Communities and the damage control
My first
school wasn’t much of a community. Or if it was, I didn’t fit in there. I had 4
friends in that school and I only have close contact with one of them today.
So, I went
to the interviews of the first and only private school at the time in this
sweet hometown of mine and apparently demonstrated some early skill and got
accepted. It cost about 5 to 6 euros a month for my single, working mother and
it was not a small penny in the beginning of 90s in a small town.
This became
my first community. The teachers, the activities, the friends, the parties. I
also joined the boy scouts which allowed me to expand my network covering my
entire home country and reaching to Sweden. I wrote letters (yes with paper and
pen and envelops and stamps and all) to some girls I had met and stood in the
phonebooth to call the guys. I had workout buddies from the track and field and
different ones from the karate group. I was 15 years old.
Then I
changed school again. To a different place. A boarding school in the middle of
nowhere, 40 km to a closest town. And I started again. After a while I had new
contacts and new friends and groups reaching to the big city, much bigger than
my hometown was.
The I joined
the Navy and got my first kid. And I started again. Being a soldier is a bit
like a forced brotherhood. Did you know that most of the soldiers fight on the
battlefield to protect their brothers by their side and not for any other “greater
goal” ? It was an interesting time with interesting people. I even stayed a bit
longer and graduated a Swedish Defence Academy in 2007 as a naval officer. By
then I had expanded my community all around the world. I knew people in almost
any country of Europe, Scandinavia, United States and Asia.
Then I
decided to leave the armed forces to get in touch with the rest of the society.
I got introduced to a gentlemen’s club called Round Table, which brought me
back to a setting of voluntary brotherhood. And then I moved to Norway and
started again… As I still was a member of Round Table, I quickly established my
first community helping me to enter the rest of the local society painlessly.
After 5 years, I have friends and contacts all over the beautiful and wild country
of Norway. Men and women in different ages, working in various areas of life,
athletes and musicians.
And then, I
didn’t move, but my life situation still changed. I got anchored in a
wheelchair in the matter of moments. And I was starting again…
But I didn’t.
I took the damage control first. I am still an active member of Round Table,
which today is my biggest community and network, so it’s good. I am still in
contact with almost everybody from my life before. And I suddenly know a bunch
of new people and their stories, whom I probably never would have met in other
circumstances. I don’t need to start again after all, this time.
Only when
you somehow run a shore or become anchored in your life, unable to just walk
away or to move on by free will, you realise what you have around you and what
you have lost a long time ago. I miss my old friends and my old groups from the
earlier days, but I also appreciate more, the ones I have today.
So, cast
the anchor in safe waters in a beautiful bay and stop for a second, before the
life stops you. Do the damage control – think sweet about your losses and love
and keep what you still have in your hands today.
Love it ����
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