Nana korobi ya oki translated means Fall Down Seven Times, Stand Up Eight. It’s an old, and perhaps my favorite Japanese Proverb. It’s a life lesson that teaches us to keep getting back up no matter how many times we may stumble and fall, because we all eventually do fall down, but that too is part of life; those stumbles we make, sometimes embarrassing, but still very necessary to growing and learning.

I carry a very private pain inside me; a pain of loss and disillusionment, of feeling as tho I’ve failed in some respects, and where I failed was in not living up to someone else’s expectations of me. Perhaps the worst thing in the world we can ever do to someone is not live up to their expectations of who we are and who they think we’re supposed to be. Relationships are like that, filled with expectations and ideas of expectations, of how we expect the other person to act and behave, and when they don’t behave as expected, all of a sudden our perceptions of that person change. Perhaps all that means is that we never really knew them as well as we thought we did, or perhaps our expectations of that person were just projections of who we wished they were rather than getting to know and accepting who they really are.

I’ve recently run into this; and while I feel sorrow that I was unable to fulfill those expectations, when I honestly assess myself I have to conclude that the problem wasn’t with me, the problem was with other’s expectations of me and who they thought I should be. People have a tendency to see the world based on their own reality, and such perceptions are determined by that reality, and they find it sometimes very difficult to see anything else but that reality. To some degree we’re all like that, we all base our decisions and reactions to the world around us by using our reality and worldview as a guide, but we run into problems when we project that reality onto others, and when they don’t perform as expected, we feel hurt, and maybe even a touch of betrayal that this person with whom we felt such a connection for went and had the audacity to be a human being and not be what we wanted them to be. How dare they?

Sarcasm aside, that’s often the way the world works. It’s not fair, and it really isn’t right, but it’s often the way it is.

I think it comes down to managing expectations and being realistic. People are just people, and none of us are perfect, and it’s very difficult to know those who are in our lives everyday, nevermind those we encounter thru the medium of blogging or the internet. What saddens me is that there seems to be such a rigid form of thinking in cyberworld sometimes, that we somehow lose our humanity when we come into this world, we seem to forget that we’re dealing with people not machines, and people sometimes have the tendency to disappoint us on occasion, and we have to be prepared for that, and we have to accept that this world is what it is, and no matter how hard we try, we cannot force anyone to be anything other than who they are.

This is the last day of February. On the first day of February I was faced with a choice. Someone out there in the great void tried very hard to silence my voice, to destroy my journal, and to deny me my free expression. This was a choice they made. Some will say they made that choice based on my actions, but I disagree. Each of us have to be responsible for the choices we make, and we cannot blame someone else for those choices. If I am to be a responsible person and accept responsibility for my choices, so must everyone else. There is no other equitable solution.

I write these things now because even tho I made the choice to rebuild and continue, it is a very private hurt I carry to know that someone went so far as to try and silence me, and tried to destroy my work and take my expression away from me. What gives anyone the right to try and silence someone else’s expression? If you live your life out in public then perhaps you should be prepared for what can come of that; and that isn’t always what you want either. When you put yourself out there, you run the risk that someone won’t like what you do or what you have to say. You then have a choice; react or do nothing. I’ve chosen both of those options from time to time, and have dealt with those consequences of choice. Yet, it still amazes me that others never face any sort of consequences, but I must remind myself that I am neither judge nor jury nor executioner, and that karma always has a larger plan, and all I am left with is faith, and the choice… to either lay down, or stand up.

I chose to stand up. I will always choose to stand up, no matter how many times I may fall.