This week, making the most of the good weather we´re having, I went for several walks, either by myself or accompanied (thanks, Helen!). And during one of those walks, I got to see this beautiful tree again, a tree I´ve photographed a few times already:
Interestingly, a couple of days later (in the most unexpected place, a shopping centre), I bumped into a quote also on the topic of trees:
Be like a tree, stay grounded. Connect with your roots. Turn over a new leaf. Bend before you break. Enjoy your unique natural beauty. Keep growing.
Joanne Raptis
What do you think? What´s your favourite line?
Each of these thoughts deserves its own article, and maybe one day I´ll sit down to write them all. What I´ve also been wanting to write for years is a post entitled roots and wings. For the moment, though, if you feel like reading more, there´s also this one: like branches of a tree.
If you´re into productivity and personal development, then you´ve probably seen multiple times a matrix that´s used to categorize tasks based on their level of urgency and importance (and if you haven´t, I encourage you to search for it, it´s called the Eisenhower matrix, and it´s a great tool to help establish priorities).
Well, let me say that this week, I´ve had the luxury of dedicating my time to truly important things, not necessarily urgent ones.
Things that matter.
People who matter.
Moments, places and memories that matter.
No, I haven´t been spending my days doing jigsaws. This photo is not recent; it was taken a few months ago.
This jigsaw was a birthday present from my daughters, and it took us a couple of weeks to finish it; we all collaborated. I´m showing it here as an example of the idea I´m trying to convey to you: intentionally dedicating time to people and things that truly matter. For, as you´ve probably been able to verify, when you don´t set an intention, the urgent things (regardless of whether they´re important or not) end up consuming all your available time.
But the thing is, how do you find out what truly matters? The key to this is that the answer is not the same for everyone; it will be slightly different for each person because everyone´s priorities and preferences are different, even though there are certain more or less universal themes we can all relate to.
At the end of the day, it´s all about identifying our values: the fundamental principles we consider most important, the ones that guide us in our day-to-day decisionsEach of us needs to decide which values best suit us based on who we really are and what we want to experience and foster in our lives. This often involves reflecting on whether we´d like to keep the values we inherited from our family or society or add, remove, or change some of them.
The reward for doing this work of clarifying our values is being able to make more conscious and consistent decisions, as well as realizing when we're getting into an internal conflict, for example, when we hold contradictory values (either inherited or acquired) that put us in a crossroads situation, or when we act in a way that satisfies others, or that´s theoretically "the right thing to do", but that somehow violates our core values and makes us feel bad. Acting in alignment with our values allows us to live in peace with ourselves..
Ready to start? Here´s a very straightforward yet powerful exercise:
Search for a values list (the internet has loads) and choose the ones that most resonate with you, between five and ten.
You can ask yourself: What´s been most important in your life? What´s most important now? What else?
Write them down in a list format.
Those are going to be your core values.
You can ask yourself: What needs to happen for me to feel that this value is being fulfilled in my life? What needs not to happen? Am I making it easy or difficult for me to fulfil this value?
Establish a value hierarchy, that is, put them in order of priority.
This step is essential to be able to make clear decisions when two or more values are in conflict.
A way to do this is to compare them two by two, writing a line next to the value you consider most important in each case: comparing the first one with the second one, the first one with the third one, the first one with the fourth one, and so on; then the second one with the third one, the second one with the fourth one, etc., until all of them have been compared to all of them.
If you find it hard to decide, consider specific examples or extreme situations. For example, if you´re comparing freedom to harmony, would you rather live in a world where everyone is free but without harmony at all? Or in a harmonious world where nobody is free?
Rewrite your list, numbering the values.
Place the value with the most lines first, then the second one after it, and so on until the end.
Review your list and double check you´re happy with it.
Does it resonate with you as it is? Does it feel yours? Or does it need changes?
I hope these steps help you to clarify your values; you may even surprise yourself. Also, if you want, feel free to contact me and I´ll tell you what´s on my own list...
My mother passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning; she was 83 years old. After several years of illness and having spent the last few months in severe pain, she was finally able to depart quietly and peacefully. Her last few days were spent at home, surrounded by her family.
May she rest in peace.
As I´m writing these lines, I can’t help remembering when we said goodbye to my dad , two years ago. The two of them built their life together (a sixty-year-long marriage!), and together, they passed onto my siblings and me their example and a set of values that are staying with us forever, along with our memories of them.
What most stood out about my mum was her positive attitude towards life, which, together with her strength and unconditional faith in doctors, helped her to overcome all kinds of difficulties and health problems as the years went by. Yesterday, friends and acquaintances fondly remembered her smile, joyfulness, and kind ways, which greatly complemented my dad’s seriousness and rectitude. Of course, as her daughter, I also remember the occasional scolding we used to get from her (when we were children and also when we grew up), but I also remember how she used to take care of us and how she worried about us.
Now that I think about it, my mum had a few iconic phrases she regularly said to us that I found really helpful, given my tendency towards becoming a perfectionist, beating myself up for making mistakes and feeling guilty about even the smallest thing when I considered I hadn’t done it right. She would often say them after some criticism from my dad, who was basically Mister Perfect and used to set rather high expectations for us (or maybe we were also setting them high for ourselves).
One was that God didn’t spend His day writing down every single thing we did wrong in a little notebook - I believe this phrase has its merits, coming from the time when Catholic doctrine was never questioned, at least in Spain, and everything was based precisely on guilt and sin. Another one was that , in this world, there’s a solution to everything, except death, and that if you put your foot in it, then you simply take your foot out, apologise, and that’s it sorted. These two help us to see any problem that may come up with perspective.
But the number one phrase my mum would always say to my siblings and me was this: in this world, nobody is perfect, only God… and she couldn’t help adding: and your father!
Perfect or imperfect, what’s very clear is that my mum was really proud of all of us, as was my dad: first, proud of her children, and in turn, proud of her grandchildren as well, each and every one of them. And her greatest joy and excitement was always getting us all together for a celebration, it didn’t matter which one. Being together was the most important thing.
Now we are the proud ones. We’re proud of her for being our mum / mum-in-law / grandma, and for overcoming everything that was put in front of her, like a true champion, until the day when she decided it was time for her to go.
Farewell, Mum, we love you so much. And as you used to say at the end of our phone calls: lots and lots and lots and lots of kisses.
Facebook reminded me today that I took this picture about three years ago. This was the first picture I uploaded to my Instagram account:
I have very good memories of that day. The weather was amazingly good, and the girls and I met our friends, "the Txemas" (Bea, Txema and Alan, our best friends here in Ireland) to go for a nice walk together, around Killiney hill and its nearby beach.
But there´s another reason why I´m excited to see this photo. This week also marks the third anniversary of me rescuing the BinaryWords website from oblivion, cleaning its cobwebs and resuming the blog writing, setting up this very same picture as the header image.
Back then, in May 2021, I was in the middle of rethinking what to do with my life. The pandemic had brought me two presents in the form of a change in perspective and plenty of time to think, and I had come to the conclusion that I wanted to reinvent myself; I wanted a job that truly fulfilled me and allowed me to provide more value to others. But I had no idea what that job could be.
That´s when I decided to take action, to start walking, even if I didn´t have a clear idea of where exactly I was going. I remember doing an online course to clarify my thoughts and find my purpose, my ikigai. And while I didn´t find it straight away, the course was useful in that I was able to put together a list of things that I liked and that motivated me, and that I was relatively good at. So I set out to do more of those things, enjoy them, and trust that the path would eventually start to appear.
And what were those things? Writing. Translating. Learning about personal development. Sharing with others what I learned.
So I promptly got to work; I configured the BinaryWords website as bilingual Spanish-English, and wrote the first article in the blog´s new reincarnation: This is your life.
They say that, very often, asking the Universe for things is not enough; we also need (in Sergio Fernández´s words) "to seal our thoughts with an action", that is, to do something in the direction of the goal we want to achieve, to make it clear to the Universe that that´s what we really want, and allow it to start opening doors for us and helping us along the way.
Well, in tis case, a few days after I resumed the BinaryWords project, I "coincidentally" came across a YouTube video about coaching, something that I didn´t even know existed, but that ended up being a total game changer for me (if you can ever refer to one single thing or event as "the game changer" for a person; I tend to think it´s all a lot more gradual...)
Three years later, I feel a lot more aligned to my professional purpose, even though I still have a long path ahead of me. I´m still learning loads every day (for as we know, this is a journey that never ends), and I´m getting more and more opportunities to share knowledge and experiences with others. For this blog in particular, in three years I´ve written around 160 articles with my reflections on a variety of topics, which you can explore in the archive.
What about you? Where were you three years ago? What ideas and thoughts were crossing your mind? And what has changed for you since then?
I´m just back in Dublin today after a few days in Cáceres, my home town. I´ve been lucky enough to spend this week with my mum, as well as my siblings, siblings-in-law and some of my nephews and nieces.
My colleagues at work always refer to these trips as "going back home to Spain". And they´re partially right: I am indeed Spanish, I was born and raised in Cáceres, a big portion of my family lives there, and every time I go back, I feel at home.
Original picture by SpritzArt Studio & Shop in Cáceres (apologies for the glass reflection, I´ll try and find a better photo)
But it´s also true that nowadays my home is in Dublin, or more specifically, in Adamstown. It´s here in Ireland where I live and work since 2005, where my daughters were born and where they´re growing up. Here is the family I myself have formed, and the home I have built for us all.
And while we´re at it, there´s actually a third place where I also feel at home: Madrid, where my mother is from. I remember we used to visit my grandparents there twice a year, back when I was a child. And then later on, as an adult, I lived and worked in Madrid for three years, after finishing college in Cáceres and before getting married and relocating to Dublin.
But then, where is "home" for me?
I guess it depends on how I look at it.
My mother always says something like "one is not from where one is born, but from where one grazes" (weird sentence in English, I know; in Spanish it rhymes, so it sounds better: "uno no es de donde nace, sino de donde pace"); for this reason, she considers herself "cacereña" (from Cáceres), despite having been born and raised in Madrid. I like this idea of embracing the place where you live and making it part of your identity, but I don´t believe that has to automatically mean rejecting other places that may have also been important.
On the other hand, I once read or heard somewhere that we as emigrants never feel completely at home anywhere, because there´s always something missing, something that we miss from that other place where we are not. I also find this idea very interesting, and I can see how that could end up happening... But, what if we turned it around? What if we chose to feel at home in all of those meaningful places, instead of none of them?
What if we decided to enjoy what we do have at any given moment, instead of complaining about what we don´t have?
The conclusion, at least for me, is clear: Cáceres is home. Madrid is home. Dublin (Adamstown) is home. I have family and friends in all of them. I feel at ease in all of them. They are all part of my life, and they complement each other.
What about you? Where do you feel most at home, and why?
Today we´ve had a double celebration at home: my birthday and Mother´s day, which here in Ireland is held on the fourth Sunday in Lent. It´s been a lovely day (thanks a million guys!)
How old am I now, you say? Weeeell, they say age is just a number, right? Following this blog´s tradition , I´ll write it in binary: 101110.
Speaking of numbers, BinaryWords is also celebrating today: this is the 150th post! Feel free to take this opportunity and visit the blog´s archive page, to check out the new "highlighted articles" section.
Today I was reflecting on this thing we have with numbers, and how sometimes we pay too much attention to them, age being just an example, and I remembered a passage from The Little Prince that speaks about that:
If I´ve told you these details about Asteroid B-612 and if I´ve given you its number, it is on account of the grown-ups. Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: "What does his voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" "Does he collect butterflies?" They ask: "How old is he?" "How many brothers does he have?" "How much does he weigh?" "How much money does his father make?" Only then do they think they know him. If you tell grown-ups, "I saw a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums at the windows and doves on the roof..." they won´t be able to imagine such a house. You have to tell them, "I saw a house worth a hundred thousand francs." Then they exclaim, "What a pretty house!"
Antoine the Saint-Exupéry
What about you? How much do you care about numbers? I´ve realized I care about them less and less...
This Saturday, my friends María and Miguel celebrated their farewell party; after eighteen years of adventures in Ireland, they´ve decided to move back to Spain, to continue living adventures there. And the venue chosen for the party couldn´t be more fitting: the Market Bar, which is exactly where we met and formed our friends group shortly after arriving in Dublin.
It all started thanks to a website called Spaniards, a pioneer community of Spanish people around the world created by our friend and former college classmate Eneko Alonso (thanks Eneko!), back in 2005. The website had forums for different countries, and the forum for Ireland got very successful, with high participation and nice vibes, so at some point, somebody thought of organizing a meet-up in a Dublin bar.
The first ever monthly Spaniards meet-up in Market Bar took place in November 2006. I remember it well because I was heavily pregnant with Irene, our eldest daughter; in fact, we missed the second meet-up due to Irene being just a newborn baby. But then we attended the third one, and from then onwards, we were there almost every time, including the special meet-up we organized for St. Patrick´s Day parade in March 2007.
I remember I met Miguel on that St. Patrick´s Day, and then I met María at the following meet-up. Our approach was basically to show up at the meeting point on the specified date and time, and start talking to other Spanish people, often introducing ourselves with our usernames in the Spaniards website, so that we could recognize each other: cornflakegirl, bigfredi, triskitas, miguev, flekiboy... Mine was, of course, binarybea.
It´s possible be that none of this sounds weird to you, because nowadays it´s completely normal to meet people online. But believe me: back then, this was highly unconventional. Thankfully, we were all on the geeky side so we went for it, and we were also incredibly lucky, because those never-ending meet-ups (where we talked for hours and hours) resulted not only in many good friendships, but also in one or two couples 🙂
It is true that, over the years, our group has become somewhat scattered: some of us stayed in Ireland, others made a jump to other countries like Switzerland, the United Kingdom or the United States, others went back to Spain... But it´s also true that other new friends have arrived during the past few years, new members for our little group of Spaniards.
It´s wonderful to be able to connect with like minded people, especially when you´re in a strange environment. Unfortunately, the Spaniards website no longer exists, but luckily, there are many other options: Facebook groups, Instagram groups and other platforms where the Emerald Isle´s new inhabitants can share information and make friends.
Now María and Miguel are swapping their Irish adventure for a new Spanish one. Good luck guys! Ádh mór!
Well, the Christmas break is over, I hope you had a nice holiday period. Now it's time to get back to our daily routine, in this month of January.
How well are you coping with the holidays ending? I have to admit I usually find it a bit hard, especially when, like this year, there´s been a trip to Spain involved. Travelling disrupts our rhythms big time; this is very obvious with children, and it may not be that obvious with adults, but that doesn't mean we're not affected. Granting ourselves an adaptation period can help a lot.
And that´s where the word from this post´s title comes into play: re-education. Let me explain.
My three daughters were born in Ireland, and with both sides of their family being from Spain, they´ve spend all their lives travelling regularly for holidays, since they were babies. They´re real pros at this stage! Leaving aside the two years of the pandemic, every summer except one we´ve travelled to Spain for several weeks during the summer break, and we´ve spent many Christmases over there too, usually splitting our time between Cáceres and León. Now that they´re older, everything is much easier (Irene is 17 years old, Alicia is 14, and Eva, 9), but especially when they were little, their routines, timetables, meals, etc. just went out of control. .And it couldn´t be any other way: on the one hand, they were not at home, they were in different places doing different things, with different (usually fewer) rules, and on the other hand, they had lots of attention, cuddles and presents from grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins... So as a result, as days went by, things got messier, and their behaviour inevitably started getting worse and worse.
Then, once back home in Dublin, we used to start what their dad and I called "the re-education period": a few days to re-establish our house rules and get the girls to adapt to their routine again, which often ended up costing them a few tantrums and a handful of visits to the "thinking spot".
As I said, things are much better now that the girls have grown up; the level of re-education needed is nowhere near where it used to be. But there´s still a need for an adaptation period, and unfortunately, sometimes I forget about it and then bump into it head first, like this weekend for example... I realized not only Eva needed a bit of re-education; I needed it too.
Re-education to change from the Christmassy vibes to the seriousness and discipline of January. From the quietness of family time, walks around the city´s old quarter and good meals already prepared and served to the daily hustle of working, organizing around the house, preparing meals, and trying to carve out time for exercise, social life and personal projects. From "holiday" mode to "always on the go" mode.
Just thinking about it all stresses me out, and makes me want to procrastinate. I know from experience there´s no way I can get even close to achieving the number of things my head says I have to do. So I set the intention to be patient with myself and prioritize what´s important, including taking care of myself, because if I don´t take care of myself, I won´t have energy left to do any of the other things on my list.
What about you? Do you need re-education? What can help you in this transition? How can you make it easier for yourself?
This week I got a movie recommendation. I haven´t had the chance to watch the movie yet, but from what I´ve heard, it´s a typical story of two people coming from different backgrounds who don´t seem to have anything in common, yet they end up developing a very special friendship.
I have to say I always found this kind of stories really interesting; stories about unlikely yet meaningful friendships.
For example, I remember a teenage TV show from the nineties that I used to love, most of all for the seemingly random interactions between different characters, and for how they ended up becoming friends without even noticing (or sometimes reluctantly noticing). It was titled "My so-called life", and even though it only lasted one season, it left us a few scenes that I personally consider masterpieces.
This picture shows (in low resolution, apologies) a few of the characters:
I especially remember a conversation between the two boys from the picture, Brian Krakow (the blond one) and Rickie Vasquez (the dark haired one), where they spend a good few minutes supposedly talking to each other, but with each of them obsessing over a different topic, just as if they were talking to themselves in turns (how often in our lives do we do that as well?); initially it seems like they´re each doing their own thing, but eventually you realize somehow they´ve been listening and supporting each other... Sometimes, simply getting someone to listen to you and keep you company is what makes all the difference.
And sometimes, it´s surprising how much you may get to have in common with someone apparently very different from you, and how much you can get to learn, precisely from your differences. In my particular case, a few of those first "unlikely friendships" came into my life just by chance, but they opened my mind so much and I got so much out of them that at a certain point I started looking for them myself, if unconsciously.
So, what´s the benefit of having diverse friendships, from different environments, with different lifestyles and even different ages? Well, taking into account that humans very often learn by contrast, getting to know other perspectives and other ways to understand life is a great help towards expanding our own little world, and realizing that the way we do things is not the only possible way by any means, but just another option among many other equally valid ones. This gives us more flexibility and resources to face everyday challenges, and ultimately helps us to live a fuller life.
In reality, it all comes back to the same: the more we learn about ourselves and those around us, the more we understand, the less we judge, and the freer we become.
All of this without forgetting just how wonderful it is to have friends with whom you can share (Thanks!) 🙂
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