A friend in need is a friend indeed? There is a much better friendship test! November 5, 2013

My first personal insight on a true friendship was that the friend is not the person who helps you out in a difficult situation but the one who can enjoy your joys. Indeed I have noticed that many people are happy to help out, in some or other way if anything bad happens. However not many are able to enjoy what you enjoy. 

Recently I thought of another important friendship distinction:

A true friendship passes through the “money test”, and the false one not. How many stories we all have heard/experienced when so-called best friends, being in a business situation of making and sharing money, suddenly part and fight? How many seemingly stable and good relationships have been brocken when money came into the play?

Luckily I never experienced that, in fact just the opposite: one of my best, long-term friends is at the same time my employer and the money issue makes no impact on our wonderful relationship. But I know of many opposite cases.

Somehow or rather, money has its power spell over relatioshiops. Therefore it is the best friendship test.

LOVE, axinia

How I wonderfully managed my communication lot August 21, 2013

I am in one of the most communication-loaded professions, people management. This would mean talking, talking and talking. however the average time I spend on the phone daily is only about 1 (!) hour.  Happy to share with you some tricks about managing communication.

1. Phone talks are unhealthy and limiting in expression. 70% of all talks many people do on the phone I outsourced to Internet: I prefer writing short messages  or long detailed emails, depending on the case – this saves my time and the time of the counter part. People have more chances to think over the message. It is also more convenient because today when almost everyone owns a smartphone, a written message can be read practically any time. While writing emails it is crucial to give the topic in the header as exact as possible, so the reader can see the relevance of the message. Another important thing about written communication: please always give feedback!!! ALWAYS. People should know you have received the message, it makes them feel comfortable and appreciated.

2. I prefer “LIVE” communication to any other. Therefore I just try to MEET people. Thanks to my job I always meet new people and maintain relationships with the good “old” ones. Going out for lunch, meeting after work, inviting to my place, going out on weekends…There are lots of chances to meet up. And this is most important!

3. There people whom I like so much that I really want to meet them more often.  And also to let them meet each other! So I came to an idea of organizing my “own” club 🙂 I invite interesting people (either my job candidates, or clients, or just my good friends) once in a month, we all meet for clubbing ina nice quiet location. Since the group is “pre-selected” by high professional and ethical standards, it is a great pleasure and fun to meet up regularly. Many interesting ideas and project emerge out of these positive gatherings.

4. Being active in Social Networks also helps a lot. Every now and then I post some “private” information, limited but regularly, so people who are not close friends but know me personally  are updated about my life changes. It is important not to overdo  or not to under-do that.

5. Thanks to my blog www. 1000petals.wordpress.com which i run since 6 years I have gained many new friends (online and offline) who also appreciate this kind of communication. Blogging is a great tool no doubt! My readers like to refer to my posts and discuss them with me personally, also outside the blogosphere.

P.S: When meeting someone for the frist time I normally take time and we talk at least about 1-2 hours. This helps to deeply understand the person and see to the roots. It helps establishing the trust. Normally after one such meeting the person always remembers me and is happy to coöperate any time and is much easier to handle in communication (needs less time to accomplish things!).

These are my little tricks. And what is helping you?

LOVE

axinia

Friendship replaces marriage in the modern value system January 16, 2013

It is another interesting trend: Friendship as a value takes the place of marriage in the modern western world. What we see on the surface is the relationship status “girl-friend”, “boy-friend”. It is not by chance that people choose this words to explain that they are actually lovers.  In many western countries this kind of relationship has been legalized and has almost the status of marriage, even from the taxation point of view. Despite this fact people, especially males tend to see this kind of relationship as a “light” version of marriage, a less value-loaded status with less responsibilities.

On the other hand we have a significant shift in the collective consciousness regarding the value of friendship. While the girl-friend-boy-friend-relationship has less weight than a marriage, we can see the value of friendship as an intimate relationship without any sex involved rising high.In the online world, thanks for Facebook & Co it is a matter of prestige and social value to have many friends, no matter how “real” they are.

In the offline world people start loving, relying on, valuing friends more that their families. Why? First of all, for various reasons (one is given here) the generations of 20 to 50 year-old in the West suffer from problems with parents. For many a family is not the place to relax and enjoy, on the contrary  it is a place to quarrel, debate on relationship issues and even sue each other. At the same time it’s becoming a great problem for young people to create their own families – may be because they have seen so many divorces, may be of high expectaions planted in minds by the mass media… Whatever it is, the lack of peace in the family corner makes people seek peace and joy elsewhere. And many find it in friendship.

A true friendship is a perfect relationship because it does not suggest any responsibilities and obligations like a marriage does. We are free to meet up, talk, do some activities together, enjoy… We do not “have to”… and yet we are happy to help, to support, “to be there for a friend in need”, to invest time and money. But why? What moves us?

Friendship test: a friend in need is a friend indeed? August 5, 2011

image by axinia

Have you ever thought why a common idea of a good friend is as of a one who helps in need? Although it seems to be so common in many cultures (similar proverbs in various languages), I believe it is not what actually characterises a good friend.

My life experience shows that there are lots of people who are eager to help when one needs. Thanks God, most of human beings have a kind and good nature, otherwise this world would never survive. I am sure if you will analyze your experiences you will also find out that in many cases you have been helped not by your friends, but by people whom you hardly know or even by strangers. It turnes out that the help in need is not the one which we can only get from real friends.

Once when I was younger and thinking of getting married I was wondering what would be the most important thing for me in my husband. And I realized that the joy-sharing would be crucial, above all good qualities and habits. Imagine, you are enjoying something and the person next to you has no clue about how you feel. When the other does not share your joy, what’s the point in such a relationship?

The same works for a friendship, I believe. I true friend is the one with whom I can share all the joys of my life and I know he/she will not be jealous, will be able happy fro me and enjoy with me.

Now ask yourself how many people do you know with whom you can share your joy? I guess not that many. And all that people are your real friends, right? 🙂

I might be mistaking in that theory, but I guess it works for all people. What do you think?

LOVE, axinia

Romantic love vs. True love and why happy marriages are rare in the West February 4, 2010

This post follows Romantic Love: A book EVERY Western man should read  and  quotes Robert A. Johnson’s bestseller “Understanding the Psychology of romantic love”  . I arranged it the way that it gives the essence of author’s investigations on the topic, but please do read the book, it’s so insightful!

Below you will find the brilliant differentiation between the so called romantic love and true love. After reading this post, be prepared for the next in which you will lean about the amazing potential of romantic love.  In the meanwhile, let’s meditate on the truthful lines below.

What is romantic love?

Romantic love is the single greatest energy system in the Western psyche. In our culture it has supplanted religion as the arena in which men and women seek meaning, transcendence, wholeness, and ecstasy…We are so accustomed to living with the beliefs and assumptions of romantic love that we think it is the only form of “love” on which marriage or love relationships can be based. We think it is the only “true love”. But there is much that we can learn from the East about this. In Eastern countries, like those of India and Japan, we find that married couples love each other with great warmth, often with a stability and devotion that puts us to shame. But their love is not “romantic love” as we know it. They don’t impose the same ideals on their relationships, nor do they impose such impossible demands and expectations on each other as we do.

Romantic love has existed throughout history in many cultures. We find it in the literature of ancient Greece, the Roman empire, ancient Persia, and feudal Japan. But our modern Western society is the only culture in history that has experienced romantic love as a mass phenomenon. We are the only society that makes romance the basis of our marriages and love relationships and the cultural ideal of “true love”.

One of the greatest paradoxes in romantic love is that it never produces human relationships as long as it stays romantic. It produces drama, daring adventures, wondrous, intense love scenes, jealousies, and betrayal; but people never seem to settle into relationship with each other as flesh-and-blood human beings until they are out of the romantic love stage, until they love each other instead of “being in love”.

Romance, in its purest form, seeks only one thing – passion. It is willing to sacrifice everything else – every duty, obligation, relationship, or commitment  – in order to have passion.

Difference between romantic love and true love

People become so wearied of the cycles and dead ends of romance that they begin to wonder if there is such a thing as “love”. There is.

FRIENDSHIP – why it is the ultimate form of any relationship August 6, 2009

image by axinia

Friendship is a word which we all use in our everyday language, and yet it could take one’s whole life only to realize its
meaning. However learned a person may be, however pious, spiritual, or experienced, if he has not learned that nature and
character of friendship he has not learned anything. This is the first and the last thing we have to learn. We so often use this
word lightly, calling every acquaintance a friend, or professing to be somebody’s friend; but the more we realize the meaning of
it, the less we are able to claim friendship. For everything in life we are tested, examined, and tried, but to pass this examination
of friendship is the most difficult thing in the world.

What is the reason for this? Why is it so difficult to be a friend? One would think that it was the easiest thing there is! The
reason is that there is something in ourselves which is always against our being friendly. It is the the ego.

As long as this ego is standing and lives, a man cannot claim to be anybody’s friend. And when he is not somebody
else’s friend he is not even his own friend, for one learns friendship by being a friend to another. A selfish man may seem to be
a friend to himself but, it is on the surface, not in reality. He has not yet learned how to be a friend to another, so he cannot be
a friend to himself. In our pursuit of truth we want to learn a great many things: the nature of life, the secret of life, the character
of life; and to understand the meaning of friendship seems so easy and simple that we never trouble to think about it, nor about
the responsibility of being a friend.

It is a simple lesson, and it is a lesson that we have to learn; today when nations are against nations and races against races,
when communities are against communities, and one religion against another, it is now that friendship is so much needed.
Besides, friendship is the first lesson of spirituality that one can learn. One may think that friendship, a personal friendship,
means nothing; that one does not become spiritual through a personal friendship. But one does.

Mad Professor blogging: a foreigner in Bollywood June 1, 2009

 (Arno, image taken by me)

Arno Krimmer, a great friend of mine has ventured to leave Austria, his beautiful and comfortable motherland for… India. In Dec 2003 he made India his home and after teaching for 3 years in a school in the Lower Himalayas he became the first foreign Professor at the Film & TV Institute of India (“Bollywood Academy”) and is presently one of the few foreigners working in the Hindi film industry.

Due to his deep interest in Indian heritage and western educational background Arno has gained a unique perspective und insight into the modern Indian film. Every time we meet, I enjoy his analysis of the Indian and world-film industry as well as captivating stories about his life and encounter with interesting personalities of modern India. Every time I visit him in India, I wish I could follow his example and move to this magnetic place on Earth… who knows, may be one day?…

But today let me introduce you two Arno`s blogs. He blogs under the name “Mad Professor”:

BOLLYWOOD SPIRIT

The author reviews films less known and less promoted abroad, but nevertheless or maybe especially because of that highly recommendable. This blog will also take a look on big blockbusters, but without intending full coverage on all releases, it rather desires to present  films with a difference.

Here Mad Professor gives a balanced overview and his personal rating. I can only add that I try to follow his advice and by now all the recent Indian films I watched have been recommended to me by Arno and I enjoyed them immensely.

The downside of having many friends around the world April 27, 2009

 (image by me)

I love friends. Friends are fabulous, great, gorgeous and absolutely necessary.

I make frieds pretty fast and for me tt is often sufficient to have a sincere talk once to become friends forever.

However there is a small unpleasant problem in having friends in many different places – the physical separation. When I meet a good friend, the time flies so fast and it feels like there are millions of thing we want to do, to discuss, to experience together… And then for some obvious reason (leaving for another country, end of holidays, moving homes) we have to part…that feels horrible!

People with big ego undergo hard humiliation tests October 27, 2008

 image by axinia

That is another observation from my life: people with big ego undergo hard humiliation tests.

In my life I am mostly surrounded by people who have great personalities – and that means not only being intelligent, brilliant, talented, charismatic but also also having a big portion of ego. Either this ego is the driving force to develop such a personality or one grows a big ego realising what a wonderful person she/he is. That is the part of the game, I guess, and probably the hardest of all 🙂

One interesting thing I noticed is that at a certain period of their life such people get in severe ego-tests undergoing a hard humiliation of their most precious values. Mostly it is in the realm of relationships, but can be in a friendship or at work. What kind of tests?

The game goes like that: one finds himself in a desirable situation, but can not get the ultimate of it. Because something is missing. This “something” is however the crucial point here and the person suffers. Example: a charming and adorable girl is in love relationship with a man who does not want to marry her although he loves her. The marriage would mean a full acceptance and appreciation for her, but she can not get it from him. Another beauty leaves her husband for the “better man” and faces constant humiliation in her wound point. Interestingly, everyone around can clearly see the absurdity of such relationship but a person stays “blind”.

Germany and Austria – same language, different cultures September 4, 2008

I am in Germany this week and although I know the country quite well, it is every time striking to me how Germany so much differs from Austria  – despite seemingly same language and culture.

Even if you have never been to both of them, you can imagine the difference might be in a way same like between USA and Canada, India and Pakistan, Russia and Ukraine, France and Belgium, etc… Many countries with “same” roots have sometimes less similarities with each other, than with any other country.

 

image of Frankfurt /Germany by EIPLanB

In the case of Germany and Austria, the important reason for their cultural difference and philosophy I see in the religious background. Most of the Germany is protestant with its belief in hard work and minimalism, Austria is still under that strong influence of the Catholic church with its take to showing off the riches, hierarchy and “connections”. The impact of that attitude is so obvious for an outsider like me, especially in terms of money: Germans are in generally richer than Austrians, at the same time they are much less generous and too “economical”, if not say greedy (sorry to say so but that is my personal impression). Germans keep talking about saving money all the time!! – Austrians like to moan about hard life in general 🙂

One more interesting thing is