How Zjef will bring peace to Israel and Palestine

I want to bring harmony to Israel and Palestine, I want to end the war in the middle East and I want to end the corruption in Africa. As a matter of fact, I truly believe I can do it and this blog-post will tell you the story on how I discovered the super-powers that can and will initiate world-peace.

Chapter 1 – The most important life lesson

It all started on a sunny afternoon in the snowy winter of 2012. A beautiful white carpet covered the houses and the lowlands in and around Diksmuide. It reflected the bright sunlight so spectacularly that you were able to sense everyone's happiness, floating around in the air. Surrounded by this general and widespread contentment prevailing in my home town, I was able to write down the plan on how I would succeed in building my Vertical Farms.

One of the most important parts of the strategy said:

I will have a fantastic girlfriend/wife that supports me. She will be passionate, smart, awesome, beautiful, free, caring, loving and emotionally strong.

The writing down of this goal set in motion a series of interesting adventures. And I'm pretty sure I have not seen the last of them. Yet this pursuit has already taught me many things. At the commencement of this love-endeavor, I said to myself that I would not touch another woman until I had met the love of my life. Fortunately, a couple of months later, I realized that this train of thought wouldn't help me to seduce my future life's partner. It's like wanting to win the tour the France without learning to ride a bicycle (ow yes, I had (and still have) a lot to learn about seducing).

So, instead of being a moralizing bore, I did the complete opposite: I went player.

The logic was that I would become so awesomely good with women, that I would be able to seduce the lady of my dreams without even trying. Yes, the plan was solid and - with a bit of healthy persistence - easy to execute.

Flash forward one year

Recently I started a romance with Esther, a passionate, smart, awesome, beautiful, free, caring, loving and very strong lady (sounds familiar?). Moreover: I seduced her (and she seduced me) without really trying – it just...happened. I'm not trying to state the obvious here, the moral of the story lies deeper and covers more than just romantic love. Remember that I'm still trying to explain my plan on how to actualize world peace.

Zjef And Esther

During my player-girfriend-quest I had been on a winning streak for most of the time. And in that success-mindset I did not question my methods. But in the end, when something beautiful went to hell I noticed that the “playing” conflicted with what my heart wanted. It was after that serious throwback that the most important life lesson revealed itself to me.

It came in the form of a very simple, yet honest question that popped in my mind when I realized I had very high standards. The inquiry to myself was “Who do I have to be to attract that seriously seductive lady that I'm dreaming of?“

Would that passionate, smart, awesome, beautiful, free, caring, loving , emotionally strong, yes almost-perfect woman want to be with a Don Juan who turns out to be a fraud, or would she rather fall for a rock solid motherfucker who's confident with the fact that he's not always so confident? Would she start a serious relationship with a douchebag who's trying too hard, or would she prefer a person who knows he's not perfect, yet works on himself and his dreams?

(For the record, I do not condemn playing as bad. As a “nice guy”, it has taught me a lot about the art of creating and maintaining attraction. If everybody would know this and not be an asshole about it, the world would be a much happier place).

So...drum rolls...the most important life lesson and the first step on the path towards world peace is: LOVE YOURSELF! Cause how can you live in peace with another if you are not in peace with yourself?

How I do it? Well, one word: Balance. I find the balance between living today (yolo) and working towards a very bright future. I am the person that I am, yet I'm also becoming the person that I want to become by taking small steps of improvement every day.

Or to put it even more beautifully you can combine my good friends Ghandi and Einstein:

In the end, this all seems very obvious and I feel pretty retarded for realizing this so late. Yet, it is in understanding that obviousness that I found the second superpower that can and will bring harmony to the world.

Chapter 2 – The rarest of all superpowers

As you already know, I have a fantastic relationship with Esther now. However, discovering each other was and is still an adventure with many dangerous threats on the road.

I, for example, suffer from a miserable disease that is also known as the distrusting-the-ladies syndrome. It expresses itself in the stupidest things, yet it also pops up when stuff gets serious. Saying “I love you”, for instance, brings me tremendous difficulties. In the past I had uttered these words without meaning, yet in a subsequent relationship it had been a big taboo. These and some other experiences had made me extremely confused about that wonderful three-word sentence: “I love you”.

Even though I knew I was awesome enough for Esther, I still thought she would run away and never come back if I'd confessed my love for her. Luckily for me, Esther was not suffering from a similar issue and was able to fearlessly open her heart to me. Moreover, she was extremely understanding and patient until I had overcome my “I love you”-anxiety. Yes, she helped me to break free of that vicious circle of subconscious distrust and hate that originated from previous love affairs. 

Trying to overcome our issues brings a lot of adventure, not to mention that our lives by themselves are already tremendously turbulent. But we refuse to let ourselves go and slip into a Holywood-inspired love drama. Instead, we look into each others eyes, talk for hours and try to make each other stronger by utilizing super powers like honesty and self-love. Consequently, we are making our love reach its fullest potential. It is the only way to know if we are truly meant to be. 

Now, back to world peace. And let's do it trough Malcolm X

It has been, and is still a grievous quest to dig into my past and my feelings in order to understand and love myself. Every time I lose a piece of my ignorance (for example: the most important life lesson), I hate myself and think: “Damn, I should have known this”. Being angry at myself is one thing, but the bigger problems arise when I notice that same ignorance with others. A lot of frustration and hatred towards them just bubbles up, solely because of the fact that they don't know the same things as I do yet. And for me, It takes overwhelming effort to overcome these negative feelings. I found that the easiest way is to be thankful, while focusing on my own path and my own self-improvement. Yet, I'm also learning to be curious about other people and their reasons for being, thinking and doing.

It is with that curiosity that I can find understanding and consequently forgiveness for myself and for others.

That is what I do with Esther and it is also what I do with some of my friends. We founded the Association For Collective Self-Development aka Dinosaurs Will Die. We are a think- and do-tank that's seriously non-serious - yet still serious enough to be taken serious (or something like that). We call ourselves dinosaurs and talk about the little things in life, while discussing on how we can achieve our dreams. Basically, we are helping each other with the most important life lesson by trying to keep each others balance.

And that's it, folks, those are the first two steps on how Zjef will bring peace to Israel and Palestine. 

For the remainder of my life I'll try to bring health, happiness and prosperity to everyone I meet. I will try to live in peace with my girlfriend, my previous girlfriends, my friends, my family, my noisy neighbor, those retarded retards that make completely retarded jokes about vegetarians, the extremist politicians, the money-grubbing-and-nature-destroying business-men, and most importantly: I will try to live in peace with myself!

Ps: For those who hadn't figured it out yet: My quest is about much more than just building a Vertical Farm: It's all about Peace & Love