Time goes, you say? Ah no! Time stays, we go. (Henry Austin Dobson)

Time. Inevitable fact of our existence, no matter how we define it. One of the things that we continually strive to precisely define and which in the end, only gets to define us. 

No matter which philosophical school we'll in the end support (the one that considers time to be part of the structure of our universe, a dimension which has its sequences in which it places events, or the other that defines this complex term as a fundamental intellectual structure (along with space and number) where time isn't a thing or event, and therefore cannot be measured....) we cannot avoid the fact that "time" lies right underneath the core of our existence. If you start thinking about it more deeply, you will with no doubt, get to the point of realizing that this life cannot be imagined without its time frame. All our beginnings and ends are defined by this exquisite paradigmatic term. 

I started thinking about time while standing in a long line at the supermarket the other day... Very soon after the waiting was finished, I found myself riding on the bus towards my Faculty... and then it hit me - I spend at least 40 minutes daily riding by bus ! (unless I stay home, of course)... So, when you sum up just the time you spend in the public transportation and time spent in standing in the lines, you will come to terrifying conclusions... I won't even mention hours I spend sleeping in late in the mornings, thinking how crazy is to get up early every day... There is always another day for waking up early, right?...  

Life is mostly spent in ridiculous time-consuming activities which we rarely even register at our list of activities... to the most precious things in our lives, we actually dedicate very little time... Howcome we barely even think about that? It seems to me like we are all going to wake up from this long-lasting hibernation at one point in life and realize that years are passing by and we have missed to do so much? We should be more careful how we spend our minutes...It seems like they are repeating one after another, but in fact not one minute is ever repeated. Once it passes, it will never come back to you... Use your time wisely...

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” -

Steve Jobs

Be yourself. It sounds like such a cliche, but in fact, it is one of the most important messages in life. Follow your heart, not your planner... Your planner and schedule are Time's slaves... They are there to serve to it. But your heart...Your heart is there to serve to you and to the people you care about... We are temporary beings with the expiration date, with a chance to extend our existence through the people we love and things we do...
Living forever would be like not living at all... It is good that our time is limited, because that makes us see life as more delicate ... It is just bad if we find out late that we naively thought that this life could last forever and that life after all does have a limit...
Bear in mind that moments are truly fleeting. That time passes... That it passes with no chance of reversing.
...and then- find enough time to be happy.

 

Another cheesy blog post about being in love :)

I know that blog posts are supposed to be published regularly... However, it seems to me that inspiration does not come to you when you want it and just because you need to finish your new blog post, but comes to you when you are in the middle of thousand exams and your brain requires thinking about something else rather than studying :) :D Anyhow...

...These days, I am being lucky enough, to be directly connected to the very source of most of the inspiration in this world, and that is the state of being in love. (And it is the very middle of the exam period. So.... I am practically persuaded to write ) :) 

It is funny how, when you are not possessed by this wild blind spirit that we tend to simply call "love", you can think of anything interesting to write about... but once you are in love, that special person of yours is only thing you can think about. I wake up in the morning joyous, and whatever I plan to do during the day is instantly beautified, way in advance just because i feel that I have been given the wings, power, strength, magical wand to do whatever i want to do :) I have that cute pair of green eyes to think about, and whatever I do, it seems that the pure thought of them casts a spell on me in such a way that makes me fall in love with the rest of the world as well. 

And, at the risk of sounding completely annoying to all of those who are struggling through some kind of tough emotional period, I will once again write about the beauty of believing in it. :)

The truth is, one can never know how temporary this manic state of love can be, because it tends to come and go...(unless is what we so often call "real", "right", but no one can really define those adjectives... ) ...So many times we think that we have found what's right, and it turns out to be a thousand times more wrong than right... Although sometimes love ends abruptly and brings pain and anger, I think that no love (except destructive psychotic love, with which one loves itself and its fantasies and not the other person) can be wrong. Every love is right once it happens. 

Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it its meaning.

I cannot pretend to know more about love than others and therefore by that justify my need to write so much about it. I can just write about what I think love is and inspire others to open eyes widely, for it comes in the most unexpected shapes and sizes. We often think that we must seek for a very long time to find the most beautiful things. We must seek, that is true, but seeking doesn't necessarily mean going across the seas, to different countries... What you are seeking for can sometimes be right in front of your eyes and you will miss it. 

“There are four questions of value in life... What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.” - Johnny Depp

If you are lucky enough to have love in your life, treasure it, keep it safe and unconditional, give without reservation and make it the most perfect imperfect thing in the world. There is no such thing as love on teaspoons. There are no calculations in love. And there surely aren't any guidance books about relationships, and there certainly aren't any about love. The only guidance you need is inside you.

It is scary to fall in love. There is one good quote I found that wraps up the core of our fear.

 “We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them. We say we love trees, yet we cut them down. And people still wonder why some are afraid when told they are loved.”

Love comes with the odds you'll get hurt. But as every good thing in life it comes with a risk. Once you will find that one person that will never break your heart.

If you have not yet found someone to love, even for a while, then just be patient. Love comes to those who believe in it. Trust me. That thing I know. :) Because, who are we without love? 

"Without love, what are we worth? Eighty-nine cents! Eighty-nine cents worth of chemicals walking around lonely." -Laurence Marks

Best things happen to us when we least expect them. Just like that, out of the blue. Great things are rarely planned... Unless they are a trip to Hawaii or Disneyland :) 

Other than that, once you are free of expectations, once you are open-minded and emotionally ready, your heart will find a way. "True lovers do not just meet somewhere, they exist in each other all along". Everybody deserves that special someone, and has that special someone somewhere in the world waiting to be found and to find... 

Finding that special someone starts from finding yourself. Once you figure out who do you want to be, what do you want to do and find a way to search for happiness inside of you rather than finding someone else to be your only source of positive energy, you will be ready to have someone of yours... for love isn't finding someone to carry you on the path of life, but to stand by you and hold your hand. 

Just believe and never stop searching. And just like that, you will find that cute pair of eyes, just for you, in which you feel you can melt ...Eyes, for which time stops.  Just believe.

All we need is love!

Unexpectedly, unbelievably fast, without any special warning, people fall in love. 

Shouldn't we have a special sign for such a thing?

 - Beware, slippery ground.  or -Dangerous terrain ahead !

Funny is how for the most important things in life we never receive a proper warning. I guess that's why they are so important. Because they come unexpectedly. 

Why am I writing this post? Actually, I am writing it for no specific reason. 

You don't have to spend hours of thinking to come to a conclusion that love is really all that we need. It creates a form of amnesia for any kind of worry. It erases all the things, big and small, that normally irritate us. 

Love is contagious. It spreads like a disease. 

Just like that you will find yourself loving and cherishing all the fleeting moments that usually pass by filled with anxiety, irritation, worries and all those negative emotions that we feel when we don't have love by our side. 

Love has a power to transform.

It will change bad into good faster than Harry Potter's wand. Seriously! It's funny how magically person starts having a different outlook on world. No therapy can do that so fast! I can bet on that one.

In my opinion *falling in love* it the only form of a free fall that keeps you floating above the ground. It's the only form of falling that includes flying. 

I believe that the pure sense of our existence is to love and be love. To find love. 

Here is one of my favorite quotes from the "Sex and the City" :

"Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't live without each other..."

If it comes in any other shape, for me - it is not love. It's the kind of insanity that inspires you so much that you never want to be normal again. 

I guess that the odds are very small that we will all get a chance to experience it. It takes faith and persistence, and above all - it takes an open heart, a will to look past the ordinary and seek for that crazy feeling that has inspired so many. 

Sometimes, extraordinary things come in disguise. They come unnoticed, they are easy to be neglected.. 

Sometimes the things we are searching for are right in front of our eyes and yet, we somehow miss them. See not with your eyes, but with your heart. With no prejudice. 

We can achieve so much...we can receive diplomas, awards, win championships, medals ... but success is nothing more than a worthless badge unless we have someone to share it with. 

Valentine's Day is approaching- so, it is high time to start believing in love if you have lost faith in it! ... although, to be honest, Valentine's Day is actually every single day for those who dare believe in love... they celebrate feelings every day. 

Every day is a good day to start loving someone.

Spread love people! ...for world is empty without it.

Everybody needs someone. And that someone is in your heart from the very beginning. All you need to do is listen...and one day- your fairy tale will come true. Just believe...

One of the mankind's greatest dilemmas: "To cheat or not to cheat?"

It would be rather peculiar if you haven’t, at least once in your life, thought about infidelity. You’d have to be either a sinless angel or a devil itself. It is in our nature to think about the forbidden fruits.


So, how should we define infidelity? Who deserves to be more condemned for infidelity and is cheating ever justified? When can we have an excuse for cheating? And who is guiltier: someone who has spent a careless passionate night with someone of whom one will never think again, or someone who spends every day with one person, but at the same time thinks of the other one? Is infidelity primarily physically or psychologically defined ?

Disney's movie Hercules. Megara 

Our thoughts on this topic surely link up with the very roots of our concepts of love and relationships. One person, who inspired me to start thinking more deeply about this topic, defined men as beings who are not monogamous. Therefore, it is their nature to have various partners and distinguish emotions from physical needs. In that person’s opinion polygamy is a natural state of being. My dilemma is this- if it is as such defined by nature, why is it a matter of society’s judgment? It should be quite clear that what is determined by nature and cannot be changed and controlled, cannot either be condemned. If it is a state of being, and not the state of mind and a matter of choice, then we must not judge to the ones who simply cannot control their impulses. Another question that has triggered my imagination was this one- If sex is an impulse, a need, isn't it justified to have options to fulfill that need in various ways? We tend to stigmatize one as extremely weird or odd if he , for instance, eats only spaghetti, watches only science fiction movies, listens to only one musician etc. So, how would we characterize a person who always sleeps with one person only, all the time? If sex is a need, isn’t it weird to satisfy it in a one way only? With one person only? The truth is, I have no clue. What we think is normal and sane is strictly the matter of our culture, the values that we have accepted and the knowledge we have acquired. And of course, and above all, it's the matter of our individual characteristics. 

Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.-Woody Allen

I read this quote so long ago... I wrote it down, although I never liked it, because I never really thought it is true. But the last time I read it, it made me wonder: Have moralists invented love to justify their primitive sexual instincts? Or, is an intercourse as such only beautiful once there is love in the story? Those would be shallow questions of me to ask, since there are many examples which prove that love and sexual instincts can stand on their own individually. (this quote gives an obvious one) If love can exist without sex, and sex can exist without love, then why do people so often tend to bond these two?

Many relationships fall apart because of infidelity. So, it is almost natural to wonder what is the core of our inability to forgive cheating? Why do we judge to it so hard? I’d say that it because of our fear that to someone very important to us we are simply not ENOUGH. Our someone needs someone else as well. Whether we are going to forgive in the end, I believe depends on how easy it is for us to live without that "someone".

So, finally, which path are we supposed to choose? What are the right answers?  Careless games or patient persistence in waiting for the RIGHT person to come? Or both at the same time? Can the right one be the right one if he cheats? Do we really love someone if we dare to cheat? Does someone love us if he cheats on us? What are the true indicators of love? Can we truly ever measure it? And is our everything ever enough for somebody?

Endless questions. No clear answers. But I guess that's what makes relationships, love and above all, life, so complicated. Sometimes, some questions are meant to be left open.

The Change

If somebody asked me to say one thing, which is in my opinion the very cause of most of the fears that I have in life, I would say with no doubt say

THE CHANGE.

The reason for that response is my strong conviction that the core of every fear that we have, lies in the fact that something about our lives might change dramatically at some point. I believe that a large percentage of our psychological distresses are brought by some kind of the urge to change, by the obligation or the necessity to change, by the possibility that things will never again be the same. That is what we fear. We despise instability. We need a wall, metaphorically speaking, to lean on, even if that is the wall that sometimes stands in the way of our happiness. We always need one certain person to be with us no matter what. We need one special thing to be attached to. We deeply know inside, that if we decide to go forward, to move on, to let go, to save the existing relationship, to find new paths, to go in new directions etc. we need to be ready to stand on our own for a while. Sadly, we often run away from that thought. Even when we know that everything will turn out the best possible way, just the fact that we need to change something about ourselves, about our surroundings, about our relationships, all of which are important aspects of our lives, we fear. We hesitate. We postpone the decision time. We pause.

However, because we are changing, we are growing. Unfortunately, we never think about that in the process of changing. That is what we learn after the change. There is no progress without a change. But despite that, it is always okay to fear. It is ok to have doubts. No big decisions should be made instantly. They demand contemplation. And after the decisions are made, we need to prepare ourselves to accept the change and to embrace the new things that appear on the horizon. If we have left something good behind, it is ok that we have our mourning period. It is healthy to be sad sometimes. But we mustn't let ourselves doubt that in the end we will be okay.

I believe that all things happen for some mysterious reason that we might or might not find sometime in the future, but which existence we should never question. Let's limit our knowledge so that we can have some faith, and believe that we are all part of somebody's story which has it's plots, it's ups and downs. Let's believe that we are experiencing variety of things in life so that we can learn from them and implement them in our future doings.

I love this quote, although I am not familiar with the author....

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven in the life of others.

We are all in a crazy train of life. People get in on every station, and some people leave. Every person, good or bad, enriches our lives. In the picture frames in the gallery of our memories, we display various works of art. We display images of happiness and sadness, joy and sorrow, sanity and madness and each and every picture has is characters, has it's story. Therefore, every picture is valuable asset without which some other picture, that follows it's creation could not be painted. We define dark as the absence of light just because we know that the light exists.

It is important to bear in mind that:

Nothing you love is lost. Not really. Things, people- they always go away, sooner or later. You can't hold them, anymore than you can hold the moonlight. But if they've touched you, if they're inside of you, then- they are still yours. The only things you ever really have are the ones you hold inside your heart.

Memories. They can never be taken away from us. Our heart is our treasure chest. You can't stop loving someone. Either you never did, or you always will. Love is like energy. And we all know that by the law of conservation of energy, the energy can never be lost. The total amount of energy remains consistent. It just changes from one form to another. :)

Change is inevitable. Everything changes eventually.


Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal. - Arthur Schopenhauer

Keep on. Never give up, but always be ready to let go.

Things that should come back to their places, will come back to them eventually if that is how it is supposed to be. :)

This life is a one heck of a ride. Enjoy it.

Happiness

Happiness. One thing we constantly crave for. As Ivo Andric, Serbian Nobel prize winner once said:

It is strange that we need just a little to be happy, and it is more strange how often we miss just that little.

Yes, we always seem to be missing that one small thing. Shall we manage to get it, we'll just find a way to replace it with something else, something new. The question is, can we ever be completely happy or is happiness just an undefined mystery mostly out of our reach, of which we can only catch a glimpse and nothing else?
No one knows the answer. :) While we search for the ultimate happiness and build bridges that might take us to what we think will make us complete, we forget to look at the wonderful rivers flowing under. If we concentrate only on building, we'll forget why we are building.

I have already been writing about how we should enjoy life and never waste a second of it...By writing I try to pursue myself into thinking that way and living in that direction, although I admit that I am among those countless people who keep seeking for the unknown and who feel that if they stop for just one second, everything that they have been building will just disappear.

We can't be happy all the time. That is a fact. If we were happy all the time, we wouldn't know anything about sadness, and if we did not know anything about sadness, we wouldn't be able to define what happiness is. :) We have the natural right to be sad when we want to and when we need to, we have the right to savor melancholy, which can sometimes be strangely wonderful, to cry, to get angry, be upset or filled with anxiety. No one can take that right away from us. But what we mustn't do is forget that, in the end, life is too short for us to feel like that all the time.

Moments of happiness tend to be quite tricky. They sneak around in disguise, and we need to be extra cautious not to miss them. They are everywhere and they deeply want you to catch them. Once you catch them, don't forget to truly savor them, because they are unbelievably fleeting. When they reach their ends, don't be too sad because, they will sneak into your life again if you only let them to. Keep your eyes wide open.

That is what I keep repeating to myself.

Yesterday I got to spend some wonderful time with wonderful people who keep amazing me day by day, and who are so lovable that you just can't help but love them...Today, Serbian national volleyball team officially became the European champion and I got to watch the game with my best friend and jump in front of the TV with her, cheering for our guys... Now, I am sitting in my cozy chair and writing, while listening to some great Greek songs for which I know all the lyrics, even though this time last year I did not know how to say a single word in Greek... I can feel the evening summer breeze on my cheeks coming through the open windows of my small room... I know that there are several people who are missing me at the moment, and I know that I have some dear people on my mind right now too. I know that everything I do, or almost everything :), I do because I want to and because I love to. I had some amazing experiences this year and I am unbelievably grateful for them...
I am among the luckiest, and I often forget about that.


I just felt like writing about happiness tonight. Finally, the moments in which we become aware of how happy we are, also last very shortly because, with no doubt, we soon again find another thing to miss in our lives. :)

And for the end, here is one cute thing I found :)
Afterall, happy is all we ever want to be when we grow up :)

Life and Basketball

I would like to start this post with this quote:

Not only is there more to life than basketball, there's a lot more to basketball than basketball. -Phil Jackson

Basketball has always been my favourite sport. From the first time I saw my cousin and my older brother play, I knew I wanted to do the same. I knew that I wanted to be on the court and have fun. So, in my fourth grade of primary school I joined a team. There are many things that I learned through basketball. I could never had expected that those 7 years of my life would have such an influence on me. I think basketball made me tougher, more competitive, taught me a lot about being on the team, about trust and about strong will, work ethics and effort. I never was a very good player, but I always loved the game.

Be strong in body, clean in mind, lofty in ideals. -James Naismith

When you are on the court, you know what your goal is- to win the game by giving your best. The same is in life. You always strive to be the best version yourself, even when you face the bad days. The truth is, for some people, being the best seems like a piece of cake. However, we rarely admit to ourselves that the best players, both on court and in life, are those who have worked the hardest and invested themselves completely in what they chose to do.

Those people are ready for the action when no one is. Those are the people who have guts to step up, when everyone's afraid. They know that little things that we do are the ones that determine whether we'll succeed. What we sometimes do not realize is that sometimes, small things are bigger than big things.

I try to do the right thing at the right time. They may just be little things, but usually they make the difference between winning and losing.

- Kareem Adbul-Jabbar

We are facing challenges constantly through our lives. In basketball, we can struggle with the other team's strong defense or offense, with our own personal flaws in dribbling, shooting, etc. Obstacles are there to teach us how to jump over them. Flaws are there to show us what can be improved. No one is perfect, and that is why we need to practice and improve ourselves along the way.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – are all an opportunity for me to rise.-Kobe Bryant

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.- Tim Duncan

My dad once told me that only fools are not afraid. Whenever you are about to have an important game, in life or basketball, it is normal to be afraid. It means that you have something to lose. However, fear should never stop us from fighting and making progress.

I know fear is an obstacle for some people, but it is an illusion to me . . . Failure always made me try harder next time.- Michael Jordan

Whenever you have potential, you have to bear in mind that there are envious people who will not be happy to see you progress. So, do not listen to the mean comments, and don't the let strong words, which are coming from people who do not wish you well, tackle your enthusiasm. You are who you want to be. You are always what you ch

oose to be.

Don’t let what other people think decide who you are.-Dennis Rodman

Bad days, both on the court and in life are inevitable. Michael Jordan says:

I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot…and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why… I succeed.

Whenever we face a failure, it is up to us whether we will step back and give up, or come back stronger and more determined to correct the wrong and achieve what we intended in the first place.

You never make any of the shots you never take. 87% of the ones you do take, you’ll miss too. I make 110% of my shots.-Larry Bird

In order to succeed you need to try your hardest. You will never make a shot unless you dare to shoot towards the basket. Everything is possible in basketball. Everything is possible in life. You can win everything and lose everything in the blink of an eye. Therefore, never give up! Whenever you hear that something cannot be done, try even harder. When you are read

y to work your hardest, you are ready to win.

Push yourself again and again. Don’t give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.-Larry Bird

In order to be the best version of yourself, you need to trust yourself that you can be one. You can push yourself only when you have a goal in front of you towards which you can push.

This is one of my favourite quotes:

There are plenty of teams in every sport that have great players and never win titles. Most of the time, those players aren't willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the team. The funny thing is, in the end, their unwillingness to sacrifice only makes individual goals more difficult to achieve. One thing I believe to the fullest is that if you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of themselves. Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.- Michael Jordan

As individuals, we must work on improving our skills. But, in the end, even with the best individuals, the team can be bad. A team is more than a sum of players. While I was playing basketball in the States, on my basketball equipment we have printed "ONE HEARTBEAT", two words to symbolize the strength of the team. You need to work with your friends, join potentials, support each other and never leave anybody behind. That is how any team in real life must function in order to succeed.

I have noticed that some players became great ones, not because of their talent but because of their passion and effort. It seems that all you need in order to be great, both in basketball and life is a strong determination, commitment, devotion and above all, you have to love the game.

It is not about what is outside. It is about the inside. About the heart. It is about the will. In the end, it doesn't matter if you are an all star player, the MVP; it doesn't matter how much money you're making, what shoes you're wearing... it is about how much you love the game.

In the end- the bottom line is how much you're enjoying it.

So :

Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the

game

- Michael Jordan