Retrospective and Resolution

It’s the last day of the year, and it’s only natural that today we all take a few minutes to think about our accomplishments and the lessons that we have learned in the past 12 months as well as set in order new goals for 2011. Let’s see what of the bits and pieces of knowledge that I gathered can be made relevant here on Mischievous Sweethearts.

One of the things that I have learned this year is one of the golden paradoxes: “If you can’t have it, you’ll probably fall in love with it”… or at least think that you have fallen in love. This lesson is how I started 2010, followed up by a close “Everything is possible if you want it badly enough”, which I now tend to reconsider because it’s too many times that we think we may want something when, in fact, our whole being is in complete disagreement, which takes me to my third and maybe most important lesson of this paragraph: “Think before you act, and if the answer comes straight up, make sure to think about it again”. At this point, all incurable romantics will think it’s wrong. I beg to differ. Even though I’m all for trusting your intuitive feelings, one must seriously think about all consequences, because if you decide to go for it (whatever “it” may be), you shouldn’t end up whining about not having known the possible outcomes. If you really think things through before throwing yourself at them, you gain power of anticipation and a moderate armor towards the things that will ripple hurtfully from your action (in case that’s a possibility).

Another thing that I have learned is that music is the perfect rebound partner. Ever. Music has the ability to pull you out of spiraling down to your doom and make you feel happily in love again. Music can seduce your mind and send you spinning through the greatest of fantasies, it is the perfect ally, free for everyone to discover!

In an experiment of my own, I learned that men are indeed intimidated by stronger and smarter women and that they prefer to have something that looks pretty,  is mildly retarded (also known as “normal” to some) and is in perfect agreement with her man. My experiment was that of a change in style in a controlled environment where I could very well observe my subjects. That lead to another interesting revelation… It’s really easy to make the average man stutter, yet it is really disappointing to notice when one treats what you consider real values, as third hand trash. Do not get me wrong, not all men are like that, and I have had the rare opportunity to meet amazing specimens, yet at that very point in my life, it was a lesson worth remembering.

Moving on:  one can learn a lot from dogs! Whenever a dog does something dumb, you can’t get pissed off at it, because it’s not the dog’s fault, it just does not know any better, and it’s best for everyone if there is no anger involved. If you do get angry, the dog will not understand a thing, and you lose precious time, energy and neurons on a creature whose maximum potential has been reached at a level way beneath your own. You simply have to understand, move on and maybe pet the poor beast for at least trying. Generally speaking, if you have the IQ of a strawberry, you can’t get angry at one with the IQ of a peanut. It’s just such a big waste! In this regard, people (yes, I believe both sexes have this issue) are the very same. You can’t ask of a person to live up to your standards, if they can barely make up decent standards of their own and live by those! You shouldn’t be angry when they fail, because that’s just that, they can’t do any better! Also, you shouldn’t get angry when you set up goals for yourself that are astronomically too high, and fail. Let’s all just be realistic about life and try to look around and see things as they really ARE and not as we’d like to have them imagined. Leave that part for dreams and fantasies, but know that in the real world, if you aren’t focused on reality, you might end up sinking in quicksand while chasing after make-believe leprechauns.

I learned that sometimes, when you think you’ve hit rock bottom and when more failing is just too much beyond too much to handle, sometimes miracles happen. I love my Prince Charming fantasy because it is a fair challenge to try to find that or at least part of that in the men around me and, for a picky person as myself, that is indeed one hell of a challenge. Another real challenge is trying to figure out what “happily ever after” means, which leads us to our next lesson learned: “The very best idea and most exhilarating experience now, can very well not mean the same thing anymore after it has fulfilled its purpose”. In other words, miracles are the small or great revelations which give you wings to fly, be it artistically, intellectually, or romantically. The point is, once they have fulfilled their purpose and those wings are spread, there’s really no other way around it.

One of the latest things I’ve learned, or better said, remembered (and perhaps one of my very favorites) is that “If you want your life to change for the best, you have got to do something about it!” Just sitting there and waiting for something to happen out of the blue, will NOT do the trick! And let’s say that even if something DOES magically happen out of the blue, you won’t be able to use it to your advantage or maybe even see it because you’re just sitting on your couch of self-pity and false hopes. And I’m saying false hopes because if you don’t have the decency to get off your ass and do something in your favor, then maybe you don’t really want change and you enjoy the condition you’re in… subconsciously… in an extremely sick and masochistic way. Turns out it is a matter of choice, of real, strong, determined choice. If you truly chose to make a change and that choice is real enough to resonate within your whole being, ‘just sitting there’ will not even be an option! Maybe all of this sounded like a huge ‘captain obvious’ statement, but it’s something that I don’t think people completely realize in full depth.

This pretty much sums up part of this year’s lessons which I wanted to share with all of you. If you have anything you’d like to share from the immense wisdom of 2010, feel free to post in our Comment section.

As for the New Year’s Resolution, to put it as general as possible, I hope 2011 will be a year in which we will all really make the choice of becoming better than we are now, I hope it will be a year of awesome opportunities which we will actually see and go for. May we advance in our careers, discover or re-discover amazing people and, of course, get to know ourselves better. We here at Mischievous Sweethearts wish you all the best of luck in the upcoming year, an amazing party tonight and a complete lack of hangover in the morning!

Cheers!