I've heard many times this line in movies. Although it seems an obvious truth, actually it is an praise of patience and optimism. The difference between an optimist and a pesimist actually resides in the perception of 'the end'.
The pesimist is a short race runner, he struggles to obtain the result immediately, and if he doesn't succeed, oscillates between anger and despair. After repetead failed races, he can reach the conclusion that he has no luck, destiny is cruel and life a bitch. That some good things simply do not happen to him, nor will happen, judging by past experience.
In the moments of rage he looks with envy at the ones who can make things work, reproaches their lack of collaboration, makes them feel guilty for their spiritual wealth.
In the moments of despair tries to whine to cause pity 'Take me with you', 'Please help me'.
Disregarding the fact that blaming or causing pity are weak convincing instruments, even when they work, they don't solve the real problem, namely the wrong perception on the 'end'. If this particular problem solved, I would be happy. Actually, what's missing is the training in the long races. Some problems are complicated and don't solve fast. It's no use struggling to finish the first lap, because in order to win the marathon you need to learn to control the effort and the tiredness.
You needn't insist too much (wasting efforts) and accept a refusal (tiredness after the first lap).
Because I'm bored the afternoons and because by guilt and pity I barely convince, I use to let myself approached by ... sellers of charity. There are more of them here in Spain as compared to Romania, and, I must admit, they are smarter. You want to donate because you feel good helping an abused child, a refugee, not because you feel guilty you have enough food and nobody abuses you or because you feel pity.
On top of it, if after 15 minutes of convincing work you still won't give your bank account in order to donate a monthly amount, they don't even curse you, but, smiling, they say that it doesn't matter. The guy I met today told me that everybody goes in his own rhythm, that time is needed in order to gain trust and that perhaps I want to give him my email address to send me some materials. Then he gave me his phone number and a leaflet with the address of the foundation.
I was impressed by this lesson of how to win the marathon. Revelations hit every step of the way whomever is ready to receive them.
Traducere în română
miércoles, 9 de septiembre de 2009
lunes, 8 de diciembre de 2008
Spanish flavour
An ex-coworker was commenting that the thing with which he had the hardest time adjusting in Spain was the late hour of the supper. 21:00 hours ... 22:00 hours ... what kind of hour is that?
I couldn't help answering him 'Just wait and see how easy you'll get accustomed to getting fired for no particular reason.' I have been mean – I admit – but I had a good excuse: the same day I got an unfair dismissal. No previous notice, no complaints, no fights and especially ... no explanations. 'But, don't I have any rights?' I mumbled. No, except for getting paid a 45 days salary for each year worked in the company. You can make a complaint in justice but the only thing you will achieve is that you will get paid – the same amount – but later. So, do both of us a favor and sign.
By far is the most shocking thing a foreigner can get used to in this country. It appears that Spanish people consider getting fired for no particular reason the most normal thing in the world. As normal as a 3 months, 6 months, 1 year temporary contract. Nor the unemployment rate of 12.8% seem to get them too concerned. Actually, those who are working for a number of years in a company consider the unfair dismissal day as the day when they collect the jackpot. For more than 5 years worked you get the annual wage at once as a compensation. Not bad at all!
Worse is for the ones who try to enroll now in the labour force. They will find temporary contracts and they will be the cheapest to get fired, because they will have little antiquity in the company. Then they must wait until they 'catch' a contract on an undetermined period and then count the necessary months to qualify for getting a credit to a bank. Or to make a baby.
Yes, the employee is a leaf that the wind blows. He has no rights and can be fired at any time. And, as far as I can remember, choosing to be an employee was the less risky choice.
The fact that you can get fired that easy induces fear in the working environment. If you make to many questions maybe you are unsure of your professional strength and thus incompetent, if you have a different opinion maybe you are a fussy person. If you avoid having any contact with your boss or your co-workers and expect passively to receive work than you are lazy. If you manage working, but you don't have a humble enough attitude towards your employers, having for instance the impertinence of asking for a rise, in spite of the fact that you can survive with your actual salary, you are again fired. You can even get fired because a more desperate cheaper person able to do your job can be found.
Funny is also the attitude of the bosses. They will imagine that just paying your salary is enough and, if they occasionally give you some work to do, then they did the maximum effort possible. But they will spare conversations and meetings. They will accumulate proves in order to get you fired and they will do a quick trial in your absence – what arguments can you bring, anyway? Why would they do the minimum effort to criticise their employees in case they are not happy with them, listen to their opinions, subject themselves to the ordeal of a conversation, when they can spare all that just by replacing the problem employee?
In the next building the employees (the most recent ones, thus the cheapest) are fired on a weekly basis. In the same time, other persons are hired. Try again! Maybe this time you come across the perfect employee. It is a lot more confortable like this – even funnier – emotions once a week, new faces to refresh the atmosphere. Someone's colleague got an unfair dismissal immediately after announcing she needed a maternity leave. A friend of a friend had been working for two years in a company (doing his job, or so he thought) until one day walked to find another person working in his place, at his computer. Yes, the law allows you to make a complaint in the Court ... but it is like you are assumed guilty until proved otherwise.
I sincerely believe that this attitude towards the employees – some replaceable parts – is specifically Spanish. I don't say that employers should offer a job out of charity and keep an employee in spite of his low productivity – I am only saying that in order for an employee to be efficient he needs full collaboration from their co-workers and bosses. It appears that this is not easy to get in a fearful work environment where anybody can get fired at the slightest protest.
Traducere în română
Traducción al español
I couldn't help answering him 'Just wait and see how easy you'll get accustomed to getting fired for no particular reason.' I have been mean – I admit – but I had a good excuse: the same day I got an unfair dismissal. No previous notice, no complaints, no fights and especially ... no explanations. 'But, don't I have any rights?' I mumbled. No, except for getting paid a 45 days salary for each year worked in the company. You can make a complaint in justice but the only thing you will achieve is that you will get paid – the same amount – but later. So, do both of us a favor and sign.
By far is the most shocking thing a foreigner can get used to in this country. It appears that Spanish people consider getting fired for no particular reason the most normal thing in the world. As normal as a 3 months, 6 months, 1 year temporary contract. Nor the unemployment rate of 12.8% seem to get them too concerned. Actually, those who are working for a number of years in a company consider the unfair dismissal day as the day when they collect the jackpot. For more than 5 years worked you get the annual wage at once as a compensation. Not bad at all!
Worse is for the ones who try to enroll now in the labour force. They will find temporary contracts and they will be the cheapest to get fired, because they will have little antiquity in the company. Then they must wait until they 'catch' a contract on an undetermined period and then count the necessary months to qualify for getting a credit to a bank. Or to make a baby.
Yes, the employee is a leaf that the wind blows. He has no rights and can be fired at any time. And, as far as I can remember, choosing to be an employee was the less risky choice.
The fact that you can get fired that easy induces fear in the working environment. If you make to many questions maybe you are unsure of your professional strength and thus incompetent, if you have a different opinion maybe you are a fussy person. If you avoid having any contact with your boss or your co-workers and expect passively to receive work than you are lazy. If you manage working, but you don't have a humble enough attitude towards your employers, having for instance the impertinence of asking for a rise, in spite of the fact that you can survive with your actual salary, you are again fired. You can even get fired because a more desperate cheaper person able to do your job can be found.
Funny is also the attitude of the bosses. They will imagine that just paying your salary is enough and, if they occasionally give you some work to do, then they did the maximum effort possible. But they will spare conversations and meetings. They will accumulate proves in order to get you fired and they will do a quick trial in your absence – what arguments can you bring, anyway? Why would they do the minimum effort to criticise their employees in case they are not happy with them, listen to their opinions, subject themselves to the ordeal of a conversation, when they can spare all that just by replacing the problem employee?
In the next building the employees (the most recent ones, thus the cheapest) are fired on a weekly basis. In the same time, other persons are hired. Try again! Maybe this time you come across the perfect employee. It is a lot more confortable like this – even funnier – emotions once a week, new faces to refresh the atmosphere. Someone's colleague got an unfair dismissal immediately after announcing she needed a maternity leave. A friend of a friend had been working for two years in a company (doing his job, or so he thought) until one day walked to find another person working in his place, at his computer. Yes, the law allows you to make a complaint in the Court ... but it is like you are assumed guilty until proved otherwise.
I sincerely believe that this attitude towards the employees – some replaceable parts – is specifically Spanish. I don't say that employers should offer a job out of charity and keep an employee in spite of his low productivity – I am only saying that in order for an employee to be efficient he needs full collaboration from their co-workers and bosses. It appears that this is not easy to get in a fearful work environment where anybody can get fired at the slightest protest.
Traducere în română
Traducción al español
martes, 14 de octubre de 2008
The Big Expectations
Yesterday a former co-worker commented that he should be ashamed that he lived in Spain for seven months and was still unable to talk in Spanish. And why would he expect to be able to speak Spanish without any effort whatsoever? Just because he overhears the conversations in the bus, once a large enough period of time has passed, he should, miraculously, start talking in Spanish? A foreign language is hard to learn and easy to forget, a teacher said. Obviously that if you don't listen to the tv, nor open a grammar book under any circumstances, you will never learn a foreign language. At most you would be able to recognize certain words. At most you could speak some simple phrases. Has it been easier, by any chance, learning your mother tongue? A preschool child, even though he can speak fluently enough, still has a limited vocabulary and a simple phrase structure. Only after he reads books, writes compositions, studies the grammar, speaks long enough, starts to become an advanced user. Why would you expect a smaller effort to be needed in order to learn a foreign language? All these unjustified expectations leave me perplexed sometimes.
There are then those who believe that the degree of knowledge of a foreign language is measured in fluency. I had a colleague who spoke French very fast, yet she made many mistakes – discordances, forced constructions, invented words from maternal language, etc. I think that if she had slowed down the rhythm and thought better, she could have reduced the number of mistakes and become more accurate.
Those who believe that fluency is everything are usually the average users of that language. They could make themselves understood and depending on the accuracy they could tend to advanced users. Yet, an average user can't tell an average user from an advanced user. We both talk as fast, so we are the same level! Just that some make more mistakes than others. And, even not making mistakes, some don't know expressions or more complicated phrase structures. Obviously one would understand them both, but when the oportunity to use an expression shows ... the advanced user will use it, while the average one will compose an explicative phrase on the spot. And the average user will believe that the advanced user is very metaphoric and doesn't speak very clear and will even imagine that he knows better the language since he speaks all so clear. Some examples in English.
'Thank you for trusting me' will say an average user, while an advanced user might say 'Thanks for the vote of confidence!'.
'Me too' will say the average user, while an advanced user could say 'Welcome to the club'.
'Not even you believe this!' an average user would use, while an advanced user might use 'Keep telling that to yourself and you'll start believing it'.
I am not saying that an advanced user would choose every single time the metaphoric expression, I'm just saying that, if a particular user constantly picks the explicit phrase is because he doesn't know the complicated one. How do you become an advanced user? Reading and listening a lot. It is harder in a country where all the movies are doubled and the contact to the foreign language is reduced to a minimum. And average users expect to become advanced just by having conversations with other average users with a higher and higher fluency! Again some unreasonable expectations.
Yesterday I went for a meal with my former co-workers. With the great majority I have barely changed some words, so I stayed very quite and almost not interacting at all. Why would I have expected to be more talkative? Those relationships need 'work' ... it's natural to be like this.
Three months ago I went to have a beer with my actual co-workers. (I work in a company where work is worshiped and having a unofficial chat with some colleague looks like stilling from the company. You are paid to work, not to gossip! The work shedule, just as the meal break (half an hour, not more!) are carefully counted and inserted in an application. The timer starts when you get to work and push the button, stops automatically at the beginning of the lunch break, and restarts when you re-push the button when coming back from the lunch break. It stops automatically after the passage of the 8 regulatory hours (plus half an hour the lunch break!). If you come earlier than the beginning of the work schedule, you usually find the door locked, if you want to stay longer, they usually kick you out. I told once my (few) co-workers who come to lunch with me to leave for the lunch break 5 minutes earlier, in order not to appear in the monitoring application that we worked 5 minutes less that day. They answered 'not the whole 5 minutes, maybe just one'. The ability to eat in half an hour is some kind of a virtue. And proposing to cheat starting 5 minutes earlier prooves a lack of morality. Nobody starts eating earlier than the timer starts! Fantastic! It is only missing the alarm to start several minutes prior to pushing the button. And if, by any chance, you forget to push the button, the magnetic polarity of the island will change. We don't know this yet, as nobody dared to stop pushing the button.)
Well, three months ago, with those co-workers, we were kind of bored as well. I talked a bit more, but still we seemed a bit estranged. Why would we have expected to be less distanced? Why, without much un-official talk, would we have expected to interact more and have a lot of fun at that beer?
Disappointed in our big expectations, we decided that our personalities don't fit together (it's logic, isn't it?) and thus we should scarce even more those meetings, because anyway we didn't have much to talk about. Maybe by passing more time, enough events worthy to be told will accumulate. As probable as the belief of my former colleague that - after passing a long time in Spain, miraculously and without any conscious effort – he will start talking in Spanish.
Traducere în română
Traducción en español
There are then those who believe that the degree of knowledge of a foreign language is measured in fluency. I had a colleague who spoke French very fast, yet she made many mistakes – discordances, forced constructions, invented words from maternal language, etc. I think that if she had slowed down the rhythm and thought better, she could have reduced the number of mistakes and become more accurate.
Those who believe that fluency is everything are usually the average users of that language. They could make themselves understood and depending on the accuracy they could tend to advanced users. Yet, an average user can't tell an average user from an advanced user. We both talk as fast, so we are the same level! Just that some make more mistakes than others. And, even not making mistakes, some don't know expressions or more complicated phrase structures. Obviously one would understand them both, but when the oportunity to use an expression shows ... the advanced user will use it, while the average one will compose an explicative phrase on the spot. And the average user will believe that the advanced user is very metaphoric and doesn't speak very clear and will even imagine that he knows better the language since he speaks all so clear. Some examples in English.
'Thank you for trusting me' will say an average user, while an advanced user might say 'Thanks for the vote of confidence!'.
'Me too' will say the average user, while an advanced user could say 'Welcome to the club'.
'Not even you believe this!' an average user would use, while an advanced user might use 'Keep telling that to yourself and you'll start believing it'.
I am not saying that an advanced user would choose every single time the metaphoric expression, I'm just saying that, if a particular user constantly picks the explicit phrase is because he doesn't know the complicated one. How do you become an advanced user? Reading and listening a lot. It is harder in a country where all the movies are doubled and the contact to the foreign language is reduced to a minimum. And average users expect to become advanced just by having conversations with other average users with a higher and higher fluency! Again some unreasonable expectations.
Yesterday I went for a meal with my former co-workers. With the great majority I have barely changed some words, so I stayed very quite and almost not interacting at all. Why would I have expected to be more talkative? Those relationships need 'work' ... it's natural to be like this.
Three months ago I went to have a beer with my actual co-workers. (I work in a company where work is worshiped and having a unofficial chat with some colleague looks like stilling from the company. You are paid to work, not to gossip! The work shedule, just as the meal break (half an hour, not more!) are carefully counted and inserted in an application. The timer starts when you get to work and push the button, stops automatically at the beginning of the lunch break, and restarts when you re-push the button when coming back from the lunch break. It stops automatically after the passage of the 8 regulatory hours (plus half an hour the lunch break!). If you come earlier than the beginning of the work schedule, you usually find the door locked, if you want to stay longer, they usually kick you out. I told once my (few) co-workers who come to lunch with me to leave for the lunch break 5 minutes earlier, in order not to appear in the monitoring application that we worked 5 minutes less that day. They answered 'not the whole 5 minutes, maybe just one'. The ability to eat in half an hour is some kind of a virtue. And proposing to cheat starting 5 minutes earlier prooves a lack of morality. Nobody starts eating earlier than the timer starts! Fantastic! It is only missing the alarm to start several minutes prior to pushing the button. And if, by any chance, you forget to push the button, the magnetic polarity of the island will change. We don't know this yet, as nobody dared to stop pushing the button.)
Well, three months ago, with those co-workers, we were kind of bored as well. I talked a bit more, but still we seemed a bit estranged. Why would we have expected to be less distanced? Why, without much un-official talk, would we have expected to interact more and have a lot of fun at that beer?
Disappointed in our big expectations, we decided that our personalities don't fit together (it's logic, isn't it?) and thus we should scarce even more those meetings, because anyway we didn't have much to talk about. Maybe by passing more time, enough events worthy to be told will accumulate. As probable as the belief of my former colleague that - after passing a long time in Spain, miraculously and without any conscious effort – he will start talking in Spanish.
Traducere în română
Traducción en español
domingo, 24 de agosto de 2008
Inner Power
I often find that others have their life way easier, that certain things that they desire come on a silver plate and that, generally, don't seem to struggle much in order to obtain what they want and yet they have.
Envy on someone else's exterior power actually tells the lack of your own inner power. What happens with all these happy people when they are stripped from their exterior power? When they become poor. When the girlfriend/boyfriend ditches them. When they change the country and have to make friends from scratch. Some – the ones who hang on exterior things – are a rack. Others act in order to solve the problems and even succeed. Those should deserve our admiration.
There is a biblical character, Iov, whose faith and patience have been strongly tested: he lost one by one his wealth, his family, his health. But he still trusted that God had a bigger plan for him. And, out of the blue, one day all his goods were returned as a reward for his faith and patience.
I wonder whether this is the solution to get the things you want: wealth, friends, a lover: lying on the bad and watching TV to concentrate to have faith and to wait patiently because sometimes you will be rewarded.
Faith and patience matter, but are not enough. What makes the difference between happiness and unhappiness is the courage to act.
Traducere în română
Traducción en español
Envy on someone else's exterior power actually tells the lack of your own inner power. What happens with all these happy people when they are stripped from their exterior power? When they become poor. When the girlfriend/boyfriend ditches them. When they change the country and have to make friends from scratch. Some – the ones who hang on exterior things – are a rack. Others act in order to solve the problems and even succeed. Those should deserve our admiration.
There is a biblical character, Iov, whose faith and patience have been strongly tested: he lost one by one his wealth, his family, his health. But he still trusted that God had a bigger plan for him. And, out of the blue, one day all his goods were returned as a reward for his faith and patience.
I wonder whether this is the solution to get the things you want: wealth, friends, a lover: lying on the bad and watching TV to concentrate to have faith and to wait patiently because sometimes you will be rewarded.
Faith and patience matter, but are not enough. What makes the difference between happiness and unhappiness is the courage to act.
Traducere în română
Traducción en español
viernes, 8 de agosto de 2008
Feelings, nothing more than feelings
They teach us a lot of things in school – History, Geography, Math – yet one compulsory assignment remains optional: Acting. It seems to me that knowing, for example, a lot of History serves you less compared to being a good actor. They say History is important because it helps us understand who we are or helps us predicting the future counting on the past ... I wonder how many History fans can do that. Besides telling us a story ... often pretty dull ... who has fought with whom, why and when ... the great majority can't do more.
I find History boring and a lot useless as compared to acting. We need to be actors everyday, we need to charm others by displaying our feelings. The scholar curriculum manifests little interest in the emotional universe of the pupil; I wonder why. The pupil is a knowledge vacuum, who repeats sucked-in knowledge when the teacher asks him. The pupil applies the recipe in order to solve the problems from math books. There is little room for creativity or for feelings display. It seems that feelings don't interest anybody.
I go to the theatre very rarely or almost never. That is why I am always amazed of how actors are overacting: they shout at each other, they slap each other, they rip their clothes off, clump on the wood floor, puff at every line. I wonder if the dramatism of the script justifies such a wealth of gestures and physiologic reactions.
I think I know why the auditoriums are always full: people need to delight themselves with the feelings display, especially because at school, work ... they are ignored, if not forbidden.
I started being irritated by the pridefulness and frenzy with which some people are working, solving tasks round the clock, incapable of inventing a joke or even laugh at one. It appears that investing time in solving particular practical problems worths the effort, while showing your emotions or inducing emotions in others is an optional matter, privilege of the artists.
I wonder if we can afford not knowing anything about acting. If extirpating feelings from our lives is really that harmless.
I find History boring and a lot useless as compared to acting. We need to be actors everyday, we need to charm others by displaying our feelings. The scholar curriculum manifests little interest in the emotional universe of the pupil; I wonder why. The pupil is a knowledge vacuum, who repeats sucked-in knowledge when the teacher asks him. The pupil applies the recipe in order to solve the problems from math books. There is little room for creativity or for feelings display. It seems that feelings don't interest anybody.
I go to the theatre very rarely or almost never. That is why I am always amazed of how actors are overacting: they shout at each other, they slap each other, they rip their clothes off, clump on the wood floor, puff at every line. I wonder if the dramatism of the script justifies such a wealth of gestures and physiologic reactions.
I think I know why the auditoriums are always full: people need to delight themselves with the feelings display, especially because at school, work ... they are ignored, if not forbidden.
I started being irritated by the pridefulness and frenzy with which some people are working, solving tasks round the clock, incapable of inventing a joke or even laugh at one. It appears that investing time in solving particular practical problems worths the effort, while showing your emotions or inducing emotions in others is an optional matter, privilege of the artists.
I wonder if we can afford not knowing anything about acting. If extirpating feelings from our lives is really that harmless.
Je veux voir le monde
Qu'il soit gai ou triste
Qu'il chante o qu'il gronde
Pourvu qu'il existe
Je veux voir des villes
Qu'elles soient blanches ou rouges
Et des yeux qui brillent
Et des gens qui bougent
I want to see the world
Happy or sad
Even if it sings or it grumbles
Because it is alive
I want to see cities
White or red
And eyes who sparkle
And people who move
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Traducción en español
domingo, 27 de julio de 2008
A Leap Of Faith
Faith makes the difference, yet it is often overlooked. If you confess to someone that you don't believe a problem could be solved, much too often you get the suggestion you should have more confidence in yourself, in your beauty or your smartness. But faith means believing that the other things, independent of you and uncontrollable, will cooperate with you. How can you build that kind of faith? Especially when your luck hasn't been particularly generous or maybe you just didn't know how to take advantage of it, and, as a consequence, you have been deprived for a long period of what you wanted.
We all find ourselves in the position of Thomas the unfaithful who wouldn't believe it until he sees it. And around us all kinds of believers because they saw will get all outraged of our little faith. How can you not believe you will find another job? How can you not believe you will find the love of your life? How can you not believe you can make friends? How can you not believe that you will get healthy? The list can be filled with all people would ever want.
Faith is hard when wish fulfilling lets itself expected. And faith can be very ironic as you are often this close to win, yet you loose.
'The gods may throw a dice / Their minds as cold as ice', says a song. The Gods have thrown the dice, unaware that your happiness gets decided like this. What can you do? Until the next draw (and hope it will be soon), continue buying tickets.
Be indulgent with your faith. If you were your faith, wouldn't you feel kind of pissed off by someone who doesn't trust you can do your job? Trust faith will do its part of the job. And you will obtain what you want, in this lifetime.
Traducere în română
Traducción en español
We all find ourselves in the position of Thomas the unfaithful who wouldn't believe it until he sees it. And around us all kinds of believers because they saw will get all outraged of our little faith. How can you not believe you will find another job? How can you not believe you will find the love of your life? How can you not believe you can make friends? How can you not believe that you will get healthy? The list can be filled with all people would ever want.
Faith is hard when wish fulfilling lets itself expected. And faith can be very ironic as you are often this close to win, yet you loose.
'The gods may throw a dice / Their minds as cold as ice', says a song. The Gods have thrown the dice, unaware that your happiness gets decided like this. What can you do? Until the next draw (and hope it will be soon), continue buying tickets.
Be indulgent with your faith. If you were your faith, wouldn't you feel kind of pissed off by someone who doesn't trust you can do your job? Trust faith will do its part of the job. And you will obtain what you want, in this lifetime.
Traducere în română
Traducción en español
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