The Broken Man

There was once a broken man,
he walked alone in the night sky,
full of fear and despair,
looking to be loved,
looking to be nurtured,
looking to be accepted,
thinking he was not worthy,
thinking he would never find the love he was seeking,
A day came when he asked God
to send him that love he didn't know existed,
shortly after she showed up,
with a sweet smile and the sweetest look,
with a patience he has never seen before,
she showed him that he could be loved,
she showed him that he could be nurtured,
she showed him that he could be accepted,
she showed him that there could be light,
she showed him that he didn't need to walk alone in the night,
he had finally found what he had desperately been seeking for,
God had finally answered!
but then that wretched fear kicked in,
the doubt started to fill his head,
looking for some clarity in the midst of chaos
he asked his lady: why do you love me?
and with a smile she answered: because I have no reason not to.
And then he knew that there was never going to be another night when he would walk alone.

For you

I didn’t know I could open myself up to love again,
And then I met you,
I didn’t know I could find someone who I could call my partner,
Someone who would walk side by side with me,
Someone who would share the road with me,
And then I met you,
It all seemed like a dream come true,
And I never realized that most of your life
Dreams had turned to nightmares at the moment they seemed the happiest,
The fear of the dream becoming a nightmare made you want to run
Run before it hurt you,
Run because you couldn’t deal with that hurt again,
And in trying to run, you hurt me,
It was easier to blame yourself than to be hurt again,
It was easier to run than to confront your fears,
It was easier to make yourself believe I needed you more than you needed me,
The thing is my love that the dream only became a nightmare because you pushed it that way,
The thing is my love that I never allowed you in my life because I needed you,
I allowed you in my life because I loved you,
And it is that love that would have never allowed this dream to become a nightmare,
Too bad that you were unable to see it...

Let's keep the talk going...

I am glad that there are still people talking about depression, because the reality is that everyone has gotten depressed at some point in their lives but we all have had ways of dealing with those feelings. Everyone is different, so everyone will react different. 

I have talked to many people through the years and a lot of them will say how selfish it is to commit suicide, you are not thinking about the people that love you but you are only thinking of yourself, at some point in my life I thought that it was an act of cowardice to go ahead and just end your life because it is easier to die than it is to keep on fighting. 

Then I put a lot more thought into it and realized how is neither selfish or an act of cowardice, it takes a lot more courage to end your life than it does to live it because we are born with the drive to live. A newborn cries when he/she is hungry because they want to be fed, they need to be fed in order to survive and everything we do throughout our lives is mostly done because we have a need to live. 

Most people are scared of dying, most will not even talk about it, we grow up thinking we will live tomorrow when we fully well know that we really don't know that. We plan our future because we want to live until that point... So, in order for someone to go for it and end their lives, they have to be in so much pain that they start to feel that ending life it's the best option. For me, there is no other explanation for it. 

But what causes people so much pain? Why are we now living in a world where depression and suicide rates are so high? I kept thinking about how we are asking people to speak up if they feel lonely and sad, and maybe it's just because I have this ideal that there are things that can definitely be prevented if we don't wait until the last minute to say how we feel, and maybe I am looking at this the wrong way but I feel we need to look deeper and find out why it is that people are getting so depressed. To look at the world around us and maybe make a difference before getting a call or having to make that call saying I can't handle any of this anymore and there is too much pain so let me just end it. 

We live in a world that has forced us to prioritize things in a way that shouldn't be. We are raising children in a world where what matters most is money and things. We are living in a world where we are disconnected from nature and more connected to devices. We live in a world that has handed us devices that make us think that we have more time to do more things, to talk to more people and give every single one of them our undivided attention. We live in a world where those devices have become such a part of us that some of us have experienced panic attacks because we forgot our phones at home, in fact most of us will go back to the house to pick up their phone even if they are running late for a meeting, and the phone is not important to us because we might get a call from someone, the phone is important to us because with it we entertain ourselves, we ignore calls and instead we text numerous people, we think that having 3 different conversations going is absolutely great and we fool ourselves into thinking that we are truly paying attention to everyone we are "talking" to. 

We give importance to the wrong things. We work so hard to have certain things in life, we want the house, the car, the saved money in the bank, we tell ourselves that once we are "financially stable" then we will be happy, but we continue to struggle with it, because the more we earn the more we want and the more we spend, the more debt we get into, the more we become slaves to money and things, because we think that we have to reward ourselves with the better car, the bigger house, the better phone, the new computer, etc etc for working our asses off in a job we really did not want to do in the first place but that we took simply because we were going to make enough money.

People become truly miserable living that way and yet they ignore it, they ignore it by repeating the above, when I get this I will be happy, when I get that I will be happy, meanwhile they are missing out on the things that really do make them happy. Those little things that fill you with so much joy that you shine, those things end up getting ignored because we are focused on the next thing, the next goal, the next raise. We forget to chase our dreams because we want to chase money, we dream of money, we have been brainwashed to think that all of our problems will be solved with money and we forget about the people. 

People are what matter, not the quantity of people we have around but the quality of them, the dreams we have are what matter not the money that you will get from reaching those dreams but the satisfaction that your soul gets from doing what you love. We are sitting here telling everyone to reach out when they are sad, and about to commit suicide but most of what I see being posted is a phone number for the National Suicide Line, and I keep thinking: boy! the world is changing in some way that I really don't like, we are saying here is a phone number of someone that will answer the phone because the persons you love the most and that you want to reach out to were too busy to pay attention and the likelihood that they will answer the phone is so low that we need to have a dedicated line of certified counselors (that don't know you at all) try to convince you why you are important in this world and why you need to keep living, because the people that should be reminding you of that every day got too busy chasing money and fame that ignored the signs of depression you started to show months or even years ago. 

I feel we don't just need to ask people to speak up, we also need to ask ourselves to listen. I feel that we need to pay more attention to the people we love. I feel we need to start prioritizing differently. We need to change the way we do things and we need to start living life, so that we don't get to that depressing point of having to reach out to someone for help when it could all have been avoided. While it is true that depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain, it is also true that we are creating that imbalance not just by focusing on the wrong things but also by thinking we can do more than we actually can. We are now in a world that allows you to somehow (and this is the only way that I have of describing it) collect people, we now, in some part of our brain look at people like things, without realizing it. Our children are being raised in that world, how many teens are on Facebook and looking at their "friend" count? How many adults are doing the same? How many put so much emphasis on it? The more we have the more popular we are and somehow we tell ourselves that will makes us feel better when it really doesn't, we are living in a world surrounded by people and feeling the loneliest we've ever felt and we ignore it. 

There is a famous Robin Williams quote that says: "I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel alone." That is the world we live in now because we are putting too much emphasis on the how many rather than on the quality of people, and to me that is one of the biggest recipes for disaster. I am not saying to you quit social media and focus on the people you love, I am just saying focus more on the interactions you have with people, focus more on the people that really matter to you, make the people you feel are important in your life feel that they are that important to you. Don't let them feel like they are alone, give them time, there is no better way of showing them that you love them than by giving them your time. When we start to realize that a job is really not that important, that things are really not that important because the reality is that you can replace both those things but you can't replace the important people in your life, that's when the world will start to be different. When we actually start doing things to change this behavior of slavery towards things rather than just telling ourselves that we are going to do that, then we will see a change in the world. When we start changing ourselves rather than waiting for the world to change, that is when the world will start changing. When we stop ridiculing people for following their dreams and not the money. When we start doing the things we love rather than saying hey let me work right now as much as I can right now, save money for retirement and then I can do the things I love while ignoring the fact that we don't know if we will get to live to that age and we should start living and doing the things we love now. When we start to be grateful for what we have rather than being focused on getting more. When we stop talking and start acting, then the world will change. 

I really wish people would pay more attention to those around you, those you consider important in your life, I wish we stopped using the "I'm too busy" excuse to not make that phone call, I wish people didn't just say "you are important in my life" but actually showed it, if we did that then maybe the world would be less depressed and less people would commit suicide or even attempt it. I wish people would encourage others to really follow their dreams and what makes them happy, maybe then we would have less depression and more happiness. I wish that we spent more time actually talking than typing a whole conversation out.  Most of all I wish people would actually look at themselves and have the courage to admit when something is wrong rather than ignoring it until it becomes too heavy to bear. 

So not just tell people to speak up, they need someone to be there to listen, someone that they know and that really cares about them, the ones you love need you more than your boss, the ones you love need you more than they need the things you will be able to buy them for Christmas after all the extra hours you decided you needed to work. The ones you love need your time and you need theirs, don't fool yourself thinking that when you get that next raise you will be happier, that the people you love will be happier not being able to spend time with you because now that you got that promotion you have to work more hours. Show them that they are important and let them show you that you are too, don't ignore the call for that person you love, it does not matter who they are, mom, dad, significant other, sister, niece, nephew, cousin or dear friend... Stop getting so caught up in living to work and start working on living, I have a feeling that if we all did that we would be a lot happier and a lot less depressed...

Because everyone just keeps talking about it...

For the past few days people have been bombarding the talk about suicide and depression. I've read many different articles that were written just after the passing of the dear comedian Robin Williams, everyone saying how we just don't know how much pain someone is in, he was someone who dedicated his life to making other people laugh and yet he somehow could not make himself happy. 

I've read an extreme amount of articles on addiction and depression and mental illness. All of which appear sometimes to be three different things and others they appear to be looked at as the same thing but with different names. 

People keep pointing out that if you are starting to feel sad or depressed you should reach out to someone and talk, the national suicide line phone number has now become a constant post that appears on every post about Robin's death.

And while I believe that is great to bring awareness, I also think that we are all missing one big point here which I mentioned on my last post, and that is that we are all living in a world that fosters feelings of depression. 

We live in a society where we are bombarded by sad news, depressing news all the time, what makes it to the news are the guy who stabbed his whole family because he says that was his destiny, the woman who threw her newborn down a cliff, the war that is going on between two countries (a war that has been going on for many many years), the beheading of children because they are of a different religion.  How can someone not get depressed when we are constantly reading or hearing stuff like this. 

Then you add the ideals that society has set as standards for living a full and happy life. Standards like you must have a house, you must buy a nice car, you must get an education, you must get married, you must make this kind of money, you must have good health, you must keep a certain amount of money in the bank, you are only successful when you keep moving up the corporate ladder, etc etc... A society that has the standard that says: everyone has to be the same but at the same time everyone must be different.

Have you ever stopped and think about how fucking hard that is? You have to follow certain guidelines which, as society says, will bring you happiness, and we go on and work on dreams that other people have had, we work so hard to get to that next step, to have the money in the bank, to have the family, to buy the house and yet when we get all of it we are still unhappy because the reality is that that was not really what we wanted to do in the first place. We put so much work and we stress out over the things we have not yet achieved and that society says we should have achieved by a certain age that we forget about what we really want. 

We listen to what our parents and peers have to say on how they've lived their life and we think because it worked for them (even when we see that they are not really happy) that it will work for us. We forget about what we want and we give more importance to the voices of other people rather than our own, and when we finally realize this it is either too late or we end up feeling alone in the world because we decide to do things differently and everyone else has decided to judge us. 

We are also living on a society who has been completely disconnected from human relationships, human contact, we no longer know how to read someone's body language because we are not around anyone to actually practice reading that. Our instincts that once would tell us that someone was in trouble or in pain are not being used anymore and therefore we are losing the capacity to go and help someone before they actually come to us and ask for help. 

Think about this... I don't know if it is true but reports state that Robin Williams wife left the house without seeing him that morning because she thought he was still sleeping, on a different room nonetheless. I keep wondering what would have happened if she would have walked in his room before leaving the house and actually checked up on him, not that I am blaming her because it's not her fault but what would have happened if we were more connected with each other rather than with devices?

We live in a society that has stopped listening because we are too busy reading and thinking that we can have 20 different conversations at the same time, we ignore the people we are surrounded by and that are right in front of us because others are trying to catch our attention. We decide that we will go ahead and use a text message to speak to someone we care about while we are also working or doing other stuff that does not allow us to actually stop for one moment grab the phone and talk. Basically we live in a society that gives less importance to people and more importance to things. 

So how can we be so astounded when we see that the rates of depression and suicide among Americans are rapidly rising through the years, we have done this, we have created this! How many of you actually put your phones away or actually listen to someone talk anymore... I get irritated because most of my friends now find it easier to text than they do to talk and it always feels when a conversation is not continuous (because that is what happens when you are texting, you get distracted and stop the subject and then try to pick it up later) like it is not important for any of them to actually take the time and stop to talk, yet here we all are asking everyone to speak up when we don't even want to give the time needed to listen. 

This society has also been teaching us that we must be strong, that we must get over things, especially things that society has classified as silly, even though things affect people in different ways, we expect everyone to react in the same manner to the same situation. The most ridiculous thing that I have yet to experience, not everyone is the same and while we hear that over and over we still expect everyone to be. And while it is true that you cannot help someone who does not want to be helped, it is also true that you cannot tell someone who is seeking help that they are seeking help for something that to you is silly because to them it is not.

We live in a world that judges us for the emotions we feel and that we show and yet that same world that laughs at us for what it believes is a silly thing our minds have created is now calling out for us to speak up and tell it when we don't feel right. That same world that has become a playground where everyone plays on their own and where everyone ignores everyone is now telling us that we need to speak up because it is ready to listen. 

The worst part of all of this is that this great awareness that has been created over the suicide of someone who lived to make others laugh but was apparently very sad inside will start to fade out in the next few days, and suddenly everyone will go back to their old lives and keep running towards things that will not matter when you die. They will continue to ignore and will continue make things a priority. They will go back to being unhappy and pretending that they are, they will go back to making fun of others' emotions until once again someone that touched so many lives will do the same and then the talk will be reopen, but it will all just be talk because not many will actually change their ways. 

I truly wish we could all sit back and accept how different we are from one another, how our differences is what makes this world so perfect, I wish we could all realize that the set standards that society has given us will not make everyone happy, it might make some happy but not all. I wish we had the courage to go after our dreams and not after someone else's, following our dreams and our hearts will always fill us with light. I wish people wouldn't judge others and cut their wings when they decide that they are going to take a leap of faith and follow that dream that everyone said would be really hard to achieve. I wish we could all fill our void not with worry but with faith, and most of all I wish we paid more attention to the people in our lives rather than the devices that surround us. Maybe if we did that, we would find less people depressed and more people happy. 

Needing a break from the world

And so it was about 5 o'clock in the morning and I was wide awake and at the same time extremely sleepy and tired, after having gone to sleep at what most call not a decent hour, this whole waking up before it looks like the sun is coming out is not a good thing at all.
I was tossing and turning for about an hour and a half trying to force myself to go back to sleep and all I really ended up accomplishing is to make myself extremely hungry so eventually I ended up just getting up and trying to start my day, but as I was starting my day I had this amazingly strong feeling of needing a break from the world, and I mean a real break, when I am just let be and can deal with my thoughts without any interruptions, or maybe when I can actually just not think about anything for one moment and feel how that if fucking fine because you know what sometimes you just have to sit there and look out the window while sipping on a cup of tea and just not think about anything, just be in a daze.
Then of course, because I am not capable of just feeling the way I feel without figuring out why I am feeling that way, I started to try and figure out why I was feeling how I was feeling. Maybe it is just me, maybe it is that in the past few years I have grown so much that I have suddenly reached a place of spirituality that I never really knew could be achieved and because I went on the road on my own I don't really have anyone else that I can relate with about any of it, but the more I learned about the universe, the way it works, the true meaning of happiness I ended up becoming more and more aware of society and its rules and the people around me suddenly became more annoying than I thought they have ever been. Yes, that last part does not seem to be something someone that has been through an spiritual journey would say, but hear me out for a bit....
Sometimes we get to a point where we can't really explain everything that is going on because we don't quite understand it ourselves yet so how could we possibly be asked to explain it to someone else. At this same point we also get this immense feeling that even though some of the things we are doing make absolutely no sense at all and that any logical person would say we are being fools because the things we are doing are bound to fail, we still know that it will not, we don't know how, we don't know why, but we just know.
I read an article that called our intuition that, "knowing without knowing", and it made perfect sense to me because that's where I am at right now, I know without really knowing but I just know and that feeling of me just knowing without really knowing has become stronger and stronger with time and my inability to explain it to everyone else has put me in a place where everyone else is annoying the living shit out of me because as humans we all want to know, we want explanations, we want the answers and we don't allow ourselves to just enjoy the feeling.
Yesterday was probably one of the worst days, I was bombarded with questions from the moment I got up, things that I really don't have the answer to and other things that I could give someone advice on and then other things that kept being pushed through and through even after I had been very clear about not having the answer to it. And then at night I was so exhausted from all of it that I felt I had reach an entire new level of exhaustion that I did not know existed. So I tried to get away but it seemed like there was no place to hide because as I was walking away I would bump into one more conversation I really did not want to have but that I felt I was obligated to have, you know that mmm let me answer this because I have not talked to them in a while and I just should, which is completely wrong because really there is no obligation for it.
Then I started to think about why is it that the more I talk to people the angrier and unhappier I get, psychology says that human beings need interaction with others and for some reason the interactions I've had with people lately have made me not want to interact with them any longer. The world, society to be more precise, has come to be a collective negative thought, it is one after the other, and it is full of complaints and sorrows. I recently stepped away from having to talk to a person I love very much because their way of communicating is all over the place, they will change the subject midway and if you are actually trying to say something to them they will interrupt and go to something different, or the best one of all because this is the one I just could not stand, when I was talking about an issue and instead of trying to turn the issue into something not so negative they would use words that would probably bring more of a demise to myself than anything else.
Words have a lot of power, I don't believe that what society calls "bad" words are as bad as society says they are because there are way worse things you can say to actually curse yourself and those around you. Using words like you cannot do this, or if you do this then this (enter bad thing here) will happen have more power than a mere fuck you! When you put sentences like that together you are throwing such an intense amount of negativity towards that person and you don't even know you are doing it. And see I decided to pointed out and it was all dismissed, so I did what I always do when I know I can't battle other people's demons, I walked away and now ignore.
However, that is not the only person that does it, every single human being that I have come into contact with does the exact same thing, they don't do it on purpose because they are not even aware that they are doing it but they do it, and so I find myself in a new situation that I don't know how to handle, because I know I have done so too but I am now aware of it so I need to find a way to not do it as much anymore but it is impossible to do when you have 100 other people around you still doing it.
So I decided I need a break from the world, I need a break from society and a break from the silly rules that tell everyone how you need to live your life, that are focused on all the wrong things, I need a break from people who I have told over and over what it is that I want to do and how I want to live my life, the job I want to have but they refuse to let it be and continue to tell me what would be better for me, how I should do this and that because then I will have better things and a better life, none of them understand how what they are wanting for me will not make me happy which in turn will make my life not better but worse.
I need a break from the constant planning of the world, I need a break from those that want everything to happen instantly and that don't understand that we are all a work in progress, that life is a constant lesson being taught and once you are done learning one you are put right on to the next, that there is no such thing as I will wait until I am ready because you are never ready, you can never get ready for the next thing life will throw at you all you can do is jump in and keep on going. A break from those who have no patience and who have a constant need to understand that which has no explanation, because the reality is that some things just don't, they can't be explained and that is ok, it is part of the mystery of life and what makes life so wonderful.
I need a break from the negativity that we are all being drowned in, the intolerance that exists, the judgement of life when you decide to live it differently even though you are not hurting anyone. I was talking to one of my moms the other day and I accidentally told her something I was going to do that I have not really talked about to anyone because I know as soon as I open my mouth all this why are you doing this, you are wasting your time on this and this makes no sense and there is nothing you can do with this and nothing you will learn from this and this is the most useless thing you can ever do would come out, and yes I know I should give them all a chance but see a few years ago I did give them all a chance and that is exactly what they said so I did not do it even though in the depths of my soul I knew I would be happy doing it and yet logic won that battle so I didn't, as soon as I barely mentioned this and thankfully I was able to change the subject and lead her to a different one immediately, these were her words exactly: Why would you do that? Can't you do something different? I need a break from that too.
I just really need a break, I know I am not the only one that has ever felt like this, wanting to change the world, knowing that they can't and changing themselves but living in what appears to be a constant battle because everyone else wants you to be like everyone. It's like those that are miserable and did not get to do what they wanted and how they wanted believe the rest of the world should follow, they spill their negativity to their children and grandchildren, their collective conscious is so big and strong that it is exhausting to keep fighting against it, they want to control life all the time without realizing there is no such thing so when you are trying to go with the flow of life they are trying to push you to go against it. I need a break from all that, and even though I am sitting here stating how I need a break from all of it, somehow somewhere someone will say no you don't, and that is not a good thing and they will try to make me feel guilty about wanting the break and it will be a battle just because a break is needed.
We live in such an amazing world and the people in it make it so difficult to live in it by not allowing themselves and others to just live and enjoy what we have been given and worrying about what tomorrow will bring, what the next big thing will be, how you will get ahead and prepare to get ahead when all you really have to do to get ahead is to start walking, is so easy and simple and we make it so hard.
Here is to all of those who understand this, to those that keep on walking and that are exhausted from all the worries of the world and are fully aware that they are not your worries but that they are thrown on you without you asking for them. Here is to those who also need a break from all of this because you cannot constantly walk without taking a pause, we all need to rest. Here is to hoping that you will get said break and that it will make you a stronger person and help you find the shields you need to keep walking peacefully towards that which will truly make you happy, those things we know can't be bought with money but that can be gained by letting your heart guide you.
May you all be blessed with strength and willpower to keep going and not give up, eventually I know there will be more of us and we will be strong enough to swim down and break the net. Blessed be!

The important thing...

Ever wonder how society has raised us to think that money and things are important? The clothes we wear, how much we make, the title we have on our office door, the social status is an important part of calling yourself successful... or so that is what society says.
We grow up under the shadows of our parents or adults who have helped shape and raise us to believe that the way to happiness is to accomplish all of the above, that the dreams we had as children are too hard to accomplish and so we have to have our feet well planted on earth and be realistic to what we are really capable of.
Our wings get cut and our view of life changes, we are filled with fear of failure and we blame ourselves when we are unable to accomplish what we are supposed to be accomplishing, we feel guilt when we do what we want and try to follow our dreams, we believe we are being selfish when we are working towards that which is what we want.
The truth is that the important things in life do not cost money, the way to happiness is not the same for everyone, we are all different and we all make our own way. The truth is that we did not come here to do what our parents tell us we have to do with our lives, their role is merely to guide us and care for us until we can care for ourselves, their role is not to tell us which decision to make but to allow us to make a decision for ourselves.
It is when we follow what others want for us that we become unhappy, the voice of society is so loud that it overcomes the voice of our souls, the voice of our hearts, we stop listening to the voice that will really show us the way to true happiness and we let the world take us through the longest detour and then when we realize it we think it is too late to turn around and so we force ourselves to stay on that same road.
It is never too late to follow your dreams, it is never too late to turn around and get back on the road, it is never too late to realize that the things you thought will make you successful are mere rules of society to try and make everyone look the same, when the reality is that this universe is so diverse that it's unnatural for everything to be the same.
It took me a while to realize all of this, one person that helped me realize this was my daughter, she is only 6-years-old, and while I was working so hard to provide for her all the things I wanted to give her she said to me: mommy I wish you did not have to work so hard so you could play with me or watch a movie... She does not and hardly ever asks for anything other than my time with her and it does not matter how I spend it with her, she just wants time, everything else is not important. She is not aware of a "nice" house, or a "nice" car, or how much money we have, or the brand name clothes, those are things society's shallow nature try to tell us that is important as we grow and that are needed to be truly successful, the reality is that she already is, she is more successful than anyone else around her because she has dreams and she is not afraid to follow them... All I can hope for her is that she keeps that fearless soul of her going, that she does not let the voice of society take over and that she follows her heart, that she does not allow others to tell her what things she needs to be happy, that she is never afraid to be different because the world's differences are what makes this world such a beautiful place.
Most of all I hope she never thinks that her job is to make me proud or anyone else for that matter, I hope I can always make her understand that her only job in life is to do what makes her happy and as long as what makes her happy does not harm her or anyone else then she should always go for it.  I hope that I don't ever fall into the trap of cutting her wings out of fear that she will not be able to fly high and hurt herself because it is much better to fail at something you want to do than to fail at that which you do not want.
I hope I am able to keep myself on track, that I don't let society rule what it is that will make me happy, that I can remind myself that life is not planned but we just go with it one step at the time, that the important thing is not how much you have in life but how happy you are. I hope I am able to keep myself from falling in society's trap and keep myself focused on what is truly important: the time spent chasing my dreams, the time spent with those I love and care about, the time spent dreaming because dreaming is what feeds the soul and no dream is ever too big and everyone is strong enough to break out of the mold and most of all I hope I never forget that in the end people won't remember me for what I have but the words they will then speak will be words about how I made them feel, how many times I made them smile and if I am not happy there is no way I could possibly make anyone else good and smile.

Making a relationship work

I am probably the worst person to write about this, I've had many failed relationships and the reality is that I am one of those human beings who is just too damn scared of entering a romantic relationship but I guess I feel that because of all the failed relationships I've had I've learned with each of them what made them fail and I guess if you know what can make something fail then you can sort of figure out what can make it work.
Most people enter into a relationship pretty much hiding themselves behind an image they think will get others to like them, they make the other person believe all this greatness about them and then struggle to keep the facade as time goes on.
Other people do that same thing but they do it just because they think that the idea of having a relationship means that their job is to make every effort to make the other person happy, they don't understand that happiness is an inside job and therefore as time goes by they realize that they have wasted time and effort on an impossible task, it was not their job to make the other person happy.
Which is what brings me to the first thing that makes a relationship work: honesty. Yes, yes, I know, no duh! hello! you all did not need to read all of that in order to know that honesty is one of the things that make a relationship work. But I am talking about being honest from the very beginning of it, from the first conversation, why waste your time trying to impress someone else by not being who you really are, if at the end of the day if  they don't fall in love with who you really are or you make them believe you are someone else then eventually it will all go to hell, eventually either they will find out the little things you do that they can't live with or eventually you will get too tired of pretending and that will be it.... Then you both realize that you were with someone you really did not know and then how do you know you love them if you don't really know them?
I wish people would actually take heart to that first advice, but I know they won't. Everyone will say I will do this, this makes sense but in the end fear will take over and it won't happen.
That brings me to my next advice... As humans we are always thinking about tomorrow, I've said this millions of times, we are so worried about what will happen tomorrow that we forget to live in the right now, we make plans for many months to come and we forget that life can change in a heartbeat. Because of our need to plan out our future, fear tends to take over us, we are always afraid our plans will not come to fruition, we are afraid that we will fail even though we have not tried yet. And so it comes that we fear that the relationships we enter into will fail, we keep thinking that the other person is too good to be true, we keep thinking they are lying to us all the time, we think they don't love us enough, we worry that it will end tragically when it has just began, the wheel of fortune tells us that our fortune can change at any time but life shows us that when that wheel is going in our favor the best thing to do is actually take full advantage of it and enjoy it.
I, myself, am one of those that will think of the worst, in the end I like to be pleasantly surprised than to be sadly disappointed, my soul, my heart, my intuition, all of it has always had a way of guiding me but when it comes to other people I have sometimes led myself be guided by logic and really that has not helped me at all, lately I've been learning to just follow that intuition and "hunches" that "gut feeling" when it comes to other people and it has not steered me wrong, even this past time when at the end I lost someone I love very much, but that thought logically (just like I once did) about life. And even though I was hurt that everything just sort of ended and I tried to make all these rationalizations as to why it would have never worked out either, even though for some reason I felt like if we just kept going day by day neither of us would have ever regretted it. We were just friends and that's where it was left. I know I followed my intuition and my heart and I know that my mind had played a lot of tricks on me before and I know that I used to be one of those people that would listen to everyone else and not myself, trying to make life rational and logical when it is neither.
And the mind this time continues to do so, it is the way it wants to protect me from being even more hurt. Constant battle I would say, that's how I know I was correct, because my mind is trying to make some illogical logical... Which is what brings me to my next advice:
Don't try to rationalize love, don't try to have an insane amount of set rules for a relationship you want, life has shown me that a good relationship flourishes in the most illogical ways, it is when you start to try and rationalize it that you will end up failing at it because love is not logical, it is a force you just feel and that's it! You can't explain it, no one can, you just feel it and it's magnetic, always magnetic. If everything else is working and you have one or two things you think that will just completely ruin everything, think about it again... Do you and this person have good communication? And in saying good communication I mean, can you two talk about things without getting into huge arguments, or if you ever get into arguments can you guys settle them promptly and calmly? Can you talk about what bothers you without the other person getting offended?
If the answer is yes, then it does not matter what things you think will make the relationship not work, you can talk about those things and I believe you will be pleasantly surprised at how things end up working out.
That brings me to the most important thing of all... Communication! Communication is the key to every successful relationship, whether the relationship is just a friendship or a romantic relationship or even a relationship with your kids, if you are not able to communicate with another person you will never have a chance of the relationship working out. Communication is the base of every single relationship, it is what allows trust and respect to grow and that trust and respect are the base for love. As the picture shows, it is not love that we start with, is communication... A long time ago, I had a great relationship, I was 18 years old and this guy and I, we were able to tell each other almost everything, I learned that the more we talked the more we trusted each other, the more we respected each other, 2 years later we forgot this is what made the relationship so great, we never argued, I think in the two years we only had 2 big arguments, and while for some people that might be boring, it was our ability to talk to each other honestly from the very beginning that made all the difference. The last argument we had was what ended up causing the breakup, as stated we had forgotten to talk to each other and he started to mix in that fear of failure and because of lack of communication he started to not trust me, and in turn that ended up making me not trust him, so he started to think logically and decided the best thing was to plan his life out without me and without me knowing, by the time we actually sat down and talked and realized we loved each other very much, it was too late, we had lost (or at least I did) that trust and it was only a matter of time before respect went away with it, and of course the communication between the two of us had already been damaged, so we had two choices we could try again or we could go our separate ways, after a month or so we decided we needed to go our separate ways, mostly because I was just not in it anymore, I could not get over that he couldn't talk to me about the fears he was having, even though I was always open and never judging and that was an even bigger betrayal than if he had gone out and cheated on me. (yes I know that is weird but it's true)
Just like that relationship failed because of lack of communication, so did all my other relationships. Some were never going to go anywhere because the people involved could not ever talk truthfully to each other, or when they did the other wouldn't listen and would just try to make themselves believe something different.  That's what happened with my ex-husband, he was great at talking but everything he said was a lie, I never followed my intuition and so I decided to just go with the logical approach, it turned out that my intuition was right, and the reason I could never seem to trust him was because he was not telling me everything, sure there are things and secrets people should keep to themselves but not the ones that will affect the other person, when you are in a relationship you are a team and if you can't trust the other person with all the things you feel, fear and the things you do that might not be socially accepted then your relationship is doom to fail! If you don't have the courage and strength to show your true self to the other person then you have nothing. And if you have the courage and strength to show yourself to the other person and that other person decides that they will judge you for it then it won't work either.

So, if you find someone who is truthful to you, someone you are able to see all of their flaws and weaknesses, someone that makes you fill up with joy only because they are so happy, because seriously no one can make you happy but yourself but if there is someone who lights up when you light up or you light up because they light up in joy that's it! Someone with whom you can communicate in the best ways possible, someone that somehow makes you want to be better, that pulls out the best of you and sometimes the worst in you but you know that pulling the worst out of you means that they give you the chance to better yourself without judging you, and they give you the time to either accept yourself the way you are or change it if you want to and in the end they accept whatever decision you make, someone that something inside you just tells you that they are not lying, that you should just give it a shot, even though this person might not be what you thought you wanted in life, then take a leap of faith and jump right in, you will be amazingly surprised at how great things will end. Listen to your inner voice and don't be scared of it, don't give into fear and run away, I know it's hard to do and takes lots of practice, I, myself, continue to struggle with it but I have faith that slowly but surely I will come to just follow my gut feeling and nothing else, because every time I follow it, it never steers me wrong.

Life is not hard

I woke up today with one thought in my mind: "Life is not hard" but why is it that the majority of the people in this world will tell you that life is hard? I mean what makes life hard? How hard is it to just live?
The more I thought about it the more I realized that life is only hard because we make it hard, we make it hard for us to live life, it is our nature as humans to do just that. It is probably the most ridiculous thing we will ever do, making life hard to live.
The first way we do this is by thinking everyone is the same, we are all the same and therefore we should all accomplish the same things even though we are fully aware that each of us is a completely different world, we know we are different but we want to be the same. Why? Because of our intense need of belonging, we need to belong somewhere, we can't possibly be happy on our own we have to try and fit in and in trying to fit in we make our life hard because it takes a lot more effort to be someone you are not than to just be yourself.
That leads me to the next thought... Society has this ridiculous set of rules, we grow up thinking the way to live a fulfilling life is if we do certain things certain way even if that way is not the way we want to do it, we think that we have to go study hard, get a degree, get married, have a family, get a house, get a car the latest in technology and well whatever else society thinks is the norm. But we don't want to do any of that and when we decide we don't want to do any of that then we either have family and friends telling us how wrong we are and how we are never going to reach happiness by that thought process and thus it shifts us into the ok this is how other people got happy and so I guess it will have to work for me, but it doesn't work because that is not what you wanted in the first place.
And that takes me to here: when you do things you don't want to do, life itself has a way of shaking you up and to try and bring you back to what you really wanted out of life. Have you ever noticed how when you do something you really don't want to do everything seems harder to get or once you get there it falls apart extremely quickly? Yeah, that's life telling you that you are not like everyone else, each one of us is unique and the idea that we have that we all must follow the same paths is ridiculous because if we all did that then nothing in this world would work, but do we ever listen to that? We know this, we are fully aware of it but we go against it, we go against the tide of life and swimming against the tide is freaking hard!
I know many people don't believe this but there are signs everywhere, all around you, always there is a sign trying to get you to the place where you belong, we choose to either follow the irrational signs we know full well that will take us to our ultimate goal which is happiness, or we choose to not follow the signs and be like the majority of people on this earth. I can attest that every time I followed the irrational signs my life has gotten better and better, it was when I follow what everyone else told me I should do that my life got harder...
Let me explain further...
Years ago I worked really hard to go to this acting and modeling competition in California, it was an amazing opportunity for me to be seen by many people in that industry which could help me launch my career, that is all I ever wanted to do. At the end of the competition I got two callbacks, 2 more than what anyone that knew me was expecting, I called home and told my father how it had gone, his words were: well congrats, I am proud of you but now you can come back to reality and work towards something that will actually feed you, you have proven to yourself you could do it now go back to school. I was 18 years old and because that was my daddy, the wisest of all men (or so I thought) I decided to go back and not think anything of it, let me just forget my dream, it will be too much hard work to actually do what I want and in the end I will gain nothing, seemed reasonable... So I did it, I went back to school with the thought that I had to pick out a major in something that will actually give me a good job, it did not matter whether I liked what I was doing, it mattered only that I was going to be able to feed myself and eventually raise a family.
Thing is that I had no idea what major to pick, there was only one thing I wanted to do with my life and that was acting and modeling, I never had a backup of what I wanted, so then I said well what if I go into the computer business, I will learn how to program a computer, create websites, manage networks blah blah blah... Dad said: No, you don't have the passion required for that field, you have never shown any interest in Computer Technology, so you won't be good at it... Ok I said, I have not really shown any passion for anything else other than acting or modeling so what does it matter what I pick, I will learn, I have always proven to myself I could learn anything.
So I ended up being a Business Major, cause why not, you could learn to manage a business, and even if you don't love it, it will pay the bills and "feed you", give you enough money to raise a family and blah blah... Since it was just what every other person that did not know what to pick as a major went into, dad did not object, he just said: well if that is what you are passionate about then go for it (which completely contradicted what he had said about me going into show business, but that is how a lot of people are, if to them their dream did not come true because of one thing or another then everyone else has to follow into their footsteps and go with a second dream not with their ultimate one that would just bring an extreme amount of happiness beyond believe, even if you are making absolutely the bare minimum to get by)
What was the outcome of all that, I never finished college, the reality was that I was miserable paying for an education on a major I did not want to have, I got my boyfriend at the time and we decided we wanted to go live somewhere else, we could get jobs paying us enough to pay for our bills and live comfortably so why not... The thing is that every job was just that, a job and every job was not what either of us really wanted and that just made each of us extremely miserable, especially me, I always had in the back of my mind that I could do something different, why was life so hard? Life was hard because I made it hard, I kept listening to what everyone else was telling me that life is, how hard you have to work for this, how hard you have to work for that... Ten years later I realized that working hard for something you really want is not really work, is having fun, you have fun when you are studying the things you want to study, you have fun when you are working in the industry you always wanted to be in, it does not matter who else is there and trying to make your life miserable, they can't because you are happy doing what you love to do and suddenly you realize that it's their problem if they want to be miserable not yours!
Another example on that, I went to work as a promotional model for a show, I was having fun, there was this girl next to me who kept complaining about everything that was going wrong, she had this set of rules for everyone and she was just another model, not in charge of the event at all, all she was trying to do was make life hard, but it never bothered me, why? Because at the end of the night even though I was extremely tired I was doing what I love to do and because of that I did not care about her misery and her misery could not make me miserable because I could really care less about her attitude, I was happy.
So, please stop thinking life is hard, life is not hard we make it hard! And stop making your life hard for yourself, you don't have to do what everyone else did, you don't have to follow your parent's advice on how life works, they had their lives to live and they lived them the best way they could, their job was to guide you, provide for you and protect you until the day you could open your wings and fly on your own, your decisions should not be made because of what they said you should do with your life, your decisions should be made because of what you want to do in life, what are you passionate about that you want to do, go for it, it is tiring but not hard, it's only hard because we have tons of people telling us that we are doing it all wrong and that tends to make us doubt ourselves when we shouldn't, when you are following your heart, your soul, you never lose, you always win and if you are having a hard time believing in that, then take a break from the world, stop talking to those that believe they have the answer to your happiness, they make life hard, the only one that has the answers is you!

In the end everything is alright...

Ohh the uncertainties of life...
Life is amazing and painful all at the same time, it comes with ups and downs, sometimes though it seems like there are more downs than ups and that is usually because it is in our nature to focus on the downs, because somehow we think that focusing on the downs we will be able to get the ups faster and be able to keep the ups around longer. I mean we are creatures that learn from their mistakes (usually if we are smart enough). Naturally when we burn ourselves for the first time we try to not do what we did the time we burned ourselves a second time. We learn from the mistake and by thinking about what we did wrong we in turn avoid getting hurt again.
But that's not how everything in life works. We live in a world where we are not in control of anything (I have written this before), we are at the mercy of not only our decisions but the decisions that others make. The idea that everything will be alright in the end is our idea of hope, it is the idea that even when we do make a mistake and we get burned eventually the burn will heal and we will grow new skin and then everything will be ok. It is our idea of faith, whether you believe it is the work of a supreme being or the work of just how things flow naturally in the universe.
Lately I've been repeating those words to myself because lately I have been feeling that everything is not going to be alright, that things are falling apart and because I can't see past a few steps from where I am standing and because I don't have a full picture of the puzzle of my life, I am not able to see the outcome of it, I can't see the how the pieces fit or what part of the picture they are making. And that is why we get anxious... Because we want to see the final picture, we want to see the puzzle put together, we want to rush it and not wait the time we need to wait in order to see it form, it is one of our greatest faults: our inability to be patient, especially after a period when everything was falling into place, or it seemed like it was and then something sudden changes and it either stops the flow for a little bit or some of the pieces that were given to you are taken away.
So what do we have then? All we can really do is hope... For me I have had to go back and see how my life has unfolded, from the moment I moved to this country, leaving the people I loved the most and that would always protect me no matter what and ending up with an abusive father who I thought I knew but it turned out I didn't.
Then I see myself ending up with a drug addicted husband, and ending up with a 9 month old baby living in a room with no phone, no internet, no way of communicating with anyone and at the mercy that my husband would not get too high so that he would remember that he had to come back and get us so we could eat because we also did not have food in our fridge...
I go back to all those times and I think to myself: hell I have been through a lot worse than what I am going through right now, and back then all I had to do was listen to that little voice inside which ended up guiding me to better things... I listened to that voice and I was able to get out of that room and was able to see my baby grow, and to keep her with me during those first years of live.
I remember when I had lost a job that was covering my expenses and how after I lost it I had no where to go, and then I remember when I worried the most all I had to do was try and keep quiet and just listen to the universe and the answer would be given to me right on time... That is how I found a different job, one that I needed at the time, I needed to work from home and I needed a salary and I needed benefits so I went to sleep and I said this is what I need... I kid you not the next day I woke up and I felt like searching for work at home jobs on Google, the very first company I saw, I had not seen ever before, I applied and got the job. Few weeks later I wanted to move to an apartment on my own, not just a rented room like we had at that point. And so I went where I felt I was being called to, I don't know why but I just followed that feeling, two months later I was moving into my very own apartment, it was not the best place in the world but it was ours.
6 months went by and I visited a different city, I had driven on a Friday all day after having little sleep the night before, I got to my hotel and totally passed out... The next morning I had this feeling that I needed to move at the end of my lease, not something I wanted to do at the time, not the city I wanted to move to eventually, and most definitely without having any money to move to a different city. So I said well, what will be will be... 6 months went by and I came to the city I am now living in again, somehow the money was there to travel and look for an apartment, I did not even know where it all came from, being a person that lives month to month like most people these days, I really had no idea how I was going to pull it off and even less of an idea of how I was going to pull off the move, one thing was spending money on going to look for an apartment, another thing was to actually spend money on moving.
After I applied for the apartment I got a call a few days later, I had gotten approved, the deposit that was needed for the apartment was less than what they originally told me it was going to be and as an added bonus it was exactly what I had additional in my bank account after I had paid all my bills that month. It somehow worked, I had no idea how but it did, and so I just went with it... Things just worked out, I had no idea and I still don't have the slightest idea as to why I am in this city... I have tried to figure it out, sometimes I thought it was because the schools are better than back where I was, other times I think is because of the people that I've met so far, other times I think it is because here is where I will be able to find one more piece to my puzzle or maybe a few more pieces, I really don't know, it made absolutely no sense and it still doesn't.
All I know is that for this moment this is where I have to be, ups and downs don't matter because every up gives you hope and every down somehow brings you to another up and to another piece of your puzzle, you just don't see it right now, because we can't see the destination yet, we are not there yet. Life is like traveling, you can only see a few miles ahead of you, sometimes you see that there is a bad storm ahead, because in the highway you can see the clouds at the distance and you think how you are going to have to drive through that and then you reach the storm and only go through a couple of miles of rain, but we could not see past that distance...
So here I am again, closing into a storm and worrying about it while I don't yet know if it is just a mile of it or if it is a few miles of it. Here I am worrying about how everything is turning even when I felt like it was not going to, when the ride was the smoothest, now I am hitting a lot of bumps and getting hurt and exhausted by them... But that's when I have to stop and I have to think about how life has worked out before, how I am still on the road and the road is not always bumpy, how I have to learn to separate the fear of not knowing the next thing that will happen with the hope of what I want at the moment and with what my goal or purpose in life is which in the end is the only thing that matters. What we want to achieve, that final picture, the one we are being given the puzzle pieces to, the one that will give us the greatest joy, that is all that matters and if we forget for one moment about that and we decide to focus on what we want at this moment in time, or how we want the bumps of the road completely gone we will end up taking a detour and finishing that puzzle will end up taking a lot longer than we expect.
Don't listen to the fear of the storm, don't worry about the little bumps, listen to your voice, is this right? where the directions that you took correct and this is part of the road to your greatest happiness or did you take a detour because you decided that what you wanted right now was more important this moment in time than your final destination? You always have the answer, it is not always logical but you always have it, don't let fear consume you, don't let it get the best of you and don't let it force you to immediate gratification because immediate gratification always ends quickly, it never lasts. Great things and great places take a long time to make and a long time to get to.

Love

It does not matter where I am or what I do, as long as you are with me nothing else matters...

True love inspires you to be better, to do better! True love means that no matter what you do, where you go, all you want is for another human being, the one you truly love, to be happy and as long as they are happy you will be happy.

True love is not jealous or controlling, true love is free, true love is what fuels the world, it is what gives hope to the masses, without it, I think we are all lost...

So don't ever regret loving someone with everything you've got and then having that person not do the same because when you look back if the love you had for them was true and pure then that time was probably the best time of your life, that time was probably the time when you got inspired to do better and because of that you became a better person so it does matter if you were never loved back the way you want it or hoped you still won something great! Just the mere fact that you were capable of loving purely and freely is enough to be thankful for, not many are capable of it and those who aren't will never experience the joy and inspiration that pure and true love brings, those people will never be as rich as those who have felt true love for another. 

Do you trust you?

A few days ago I got a text from a friend asking me to research a company to see if she should go work with them or not.  I asked her what she wanted to do and her answer was that something was telling her to go for it but she was scared that it would turned out bad.

My answer was: "go with what you are being told." She is one of those people that will never go with her "gut feelings", her instinct, that little voice inside telling you to take the leap.  I was like that once, then as time went by and different things happened in my life good and bad I realized that when I follow that little voice inside the one that gives you the crazy idea that fills you up with fear just thinking about it, things always turned up good.

So the question is: what is this voice? I don't know, I could sit here and say it's a higher being, that it is God, that it's angels watching over you and if you don't believe in any of that you will start treating me like a total mental case and completely dismiss me. That voice could also be you, a higher version of you, a you that has the power to know what will happen next without having all the pieces that are needed to put the puzzle together but that can see the full picture, it's the part of you that seems irrational at the moment because all the information is not completely given. 

Yes, I think that exists, you can call it whatever you want, we all have it! There is one voice that guides us to what our deepest heart's desires are, one that is in sync with our soul and that will never take us through a path of destruction. But do you ever trust that voice? Do you ever trust that you? Do you trust it maybe sometimes or when it makes the most sense or do you completely dismiss it?

It's extremely hard to completely trust it, being that extremely logical being I once was I can attest that the hardest things I've done in my life is to begin to trust that voice, and even now there are times when I totally dismiss it, I dismiss it for that "this is what I want to do right now" voice or that "this is what I should do right now" voice, but I've learned, I've gone back to every time I could remember hearing the voice and then remembering what happened after I did or did not do as the voice said and I found that the more I did not listen to it the more trouble I would find myself into. It was like I was taking detours to my final destination and it was taking me way longer to get there and along the way I would become miserable. 

So why not listen to it more closely? For those who pray do you ever think that maybe your prayers are being answered but that you are too busy praying which is like someone talking when they should be listening and therefore you miss out on the directions you need to follow to get to the life your soul has always wanted? That happiness that can't be reached by doing what other human beings tell you to do but only by following the desires of your soul. 

It's never too late to learn to trust that inner you, it's never too late to believe in something a little greater than yourself even if that is part of you. It's never too late to find true happiness and to follow your dreams... So go on, learn to trust that higher you! Those angels, instincts, God, soul... Whatever you want to call it, learn to trust it, I promise that when you do so your life will start to change so drastically and for the better that you will not believe what's happening! 

Why my favorite Disney movie is my favorite Disney movie...

A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend about our favorite Disney movies, his is Alice in Wonderland, when I asked why he liked that movie so much he gave me a very deep explanation as to why, now I don't quite remember his exact words but it got me thinking about why my favorite Disney movie is in fact my favorite Disney movie....

I used to think that it was because it was just a movie filled with so much magic and the idea of riding on a magic carpet ride was absolutely amazing, with that said though in the past couple of days I've realized the true meaning behind my fascination with Aladdin, I see a lot of myself in Princess Jasmine, not that I think I am a princess but I was sort of raised like she was...

I was raised by my grandmother, a woman that because of her age she had different views of the world, she was very protective and during my childhood was during the time where more crimes were being committed, especially those involving kidnapping, murder and rape, now during the time she was a teenager, and the time she raised my father the crime rate was not as high as it was when I was growing up, therefore she kept me and my cousin at arm's length, we could not leave the house without either her or my aunt, we could not watch TV, except for a very few shows that she would allow, and more than anything we were not allowed to go to any of our friends' house without them knowing exactly who their parents were and after they had made sure that they knew their parents for a while or they were going to be with us there.

Then once I grew older and went to live with my father I was placed on a different bubble, now I was in a new country, one were people use and sell drugs like there is nothing, especially teenagers, I was in high school and my father even though he knew a lot about certain things he was never aware of the specific kind of drugs people can get addicted to, so what was I told: Stay away, never go anywhere where you smell marijuana, never go anywhere you see someone sniffing something because that could be cocaine or heroine, other than that nothing else existed...

Then when it came to music and different shows that I would watch, it was all about what my father listened to, I did not have to asked who singed the song, all I did was listened to it and because I listened to it so many times I liked it, most times I never even paid attention to the lyrics, and so I grew up knowing and loving what he loves and if I ever tried to like something that he did not like then I would get this look like I was listening to the worst kind of music in the world so it became that I just went with his flow. This last part was true for almost anything I ever wanted to do, it had to have an approval by someone not just me and if it was not approved then I was not allowed to try it... Now this was great for when it came to not doing drugs and not drinking or smoking, things like that but for others I think I missed out... 

Jasmine was kind of "protected" in the same way, she lived in a palace and she was not allowed to leave said palace, she could not go out and look at the world, she wanted to experience all of it but because she was a princess she was told she couldn't and then all she ever had was her garden and fountain and her loyal friend Rajah, with whom she spent most of her time.  She had all these rules as to what she could and could not do then she had to get married, had to pick a husband, and she had to wait for the princes to come and propose to her, she could not go out and meet them.

So what did she do one day? She escapes in hopes of seeing the world on her own and learning about it, more than what books can tell you because nothing beats experience, so in her first encounter she ends up getting into trouble because she grabs an apple and gives her to a little boy, she was never taught that in the outside world things were not just given like in her palace, in the real world there was an exchange of money for goods or services, and she gets into trouble.  Then Aladdin comes into the picture, the free spirited guy, the one that is street smart and does whatever he wants because well he does not live in a palace, but he wants to, he wants to live there because there is security there, there is no need to steal to survive, or work hard in order to get a small piece of bread at the end of the day.

Aladdin rescues Jasmine from getting her hands cut because she stole the apple and they manage to escape, neither knowing who the other one is, two people from opposite worlds and they fall in love... of course right? that's how every Disney movie plays out, but see for me this is the perfect love story, Jasmine who is a princess that knows nothing about the world falls for Aladdin, a street rat as they call him that knows probably a little too much, and so when he becomes a prince and he takes her for a magic carpet ride he promises to show her the world, that world she has not seen because she has been confined to a palace all her life and that's why she loves him so much, because there in front of her is a person that can show her all that she had been missing out, someone she can learn from and that can help her grow as a person, because with him she could actually experience things she has not experience before. And in turn he was someone she could teach about her world, a world he was going to eventually be introduced, and that he falsely thought was better than his. 

And see that's why that movie is my favorite one, because as I grew older I realized how much I did not know about the world even though I always thought I did, with my ex-husband I learned that the only drugs people get addicted to are not just cocaine and heroine, but there is also meth, and prescription drugs and over the counter drugs that people use to get high, and there are different ways they take the drugs and I learned that a drug addict is only dangerous not when they are high but when that high starts to go away and they are unable to find anything to get to that point again, all of this is something my father did not know either and even now he does not really pay attention to it, or has the desire to learn more about something that is so controversial and that now a days every parent should know so that they can truly explain it to their kids rather than say it is a forbidden thing which usually ends up making them want to do it even more... 

With music, my little sister was the one that would introduce me to new kinds of music, she had more freedom as to what she listened to, in between her friends at school and going back and forth with her mother and my father's attempt to actually build a bond with her so he would be introduced to her music too, that's all I ever really was exposed to, so yeah now a days I have learned a lot more about it than I used to, still don't really pay attention to who sings the song or who wrote it, but I focus more on taking it all in and actually taking in the melody as well as the lyrics and see what I actually like and what I am in the mood for...

And as far as having a prince, well... what can I say, as a little girl and even now as an adult when I daydream and romanticize about things that will never happen but that make me smile, I realize I don't really want a prince, I want a diamond in the rough, someone that knows a lot about the world, especially about things I don't know about, because then we could learn from each other and grow together, find a balance, like Aladdin and Jasmine did. 

Ohh a girl can only dream... right?? :)