Skip to main content

The beauty of a morning

Now for something different

Today was a bank holiday and I spent the day with my family at home. On days like these, when we don't expect any visitors and don't have any agenda for the day we just hang out at home and everyone is pretty much free to do as he wishes. On this occasion we even managed not to spend too much time on housekeeping or gardening, a default activity of house owners with virtually no substantial return on investment. Because of my morning routine I am always the first one to get up and I consider it an utter privilege to witness everybody's 'start the day process' as the morning unfolds. The first ones to join me early are our cats - the standard routine is that I prepare their breakfast. Eventually they eat, I read. Then they either take a nap or they leave to follow nature's call. Today however something extraordinary happened: our lady cat approached me in my reading chair and complained about something. I didn't get what she wanted until she hopped into my lap and I had to cuddle her. Our cats are cozy creatures, but also smart. None of them approaches strangers easily but they adore each of us - on rare occasions like this they also show their admiration. Also: They lose a lot of hair these days and she left me completely covered in bushes of cat hair. Chances are she indeed might have had a hidden agenda there. Once the little lady's cuddle-need was saturated she went her way and I was able to return to reading. Until a few minutes later my son approached me without saying a word - not too much of a surprise: he has Finnish origins. On arrival he just laid down in my lap with half a dozen of his cuddle animals - cuddle time. After a while his brother and my wife joined us and we had a lazy long breakfast with some really delicious crêpes.

Roots in the Ground

When I moved to Bonn in 2006 it was because of my job with the military. At the time my average duration of assignments was less than two years. Hence I was pretty sure I would not remain in one place for too long. When I was young we used to move a lot. During the first years after our emigration from Hungary we moved more than a dozen times - sometimes we stayed at some place for just a couple of weeks or even months. 

Sometimes my wife and I fantasize where else we might live - a few years back Finland was a serious candidate. In the end we chickened out because of the length and the bitter cold of the Finnish winters. My sons never want to move to another place anyway. The reason I am telling this is because today I realized something very important: That even though we have only lived a few years in a house with a garden we have unknowingly fallen in love with our home. Though we never run out of things to improve in our house we have rooted ourselves in our home and are all invested emotionally. This is an experience I never had in my youth. Therefore it struck me when I realized that if we ever are to move again it is going to be a tough departure. Even if our next home is a luxurious mansion or even a fairy tale castle (and the odds are heavily stacked against such dreamy scenarios), it would still be hard to abandon our current home with all the memories that we associate with it.

Necessity vs negation of nostalgia

It is a regular pastime of mine to declutter my life and my possessions. I came to enjoy getting rid of objects that I only possess because of mere nostalgia. By 'nostalgia' in this context I refer to an emotional attachment to objects that have either lost their purpose or that I don't require/use any more. My wife is even more consequential than I in ditching stuff - she's a real pro when it comes to material minimalism. The only exception to this habit of ours is kids' stuff. I start to see a tendency to a material investment and an emotional investment here that has not always been typical for any of the two of us. Apparently you cannot really avoid emotional attachment to certain objects in your life once you have a family of your own. Maybe we all need a change of mind and learn to accomodate for some amount of nostalgia in our lives. We will need to be more comfortable with a certain degree of nostalgia at least as long as it does not obstruct necessary future development and progress.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If It Helps Someone, It's Valuable

The World Is Full Of Problems  This is good news. Actually it is great news. Problems are opportunities for growth - if you are able to find -and successfully apply- the solution to a problem that will help someone in any way, you will inevitably create value. If you can find a solution to a big problem (e.g. cure for cancer) you will create an immense value. If you can find a solution to a not so gargantuan, but widespread problem, you will have created tremendous value. But even if you find a solution to a small problem that will benefit a few people, you might still have the benefit of being able to learn something valuable that you can apply later in the solution of greater problems. Don't let yourself be discouraged by the (lack of) magnitude of problems: keep your eyes open and help people even if they do not approach you proactively - this will invite good things to happen to you in the long run. However not everybody in the workforce seems to have the proclivity to solve pr...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Importance of Role Models

Strategic Considerations To me it has always been of paramount importance to have a vision of my model identity. In order to develop towards that ideal my role models would help me strengthen that vision. One effective strategy to find fitting role models is to pick the right environment. Certain organizations will promote specific types of personalities over others. For example in the military there is a tendency to recruit engaging, clearly structured people who have a natural preference to take decisions and action in the face of danger, i.e. under pressure. Thus firm leadership is a skill that is highly valued in military organizations. Other organizations might promote creativity, diversity, individualism and so on. Ask yourself which values you regard as the most precious and then look out for organizations whose values might match best. How To Be A Role Model The good news: setting the bar for being a role model will entirely be up to you. It is your own mind first that you need...
Post a Comment
Read more

Happiness And Anxiety

Just A Feeling Despite all the drawbacks caused by the pandemic I have to admit that ever since the kids were born I have been feeling more happy in general. To set the stakes even higher, I have already been pretty damned happy ever since I met my wife several years earlier. Maybe it is because the kids fill me with hope that all is good and is steadily improving. Also they give a whole new purpose to everything in my life. I have only really had a few significant stretches where I felt so beaten down or lethargic, that I had issues to motivate myself. There were only three significant times I was struggling with my decisions and had serious doubts that I made the right choices.  Freaking Out In The Barracks The first time was in 1998, when I signed a contract as a contract soldier for 12 years. During my first couple of days with the military the magnitude of my decision sank with the utmost brutality. It totally freaked me out. I spent the first night in some spartan barracks in...
Post a Comment
Read more