Any Advice?

Dear Me,

            Today I am terrified; terrified I will never make it. I will never achieve my dreams. All of the hard work I have done will have been for nothing, destined to leave me with only arduous memories. For a while now, it has felt as if all I’ve been doing is struggling. Struggling to motivate myself, hanging from a cliff by only the smallest strand of faith that I will be able pull myself back to safety, that I will ever be on sure footing again. I am afraid that if I jump and am able to fly that I will awake to find myself crushed by the weighty realization that all my success was just a dream. There are so many things I want to do and people I want to meet, but I am so afraid that once I begin my journey I will make a wrong turn, never realizing that it was wrong. I am afraid I will lose myself in an illusion that I’m making the right decisions to procure the future I so desire. I’m also filled with fear that only after I have achieved what I want, I will discover that it does not fulfill or make me happy, that it was never what I truly wanted. Do I know myself? Will I ever know myself? Is what I think I want now what I will still want in the future? What if I change my mind and that change only throws me to rock bottom? I’m scared, but of what? Am I scared of failing or of succeeding? Can I be afraid of both? It’s paralyzing, this fear. It’s suffocating me, yet I still have room to fear that I will never break its bind. I’m sick of being afraid, yet day after day I continue to stagnate in inaction. I guess I’m not sick enough. Why? If I were to shed my fear, I think I could be amazing. I think I could achieve all I want and more, so why don’t I? Why?  If I was truly honest, I guess I would have to say it’s because though this fear is draining me, it is something I know and can recognize, something familiar. It’s comfortable. It feels like a shield that is protecting me from being duped, from being led astray; it feels like trusty caution. And… now that I think about it, that feeling is of what I should be most wary, mistaking fear for caution. Caution can be helpful, fear never will be. Fear is what holds me back; it is the kiss of death. So, dearest me, my advice today...?

"No time to say hello goodbye. I'm late. I'm late. I'm late."
Under Pressure.
"Frustrated. Irritated. Disconnected from it all."

Thank You

The other day I went to a presentation by a group of people recruiting for a cause in which they deeply believed and by which they were profoundly moved to action. They had a strong and almost palpable love for the work they were doing and knew without a doubt that they were making a difference. They said they were certain that their goal would one day be reached. As proof of the progress their program was making, they shared some of their success stories, the people they had inspired to follow their dream. I have to say, that in the final words of the presentation, I was almost moved to tears because I saw their dreams. I saw the dreams of the people giving the presentation and I saw the dreams of the people they had inspired, and they were beautiful. The dreams were beautiful. I felt compelled to support the cause


It was after I had left the presentation that I thought of how the people described in the presentation were similar to me. I was able to take a moment to appreciate the people I have who believe in me. I suddenly understood how they could believe in my bright future, how they could express so vehemently that such a bright future existed for me. I have a dream, and I have been lucky and blessed enough to have people who have glimpsed my dream, people who, with just a glimpse, can have the courage to trust and believe in me, to provide their unwavering support.


So I come to the point of this blog post, to declare its existence as a thank you note. Thank you for believing me, and with your belief, inspiring me. I don't know how I earned your support, but I am so glad I did and that you were kind enough to give it. Thank you for standing behind me, for keeping me from falling. I love you.

Time

I blink. Blink again, but my eyes still sting and I'm still tired. No, I can't go to sleep. I'm not ready for tomorrow.
But, without my permission, a new day begins, right before my weary eyes.  Time keeps going. No matter how long I stare at it, it doesn't slow down. I can't stop its flow. It is content to pass me by and leave me behind, forcing upon me the unpleasant truth that I am barely a speck in its vast existence.
Wait, don't leave me behind. Don't destroy my illusion that time is mine to take. It hurts. It hurts to know that my continuance depends upon time, but time doesn't need me in order to continue. It is trapped by no one's grasp. Time entangles me.
I don't want to watch you pass, as a ghost watches the living and longs to be so. I want to leave things in the past, my own vapor trails. So, I jump into your rush, ready to live with what I am given, as long as it may last.

Limited

Limited. Surrounded by a world of possibilities, but I still feel limited. I can't explain it. I can't understand it. How do I fix it? It makes me feel broken, defective not to know the answer. I don't like having problems I feel I can't solve, especially a problem that seems like I can't ask for help with it. How can someone else make me feel unlimited?

I try to look, but I can't see all the "endless possibilities" that everyone seems to know exist. My sunny skies, bright no more. But, who is responsible for my sun? I have an urge to turn to others for my light when I know I should produce my own. But, admitting that I can produce my  own is admitting that I was the one who turned my light off in the first place. It is so much easier to believe that it's me against the world; Atlas has nothing on me.

Why is it so much easier to dwell upon the negative? Why is happiness something I have to work for? So I can truly appreciate it when I have it? If I know I want happiness, why do I keep myself from working for it? Am I afraid of it? Can you be afraid of something that is supposed to feel so wonderful? It's not as if the concept of happiness is foreign to me. I know how great it can be, yet for reasons I can't fathom I continue to refrain from being so.

Shouldn't being happy be as easy as flipping a switch, as easy to turn a light on as off, right? The mind can seem so flexible at times yet so completely rigid at others. It knows it can change yet refuses to do so.

But, perhaps it's only a matter of time. Maybe a mindset can only change gradually; its's not an instant gratification type of thing. So instead of reducing my life to minutes, maybe I should try to take it day by day. As the earth turns, I shall try to turn my mindset, working to start each day with a new one. Like that, each day can be its own, unique and unlimited once again.

Being Human

Today was one of those days. A day I felt so incredibly lucky to  be a human and to know other humans, to have thoughts and to know that I have thoughts, to be alive and to know I'm alive. It's knid of funny, I feel the most alive when I stop to remember that I AM alive. And, once I remember that most important fact, I can revel in it. I can pause to appreciate all of the opportunities that being alive affords me.

Being alive, I can have a story, share my story, and even be a part of someone else's story. This concept of stories is so amazing and lovely to me. It's the primary way we communicate. It's a way of being, the way of life. We are all striving to write our own good stories, and we should feel lucky to edit someone else's by being a part of their story. I like stories because they unite individuals while at the same time uniting the whole world, the entire human race. Even though there are 6 billion plus people in the world, and I will only ever meet a very tiny percentage of them, all 6 billion are a part of my story for the simple fact that because of them, I am not alone; and, together, we shape the human experience, mankind's story. Isn't that amazing? It makes me feel small, yet unstoppable at the same time, as if the common fact that we are all human suddenly makes the world smaller, even though I could never travel every square inch of it or meet all of its people. It makes the world seem closer at hand, it's inhabitants not as complicated or scary. 

Being alive, I can appreciate the good, the bad, and the ugly. For example, even though today's sky is overcast and people are hardly smiling and it could to some be considered an ugly day, I find it beautiful. And, I am so glad to be alive to witness this different kind of beauty, the beauty of a world that keeps turning no matter how often it cries, of people taking day one at a time. Even though today can be seen as gloomy, I see it as calm and relaxed, a world and people that are sure of their existence and place in the universe, who take for granted that they are alive. A kind of ignorance with a ghostly beauty, an ignorance not to meant to last.

Being alive, I can value the life of another. Whenever the life flight helicopter passes overhead, I stop to pray. Please. Let this person live. Let them have many years to come. But, if they must leave this world, please let them have at least one more day. Let their family have the chance to say good bye.

It's on days like these that, though I feel my story is happy, I think of those with sad stories, bad stories, and no stories. I can only hope that such stories change for the better. It's a most humbling thought; no matter how dearly I may want to, I can never make everyone's story as happy as mine. But, it never stops me from asking why. Why must we have sad stories? Is it so the rest of us may recognize our happy stories?

It is on days like this that I am glad that whether my story is happy or sad, I have a story I can finish as I please.

True Freedom

Your freedom is not real. Where you went wrong is when you asked someone else for your freedom.You cannot have your own freedom if you ask someone to set you free. By demanding your freedom from someone, you are begging with the assumption it was theirs to have in the first place. It was not. But, it is hard to realize this because your mind tells you that freedom is something that can be given. It is not. It is something that is taken, and you take it when you finally realize that it was you who originally gave it away. You gave it away the minute you demanded to have it back. When you demand it you are giving them the decision to grant or deny your request. How are you free when the decision is not yours? Now stop. Look again at this scenario and realize with whom the power truly lies. You. The power lies with you. When you demand your freedom, you give a freedom of choice to your "opressor." When you ask them for freedom, you give them the choice to forever hold you in their grasp. Now, just as easily, you can deny them this choice by never asking anything of them in the first place, by never acknowledging they ever had any kind of power over you. You can deny their choice by embreacing the truth that it is not their decision. It is yours.If you were truly free, would you even need someone to tell you so? No. When you are truly free, no one need tell you. When you are truly free, it cannot be described with words; you only know it is so, and you realize that your freedom was always there for you to take. Do you want to be free? Be free...because freedom is a mindset. Do you want to sit around and look for resons why the grass is greener on the other side? That's  a mindset too, a mindset that can never and will never set you free...because it will never let you see how green your grass already is. Differences exist because you choose to see them. Maybe you can argue that you see differences because they exist. Either way, it is still your mind that turns those differences into dividers. It is your mind that tells you to hate what makes you "different" and to envy what makes others "unique." It is your mind that blinds you from how enviable your own life already is. The solution? Change your mindset, not the world's mindset, just yours. It will take time for you to change your own mindset, and even longer for the world to change its, but length of journey should never be a detterent to its travel. So, start with you and the rest of the world will follow. When the world finally sees what freedom truly is, the world will choose to be so, that choice it's first act of freedom.

"Let him that would move the world, first move himself." -Socrates

"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi