Never Cease To Learn...

NEVER CEASE TO LEARN...

“Learn to manage yourself!” what a strange thing to say she thought as she was sipping from her coffee. She was sitting at a cafe shop on top of a hill. This could be one of the seven hills of Istanbul. It was a very old cafe, there were lots of old pictures on the walls inside. She was sitting outside to enjoy the view. She could see the old city center from here, the mosques, the palace and also the sea.  The sky and the sea were the same color, dark gray. The weather was cloudy but not cold. This was probably one of the last warm days of the season before the rains start. 

Even if it rains...

There were not many tables outside hence not many people. Maybe they thought autumn is there what is the point of sitting outside. The cafe shop was not crowded. It was not that strange for this place to be empty. After all it was on a top of a hill, a very steep hill. Not many people climbed the hill to reach this place which was better for her. She did not like to be surrounded by people or noise that comes with people. She enjoyed reading her book in silence in the open air. 

She was sitting on a brown chair; the table was brown too. The cafe owner probably chose this color on purpose not to show tea or coffee stains. The chair was under a huge tree which had a dark shade. She thought better to sit under this huge tree with thick branches. If it rains, she would not need to go inside. 

She could hardly took her eyes of the view and looked back at the book and read again as if she was reading it for the first time:

“Learn to manage yourself!”

She managed many people, many things before. She managed different teams at work, some of them large, some of them small. She managed projects across continents. She managed departments and businesses. She managed meetings. She never thought that a person could manage oneself. She wondered what the author meant. 

What is there to manage? 

She was on her own, she was living on her own. She was the master of her own. She had to manage life, the problems in life but managing herself, this was a new concept for her. As she could not understand the concept she decided to read some more...

The book continued “Learn to manage your anger, your frustration, learn to restrain your desires, learn to manage your feelings. Learn to manage your pain.” She was surprised one more time. How does one manage pain? You live through the pain, you go through it and then it passes, in time. But maybe there were methods to deal with this stuff that nobody thought her. Then she realized that all the addictions she had, started when she was trying to ease her pain, her tiredness. 

So many things to learn

She tried to remember, did anybody teach her or anybody else how to manage pain, or frustration or anger or joy? We were all thought a lot of things at school. We learned how our body works but physically. We learned geography, the names of different landscapes, we learned the laws of physics. We even learned about history, wars and victories, we even memorized when these things took place. 

Then we started working and learned even more, about running businesses, departments, projects. She was thinking hard, trying to remember the details of hours of corporate training, if any of them was related to manager herself. No, none!

But this was so important how could one manage others if one cannot manage oneself. Why did not she think about this before? How was she managing her anger, her frustration, her pain? With chocolate most of the time, or by watching TV to forget her troubles. Both of which were not great coping mechanisms. This is how people get addicted to things because they could not manage their feelings, they do not know what to do in pain.

She thought better late than never, she could learn this. This could be the end of her troubles. Maybe she could even get rid of her addictions. She needed to learn this. She did not care about the raindrops on the pages as she continued reading…