Are quotes pointless?
Do quotes stop us from thinking up profound things on our own?
Do quotes get misquoted too much?
Do quotes serve any real purpose?
Hmm, lets think about this for a second.
Have you ever quoted something or someone and then felt that tad smarter afterwards? You may have thought "hey, i'm so clever for remembering that". Have you ever been in the situation where you spend so long trying to think of the quote you would like to quote (it's usually just on the tip of your tongue) that you could have possibly thought up about 10 fairly decent quotes from your own day to day conversations? Do you ever use a quote when you feel like just driving a point home or rounding off a letter or conversation?
If you have answered yes to any of these questions then I have a challenge for you. Don't. Yes you heard me. I hate quotes, (well most of the time). Why? you ask. Well it's a matter of me thinking that in each of us is the ability to articulate ourselves in a way that no one else can. Why would you think that someone elses words can best sum up a point you want to make than your own would?
The worst kind of quotes are the kinds that get so overused that they start to morph and take on a life all of thier own.
An example of this would be "I have a dream" Now, this poinient statement was used as part of a defining speech given by Martin Luther King Jnr, calling for racial equality and an end to discrimination. I wonder if when he said it, he entertained the thought of people using it in every day conversations to describe some hairbrain idea they have come up. You know the people that do it.
Or how about one of my all time most cringe worthy quotes of "I'll be back" from terminator. Oh boy, that one really takes the cake because not only is it used and abused constantly, but people feel the need to say in in the Arnie accent. And it's usually used at a totally inappropriate time, like when someone is going to the loo half way through church or a movie.
I don't mind sayings, because sayings are meant to adapt and morph as trends, language and society change. For instance, you could say "if it aint broke, don't fix it" or "if it's not broken then you shouldn't mend it", no one could correct you because it's a saying and they both mean the same thing.
And another difference is that when you misquote something, you do stand to be corrected, nobody likes it when people misquote! Whereas with sayings you can even go so far as to make up your own. Our family favourite is "going off like buddy on cracker night" and no one would even turn thier heads.
Quotes on the other hand are not meant to morph or be made up, they are meant to stay as is forever and ever and ever as they were first pronounced. You can't put your own spin on someone elses words, you can't just decide to throw a bit of pow into a quote if you feel it needs it. You don't want to run the risk of misquoting.
So I urge you to stop quoting others and start quoting yourself, or maybe even try to start using your brain a bit more to refer to or describe things in your own words rather than someone elses.
Who knows, maybe you will be quoted one day?
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!
A strange saying indeed. One that had in many ways become my justification to alot of my running from problems in life.
You see, by nature I am someone always looking for the exit signs. You know the sort of people (and I'm talking in a completely metaphorical way here) that before they even walk into a situation they check if the exit signs are visible.
That saying "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" has rung true for me over the years. For me, the suggestion of running before you get burned was one that I took on with most circumstances I found myself in. As long as I felt justified in "getting out" I thought merely of any consequences to my actions.
What this 'saying' does not express about human nature however is that it is us ourselves that create the heat! So in essence as humans, we spend alot of our time running from the very problems we create for ourselves! And somehow because the world tells us that it's ok to bail on something that doesn't work out, we fool ourselves into a false sense of security that we are not to blame for our own misgivings, and that once we remove ourselves out of the equasion that somehow the equasion altogether dissapears . This saying, however much a throw away line encaptulates so much about our behaviour as people in todays society. Have we lost all of our ability to stick at something no matter what it takes? Have we allowed ourselves to detour the greatest hurdles just for the sake of taking the easy way out?
You may think I'm waffling on about nothing but I do have a point! The point is that for much of my life I have opperated within this saying. I have spent much of the last ten years running from the heat my lifestyle had created. I had lied and cheated my way in and out of things as if it was of no consequence. I had made my bed many times and refused to lay in it. But, and there is a but, life caught up with me. It has definately caught up with me! It got to a point where running from the heat was no longer optional because my whole exsistence lay within it.
What the world didn't fill me in on was that this is not a bad thing. It's ok to put up with the heat if it means conquering a mountain in your life or even just to have that self gratifying feeling of achievement that we all crave. Our world encourages us to take the easy way out but I beg to differ. There is no joy in piking out. There is no character building in comprimise. There is no future in the roaming, only in the journey, And most of all, God does not reside in the luke warm.
At first after becoming a mum, I sweated at the thought of having to stick at something for the good of another. Now I realise that God had to use that as a way to make me take the heat. For it is only through the heat of life that God can refine us into the people he wants us to be.
Isaiah 48:10 (New International Version)
See, I have refined you, though not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
You see, by nature I am someone always looking for the exit signs. You know the sort of people (and I'm talking in a completely metaphorical way here) that before they even walk into a situation they check if the exit signs are visible.
That saying "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" has rung true for me over the years. For me, the suggestion of running before you get burned was one that I took on with most circumstances I found myself in. As long as I felt justified in "getting out" I thought merely of any consequences to my actions.
What this 'saying' does not express about human nature however is that it is us ourselves that create the heat! So in essence as humans, we spend alot of our time running from the very problems we create for ourselves! And somehow because the world tells us that it's ok to bail on something that doesn't work out, we fool ourselves into a false sense of security that we are not to blame for our own misgivings, and that once we remove ourselves out of the equasion that somehow the equasion altogether dissapears . This saying, however much a throw away line encaptulates so much about our behaviour as people in todays society. Have we lost all of our ability to stick at something no matter what it takes? Have we allowed ourselves to detour the greatest hurdles just for the sake of taking the easy way out?
You may think I'm waffling on about nothing but I do have a point! The point is that for much of my life I have opperated within this saying. I have spent much of the last ten years running from the heat my lifestyle had created. I had lied and cheated my way in and out of things as if it was of no consequence. I had made my bed many times and refused to lay in it. But, and there is a but, life caught up with me. It has definately caught up with me! It got to a point where running from the heat was no longer optional because my whole exsistence lay within it.
What the world didn't fill me in on was that this is not a bad thing. It's ok to put up with the heat if it means conquering a mountain in your life or even just to have that self gratifying feeling of achievement that we all crave. Our world encourages us to take the easy way out but I beg to differ. There is no joy in piking out. There is no character building in comprimise. There is no future in the roaming, only in the journey, And most of all, God does not reside in the luke warm.
At first after becoming a mum, I sweated at the thought of having to stick at something for the good of another. Now I realise that God had to use that as a way to make me take the heat. For it is only through the heat of life that God can refine us into the people he wants us to be.
Isaiah 48:10 (New International Version)
See, I have refined you, though not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Bundles for thought
I just got off the phone to my Aunty who is about to drop her new bundle of joy any minute now.
She is a great person who I count among my closest friends, and she is one person who I can always rely on for some sound whinge/listening time :)
After I hung the phone up, I felt this surge of excitement come over me. "I'm going to have another cousin" I thought joyously to myself. But then a realisation hit me, you see, my Aunty is having her second child who will be 7 months younger than my 3rd child. Now this means one of two things. 1) I am a VERY young mother in todays world 2) My family has some serious generational issues. Well, these two points are both true.
I had my first child (Edan) when I was 2 months shy of turning 20. My second came a day before my 21st and the third came 3 months after my 22nd birthday. My Aunty was 29 when she had her first child.
I am often judged by how young I am to have so many kids and to be honest, in society today, my Aunty is classed as a young mum too.
As far as the family go, my mum was not only the eldest child but she started her family at 18. This meant that we were being born while 2 of her siblings were still in primary school. I have never thought that this was unusual until I found myself at play group today nursing my cousin who is the same age as my daughter! Everyone assumes that I am his Aunty!
I love the fact that I have the opportunity to know my Auntys the way I do, most people see thiers as old ladies who are gross and smell like mayonnaise.
I have the opportunity to journey with them as they go through the same struggles and joys I go through everyday as a mother. To be real, I would not have much support as a mum without them as most (well, all bar 1) of my friends are either still single or are married without kids.
I do not have any regrets about being young and being a mother. Sometimes I think the world has gone mad with all these 40-45 year olds having thier first children. When did society change so much that someone like me, who has beared children during the biologically right time in life, has become the minority. I even had a doctor tell me that I was too young to be having kids. WHAT??
Who knows, maybe by the time my siblings are married and having kids mine will be having thiers! haha, don't think so! BUT I'm sure they'll definately get stuck with baby sitting, just as I baby sit my cousins :)
She is a great person who I count among my closest friends, and she is one person who I can always rely on for some sound whinge/listening time :)
After I hung the phone up, I felt this surge of excitement come over me. "I'm going to have another cousin" I thought joyously to myself. But then a realisation hit me, you see, my Aunty is having her second child who will be 7 months younger than my 3rd child. Now this means one of two things. 1) I am a VERY young mother in todays world 2) My family has some serious generational issues. Well, these two points are both true.
I had my first child (Edan) when I was 2 months shy of turning 20. My second came a day before my 21st and the third came 3 months after my 22nd birthday. My Aunty was 29 when she had her first child.
I am often judged by how young I am to have so many kids and to be honest, in society today, my Aunty is classed as a young mum too.
As far as the family go, my mum was not only the eldest child but she started her family at 18. This meant that we were being born while 2 of her siblings were still in primary school. I have never thought that this was unusual until I found myself at play group today nursing my cousin who is the same age as my daughter! Everyone assumes that I am his Aunty!
I love the fact that I have the opportunity to know my Auntys the way I do, most people see thiers as old ladies who are gross and smell like mayonnaise.
I have the opportunity to journey with them as they go through the same struggles and joys I go through everyday as a mother. To be real, I would not have much support as a mum without them as most (well, all bar 1) of my friends are either still single or are married without kids.
I do not have any regrets about being young and being a mother. Sometimes I think the world has gone mad with all these 40-45 year olds having thier first children. When did society change so much that someone like me, who has beared children during the biologically right time in life, has become the minority. I even had a doctor tell me that I was too young to be having kids. WHAT??
Who knows, maybe by the time my siblings are married and having kids mine will be having thiers! haha, don't think so! BUT I'm sure they'll definately get stuck with baby sitting, just as I baby sit my cousins :)
The Daily Ayly is born
Ok...
So, here I am.
Hmm bit of a let down really, I think I was expecting some kind of pop up message saying "welcome, we're happy to have you in the Blogging family"... or maybe even a message saying "congratulations for giving in to your urge to blog".
This is probably because (and this is how I act towards most online fads) I try to pretend like I have no interest in doing what every one else is doing. I still can't believe that I resisted face book for as long as I did, I think that it was a whole year before I squimishly filled out the registration to have one of my very own.
So of course, when people started blogging I HAD to act as blogging was a low act and frown down at people sharing of themselves to the whole wide world.
The reality is, I have had the urge to blog for quite sometime. It wasn't until my husband started doing it this week that I finally gave myself permission to sink down into the sludge of personal sharing. Childish I know, if he could do it and not be lame then I could do it too.
So this is it then, the birth of The Daily Ayly.
I promise to be diligent, and although I cannot guarantee the quality or standard of my words, I can guarantee that you will be getting a slice of the delicious Ayly pie everyday. Then maybe you can dip your toes ever so lightly into the wading pool of my crazy life. And who knows, eventually you might be swimming out in the deep water with me :)
So, here I am.
Hmm bit of a let down really, I think I was expecting some kind of pop up message saying "welcome, we're happy to have you in the Blogging family"... or maybe even a message saying "congratulations for giving in to your urge to blog".
This is probably because (and this is how I act towards most online fads) I try to pretend like I have no interest in doing what every one else is doing. I still can't believe that I resisted face book for as long as I did, I think that it was a whole year before I squimishly filled out the registration to have one of my very own.
So of course, when people started blogging I HAD to act as blogging was a low act and frown down at people sharing of themselves to the whole wide world.
The reality is, I have had the urge to blog for quite sometime. It wasn't until my husband started doing it this week that I finally gave myself permission to sink down into the sludge of personal sharing. Childish I know, if he could do it and not be lame then I could do it too.
So this is it then, the birth of The Daily Ayly.
I promise to be diligent, and although I cannot guarantee the quality or standard of my words, I can guarantee that you will be getting a slice of the delicious Ayly pie everyday. Then maybe you can dip your toes ever so lightly into the wading pool of my crazy life. And who knows, eventually you might be swimming out in the deep water with me :)
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