{"id":130,"date":"2014-08-31T09:00:15","date_gmt":"2014-08-31T07:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/?p=130"},"modified":"2014-08-30T13:43:18","modified_gmt":"2014-08-30T11:43:18","slug":"johanna-buys-the-jars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/?p=130","title":{"rendered":"Johanna buys the jar"},"content":{"rendered":"

So back in Stockholm, after a week of vacation in the beautiful Stockholm archipelago, it was time to buy the jars for the beads. The idea was to have two equal jars, and I was on a serious hunt for that special, perfect jar.<\/p>\n

That beautiful jar,<\/p>\n

that will preciously hold my life (in its hands).<\/p>\n

The practical me definitely wanted lids for the jars – Can you imagine all the dust 17,893 days would collect?! The task became more difficult than I had imagined since my beads needed a jar that would hold at least 3,7 liters.<\/p>\n

I went from store to store in the city of Stockholm, and my beautiful jar was nowhere to be found. After almost loosing hope I was starting to wonder – \u2018Maybe it isn\u2019t possible to fit a whole life in a single jar?\u2019, so – \u2019Am I trying to fit too much into my life?\u2019<\/p>\n

An employee in one of the stores asked me if I would consider to split whatever content I was going to put into the jar. Dividing the content wasn\u2019t an option for me, because I see my future as a whole. It is something not yet lived. It\u2019s an entity not yet divided in moments, days, weeks, months and years. So no. I needed to find that big beautiful jar.<\/p>\n

When I found myself on my way home, and on the brink of loosing hope, the magic happened. I entered a store, I visited the day before, and suddenly right before my eyes I found a jar that was big enough. BUT, it wasn\u2019t that beautiful jar I had imagined…<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of those jars you use for pickled veggies or in my world something sweeter like peaches or pears.<\/p>\n

And I was…<\/p>\n

DISAPPOINTED.<\/p>\n

I wanted a more vase-like, exquisite, and elegant container. After all it was to hold all those beautiful moments, all those dreams and hopes I have for my life! Not a pickle container…<\/p>\n

But after a few days of starring at the jar at my home (because I did buy it since it was the only one big enough), I realized that it quite perfectly fits my life.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s practical, yet a container of all things delicious!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a symbol that it\u2019s not the exterior that matters, but the content. It\u2019s not the looks, but the beauty within. It\u2019s the story it holds.<\/p>\n

When contemplating this, it hit me – Am I always looking for that perfect one? I had been looking for the perfect beads, the perfect jar, wanting the perfect life. It puzzled me a little. I love to have big dreams and all that, but maybe I\u2019m putting too much pressure on both myself and the people around me. And after all, the lesson from last week was to let go of the need to control life. To know that I am, and do, good enough. That everything is already perfect, just the way it is. So this week\u2019s lesson might be, that if I take my time to look at things for what they truly are, (not they way I might at the first glance perceive them to be) I will see that they are perfect, just the way they are.<\/p>\n

Instead of getting two identical jars, I decided to go with a small bottle for the beads I will take out each day. Since this will be my time spent, it has been lived in moments, days, weeks and months. So in contrary to my statement above, it has already been somehow divided into parts of my life, into memories. Instead of buying all the bottles at once, I want time to have an impact on the design of the bottles. So I will buy new ones as the project goes along. I will also mark them with the dates. Mhairi had a beautiful idea, to put small notes into the bottle that reflects what was going on during that specific time of our lives. Love that!<\/p>\n

Besides filling my jar with the beads, I wanted to add words of importance, keywords for what I want my life to be like. I also wanted to blend in some short, but beautiful quotes that can give me a direction or a reminder of what\u2019s important. Then I started to fill the jar with the beads, the words and the quotes. It was a moment of butterflies in my stomach. I was so aware of that the only thing that will happen with my jar of beads from now on, is me taking one out each day. This is as full as my life gets. My time is shrinking.\u00a0
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Jar<\/a><\/p>\n

Now when I look at my jar of beads, as it sits on my cupboard, I look at it with respect and love. It\u2019s my whole life, my unknown future, the days of my life. One thing I know for sure is that it has already sparked a new energy, a courage I didn\u2019t have before. I want to treat my life with the outmost care and love. I want to protect it and hold it sacred. I want to stay true to myself no matter what, and by doing that, I believe I can live my dream.\u00a0I already am.<\/p>\n

Love,\u00a0Johanna.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So back in Stockholm, after a week of vacation in the beautiful Stockholm archipelago, it was time to buy the jars for the beads. The idea was to have two equal jars, and I was on a serious hunt for that special, perfect jar. That beautiful jar, that will preciously hold my life (in its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,15,14,33,18,34,11],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-johannas-blog","tag-beads","tag-dreams","tag-inspiration","tag-jar","tag-johanna-ginstmark","tag-lesson","tag-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/bild3.png","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142,"href":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebeadmovement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}