Wordsley, Stourbridge, England: 3 degrees, cold and dull.
After having a very fruitful meeting with Carl last night, although it cleared up some questions and doubts, it also raised other questions that I had not previously considered.
- Is it worth staying in England or going back to Brazil to live?
- Is it possible to spend 6 months in Brazil and six months in England?
- Do I like England anymore?
- Do I want to go back and live in Brazil?
- What do I want from my life for the next 20 years or so?
- When my mother dies, what will I do with the house?
- Live in it, sell it, or rent it?
Many questions had already been considered before meeting Carl, while others had not. But after having a fascinating and enlightening talk with him, there seem to be many more possibilities that I had not contemplated before.
One of the main reasons for coming to England was indeed to tie up some loose ends concerning the house, my uncle’s will, my mother, and my own situation in England. It was also my intention to revisit all, or at least some, of the places I visited as a child, many of which held iconic memories from the past. I have already visited or been to 95% of these places, and there are still some that I have only been to twice. Until I go, I will have been able to do them all.
I am also aware that we must be cautious about dwelling in the past. It’s very nice to go back and reminisce about your childhood, but it’s not all that it’s made out to be.
Although I have visited many important places from my past childhood, I have never been moved in any way. Yet, it is nice to be there, but it is not the same as we remember it was, and it will never be again.
It’s the kind of thing you might want to do once in your life and never again. It can be different for different people, and probably I’m not sentimental enough to stir up enormous emotions triggered by the past. However, it has taught me that going back is sometimes necessary, but it can also be disappointing.
The present and the future are much more important than our past. For me, coming to England and revisiting places from the past, as I remember them, and seeing how they are today, is a kind of soul cleansing, a reformatting of oneself for the present and the future.
What I am trying to say is what everybody knows, even though it is hard to put into practice, is that “we cannot live in the past!”
Whatever was done in the past, either good or bad, it is done; dead and buried. We have to live for today and tomorrow.
It is a bit like a salesman who had a good month of selling, exceeding his target and doing very well for himself and the company. When entering the next month, if he continues to dwell on how well he did last month, he will sell less, be less productive and less happy.
If, however, he did well last month, he then must forget the last good month and act as if the new month begins from zero; it’s as if it’s a new start. At the start of each day, week, month, and year, we must start anew and get on with what we want to do and what we have to do, regardless of what came before.
For each notch up we become accustomed to, we need to push ourselves even harder to reach the next one. Going up is much more difficult than going down; going down is very easy. Progressing through the levels is much more challenging.
It is a grey and shitty day; I worked on the computer in the morning and then went to visit my mother in the hospital. She’s well, even though she’s feeling a lot of pain. Each day, she will get better, and tomorrow, she should be home. This will be my last night alone until I don’t know when. I enjoy my own company, I think I’m a nice guy.
Instead of heading straight home, I stopped off at a local pub, had a couple of glasses of wine—more than I should have—and then popped by the chippy to grab some fish and chips. That classic British dish, which Brazilians either love or hate but don’t quite get. Having fish and chips once a week is more than enough for me, and when I got back home, I watched something and was in bed early.
In bed by 10 p.m.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
