Bridget McNulty

A code of conduct.

// August 24th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Life (and the living of it), Philosophy

I realised something interesting (and a little embarrassing) about myself this weekend… I have a code of conduct. A way that I think people should behave. A set of social rules that I believe people should live by. Do you?

It came up because of the behaviour of a certain friend (remember when I asked for your advice about friends here?)
It’s one of the friends I’ve been slowly growing apart from, and it’s pretty closely linked to the post I wrote before, about how I always expect friends to be as present for me as I am for them. Now that I got that great advice from all of you, I feel a lot more comfortable about not letting it get to me as much. Which is why I could look at the situation from a distance and see the stark truth: I have a code of conduct, and the reason I’m so disappointed in this friend is because she’s not behaving the way I think she should be.

Isn’t that ridiculous?

Even more surprising for me is the fact that, although I think of myself as a very honest person, my code of conduct includes quite a few ‘put a smile on and be gracious’ clauses (is this because of my Catholic School Upbringing?) I think if you’re exiting a friendship, you should exit with grace. That you should be as polite as possible. This has definitely got me into hot water before – I remember distinctly becoming friends with a vegan guy in college (who quickly proved to be a lot weirder than I could have anticipated!) and promising that I’d bake him a vegan cake for his birthday. By the time his birthday rolled around we weren’t really friends any more, but I still baked him the cake, because I’d promised to! He was rather confused.

Still, I think it’s possible to do things in the nicest possible way, don’t you? Although that does conflict with a phrase I love from my practical philosophy class: Tell the truth pleasantly, not pleasant untruths.

What do you think? Make it nice and gracious, or be totally honest and risk hurting someone’s feelings?

Advice, please…

// July 28th, 2009 // 12 Comments » // Cape Town, Life (and the living of it)

I need your advice.

I’m having trouble with a little something at the moment, and it’s something that I’ve often struggled with, and have not yet found a solution for… Maybe you’ve gone through something similar and can help?

I find myself over-extending with friends, making sure I’m always there when they need me, being reassuring and kind and a good friend. And then when I need it back, there’s a vacuum… Nothing. And now, when we’re about to leave for a really long time, I thought certain friends would kick in and be present, but they’re not.

So what do I do? Learn not to extend? Get a thicker skin? Not be hurt by other people not making an effort?

I don’t know. Advice, please!

Returning to old places.

// June 6th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Laughter, Life (and the living of it), Love, travelling

So I spent most of this week in Lancaster, the small city where my lovely college, Franklin and Marshall (check it out at www.fandm.edu) is. I was a little worried that it would feel haunted… that I’d wander around feeling like I’d stepped back in time, and not in a good way.

I was wrong. It was so so wonderful to be back, like visiting an old home that is still very familiar and dear. Here are the best moments from this week…

LANCASTER HIGHLIGHTS:

* Catching up with old professors and friends (often the same person) and realizing that although 4 years is a long time, it condenses really quickly when you’re real friends.

* Seeing my college campus (which looks incredible! I’m jealous), and walking around it again… I felt like I was back in school, and on my way to class, quite uncanny!

* Fabulous conversations about life, love, relationships, books, and other scintillating topics.

* Waking to a 2am thunderstorm.

* Waking to a 6am thunderstorm.

* Going to Harrisburg (45 minutes from Lancaster) for my first ever American radio interview, and having a lot of fun doing it! Also figuring out the whole train / taxi thing in a foreign town – I’m actually pretty savvy. Who knew??

* Hanging out with Eva – the coolest 9 year old I know – and her American Girl dolls. I want one! (We did a photo shoot – see below).

* Freshly baked pound cake with whipped cream and fresh farm strawberries… on a warm, muggy evening, outdoors.

* Visiting the new Ice Cream Parlour (heaven in a room!) not once but twice.

* Breakfast at the new Creperie – yum!

* Going to the famous Shiny Diner for lunch.

* Wandering around the city and having it feel like a second home.

* Visiting all my old haunts and having them smell exactly the same.

* Eating superb food at a girl’s night out and realizing that age and distance don’t matter when you really love people.

* Laughing. So much.

A cure for a bad friendship.

// September 8th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Decisions, Inspiration, Life (and the living of it), Love

I’ll write about my lovely three day road trip soon, but for now I want to focus on something a little more personal…
I was thinking, while driving along those long empty roads (well, my man was doing the driving, I was gazing out the window and thinking!) about how to change the dynamic in a destructive relationship.

What happens when you really love someone, but you’ve fallen into an unhealthy pattern with them? I’m thinking of one friendship in particular, where we seem to antagonize each other to the point of frustration. I’ve tried being calm and zen, and it doesn’t work because I’m seething on the inside. I’ve tried arguing back, but that just makes the antagonism worse. And so, in despair (!) I’ve let the friendship take a back seat. But now I’d like to fix it….

One of the things I love most about my man is that he’s easy going. He just doesn’t seem to get bothered by little things – he doesn’t take offence and doesn’t let people’s erratic behaviour get to him. I want this! Especially in friendship. So I’ve decided to try and cultivate an easy-going attitude. Not a slacker attitude, you understand, but simply a more laidback approach to human relations.
The thing is that I can see that everyone is the star in their own drama, so everyone obviously has their own stuff going on even as they’re relating to you. But that doesn’t always help me to react in a more understanding way. It’s that reaction time that I want to improve on – instead of instantly reacting to something and letting it get under my skin, I want to be more easy-going and take a calmer, more balanced approach. This is my goal! For the next few months. I’ll let you know how it goes…

Interestingly, when I checked my email this morning I found the most amazing (and applicable) quote. Here it is:
“You don’t have to worry about what their vibration is if your vibration is one of connection. Because if your vibration is one of connection – you’re going to dominate the vibration. This is the way you learn your relationships. The thing that most people do not understand, is that you get to control the way you feel, because you get to choose the thoughts you think. Most people think that they only have the option of responding to the circumstances that surround them. And that’s what makes them attempt the impossible, which is to control the circumstances around them, which only feeds their feeling of frustration and vulnerability, because it doesn’t take very much life experience to discover you can’t control all of those circumstances. But you can control your vibration. And when you control your vibration, you’ve controlled everything that has anything to do with you.”

It’s from Esther and Jerry Hicks, check them out at http://www.abraham-hicks.com. I’m on their daily quote mailing list, and it’s really quite wonderful.
Isn’t it an interesting idea, though, that what makes us frustrated about interacting with others is our attempt to control the circumstances? When if we just accepted that the only thing we have power over is our vibration, how we feel in any situation, then everything would flow much easier… Which brings me back to cultivating easy-going-ness. If I can learn to react to situations in an easy-going way (i.e. control my vibration so I don’t get upset) then everything will flow.

What do you think? Is it doable? Can a sensitive emotional reactor learn the art of the easy going?

A few more words on friendship…

// August 26th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Decisions, Life (and the living of it), Love

I know I’ve written about friends and friendship before, but it really is the most fascinating topic…

A few years ago, one of my closest friends from Durban moved to Joburg. We kept in touch for a while, but the inevitable difference in pace-of-life between Durban and Joburg (and then Cape Town and Joburg) meant we drifted apart… Joburg is fast paced and furious, the lifestyle is totally different, and the stretches between phonecalls got longer and longer.

At first I was really upset about it. How do two people who get on so well not keep in touch? I thought. Our friendship was always such fun, so inspiring and vital and full of life. I was really sad to see it go. Of course, it’s not gone at all. We haven’t spoken in months, but this morning, out of the blue, he gmail-chatted me, and we ’spoke’ for over half an hour. We both said how we’d missed each other, how we’d been feeling bad about being bad friends, how life got in the way.

And this is the thing with friendship – especially friendships when you’re not in the same city (or country), or when your lives are moving in vastly different directions: you lose touch. But just because you’ve lost touch, doesn’t mean that love and connection is gone. It just means it’s taken a back seat for a while, while other friendships come to the fore. The mark of a true friend is being able to see someone after ages and ages, and just seamlessly slip back into your friendship. I really believe that.

So if you’ve been feeling bad about not being in touch with a friend, or about a friend not being in touch with you, maybe give yourself a break. Life is busy, and full, and sometimes we just need some down time from obligations. Real friends will understand that.