I used to live in an old apartment in bad condition with my ex-boyfriend. Back then I was working for a small czech company for money that other programmers would laugh at, and I was saving for a small house where we could live our small humble lives. I was satisfied. And even though it wasn’t exactly how I imagined it when I was younger, it was enough for me in that moment.
After seven years, my ex-boyfriend developed a strong aversion to me. He had gotten comfortable treating me more and more badly for the last year, and it had come to a stage when I was being treated as a person unworthy of a decent treatment. I had to do what I was told to, he yelled at me for things I didn’t do, it was just bad. Further development of events inevitably led to our separation.
It was terrible. I cried, blamed myself, I didnt understand what I had done wrong. In general, I think I’m a very cool person :D I wanted to come a year back.
As time went on, I realized that I used to have some goals and values of my own. I revised them, returned to them, and began to focus on myself. Thanks to the new living conditions, which included the opportunity to choose what I want to do with my own time I had grown enough to now be able to afford a rent of a luxury apartment in a wealthy neighborhood while still saving on a large mortgage.
I didn’t think about any of this until I had a strange dream a few days ago.
In that dream, I was lying in bed in my current apartment, sleeping and trying to wake up. When I finally managed to open my eyes, I saw the face of my ex-boyfriend in front of me. He was smiling at me just as back in the days he loved me. I cried.
I felt the same degree of sadness as when I was moving out. But this time I felt sad because I thought I got somehow back in time. Scared I cried so much it woke me up, for real this time. I was sitting on the bed, hyperventilating, looking around myself. With a relief I found out that it was just a dream. (Although I would appreciate to have that spinning totem from Inception, just to be sure.)
And since that dream, I am infinitely grateful for the growing iodine deficiency my ex-partner has suffered, and I am proud of what I have achieved when no one gets in my way ❤
In the Middle East, the story is told of a wandering sage and his apprentice. They spent a night in a house of a poor widow on their way through a desert. The widow owns only one goat, which gives her and her children milk. The next day apprentice regrets that they weren’t able to help them.
The sage says: “If you really want to help them, go back and kill their goat.”
The apprentice is confused, but he trusts his teacher and obeys him.
After several years of worrying about what may have happened to the woman and her children, the apprentice returns to the desert. Once desolate oasis with a widow’s home now was a beautiful city. And the widow lived in the most magnificent house. Before he killed the goat, they had milk and survived because of it. When they lost the milk, they had to start doing something new, better.
Let the goat die.