When in Loss of Inspiration

Has it ever happened to you? When you have this amazing idea you'd get crazy excited about but then when you start actually working on your piece, you realise you have no more passion or you feel lost in a much bigger universe. Let's get real here, loss of inspiration also implies going through somewhat of an existential crisis. So I want to speak about my experience when having to deal with such problems. I have my little techniques and I wish to share them on this blog, I do not, however, guarantee it will work for everyone. After all, each and every one of us are so different, complex, specific that it is impossible to explain for sure how we work. 

So here we are, I would like to start by saying one thing: Our bodies are what people see of us, and for some reason they are supposed to represent us to the eyes of the world. What we tend to forget is that their primary use is to bring a material proof of your soul and your creativity, which is why some people get tattoos or piercings or dye their hair. So how is it that we do not keep in mind the fact that our bodies are a perpetual source of inspiration. Its movements, the way it works, its specificity, its unique beauty lying in every imperfection and the constant charming aura it has. This is what can and should inspire us constantly, because there is no end to the discoveries we make about our physical selves. In conclusion, when I feel lost or confused about my art, I start thinking about the representation of humankind throughout the years and its forms. It is truly fascinating, and I stop for a moment. So start gathering thoughts on our ways of communication, our survival, what beauty really is... so many unanswerable questions. Aren't they reinvigorating !?

Once I've taken a moment to reflect on the wide range of possibilities when it comes to humans, I try to think about the actual project I am working on. It is easy to say we have to think outside of the box, but when that box is invisible it is very common that we get lost or hit our heads against the sides instead of upwards and outwards. So here it is, what thinking outside of the box means for me, is taking your successes and fails into account, your best and your worst work, but also the ones of others then to do a massive mash up and try and understand why what turned out to be the best worked better. After that is done, you need to think about the added value you have as an individual. Because, believe it or not, you can bring something here no one else can.Your mind is a piece of artistry that is to be used in the purpose of bringing a new element to your project. Instead of limiting myself, I try to think about all the different ways I could portray something and I keep reminding myself that sticking to the "status quo" isn't always the answer. To simplify my messy thoughts, let's just say this: Thinking outside of the box means thinking inside of your box, up there, in your brain. Let's stop focusing on others and try and make what you have necessary to others.

Finally, sometimes, lack of inspiration comes from, losing interest for an art or not feeling the need to express yourself for a while. It happens when we are drained, either by current situations or the people surrounding us. What is very important to keep in mind is that the problem never comes from you alone, it comes from a combination of you and the place you are at right now. Since we all agree that you are a pretty awesome human being, try and change the place you are at ! It's an awfully easy thing to say if you contrast it with the arduous task it actually is, but it can be done with determination and a need for change, what it will trigger is amazing and challenging: new people, new situations but also new opportunities which will open themselves up for you. If something really is your passion (like sports, writing, teaching or even shopping) and you suddenly feel a break happening between you and "it" , don't stay and agree with what your head is saying because deep down inside your heart is still screaming from the pain of losing that one interest. Get back in the game. Don't give up because you have received countless critics and "no"s from people who pretend to know something about what you are doing. Go out there and try again. Try, and continue because inspiration will flow right back into you.

There are three main points to remember here: individuals are amazing and have always been, there is always inspiration lying somewhere. Thinking outside of the box doesn't mean anything else apart from add your own "thing" even if it might not be approved immediately, so brainstorm about a never ending field of forms for what you do, bring something new and exiting. Finally, if you do not feel encouraged to continue or if you are feeling down, then just keep in mind that you are not the main problem, you are also maybe not in a right place and change always creates New.

10 things which say you're an International Traveler

Today, while I was looking at the statistics of the nationalities of my readers, it hit me.

There are so many possible different origins one can have, but somehow there are always people, such as me, who feel like they belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Having lived my whole life in some of the biggest cities in the world, I should know about the incredible melting pot they all are, and yet we can still identify to one another.

So I thought it would be a fun thing to write about how do you really know if you're an International person:

#10_ You know approx. the hours of flight it will take to get from one country to another place on the planet

#9_ You can name at least five other currencies than the Pound, Euro, Yen and US Dollar

#8_ You wear appropriate clothes, which fit with the country's culture (no tank tops in India for example)

#7_ You can stand swapping your diet with another country's without suffering too much

#6_ You know Hong Kong is not in Japan

#5_ You've lived in two continents or more

#4_ You speak two languages fluently and are learning at least a third one

#3_ You know how to say "thank you" in five different languages

#2_ You pack your suitcase in an hour the night right before leaving and know the list of what to take by ♥

#1_ You know the Airport routine better than your own name and never wear a belt that rings or high heels

So here it was, my personal list of statements you can identify with if you're a very International person.

• If you got 0, you have not discovered yet what the world had to offer
• If you got 1 to 4, you're in the process of becoming a world traveler
• If you got 5 to 7, you know what you're talking about
• If you got 8 to 10, you have been through it all, the best and the worse, and know your cultures 

Hope to see you here again soon ! :)

My unclear future

I keep finding myself in the difficult position of having to find what I want to study at university. 

It doesn't seem that complicated, and many kids around the world wish everyday for the same chance I have, to be able to be in such a situation. However, I keep thinking that this choice I have to make will end up in throwing away some opportunities. It might be a childish thought, but the idea of doors closing at my face is terrible. 

I do not want to be restrained. To be kept in a box. I want to be able to do anything at anytime if I ever decide to do so. Ultimately, that's how it is, choosing what you want to study means setting the footpath to take for the rest of your life, it means ticking a box and accepting to stay in it somehow. 

I know I am wrong, that finding what I want to study actually means setting a footpath I can decide to follow, not the one I will need to follow. It means that I will be able to secure my future in some way.

The problem is that I am facing all kinds of issues. My dad tells me I do not have enough ambition compared to my expectations. He could not be more wrong. I want to be at the top, I want to be able to sustain the way of life I am having right now, and to do so I will do my best and more. I am determined and I do not back down easily, I might not be as good as the people around me at doing what I like, but I believe I have the most potential. I push myself as far as needed, I understand the concept of sacrifice. 

Still though, I want too much, I want it all and I cannot have it all. I might be growing everyday and understanding some deeper sides of life, but I am not ready to accept the fact that I will never be satisfied. 

That's my problem, I'm interested in everything but ready to make a real commitment to not enough things, I want to live a really cool life in amazing cities like Sydney or Nice but I also want to travel the world, I feel like I need a challenging job to keep me on edge and interested and maybe make me feel threatened sometimes so that it can help me blossom and strive, but also one which allows me to enjoy free time and my peers. I want a very public job where I get to meet tons of people, get to understand and explore their worlds, see life the way they do but sometimes I find myself to be an introvert, as I like being alone once in a while to reflect on my views. 

That's just it. I want it all and its opposite. It is hard for me to settle down at a time where my head is filled with dreams and possibilities. How can I ever turn away a possible career when I have never tried it ?! 

I like science just as much as economy, but I had to choose between both and I took the second option, which means I will never be a neurosurgeon or a doctor. How ridiculous is that!? I had to make that choice age 15. I follow the french system and I find it horrendously ridiculous. 

I do not want too much, all I am actually begging for without realising it is more time. Time for me to grow into myself, to find out more of my interests and the lifestyle I'd enjoy the most and what type of person I am. 

Unfortunately, it is a luxury I and many others do not have right now. Time. The only thing we can never buy. 

So please, tell me, what is an artistic, public, mentally challenging, creative, people-oriented, well-paying career path I can consider which would ideally also be accompanied by responsibilities and opportunities to go always higher?

And here is the absolute truth: If I could become anything in the world right now (although there is a very high chance this will change in the few years to come) I would be an actress. 

Note to my future self: After studying something clever and finding a lovely job, please do not forget or give-up acting ! What you love does not have to be your job but you should not forget about it either.

Finding Strenght

What is the most obvious about great leaders is that they are strong.

They have the strength to give orders and to push their men in the right direction, they have the strength to stay focused while in difficult positions and they have the strength to keep moving forward.

Great firms and Empires were built by people who wanted to move ahead of others, who wanted to acquire what their opponents did not have yet.

Strength has many different definitions and is present in various situations. Mental strength is what I find most interesting, we can find it in the actions our peers or even ourselves take from time to time: through taking risks, through perseverance, through leading men in desperate situations, through being the main pillar in an ongoing project. Through not only being able to carry your own burdens but the scariest ones of others.

Mental strength is what makes the difference in the long run. It does not matter how talented, skilled or wonderfully audacious you are, if you cannot endure what the world has planned for you.

Now the real question lies here: Where can an individual find that strength, which seems so rare and is the main component of a great leader?

Strength is everywhere, all that we need to do everyday is find it. Most of the time, it is hiding in a passion, as they trigger the most artistic, fiery and sometimes competitive sides of people.

Finding strength is way easier than we think. The first step to doing so is to look for its opposite: our weaknesses. I learnt, in the process of maturing into a hopefully wise and determined adult, that it is only by accepting our points of amelioration as they are that we can move forward. Focusing on trying to fix what you are the least good at is useless if it is in the perspective of getting on the same level as the best, the chances are too slim you will succeed in doing so. Sometimes, in order to be the best we need to accept we can't beat everyone at everything. Spending countless hours trying to change only weaknesses is actually terrible for anyone's determination. 

Indeed, we need to start getting better at what we already "do well" so we can start being exceptional. It is by thinking in that positive way that we get our morals up and continue on our quest to our own happiness and feeling of achievement. 

Strength lies everywhere. It is hiding in you. Not anywhere else. It is in the core of your soul and finding it might take some exploring, but in the end, it is absolutely worth it. 

For some people, it takes getting tattoos of inspirational quotes, reading the biographies of amazing humanists and engaged politicians or simply looking at your family, to keep going on. Whatever it is, if there ever is a moment when you feel like you will fight without ever giving up for what you believe in, then take a moment to reflect on what pushed you to find yourself in this state of readiness for combat as it is what will mostly keep pushing you to your limits and beyond.

In conclusion, although all of us do not always find ourselves in need for mental strength, to get through a complicated time in our life it is required we have it at one point, as a life without difficulties simply is not one. The fact I hope my future self will always remember is that The magic happens outside of our comfort zone, whatever challenges I will face and however atrocious they might be, I need to push myself to get past dilemmas and conquer them fearlessly like the leader I feel I am. Lastly, this is a addressed to every single person on this Earth (and beyond), our daily source of strength are the Little Things that we do not notice enough but which make our lives so incredible. 

If you have been able to read everything I wrote so far I salute you, as I have spent an incredible amount of time writing, re-writing and deleting chunks of this post. You are therefore extremely welcome to give me some feedback, good or bad I take it all.

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Here are the little things that made my life awesome today Friday 2nd of May 2014 and which keep me going: My dog, Yoga, Toblerone

Facing your fears

Being afraid is one of the feelings that can remind us the most of how alive we are. Being afraid means fearing the unknown not for what it is but for the consequences it might have on you. So to resume, we are scared because we do not want to be the casualties of the "new".

Now having said that, danger might be imminent and even inevitable is certain situations however we always have a choice. Either to flee or to face that danger. Now in some cases, the first option is largely the preferable one, but in the common world where being onstage is terrifying, we can always try.

That is one thing I learnt, either you keep running or you stand. You wait for the storm to come. What is worse is the anticipation not the actual storm. I also learnt that it is never as bad as it seems and even if it was, as long as your are STILL standing after, you are the winner in the story.

To be totally honest, I am not saying we should face all of our fears because sometimes there can also be good in it. The fear of failure pushes certain individuals to the peak of their potential and the fear of being forgotten encourages artists to be original and to stand out. Sometimes, we do lose control of the fear we have and we let it reign over us, like puppets.

That is when we have got to learn how to say no. No to our instincts that push us to recluse areas that only we know and in which we feel safe. If we do not force ourselves to get out there and to sometimes take risks, then life becomes meaningless. Then the purpose of having a brain which allows us to explore our surroundings becomes null.

It is an extremely arduous task, to reassure ourselves that danger does not mean The End. As a student in the economic stream of my school, I can strongly say that the probability that you succeed keeps growing with the number of failures you encounter. Each failure can teach us what we cannot learn through achievements.

My father made me read a book, and if I were to explain the plot it would sound eccentric and ridiculous therefore I will not, but when he handed me that book he said "It changed my life". I was so sceptic you should have seen my face. I somehow decided I would still give it a shot, because if my father, whom I admire, learnt something from that then I could too. So I did. I read that book in an hour, it wasn't long. At the end of my reading I realised my father was right. This book was way deeper than I could have ever imagined. I truly started to understand the toll it had taken on my life when I found myself talking about it to a friend. This was mind boggling for me. How did that author, Spencer Johnson, know how to convey a message that was and still is changing my vision of the world?

How do you know what is waiting for you when you are too afraid to explore? How do you know that after difficulties don't come great rewards?

I am someone who gets scared very easily. I love responsibilities but when I have to start taking risks that might have long-lasting consequences I panic.

So, after I read that book, I realised every morning when I wake up, I have to ask myself the same question: What would you do if you weren't afraid?

I find this question so beautiful. It opened up my mind on all the possibilities I had never considered before. It allowed me to see that security and fear were not always the best options.

That was a long, messy thread of thoughts, but I got it out of my mind.

For people who are interested, here is the link to a video which is basically a short cartoon of the book I keep mentioning, I warned you, it is strange but it still captures the essence of the plot:

My Empire is down but I am still standing

Here are a few words, that escaped my mind to live in a world which cannot be materialized. Every human, during their lives, no matter how short or long they live, build an Empire. That Empire might be people who love you, people who hate you, places and memories, smells and looks and funny stories. It might be a pet, or an actual Empire. What really counts, is what that Empire means. It will still be alive, even after you die.

When I say my Empire is down, it means I've lost a few people including myself, I left them or ...they left me. It means that I don't feel as happy or as secure anymore. Our Empires are cocoons to which we can run and hide. Mine feels empty. Teenage years are full of ups and downs and I am going through a down. No matter what that down actually is, I need to remind myself that the one element which I feel like I lost is not what consists of my Empire.
What is the root to my kingdom are my ideas and my very own vision of the world. It feels like my Empire has fallen and for all I know it might be very true. However, I am still standing. I am still strong. As long as I can stand, as long as I can scream, I will do so. "Throw me at the wolves, and I will return leading the pack." I believe in my own strength. And with that strength, with my weak and feeble arms, I will build a whole new Empire, a better one. I might be tired, but oh, when I'll come back, no one will be ready for what they'll witness.

 Just think, when you feel sad and oppressed and you forget to see the beauty in life, remember that you are just working on your rebirth. It works just like a computer. You see, when you press "restart" it has to shut down, and the screen gets pitch black in order for it to start up again, and blind you with its luminosity. 

So right now, I am telling myself that when I will get out of what feels like a gloomy dimension of a terrible movie, I'll end up some place beautiful, I'll end up where I'm supposed to. 

If I can write down any piece of advice for myself so that I never forget it, it will be that: We regret the things we did not do, and not our little bits of craziness which push us to do incredibly stupid things.

Only through pain can we get better

The statement above is one of the many facts we learn as we grow into adulthood. There are many things that we are taught in school, but life-lessons are self taught. We grow from our mistakes. I did not seize or grasp the full meaning of this sentence until I suffered a little.

In middle-school you are either bullied or the bully. In my case, it was (how original) the first option. I was the new girl and I later became the annoying ugly girl of the class. So I had it all thrown at my face by some guys that could not see the impact their words had.

Only when I would break down and cry, would they stop, and eventually once in a while apologize before starting again a few hours later.

This is how I realised that it was not me they hated, but my looks. It was not me, not who I was, but what I looked like. What I appeared to be. They truly did look sorry at the idea of me hurting, they just did not care enough to stop acting the way they did. It looked like they retrieved some sort of satisfaction from my pain. I later understood that some of these jerks were going to become really good people, and that for some others it was who they are, and not changing. Being bullied pushed me to my physical but also mental limits as I did things I now regret, but it made me grow as I learnt that in life you sometimes have to be ruthless and that strength keeps you alive . I learnt that looks can get you places brains can't, and that their power should not be underestimated. That is how I got interested into body language.

Only through pain can we get better.

We have all had friends that have let us down tremendously at one point in our lives. What I got from that experience was that there is a clear line between your Friends with a capital "f" and your friends. In french, we have two different words to call our friends, depending on how important they are to us: Amis and Copains. I learnt how and in which category to put everyone I met nearly immediately. I also learnt that upgrades and downgrades are possible. To finish with, I learnt that trust comes from honesty and that there is no point in trusting someone who has lied to someone else in front of you. Disappointments and let-downs are part of life, and they should be expected, sometimes forgiven. We are humans after-all and can make errors, but repeating them doesn't make you human, just selfish.

Only through pain can we get better.

When my grandparents died, I understood how primordial it was to say the words we never say to our families. To say "I love you" or "I'm sorry". Because it's always too late. The type of pain I am talking about right now is the one which comes with regret. Regretting doing something or on the contrary, not doing anything is painful to any individual. What is even more painful are the "what if...". What if I had faced my fears for him, would he still like me? What if I hadn't said that, would they still be friends? What if instead of doing that, I did this? All of those questions and only one goal: Imagining a different turn out.

Through all the regrets my 17 years old self can experience, I understood that I had to give up on the "what ifs" and I had to stop blaming myself. This is the way it all happened, now stop whining. Be the person you wish you were, have the strength you know is hiding in you. Get up and face the world like a superhero does when everything around them is falling.

Because living in fear and regret only results in more fears and regrets.

All it does is stop yourself from enjoying life the way it should be enjoyed.

Now, only through pain DO we get better.