In Spanish they have many sayings telling you that you are making life too difficult, probably my favorite is "Buscar la quinta pata al gato (Looking for the fifth leg of the cat)."
Oh Damn, I forgot; Good Morning Dear Reader and welcome back to another lazy Sunday Morning vibe spreading experience.
Guess that some of you must have seen that TT (Tina Turner) reference in the title. It´s nice to see that some people get even more popular once they die, Kurt Cobain, Freddy Mercury, Jim Morrison and now it seems everybody loved the Grandma of Rock.
But it always gets a bit too much, too many people riding the hype train to get their seconds of fame.
Yes in my Midnight Gems Session, I honored grandma as well, but I did it my way.
And so did 
This is Not The Best Song in The World, this is just a tribute, but it made the world move. And it made me write this post.
Now my post is not about the song, not even about TT. This post is about simplicity and why did Claire´s post made me think of that:
Filmed on my mobile phone that was suspended from the ceiling with sticky tape, Prestik and string and with no microphone,
I loved how simple that was and it made me think of this underrated simple song:
Now it was not just Claire´s sticky tape there was a bit more that made me think: Keep it Simple
The simplicity of that solution reminded me of what my colleague told me about a wedding she went to last weekend.
A Marbella wedding, need I say more? I guess I do because a Marbella wedding only talks to the in-crowd.
So let me explain, Marbella is the South Spanish jet set so if you plan your wedding there you are in for a treat as a guest and in for a huge bill if you are picking up the tab.
They had invited 40 guests of which about 30 came. The cake was cut at around 19:00 and would serve 100 people. Cost of the cake, 10K.
Yes seriously a 10K cake, and that was just the icing on the cake. They rented a huge mansion so all the guests could stay for the weekend. In the end, only 12 people stayed over in that luxiourus place that cost 40K for the weekend.
They had a DJ, A Moroccan guitarist, and a wedding singer, three musical acts that in the end all played less than an hour. I did not get the exact details but that would be at least another 5K.
The bride had 4 dresses and changed every other hour. We all know how long it takes for a normal girl to get dressed. To have a bride change dresses 3 times takes at least 3 hours, this lady spends half her wedding in the dressing room.
So half her wedding was spent in dress stress, what a mess.
On top of that, the weather played its part. Normally the weather this time of year is great in Marbella, but not this year. This year any of the 150 days prior to the wedding would have been dry, but not this day.
She was given the chance to switch to a covered patio instead of using the garden. She did not, it had to happen in that beautiful garden because that would look so amazing in the pictures.
It was the wettest Marbella wedding ever, although it does not show too much in the pics.
This couple probably spent 100K on the wedding, and maybe Daddy paid the bill because as a wedding gift, they got a Lamborghini. But admits all this grandeur they forgot one thing, a wedding planner.
This meant the musicians did not know who would play when or where. The guest did not know what was expected of them. The catering did not know when the food needed to be served and basically the whole wedding was a wet chaos with dinner served at 02:00 AM.
But, and Oops there it is again...that big BUT(T):
The pictures were all Instagramable, and who cares in 5 years' time those pictures will still look amazing and everybody has forgotten that shameful spending chaos that they called a Marbella Wedding.
That wedding story made me think about my own wedding, a wedding with about 60 people and a total budget of 3.5K.
We did not ask for gifts, we asked if everybody could bring some food they made themselves and wanted to share with everyone.
We did not rent a place, we rented a tent, a small circus tent just in case it would rain. Because in the Netherlands it can always rain.
We rented only one band, this band:
And they were amazing!
And we rented one more thing, a witch to perform the ceremony.
We had a beautiful 150 euro cake and it was enough to feed all.
We had planned every minute and then handed the planning to a friend executing our plan.
We spent a couple of nights making our parting gifts and handwritten invites ourselves. It was an absolutely low-cost wedding.
Now I am not saying one is better than the other, but I am sure that our guests did not go hungry, knew what was coming, and did not feel like props for an Instagram post.
It was simply lovely.....except for the fact that I married the wrong girl of course.
It´s just an example of how we tend to overcomplicate stuff because we want a certain outcome. That outcome makes us overlook all other options. We focus on a single achievement and let our real life pass us by.
Sometimes I dream of that simple life, of just being a simpleton working the land for my king with nothing else to worry about but getting the harvest in on time.
Well, that and famine, illness without meds and medics, rats, undrinkable water, and everything else that complicated life in the dark ages.
Maybe life was never simple, maybe life was not even meant to be simple. Because as I learned along the way every time you pass one of life´s tests, you will be rewarded with an even bigger test.
But we can try to not overcomplicate it. To enjoy the simple things in that life, like that first night in a freshly cleaned bed and sleeping in a little just to enjoy waking up between fresh sheets.
Just add a little bit of Lion King to your life, "Hakuna matata" is Swahili and means "no trouble" or "no worries" and "take it easy".
A lesson I still have to Master, as I can get stressed about stupid stuff. Stuff that does not matter at all in the end.
My mind always goes over about 15 different outcomes of what could happen and tries to have a solution for all of them. That is what I mean when I say I worry too much about useless things.
I know most things in life do not matter in the long run. I know that even if things go to pieces, I will probably still do okay.
So why worry?
Fear! The fear to fail. The fear to mess up. The fear to drop those 2 or 3 steps from that so-called social ladder.
“Nowadays people often feel that their private lives are a series
of traps.” These words were written in 1959 by the American
sociologist C. Wright Mills
They still apply today as change and profound uncertainty only increased in people's lives since the 1960s´.
Changes bring crises big and small, and in a crisis, people feel trapped as they can not control the situation.
These traps and these changes force us to (re)define our social position. Hence changing our perception of ourselves.
Any failure in today's life can cause Status Anxiety, losing your job, or being made fun of on social media will result in a change of status.
Status and the world's perception of it is a huge pillar in today's society. We often identify ourselves with our status.
That is why everything needs to be Instagramable, to in late our status. That is why we fear losing our jobs, and by doing so losing our status and identity.
Now I know I am not my job, and that when a door closes a new window opens.
I said I know, my mind knows. But my heart has a hard time accepting that everything is an opportunity.
I've been a superstar DJ and I have been a nobody in the middle of nowhere. I personally was happiest being a nobody in the middle of nowhere, but it was almost impossible to take care of my family at that point.
How do I keep my sanity and chill while still being their provider... I honestly have no clue.
But I do have a plan. My plan is to create some financial backing before turning my back on the status-driven world.
Once that backing is achieved I can work for fun and it's no longer a dependency for my survival.
I might not make it, but if I can get enough to back myself for a couple of unemployed years I feel more relaxed already.
The thing is, losing my job is just an example. And a pretty unlikely one at the moment. It´s an example of how I plan for all possible outcomes.
If I have something new coming up tomorrow, no matter how unimportant the outcome my mind will take me through all possible scenarios. It might be a mild form of Neophobia (fear of new things), but I think it has to do with a lack of control.
I need to learn how to let go, how to accept that not everything in life is controllable and the best and worst things happen when you let go.
I feel it will be a long journey.
So for now, I will stick with Mika who has proven today that he has all the answers. I will let go a little and learn to relax and take it easy and I invite all of you to do the same, Hakuna Matata!
If you want to know more about the Spread The Vibe Challenge not A challenge please clikerdeeclick me
Thank goodness you made it till the end peace, love and I am out of here!
