Olly Murs - Up (Official Video) ft. Demi Lovato

Years passed

a-ha - Butterfly, Butterfly (The Last Hurrah)

Drifting along

Too many choices in life- does it become overwhelming?
Too many uncertainties- same question?
Wouldn't a simple life, without having to make decisions, ask questions and choose between this and that, be better? What is the point of questioning, because there aren't always answers around. Wouldn't it be ideal that you can just pull all the right answers out of the pocket, pick the most appropriate one and it would always be the answer you wanted. Things would work out the way you wanted. No exceptions.
Questions such as these would be answered: What is the meaning of life? Are there aliens in another planet? Why am I tired today? Why can't I lose weight? Hmmmm. Let me consult my magic cards, and I will have an answer ready in a flash. Keep them questions coming: What is love? Is Elvis Presley alive? Can I one day become famous?  Why do people commit crimes? Why do phobias exist? Why do I fall in love with wrong men all the time? What caused dinosaurs to become instinct?

Why not just settle for a mediocre life? Just so that things are bearable, nothing in excess. Food, clothes, occasional movie ticket and dinner outside. Cable TV. Work, car. Same old daily schedule. Drift along. No questions, no answers. Time passes, as it always does.
Eat-sleep-work, and repeat. Don't crave and obsess about stuff you don't have and cannot possibly get. Don't even worry yourself about promotion at work. Don't think about that guy/girl, who you wanted to date, but couldn't, because he/she was already taken. There are no more doubts, no second-guessing, no wasted time. Pretty unpredictable, but safe and pretty bearable.

Might work for me. I get so preoccupied by certain stuff I know I will never get. Obsessed about that stuff. Not good, because then it consumes all of my time- good example was cancer, which I researched and studied for hours on end and never got the answers, so I had to carry on. In the end cancer journey lead me to Riyadh and Houston, but those hours that went into it, were so necessary. So I think mediocrity would not have been the right answer there, but at some other times being "average" is pretty much ok. Just let it go for a while, live your life, don't go looking for new challenges. Stagnate for a while. Live a life, and don't wait for magic answers to appear from nowhere. I keep walking, because that is the easiest way to shut the mind off for at least an hour and give my brain a break.
Then I can also practice stillness and keeping unwanted and unnecessary thoughts at bay. Forget.

On the saddle again

There are good and bad days in riding. More good than bad, otherwise I'd not be riding at all. The horse too has days, when does not feel like working and I do consider that. Then I have days when I feel tired, can barely mount the horse and stay mounted until the end of the lesson. Ride as well as I can without looking like a sack of potatoes, but not as stiff as a cardboard either.
Some lessons are good, I get the horse to walk and trot nice and collected, round, bouncy, then at other times the horse senses I am not really there, not 100% present. That's when she does her own thing- or things: cuts across the arena, lifts her head up in the sky, evades the bit, speeds up in trot and canter, leaves the arena, jogs, moves sideways, pulls the reins and they slide between my fingers. When I take her out of the arena and ride in the great outdoors, she goes well as long as we are not heading home. Once home (=food) is in sight, she changes gears and attempts to run. I end up asking her to turn into a circle, again and again, until she stops jogging on the spot. It usually works, but these days I tend to ask one of my more skilled rider friends to take her out and I ride another friend's horse. Defeat? I don't think so.
It's just not worth having a battle, which we both don't enjoy. My friend's horse in the other hand is perfect for anything.
I still love my little horse, and when I am riding her in a lesson, things usually go well and I can make an effort to correct what I am doing wrong. It's me, of course, doing things wrong, pulling the wrong rein, leaving reins loose, doing somethings else that I should not be doing.

Lunge lessons come in handy. Back to basics. Back to lessons. As long as I show up and ride, I will get there. During Christmas break I rode almost every day, mostly on the Western saddle and did really well. Days like those built my confidence and made me feel a lot better about myself and my riding skills. I also learned that I should not ride when I am tired, absent-minded or otherwise in another world.
Trust and balance building exercises coming up next. It's never too late even after 20+ years of riding to start from the scratch.