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Fighting my perfectionism

Fighting my perfectionism
 
 
I’m cleaning up my life.
Trying to get rid of old habits is not as easy as getting rid of old stuff.
I cannot sell my bad habits on eBay.
 
Who wants a piece of my perfectionism?
Maybe some people would say directly yes if they don’t have it all. But if it would be so easy…it wouldn’t change me. It’s something you have to work on.
 
If I ask friends or tell them what I don’t like in me it’s common that they don’t understand it at all.
For them my life is near to be perfect.
But who wants to be perfect?
At least not me – it’s more an insult than a compliment for me.
 
So the first step is, what is my perfectionism in detail, splitting it into its various details.
These are only a few examples. If I list each single item I could write a book of thousand pages.
Just a small example on how things influence us and if we become aware it’s the first step of changing them.

Cleaning – I cannot sit quietly and read something or relax if I have the feeling that my flat needs some cleaning.
Problem: it’s only me seeing the dust on the cupboard, water drops on the mirror or dirt in the corner behind my couch, people who visit me just see a complete clean flat.

Solution so far: I started now to set rules for my weekends.
Weekends are cleaning free days from now on. For sure I’m not keeping it too harsh but I try my best to remind myself if I want to start a “cleaning-action”. Just sit on the carpet and read a book or start a meditation and even if I see the dust on the TV, just leave it. I could clean it later or during the week. There will always be something not perfect, as I’m living here, it’s not a sterile area, it’s my home.

Work – having the complete overview. Being aware of every step my staff is doing and detecting the need of additional work or problem solving directly before anyone is considering it.
Problem: I have no twenty-four hour days and even if it’s not my task. Sure I want to deliver quality but the first thing to learn is to trust others that they are doing their jobs and second is to delegate. Delegate with checking it again in depths afterwards, I could have done it myself if I feel the need to check it.

Solution so far: Letting go and trusting, that’s on my to do list for work.
I work with professionals so why don’t trust. I started to let go at least a bit and one of the results is that I’m really stop working after my contracted working hours. And not as before with a bad feeling as still so many things need to be done. No, with the feeling, that things are fine and my leisure time can start. I’m not feeling as exhausted as I felt weeks before. Just get some time for yourself to be with yourself, friends and live. Work life shouldn’t be the major part of your life. We work to live, not we live to work!

Look – everything is fitting, the nail polish is chosen to meet the colour of my shoes, belt, handbag, my shape is completely underlined by the clothes I’m wearing. My hair is shiny and perfect but should look a bit undone, not too perfect. No spots in my face or lipstick on my teeth. Skin needs to be slightly tanned.
Problem: No one is perfect and no one is looking like women in magazines – and I know that, there’s no photoshop in real life and it’s good that we are all unique beings, so why am I like this?
I have to relax!
All these small things bothering me are not realized by anyone around me. It’s just my mind pushing me into this direction. Simply be and don’t think too much.

Solution so far: I tried it with tiny steps.
Hair undone and I go for shopping, once you realize that no one is looking in a strange way at you, you become more confident with yourself. Only because the nail polish is not matching the rest of your style doesn’t make you a person which looks weird or strange. The truth is nobody is realizing but you. Instead of needing at least fifteen minutes before leaving the flat I go out now without checking and re-checking. A more relaxed way and also something others will like in you. You aren’t the one to wait for any longer.

Others – what may they think about me and my life?
Problem: fortunately no problem.
Solution: I changed already and not recently, no, years ago. When you are young you think about what others think of you. You try to adapt just to fit into the picture others want to have of you. It’s not like this in life. I grew into myself which means whatever decision I made, I made it for my life. So don’t care what others think. It’s your life and you should be happy. It doesn’t mean that you deny other opinions, no, as they are essential, you just judge for yourself if you follow them, took parts out of them into your life or just ignore them totally. For sure I care about what my loved ones think, but this a small holy circle in my life and they don’t expect me to be perfect or to be like they want me to be. They take me as I am. For the rest: I really don’t care what they think.

And again my motto is matching a blog post – keep the faith in you and you are fine.

If you want to fight your perfectionism – check this book, it is a great help to start.

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City or countryside?

City or countryside?
City or countryside?
 
I will turn thirty-five in November and luckily met a man who’s thinking in the same direction as me about life.
 
I have a small flat in the middle of the city.
Perfect if you wanna have the complete city feeling. Cafés and restaurants are just around the corner as well as supermarkets and the green stripe of the river where you have the feeling to be in nature.
That was exactly what I ever wanted when I moved to this place.
My area has grown during the past years and is nowadays one of the hip places to live in Munich.
But why am I not satisfied anymore?
It’s not that I don’t like my flat, it’s still my home, my place where I’m feeling so comfortable but I’m starting more and more to miss the silence.
Not silence like taking earplugs and shut down the world around you.
No, silence like hearing no cars outside twenty-four hours, like not closing the window just to hear what they say on TV, like being outside and having only birds and bees and wind around you which makes sounds while hitting a tree.
A place to step out of the door and being in peace.
A place to slow down and also a place where you can imagine to raise up a child freely.
 

Am I getting old or is it just the normal way to settle down at a certain age?

 
On the other hand I will not completely loose the comfort a city has.
A wide spread variety of different restaurants, we have almost each country here and it’s always exciting to try some unknown food.
Shopping is also so easily done as you will find everything you can think of.
Meeting friends in a café especially in summer is awesome. Sitting outside and just watching the busy people around you is something I like so much.
But would I like it if I always see the same persons like in a small village?
For sure not because this was one of million reasons why I moved.
 

You have to decide what you want…

 
I want a quiet place with a small garden and nature around me but it should only take me no more than fifteen minutes to be in the middle of the city.
Also important is that it’s near to an airport as we will need in more often in future.
I need it from time to time as I’m not traveling too much nowadays but my future husband will not move completely to Germany.
He has his job which he likes so much and we may be able to start our life together in 4-5 week rhythms.
So what to look for?
I’m a person who always wants to plan and organize and know where to be when. But that’s not what life’s about.
 
Perfect would be a small house around Munich where we live and raise our children one day?
No, because where is the father – just there every four weeks?
 
Perfect would be a house in Libya?
No, as I haven’t been there up to now and I cannot imagine something I never saw.
 
Perfect would be moving to a country we both can imagine like UK?
No, as we don’t know how it work out with our jobs.
 
Too many No’s at the moment but where we have a big YES is the question if we want to travel the path of our life together and wherever it will lead us, we will make it hopefully or how libyans say, inshallah.
 
Keep the faith!
 
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What is high society about?

What is high society about?

Fame and fortune, money and sex, drugs and Rock’n’Roll, many think these are the key words for high society.
I see it differently and say it is superficiality.
 
Superficiality?!?
My impression and experience are saying definitely YES.
I had a very bad year in Munich.
(Ok, it were two but the second was a hard way back to myself, that’s another story.)
 
The first year had the overall theme “how to distract myself from the messy life I’m leading”.
 
A relationship where I wasn’t sure if it’s better to stay or to leave.
In order not to think too much about it I was putting myself in a surrounding of ‘so-called’ friends.
Friends who are always happy and smiling and who have no problems at all in their entire life.
 

The first superficial sign!

 
Any human being around the globe has good and not so good or sometimes really bad days. The ones who are hiding who they really are behind a certainly bleached smile are the persons I am writing about.
 
Of course I can only write about my experience. This is no social report about people in Munich, but I think you can find this phenomenon everywhere.
 
As long as you meet these society’s expectations you are very welcome on each and every occasion.
 

What means meeting expectations?

 
They want you to be perfect.
Perfectly dressed, stylish, educated, on the top of actual discussion topics, intelligent, always in a good mood, funny, slightly sarcastic, successful in your business (even better if it’s your own business), interested, and that is how the list goes on and on.
You should have, or at least pretend to have, the money to live an above average standard.
 
Adapt to these expectations is much easier for women, you only pay the drinks once and show that you could afford it and from there on it is definitely a self runner.
You will be invited most of the times – the only money you need is for the taxi back home (if you want to go home alone). It is not that you are invited by men who expect something in return, it is more that you become part of this society. Several persons just book half restaurants to celebrate something and you are invited. As soon as the “group leaders” know your name you’ll find yourself on guest lists for events, openings, charity concerts and more.
 

That sounds awesome, does it? But believe me, it isn’t!

 
I have to admit that I really had lots of fun in the beginning – me, grown up in a small village, in the society of “top” people, which are all successful in what they do and the world is just so easy. Just enjoy life to the fullest.
The dark site of this game is quicker there than you think.
All these people live something which they a.) cannot afford or b.) is a fake or (and this is the biggest mistake) c.) they think life is all about.
 
It’s a big society of pretenders.
They are all artists, singers, actors, high society ladies and so on but at the end of the day they are all poor human beings with low self esteem, lonely and without friends – until the next event starts.
They’re also not successful, the really successful people will not show up there because they know the game.
If you enter the community you will be pulled into it which isn’t good.
Fake Persons
How I Learned To Stop Being Superficial

Leaving this part of my life behind…

  I realized after a few weeks that you see the same faces, each and everywhere; why? Because they have no personal life and no real sense in their being. I intended to live this lifestyle because I was also running. Running away from myself, from lonely nights, from decisions which were long overdue and which I wanted to avoid. The difference is that most of these people, these always seen faces, lead their life in this way since years, sometimes more than decades.   I saw them all, if you start to look behind the scenes you’ll find the actor who has no engagements anymore, who drinks at night to survive the dark and lonely nights.   Or the old rockstar, who once was great, who was successful with his band for a year or two and who is still not accepting that his life is not the rockstar life anymore, and it will not return just because he dresses like one with over sixty.   The model from the seventies thinks she is not getting older because of botox and beauty surgeries.   If the curtains fall, then piece by piece you will find yourself in the middle of the rocky horror “people” show.

Is this what I wanted? NO

My decision was clear, leaving this life behind and face why I turned towards it. Facing the mess my life has been at this stage was the hard way. Running away is much easier, or better said, it seems much easier. Running isn’t easy too, maybe it is the sad way because this life is so unreal until they awake, if they wake up at all, and for some it will be too late by then. My hard way was the way to get back on my path, to find my values, what do I expect from myself and how do I wanna live.   A journey which is never ending and where you can never say I reached the goal until you die but at least I’m on the way to the right direction. But this is another topic, another idea for the next post maybe…

One book recommendation would be “An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England”. Enjoy

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Starting a blog…is not as easy as I thought!

Starting a blog
Starting a blog…is not as easy as I thought!
Omg, in the middle of the night, where I normally should sleep, I start my first blogging steps.
First task on my list:

How on earth to delete empty posts which I started by mistake.

Let’s see what the weekend brings and how I will get used to this page. When will I have time to write, as it should preferably not be in the middle of the night when I am tired.

But yes, the first impression you are getting now about me is right.

If I want something I am never patient and do things just like now – I steal myself precious sleeping time just because I am too curious about something which popped up in my mind without thinking about the direct impact.
Hope I will become more patient in future – you’ll never know.