing up now, realizing that a relationship is between two people, and both are important. Life is not about one person. We all need each other. We can't expect people to like us, when we don't show that these guys are important to us, too. We want to be their number 1, and they want to be our number 1, it's all about give and take. And isn't it great to take care of someone you love? No matter how far his relationship will go, he will always stay Sheldon. A man who loves to play, to might do some stuff of which some other guy might say it's odd. But who cares? The people who are important will like him anyway, for just the way he is. That he dares to be himself.

I'll always be on your side

We need to grow up, to get through life, but we should also keep our childish side. We shouldn't stop playing, we should allow us to do sometimes some childish things, and think less about what others could think about us. You can act, and when someone's not liking you, just say you acted the wrong way, but it's braver to act who you really are. People who don't like you then, aren't worth to be part of your life. Because it's not important how many people like you, it's important that you are liked by the persons you love. And the ones who really love you, like your family and friends, love you the way you are, and not what you try to pretend to be.

Live every single moment

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you can enjoy that day with your family and friends. It wasn't that long ago that I wrote about so many things in our lives we take for granted and don't really appreciate that we are lucky to have them. The most precious things in life can't be paid with any money. I would be nothing without my family and friends, who always support me, who are always there for me. I am really deeply grateful for having them in my life.

Another thing we often don't really appreciate is time. That we have this time to spend, that we have the chance to live - these things are unique, these things are special. We often complain about the things we don't have, instead of being thankful for what we have. So many things we only recognize when we lost them. In my mind, that's very sad. Life offers so much to be grateful for. That we have this life, that we can live, that we are healthy, that we have a family and friends who take care of us, that we have a home which is not about the building but, like the heart, about the people who are in there, that we can breathe, that we can smell, hear and listen, taste and the only sense we can't live without: touch.

We can feel, people can touch us, not only by actually touching us. Some touch our heart, make us cry, make us laugh. I thank every person who stepped into my life: at school, at work, at college, on blogger or twitter. It's great to get in touch with all of you. I wouldn't be the person who I am right now, if anything would have happened differently. Sometimes we meet people, and one day we figure out their real truth. That can hurt, that can upset, but in the end we realize that this made us stronger. Also the bad times we have to go through are part of our personality, part of the person we are right now.

I do think that not only people we meet in person can change and inspire us. Also people from TV, singers, actors, writers, maybe also politicians, or any other person we once heard about can do that. When they do or say something that maybe reminds us of our own, or when they just do something really kind, generous or something you wish to do but never dared. What ever it is, all of these guys can change us and are part of our life. We take our time to spend being interested in them, in their work. Spending time with someone is the greatest gift we can give. Time never comes back, and so every little moment. Maybe you think that a little moment means nothing compared to your entire life, but aren't all these little moments our life?

picture taken from hhdwallpapes

So thank you for taking your time to read this. Thanks for visiting my blog. Have a very happy Thanksgiving!!

What are you thankful for? How do you spend your Thanksgiving?

Do you wanna be my friend?

When I was a kid, I collected horse pictures, or magazine scans of my fave celebrities. But these days the kids are more interested in collecting friends. The more friends they have, the better they feel. But it’s not important to know them in person, just to impress others - I guess.

I never understood why it’s important to have about 500+ friends on Facebook. But I guess the kids feel more popular having so many ‘friends’. But they aren’t really their friends, they are mostly only a number. One of my friends told me about a guy who had that many ‘friends’ on Facebook, but when he needed help because he moved into his first own apartment, there were only two people there who helped him. So my question: why do you need so many so called 'friends'?

Is a real and true friendship still possible, when everyone is online all the time? Is this a species which still exists, or will it die out? I love my friends, the people I know in real life. I have also firstly met people online and then in real life, that’s a good thing, too. I believe that it still can exist, and that it is way better and much more important than a guy you justed added that you have one more ‘friend’ on your list. And when you don’t like him or her anymore, you just delete that person. Which is not very friendly, and in my mind this proves that it’s only named ‘friends’ but has nothing to do what we really know as a friend.

Please don't get me wrong: I love to get in touch with people online, that's why I'm on blogger and twitter and now also on Movellas, but I like to write with these people, to communicate with them. For me it's a difference if I chat with people, spending time with them and get to know them better, or if they are just a number on a list. So of course you can have 500+ friends, and it's for sure a good thing, but not when you only try to have a large amount of 'friends' and don't care about or are interested in them. Because in my mind, people deserve to be more than just a number on a list.

be close to your real friends, because they make you smile

What is friendship for you? Do you enjoy spending time with your friends? Or do you think it’s easier having only friends online and never really meet them?

My best friend’s a rabbit… and imaginary

Who had never had at least once an imaginary friend? Is this one of the geeky things on us? I guess I hadn’t just one – I had lots of imaginary friends. When you become older, you find out that is better not to have such friends. Otherwise someone will take you to a shrink, or directly into a mental institution. And you also know, that having real friends to talk to is even better.

Anyway, having an imaginary friend can sometimes help and encourage you. If you have something on your mind, but you don’t wanna talk about it to anyone, you can think about someone. No matter who this person is, if it’s someone you know, any star or just someone completely created in your mind, it can help you. You can talk to him or her, feel better afterwards and maybe you also think what she would answer you and so get another point of view. I don’t think that anything is wrong with that, maybe because I do it sometimes. Just when no one is around, or I am not sure how or even if I should tell to someone real.

But why a rabbit? We know the Easter bunny. We know that rabbits are smart and fast. And they are also symbols of birth, a new beginning. A rabbit seems to be loyal and frankly. He is clever, and so gives useful advices when you have a problem. This might help you to get a new start, or a new point of view on something.

Today is the offical start of Harvey on New York Broadway. When I read the first time about it, and I haven’t seen it so far, I thought this is really interesting. An imaginary friend, that no one else can see, and his ‘inventor’ is such a warm and friendly person who wants to connect with everyone. I would really love to see this. The story is wonderful and I guess also Jim will do an awesome job. I like seeing him in other roles than Sheldon, and live on stage would be extra special. But as a student I’m probably richer of knowledge than of money…ha, joke, would be great if it really would be like that. No, but I also have soon my exams I have to work for, and such a trip to NYC is simply impossible now. But I am happy for everyone who’ll get the chance to see this wonderful play.