Red Rapture

Last weekend I attended the Landmark Forum, three full days of intense ‘enquiry’. I first signed up for the forum late last year, intending to attend the March session. But when March came around, I made excuses that I was too busy with work, travelling, had too much on my plate etc and sought — and received — an 80% refund. In actual fact I was afraid of what I would have to confront during the seminar. I had seen the introduction sessions and witnessed all these breakthroughs and transformations so many people had achieved in those three days. And I was half fearful and half skeptical.

But Topo didn’t chicken out of the March course and found so much benefit that she went on to sign up for subsequent ones. I attended a second introduction session later, probably in May and made a decision to attend the forum again. I attribute my openness this time around to what I call ‘being in a better place’.

The verdict?

By nature I think I have a healthy dose of skepticism so I need to be won over by logical arguments. But when I can see the obvious arguments, I can easily switch my beliefs and wholeheartedly support the new cause. I went in with this same sense of skepticism, waiting to be won over, essentially waiting for a ‘eureka’ moment when my whole mindset would magically be transformed.

While this moment did not appear, I still got a lot of benefit from it.

The things it reinforced that I already knew:

1. There are many things in life we can change and determine but we cannot alter who our blood relations are. Life is about human relations so it’s little wonder that these are the source of some of our greatest frustrations. But we are stuck with our parents, our brothers, sisters and distant relations. There is no point in wishing differently.

2. Don’t ever expect to change others or get them to change for anything or anyone other than themselves. This is something I have learnt very well and it has become so ingrained in me that I don’t even have to remind myself any more. We are all responsible for ourselves, not others. If we want a different outcome to a situation, we make the changes. It’s useless and a waste of effort to try to get others to change who they are. This never works.

3. There is no ‘perfect one’ for everyone. Everybody is technically compatible with everyone else. In a relationship, both people are responsible for making it work. If both want to, all challenges and obstacles can be overcome. Reasons like ‘we are too different’, ‘we are incompatible’, ‘we have different values’, ‘we are too far away’, ‘we have drifted apart’, ‘we are getting bored’ are just bullshit excuses.

4. It is precisely because of the prevalence of these excuses that I believe relationships are not a given any more. I honestly don’t believe in forevers and ‘a long time’. Perhaps I once did but that is an unrealistic expectation. We had a session where we were asked to think of a definition of life which people adopt in order to cope with challenges. The first thing that I thought of is that life is transience and nothing is predictive or predictable. The ‘correct’ answer by the way, is that life is dangerous.

Now on to new things I learned.

1. I am my word and i should strive to keep it. I find this a simple but difficult concept to execute. It is just about following through on the things i have previously committed to doing, big or small.

2. I have become very self aware. I enjoy analyzing myself to figure out why i am the way i am and why i possess the traits and flaws i do. Increasingly its becoming less of positives versus negatives and more about just being myself. Of course the ultimate aim is to see which areas i can improve. The flipside is that not everyone else has a similar understanding of themselves and sometimes i forget that.

Do you sometimes wish you were a different type of person?

It’s not a question of changing ourselves to become better people. We can always practise being kinder or more assertive. For example if we’re prone to self-pity, we work at focusing less on ourselves and more on others. It takes hard work but the end result is something worth fighting for. If we’re diehard pessimists, we change our thoughts and learn to see the glass as half full.

But I’ve concluded that there are some things I can’t change. I for one wish I was the type of person who loves the hot weather, or who would willingly wake up at 5am to go to the gym. I wish I loved water sports more, such as diving and I really really wish I enjoyed running more. I wish I loved eating spicy food, or celery for that matter. I wish I could appreciate wine and coffee, ditto with jazz music and books by Milan Kundera.

But I’ve tried all these and much as I hate to say it, I’m not that into them. I can do all this stuff enjoyably but I know deep down no matter how much I try, I will never love them as much as singing, or listening to my favourite opera arias on a repeated loop the whole day. They will not match my love of shoes and pretty things, or my inclination to do nothing but lie on my bed on the weekend.

I would characterize it as loving the idea of doing all these things more than actually doing them. To put it another way, sometimes I lose sight of what I actually enjoy versus what I think I ought to enjoy.

But different people find different activities and things fulfilling and I just have to own the stuff I like to do and be true to me rather than trying to convince myself I’m cut out for something else.