Tag: suffering

What happened to our Green Revolution?

Posted on by Leontien Reedijk

Photo by Eddie Kopp on Unsplash

  My (R)evolution, part 8.

Since April 18 of this year my country of residence, beautiful Nicaragua, has been in a state of “social unrest” as the media still like to call it, trying to be politically correct, or maybe just afraid to put oil to the fire by calling it a revolution.

The events have triggered an unstoppable stream of thoughts in my head, that I have started to record with curiosity.

Although there is quite a bit of violence going on on the mainland, the little island where I live is still peaceful, so fear is not on my mind.

There has not yet been a moment of real panic in which I thought I’d better run now, before it is too late.

It’s hard to gauge “too late” anyway, before it actually is too late.

But it is very interesting to observe the shifts that happen in my mind and in the minds of people around me. It is not much of a linear and logic process, which makes it even more interesting to watch and see unfold.

Right around the time when the upheaval started, our little island community was gearing up towards a major push for sustainability – a green revolution about to begin. 

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Maslow’s Pyramid upside down.

Posted on by Leontien Reedijk

Image by Luc Galoppin on Flickr

 

My (R)evolution, part 7.

There was a time, that in the eyes of most people I was “living the dream”. I always contested that, saying I was just living my life—making a living, dealing with problems—like any other person. The only difference being, that I was doing that on a beautiful little Caribbean island.

I’m not much of an achiever, so I’ve never bothered to “tick off” things from my bucket list. I’ve never had a bucket list to begin with (Living the dream, check. Opening my own yoga studio, check. Starting a blog, check).

Nor have I ever checked my life against Maslow’s pyramid, to see how well I was doing in terms of personal fulfilment and self-realisation.

But the other day that pyramid popped into my viewfinder, and I started thinking about it.

Maslow’s pyramid looks at the different levels of fulfilment in a human life. At the bottom it is about the very basic needs, that have to be fulfilled first before we can start thinking (and worrying) about the next level, and so on. The theory is, that ultimate fulfilment (the top) leads to real happiness.

I have been very happy in the past 13 years that I have been calling this little Nicaraguan island my home. 

Continue reading “Maslow’s Pyramid upside down.” →

Stock up?

Posted on by Leontien Reedijk

Image by bierfritze on Pixabay

  My (R)evolution, part 5.

Since April 19 of this year Nicaragua, the country where I’ve been living for the past 13 years, is in a state of social unrest and political upheaval that it hadn’t seen for several decades.

For a while I was playing ostrich. I didn’t look at the news, even though I knew more or less what was on it. I didn’t talk that much with friends about the situation on the mainland, as if silence could make the problem go away or at least not seem so serious and big. On our little peaceful island, we were hoping for the best, pretending that we could sit this out.

Basically, I was in denial.

Until I heard about the road blocks. Barricades on most highways were seriously blocking all traffic, affecting the transport of all our supplies.

On Monday the news got to our island that next Saturday the freight boat that brings everything we need, from tomatoes to toilet paper, from peppers to propane, would not be coming.

Now that was news I needed to keep up with…

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