I approached my mother while she was cooking (she was cooking because even though she has a broken leg, she offered to cook for me and her), I asked her if she knew why I’m constantly correcting her, when she requests something of me, to which she didn’t really have an answer, somehow she felt offended by the fact that she could learn something anything from me. A few minutes of chatting later and she delivered the wall shattering statement, she said: “Because of you, it’s not easier to live!”.
That was quite painful to hear, especially because since she broke her leg, I was always at her side. It is true that some of the time when she asked me to do something I would ask her how to do that, but that’s mostly to avoid doing something twice, you know, doing it the first time the way you think she wants it done, and then doing it the second time when she sees how you’ve done it and tells you how she wanted it done.
Because of this revelation (a surprising and previously unknown fact that has been disclosed to others) I’ve decided that I will no longer help her. You might think that doing so is a bit childish, but ask yourself what would you do if you’re working as hard as you can but then one day your boss would tell you that you bring nothing good to the company, that you’re just a liability, you would either tell the boss to go fuck himself or you would just quit. In no case would you be okay with it, and just keep doing, unless you desperately need money.
Thus after a silent lunch, I left and went to my friend Rene Kralj (his family name means King :o ), where we sat down and he brew us a good cup of coffee. I like Rene, he’s tall and smart and most of all he gets my humour, which many people don’t and just end up staring at me…
I told him what happened with me and my mother, and he was quiet, as I suspected he might be, so to break the silence I said: “You know what would Rene say to this? Yikes…”.
He laughed and added that in the end, my oldest brother is going to be the last one to leave the house, to which I added that that might very well be the case. Because what’s the point in working if no one appreciates your work?
A hail was brewing so we went and moved our cars under a nearby bridge, which meant we drove there, and then Rene asked me if I could park his car and mine, for some reason he thinks that I’m a better driver then him. Even though I told him that he might be getting that impression just because I care less if I bump a car, which I’m not saying is true, but it is true at least from what I can see, that I worry less.
We have different philosophies for life. I put the story on the very top. Which means for example when buying a gift for someone, it’s more important what story the gift tells then what the gift actually is, that’s why for his birthday this year I bought him a Cezve (a small long-handled pot with a pouring lip designed specifically to make Turkish coffee) that had a white coating on the inside so that he could see when he stopped pouring the coffee and started to pour the remainder of grounded coffee. And a shirt that says “Wetard” which is a joke that we used to make whenever one of us did something wrong. So the cezve tells a story that if he was pouring coffee he would always pour a bit of grounded coffee and when I would pour it I wouldn’t let even a single bit of grounded coffee into the cups. And the shirt tells a story us having a good time playing games and making mistakes. I didn’t buy him a shirt because he needed one, I bought it because it tells a story, it’s a reminder for the fun times we had together.
That’s my philosophy for gift giving. Give then a story not an item. Because as you’ve probably heard at least a hundred times, material objects, material world can’t bring you sustained everlasting happiness, stories can, plus you can always learn from stories.
That’s why the saying “Money can’t bring you happiness” isn’t strictly correct. Because although it is true that object that you can buy with money won’t bring you happiness, the experiences that you can buy with money will bring you happiness. Money can bring you experiences, experiences can bring you good memories, and good memories can bring you happiness (and knowledge). Example: I didn’t have a lot of fun being in the army, but I am very glad that I went, because it taught me things that I couldn’t imagine. You can try to imagine what’s it like being in the army, but you will never get close to the real thing. Same goes for everything in life. You can imagine getting shot, but it will always be much different then the reality.
Because people don’t understand that, they just dream of being something or doing something. Because they are just dreaming about it they see only the positive things, they don’t dream about the negative things that the act brings. Any movie or music star looks cool and everyone wants to be like them, because people don’t know how much work and effort the star has put in.
It’s the same story with any profession. Let's take a look at book writing, mostly because I have the statistics of how much time takes a professional writer to write a single page, and by statistics I mean I have a video where Stephen King says that when he's working, he writes 6 pages a day and he writes everyday for 3-4 hours. Which means he writes one page per 0,6666666667 hour. Which means that if he would be writing the book A Game of Thrones, which has from 694 to 801 pages (depending on edition/release), he would take from about 463 hours to about 534 hours. That is a lot of time! You can get a driver's licence with just 20 hours of practical driving with an instructor. Which is pretty bizarre.
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