men

So.
I mean, right.
This is the thing.
My friends often ask me for guy advice. Not necessarily advice but just to talk about it and you know, lend an ear. This is mostly because I get along with my dad in a way that we'll have deep and meaningful conversations about whatever, including guy/men behaviour. So usually I'm very at home with talking to guys, or whatever, you know. Dad was also a textbook playa d*ck-head (sorry, dad!) when he was younger. So he's the guy a lot of my friends and myself included often struggle with.

Now then.
With the past little while, however, my understanding of any kind of male knowledge has just gone out the window.
Maybe this is just a good life lesson about how I just can't paint everyone the same colour, ever. There are just as much different behaviour and characteristics for guys as there are for women.
I've never ever ever ever been one to brand "all men pigs" or whatever. I think that's simply hideously stupid, sexist, idiotic, and just downright wrong. It's like saying "all women are blonde".
Same difference.
No, they are not.
Seriously.
Come on.

ANYWAY.
I digress. So yes, I think we (including me) potentially underestimate guys somehow. I mean, yes, it's a fact that sometimes their funstick takes over (this is just down to a limited amount of blood in the body), and in these instances their reason too is limited (Thanks, biology). However, I think I've started to underestimate the rest of the time, when there is a steady blood-flow, to the head as well.

By the way, this is not going to be a post of any revelations.
This shall be rambly and incoherent.

So.
Maybe it was a case of underestimating.
(This is not me back-tracking, this is me learning.)
Well, whatever it was, a lesson is a lesson. Doesn't matter what the current topic is, as long as it's a lesson, it has inherent value.

So here's a toast to assumptions, and generalisations, and expectations.
And here's another toast to not listening to them, at all! Ever!

Hip-hip-hooray.
M.

So my question is.
Is this snap below real? If it's real, was this written by a guy, or made by a girl?
(ps, I don't know the answers. I'm just saying.)

bebe

Just a little photo of me and my brother way way back.
It has no particular relevance, I just really like the atmosphere.

I think I look exactly the same pretty much, just more hair.
And I'm pleased that my brother and I are still tight and do banter.

Childhood.
M.

change

Patterns.
We need them, they are in our veins because it is simply good for survival.
But sometimes our human nature doesn't understand whether a pattern is good or bad. A pattern is a pattern and if you repeat it enough times, it becomes us.

It's good to notice patterns. Some of them we could do without, others are quite useful.
But I think it makes life a whole bunch easier and more satisfying in the long run to recognise our own patterns.
Patterns of speech, patterns of behaviour, emotional patterns that we sometimes believe is actually our "character". This is messy work at first, but doable.

Of course you can ask, why? Why would anyone want to do this?

For those who are really truly inherently happy with the way your lives are going and your everyday being, the answer is, you don't need this, and feel free to scroll down.
However, from personal experience, I was doing well and I was "fine", but then I decided "fine" isn't good enough. I want to live my life in a way that makes me feel that I'm in the drivers seat.
Of course there are other people in this traffic madness, so I will simply never know everything. But when it comes to me, and my decisions, I now know they are mine. Not habit, not safety, not what I'm used to.

Noticing our own patterns eradicates this sense of "someone" being mean to us, or "life being unfair" or "fate dealing a crap hand". This external force that (it sometimes feels) we are fighting against becomes much more manageable, and not so gloomy and vast. Yes, life is unfair, and yes, sometimes the universe does deal a very very crap hand. But now it's our turn to play those cards and could still come out on top.

So for those of you who feel that you could be better at being you, go for it.

After all, that's what spring is for.

With love.
M.