So what is this thin line?

There’s a thin line between pleasure and pain.  I keep writing about this line, without really explaining what it means to me. So what is this line?

To explain this, I need to tell you something about the way I live my live, including my struggles and the dreams I pursue. I have already wrote a blog on how my life developed over the years. Read all about it here. This blog dives a little deeper inside my head.

My life is dominated by two main topics. And they do not line up. This creates an everlasting  struggle in my mind. Here they are:

Feeling free

Feeling free is very important to me. I can’t live without it, which mIceclimbing... Does the rope symbolize my thin line?akes it one of my basic life-needs. But the important question is what makes me feel free. This mostly comes down to feeling independent and not having to take care of anybody else.

This is the exact feeling I get when climbing mountains. Unfortunately, I live nowhere near the mountains. And, like everybody else, I have the mandatory obligations. Like work, family, sometimes friends, etc.

The balance I try to find between feeling free and complying with the obligations can be seen as the line; feeling free is on the pleasure-side (obviously), obligations on the pain-side of the line.

I keep on organizing my life in a way I experience as much freedom as possible. This means I sometimes make choices that are not understood or appreciated by the people around me.

Connection

While my need and feeling of freedom strongly comes with only having to answer to my self, I do need people around me whom I connect to. I need to have some close friends whom I can fully trust and be accepted by. My friends don’t have to understand or agree with my choices, but do have to respect them. In my experience, this is hard for a lot of people, which again is hard for me.Happy in the mountains... and connected

This often results in struggles in my head; is this friendship worth my energy, when the choices I make aren’t respected?

So how to combine feeling free and needing some connections? Is this possible by the definitions I use? Or will this be a conflict?

I’m sure there is a way to make them both work. I have experienced this once or twice. The question is how to recognize the conditions required to let me feel free and have the friendships I need. But, more on this later!

What’s next?

This is the first part in a series of blogs about what I see as the thin line; the why, what and how’s in my life.  In every next part I will explain more on the things I do, and the choices I make.

Curious? Keep checking for updates!

 

 

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