The Fear of Death

"Today you are alive and no one is beside you, but if tomorrow you were to die, many would come to see you.  Today you are alive and no one will give you a hug, but if tomorrow you were to die, no one would want to let you go.  Today you are alive and no one will give you a rose, but if tomorrow you were to die, they would send you bouquets and wreaths of flowers.  Today no one pays attention to you but when you die you will be popular for a full day.  They will post pictures of you on social media saying how much they love you, how special you are to them, and how they can't live without you.  Today you are alive and they make you cry, but if you were to die tomorrow everyone would cry for you..."

This is one of my favorite short poems.  There have been no truer words said.  Yesterday night I was talking to a dear friend of mine who can see the energy of spirits forming their image.  I had sent her a picture and she said that there was one hiding behind my door.  I was not surprised since in my years of spiritual practice I have come to sense many of them.  She said that this particular one almost looked like Death.  I said to her: ohh great!!! they are finally taking me!!! I am done with whatever my purpose of being stuck in a human body is.  It will finally be over and I am finally going home!  Happy Dance!!!

I decided to post that experience on Facebook, there was obviously a reason for it because to tell you the truth I already know how humans react to the idea of death.  It was not quite clear to me why that inspiration had come, until this morning.  I woke up to the song Over the Rainbow playing on my phone, I usually fall asleep to healing music every night and the loop of it continues until I wake up.  It has never been so that this song plays on the loop I have set up, but it did...  This song used to give me goosebumps because the person who wrote it, wrote thinking about heaven.  They were describing how home (heaven) feels, even though they didn't really say that out loud.  Most people know though, it is a popular song played when someone passes.  Anyhow, I went to check Facebook and sure enough, humans were commenting...

One of them had posted the emoji that is rolling their eyes, they know I am not afraid of death and that I am happy that this physical body I am in is not eternal.  But I know they don't like the idea of it and I know that they don't like to be reminded.  Then there was a friend of mine who is like a little sister to me, I told her to make sure to call me because I was leaving soon, she said I was being crazy...  Someone else was wondering what was going on... And then there was one that was probably the most irrational one, it was someone who only interacts with me on Facebook.  I don't speak to this person outside of my Facebook posts but for some reason they said they did not want to say goodbye to me yet.  That one started to irritate me a little because the physical absence of my body would really have absolutely no impact in their life, they don't even know who I really am, even though they think they know because they know one of my biological parents, but neither of my biological parents know who I am.

I stepped back from all that, grounded myself because feeling negative emotions means I am allowing my human self to take over too much, and then I smiled and laughed.  Humans are so afraid of something they don't really know about.  I was immediately reminded of a meeting I had last Friday where we all mentioned that with technology we have created this idea that our human bodies have to live forever, and if they don't then we feel this extreme pain.  It used to be that people died a lot more than they do now; I say a lot more because there were no treatments for a lot of diseases that would have extremely shorten a person's life but know there are.  Now, we are used to going to the doctor and getting a pill, a treatment, something to make that illness not progress as quickly.  We want people to live, we want to save them.  It can be seen as a noble idea but more often than not, it is a selfish one.

I have gotten into arguments for saying that, but I know I am not the only one who thinks that way.  I have been lucky enough to meet people in the past few months who see it for what it is.  A friend of mine and I were chatting the other day and she was explaining that her grandmother keeps going through surgeries she does not want only because she wants to make her children happy.  Of course, none of her children see that she is suffering and she is ready to go, they just keep pushing her to keep living.  I told her that I could not find one person who could give me a logical explanation why someone should keep living when they are in pain, the only reasons they could give me was their own selfish ones.  The person should live because there are many people who would miss them.  What about the people who still need them?  What about how their family will feel?  They are not thinking about anyone but themselves when they are thinking they want to die.  It was all emotional responses, I said to her.  Her answer was that someone should live because there are things they still want to do while in physical form.  I said yes! Someone should live because they want to continue to live, not because of what anyone else wants.

It is true, in the end the dead person is no longer suffering.  The dead person is free and the only ones who suffer are the ones who remain alive.  I wondered why this phenomenon happens because to tell you the truth most of the people who cry and suffer for the dead person did not even spend enough time with that person to feel that way.  Their physical presence was more than likely not something they experienced on a daily basis and therefore the idea that you would miss them to me seems irrational.  I now bring you back to the beginning of this post... the best reason I can come up with and the one that fits perfectly is REGRET.

Regret is one of the things that humans carry with them on a daily basis.  We are all always thinking that we have tomorrow to make decisions, that we have tomorrow to change something, we have tomorrow to talk to someone, we have tomorrow to spend time... And then when that tomorrow takes that someone or something away, we feel sad because we are hit with the reality that we don't really have that much time.  It is funny because every time someone dies, that is the mood of the funeral or memorial but then the very moment the funeral or memorial is over we go back to the same way of thinking.  It is why I don't like them.  I was taken to one last year and every one of the persons who knew the diseased would say something great about her and then would add how life is short and it should be enjoyed.  How we should cherish those who are still here with us and be grateful... I know that the majority of them went on after that to live just the same, until someone else dies at which point they will all say the same things.

Isn't it amazing though? Humans fear death because they fear loss, but they live their lives as if they will never lose anything or anyone.  They keep away from the people they love and who love them because they think they will all have tomorrow to enjoy it with them.  They stick around toxic people because they think they will have enough time to change their lives and enjoy it later without them.  They put themselves in situations that will require an extreme amount of effort only because they think that they will have time to enjoy themselves later.  They overwork themselves because they think they have time to enjoy the fruits of their labor later.  They get careers in fields they don't want because of the same thing... And then eventually it catches on to them that they didn't really have enough time.  Illness kicks in, death comes to visit, and suddenly it feels like all of it was time wasted.  Regret sets in and pain usually follows.  But God forbids we actually acknowledge every day that our physical lives are short and we actually take the time to let those we love that we love them.  Take the time to spend it with them, to enjoy them... We won't, we won't because even though we know we have short lives and that they could end at any point, we still deceive ourselves into thinking that we do have time.  That those we love will wake up tomorrow and we will have another opportunity, so it is ok to sit and think about doing that today without actually doing it...

We can get rid of the people who don't fill our lives another day, today is ok to answer them out of respect and out of courtesy.  It is ok to do the things we don't like today because tomorrow is another day and we will definitely have an opportunity to change things.  The truth is that we are not even promised the next second of life, so we should take the opportunity now.

Why am I not afraid of death?  Because I have taken the time to let those I love that I love them.  I have ensure that I did everything I could to spend the time with the ones I love.  I know I have done everything in my power to be there and to do the things that bring me joy.  Even though some of them have not wanted to be there or spent time, I made myself available because that is all I could do.  I have enjoyed every moment I have lived, even the bad ones because I have learned from them.  I have fallen many times but I learned, got up and kept going.  I left the bad taste of it behind and took with me the lesson which in turn helped me grow and do things better as I continued.  So, when the time comes I will go happily... I will go happily because I lived the way I wanted.

Why should we be at peace with our mortality?

There are two ways to look at life.  The first one is as if every day you are given one more day to live, thinking that if you knew for sure this was your last day, how would you want your last day to go? Would you want to be happy or would you want to let things bother you?
The second one is seeing this day as one less day to live.  One day closer to the blissfulness that awaits us all when we pass. In this case, if you are one day closer to that blissfulness why not be happy about it?  Why not enjoy that you are almost done? Why not celebrate?
In either case none of the things that happen today will matter, so why let them bother you?
To me it does not matter which one you choose, each of them should be respected by others.  Unfortunately, that is not always the case.

In the process of ascension, one of the things we learn is to be at peace with our mortality.  To accept our mortality and that of others fully.  Spirit once said to me that only those who stay alive are the ones who suffer, everyone else is free.  I wondered what exactly Spirit meant by that and then I had a few people around me who lost someone they loved, each of them were devastated.  Everyone was crying, everyone was remembering all the things that they didn't do with them.  Everyone would point out how we all have very limited time and we should be happy that we are alive.  The misery that came from every death was astounding.  I couldn't understand because to tell you the truth, whether you believe in Spirit or not, when it comes to death... It is just an ending... It is the end of every bit of suffering, every bit of pain and so that person was not suffering anymore so why be so miserable that they were gone? Why not be happy that they are now free?

In my belief, the only thing that dies is our physical body and nothing else.  The physical body though is just a vessel to carry the energy that we are.  That energy is released and freed when we "die".  That energy goes back to the source of all life, to a place where there are no bounds.  And that place is the most amazing place ever.  It is a place full of peace and love; a love that no human could ever understand because it is a love that no matter what you do, you are worthy of.  And with this belief I started to realize how bad I just wanted to be there, how ready I was to go back to this place I call home.  The first time I felt this it felt bad that I wanted to go, it felt like I was resisting and everyone around me, those who are not as awaken just made the feeling be even worse.

Eventually I stopped saying anything, I just kept waking up saying to myself: "You have one less day here, you are almost home, you are almost done" and those words made me keep this joyous feeling alive, it made me smile.  Everyone else was oblivious to it, they didn't know why I was so happy but I felt like I couldn't tell them because as soon as I did I would fall from my happy place.  They would all start to pull me down with their words and their lack of understanding.  Some of them would even stop talking to me, not realizing that more than likely when I actually do go home they would end up talking about how much they wish I was still here.  They would all start saying how much they missed me, but none of them would ever acknowledge that when they had me here, they pulled away out of fear of losing me.  It will all then be very hypocritical because the time to be around, the time to talk, the time to enjoy is now.  It is not tomorrow, it was not yesterday, it is today.

Two days ago I let people pull me down from that, as soon as I said I was ready to go home they all started to give me reasons why I was supposedly still here, why I needed to stay here.  Oddly enough all the reasons that they gave me were based on the same reason they were saying I should not want to die--selfishness.  There was not one of them that said to me: "You are almost there, so don't fret" each and everyone of them said something like: "I am happy that you are still here" or "I don't like it when you say that because I want you to still be here" or my favorite "There are people who still need you to be here".   It is pure selfishness, the same selfishness that they throw in someone's face when someone says they don't want to be here.  All those statements are about them, they are not about me, they are about how they feel and what they would feel when I am no longer in physical form.  It is not about caring about me, it is caring about them.  It was not respecting the things I wanted, but only making sure that the things they wanted happened.

It used to bother me that they didn't understand, that they didn't get it.  It was frustrating that they didn't see how selfish they were too by putting themselves before someone they say they care about.  I asked Spirit why it was that I was so bothered by this, why is it that I wanted them to understand so much.  And then I realized that I was putting too much weight on the things that people who are unable to understand my path (they really don't have to) are feeling.  You see, I am not here to make anyone feel better.  I am not here to control anyone else's feelings.  I am here to guide some of those who are open to learning, those who are open to understanding of a different way of seeing things.  I am not here to push anyone to believe any different, I wish people could respect what I believe more but I also know that I can't make them.  And so my other job is to not let them affect me, what they want and what they feel is not my concern.  Giving guidance does not mean the others will do as what they are being guided to do, no matter how much you would want them to.

So what next? Since I realized that most humans are not capable of being at peace with their mortality, I have also realized that the more I point it out, the more of those people who are not in alignment with me will go.  The more of those people who don't really care will walk away, because they can't handle it and that is ok.  The relationships will evolve to something different and that will be amazing to watch and create.  It won't mean I love each of them any less either.  It will just mean that their actions, no matter how much I care about them, won't bother me.  It also means that I will not be afraid of telling them that whatever they feel about whether or not I am here in physical form or not, does not matter to me because they don't get to choose what will get me to my happy place.  They are not in charge of my happiness, I am.  And because I am in charge of my happiness, I get to choose how I get to that happiness, they just need to worry about how they are going to get to theirs.

So why should we be at peace with our mortality?  Because we are all going to die.  The sooner we come to accept and be at peace with that, the sooner we will start living life differently.  The sooner we will not worry about the things we can't control.  The better life will flow because then you realize that no matter how you look at life, whether it is one less day to live or one more day to live, what happens today will not matter when we are no longer here, whether we die today or in 30 years is irrelevant.  All we gotta do today is celebrate either that you are closer to your destination or that you were given an opportunity to do something different.  Either way, the goal is the same--to get happy.  Whichever way you choose to look at it is up to you, all the rest of us have to do is respect it.

I gave in and watched God's Not Dead

Just finished watching the movie God's Not Dead.  I have to admit the only reason I watched it was because Jesse Metcalfe is starring on the second one and he is so handsome that I just want to go see it.  I thought the first movie gave some premise to the second one so I should watch it.  In other words: his handsomeness made me do it...

For the purpose of this blog, I will just refer to the deity as God.  The concept of God can have many different meanings and God to you can be female rather than male.  For others it is a supreme being with both qualities, others like to think that their is not just one deity but many.  Then there are those who don't want to refer to the deity as God but refer to it as Spirit, others call it the universe.  All of which are perfectly fine because faith is a personal thing.  You give meaning to whatever it is that you believe in.  Unless we are going to discuss in order to learn more rather than try to convince the other person that they are wrong, then there is absolutely no reason why we should argue over belief systems.  In this argument, neither point is right or wrong.  
The movie started being pretty interesting; college students being told by a philosophy professor that God is dead and if everyone agrees to that then the semester will be pretty easy and time will not be spent arguing over a "fairy tale."  Philosophy is the love of wisdom and it would be very hypocritical for a good Philosophy professor to not want to hear the arguments his/her students have over such controversial topic, but I get it.

The argument over the existence of God has been going on for centuries, neither side has been able to prove whether or not he exists.  The arguments often used are either that he exists because this book says he does or that he does not exist because you cannot prove his existence.

I should not be surprised at the turn the movie took after a few minutes, I mean it is a "Christian" movie after all.  However, if the intent of the movie was to convince people who are at the fence of either believing or not in God that God is really not dead, then they did a poor job.   Using the Bible as an argument against some of the very weak arguments against the existence of God, does not really make your argument very effective.

As the movie went on, the more the Bible was used the more the movie was a turn off.  All I kept thinking is that there are so many strong arguments for the existence of God, so many good philosophers who have argued that God does exist, that we don't just need the Bible to justify it.  At some point in the movie a Muslim girl is introduced, she believes in the God of Christianity rather than Allah.  Both of which can be compared to be the same deity but just using a different name.  This girl's faith is found out by her father and she is thrown out of the house.  I realized that the movie was not about whether God is dead or not dead,  the movie is about whether or not Christianity is dead or not.

Is Christianity dead?  We don't need Christianity to believe in God, that is for sure.  However, Christianity is slowly dying.  The Bible is not good enough to prove to people that God exists and that therefore we must follow a set of rules, or else we will find damnation.  Christians argue that Jesus died in a cross for our sins so that we would be saved.  But then they also say that if we don't follow what the Bible says we will be damned.  Which one is it?  Can we have it both ways?  Can it be that we were saved but we also have to follow a set of rules in order to ensure that we are not damned once we die?  It seems to me that and all knowing God would know that humans would have continued to commit sins, therefore asking us to follow the rules after sending his son to save us from damnation seems a little stupid, for someone who knows it all.

Maybe we are reading the Bible wrong, maybe it is not Jesus who saved us from damnation by dying on the cross but rather that we as people killed Jesus by committing acts of violence and betrayal, otherwise known as sins.  So he died not for our sins but because of them.  The story of how Jesus died just shows us how terrible mankind can be, and the way mankind is right now just show us that we have made very little progress to change and grow.  Based on the story, why did Jesus die?  He died because he thought different, he died because mankind did not have the courage to open their minds and think for themselves.

It is sad that society has still not changed.  The movie was another way of trying to bring people into the Christian faith, not into the faith of God.  It is another plot to say this way is right and your way is wrong, when the reality is that none of us really know the right way.  Faith is just that, faith.   Some people will have faith in scientific studies, while others will have faith in a supreme being with no name.  Then others will have faith in the fact that they really don't know what the truth is and that is fine with them, while others will put all their faith into the teachings of the Bible.  Are any of them right or wrong?  The truth is none of them are either right or wrong.

This movie would have been a lot more powerful, had it used more than scripture to argue God's existence.  It would have been more powerful, had it not just picked one religion over another.  The movie would have been way more powerful to convince people to look into the existence of God had it not subtly tried to show that Christianity was the only way to find God.  The movie would have been a lot more powerful had it focus on what the name of the movie is trying to convey, that God is not dead and not that Christianity is the way to God.

So is God dead?  That depends on how you see what it means to be alive and what it means to be dead.  One thing is for sure though, God must have been alive at one point, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about God so much right now.  God has been causing controversy even before the Bible was written and I don't think a dead being that never existed could cause so much controversy.  In my opinion, even if you don't believe in God, the mere thought of not being able to imagine that being exists gives life to that being.  Being able to talk about God is enough for me to say God exists and that God is not dead, but that is just me.  I don't think I am right for believing in God and you wrong for not believing in God; I think neither of us can prove the other one wrong, and that is perfectly fine and perfectly acceptable.

Religion, religion, religion...

What a wonderful topic this is!!! I just love it when I bump into someone that loves to try and feed me the Lord Jesus Christ against my will.
I was on the bus the other day and this guy was trying to convince another guy about finding happiness. I sat there listening to him talk about a book he was holding (no I had no idea what the book was about) then suddenly the guy states how people are so depressed and angry all the time because they are worried about how much money they are making, they are worried about getting a better car, better house, better things and that stress just takes the life out of you.  I had to agree with that statement, we do tend to put a lot of emphasis on certain things that in the end won't really matter, but then he decided to add that one piece of advice that makes absolutely no sense to me, the one sentence I have the most fun with as soon as it comes out of someone's mouth because let's face it... Whether you are a believer or not in a higher power, you can't prove or disprove its existence, therefore when it comes to God, no one out there can say for certain that he/she exists or that he/she doesn't exist.  He went on to say: In order to be happy you must first find God....
Sitting there I just looked at him and said: You must first prove that there is a God, otherwise how can you find something that you don't know for certain that exists?
And so it began, of course he was not able to do that, however his argument did not end there... He decided that he would use Robin Williams as an example of someone who had everything and decided to end his life anyway.  Mr. Williams had bipolar disorder and was also diagnosed with Parkinson's which ended up making things even worse for him.  Education is key when you are trying to argue a point, I don't think people understand that. So then he added: Who gives you the power to go ahead and take your life, who has told these people that you get to choose when and how you die?
Free will my friend, that is the power I've been given, according to the God that exists according to the book a lot of people follow for guidance, we are all given free will.  Free Will means we decide what we are going to do with our lives, not anyone else. As sad as it is to hear that someone was in so much pain that they thought there was no other way out but to kill themselves... well, that is one choice every single person in this planet has, the stigma that you will go to hell when you kill yourself needs to really stop because again first you have to prove that there is such a thing as a hell, and then you have to prove that hell is a bad thing, neither of which can be proven.
On that same note you will also have to prove that there is a heaven and unfortunately its existence cannot be proven or denied, so why do we continue to have arguments over things like this?
The idea is that people need to believe in something, (disclaimer: I do believe in God but I also know that since I cannot prove his existence I have no business trying to convince other people of his existence) we have an innate need to want some sort of certainty from life.  When things are not going the way we might want them to be going we need to try and find an explanation for it, when there is none we resort to things like this.  And that is ok, trust me I am not saying it is not, what it is not ok is to try and change everyone else's view of the world with a view that cannot be absolutely proven, this is to include science (yes I know I will be pushing some buttons here) but hear me out (or in this case, please keep reading)...
Scientifical knowledge starts with an observation, this observation is usually made by a human being, this human being then decides to go ahead and come up with a question about what they are observing and after that they come up with a hypothesis which they then have to run a series of tests in order to prove... Now in order to say that this pattern can give us answers that are absolutely certain, answers that have no option of being changed in the future, one must first believe with absolute certainty that humans are unable to make mistakes.
Some people might believe that scientists are unable to err, there is no justification for someone to believe this because I have yet to hear someone not use the words: "human error" in their vocabulary, and unless scientists are something else other than human, they are just as capable of making a mistake as any other human being.  If scientists are not human then I would like to know what they really are, maybe they are some higher beings in which case we would be coming up with a name other than scientists and would be calling them gods, at which point we would have the ability to say hey gods do exist and these are it.... Being that there has yet to be someone that would actually believe and say that, I am going to stick to the theory that scientists are human and being human means that you are bound to make a mistake.
Anyhow, this wonderful guy on the bus kept at it (I tend to love it when people do that) while he believes there is a heaven and a hell, and that hell is bad and heaven is good, he wanted everyone else to think the same and the only proof to it was "God's word" in this case that meant The Bible.  Humans are so faithful to this book, it is amazing how they don't think about how this book came to be.

1. The Bible was written several centuries ago, by humans nonetheless. I think we have established that human beings are capable of error, therefore believing in the words of this book is to me absolutely illogical. 
2. The Bible was also written in a language that is pretty much dead and then has been translated in I don't even remember how many languages now, by an extreme amount of people (also humans) who have translated it based on what they believe makes the most sense of what they are reading from a language that is not their original language. 
3. After being translated so many different times, the Bible is a book that can be interpreted in so many different ways, which is the reason why there are so many different religions based on that same book, each person read the book and each person decided there was a different way to interpret this book, each came up with their own set of rules and their own view created a new religion based on the same book.
4. To believe that there is only one truth and that you are the only one that holds said truth when there are possibly the same amount of people, if not more, that believe in something slightly different based on that same book is freaking ludicrous! 

I suppose I could list more reasons but really I think these 4 are enough to show that when it comes to religion every person needs to understand that whatever you want to believe in is a personal choice, something that makes sense to you, if someone is looking for their own answers then by all means tell them how you have come up with your own justifications for your beliefs and then let them come up with their own ideas and their own views.  No one has a right answer, not a certain answer and that is ok, the world needs to come to terms to being ok with the fact that the only certainty of life is that is so freaking uncertain. 

On Death and Dying

Today I found myself saying: "It will be fine, in the end I will end up alive and well or dead and finally resting... Either outcome is not a bad one."  And then as the day kept going and I kept running around town getting things done, I started to think how there might be some people that would think of me crazy for saying such a thing, others that would think of me as someone that is extremely negative or just insanely depressed.
The thing is that those words came through to me with a smile on my face and with a weird calmness to it.  I really did not say that (or typed that) in a negative manner, I said it with a sense of feeling that at this moment in time I have no regrets.
I kept thinking how a lot of my friends will say to me that I am young and I should be praying to live another day and to have a long life and blah blah blah... But for me, I only keep asking the universe, God, life, whatever you want to call it, that if I am being continuously granted another day of life, to not allow me to regret anything that happens to me each and every day.  The good, the bad, the ugly... All of it has taught me something, I have learned and grown from each experience and because I have done so I can say at this moment in time with absolute certainty that I have no regrets.
In the past I have done my best with every situation I have been put through, I have given my best to those who I loved and I have said to each of them how much I love them and how grateful I am for them.
There are those with whom I was not able to spend as much time as I wanted to but I learned and accepted that those were things that needed to happen in that way in order for me to grow and learn.  I thought about my grandmother and how she is getting older and sicker, there was a time when I regretted that I am unable to go visit her because there are certain people who are selfish and irrational that have hindered my going to see her.  I used to get really angry at them, but now, there isn't anger, there is acceptance.  The same acceptance I have come to have about the one thing I will never be able to prevent, and that is my death.  We are all going to die, one day, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe we will be granted more days than we ever could possibly imagine to have, but we will all die.
We are mortals, our physical bodies are finite, and while I go through life adding more things to take care of and more weight over my shoulders that one person could possibly ever bear; I enjoy every single moment of bearing that weight.  I've enjoyed the pain and sorrow, I have enjoyed the anger, the happiness, the moments with the closest of friends, the moments I have cried and was unable to stop. It might sound crazy to say that I've enjoyed the pain, but the truth is that I have, not because of the actual pain but because of what I learned from it.
I've enjoyed each moment of silence, each person that has come and hurt me, and each person that has come and made me smile, each person that has come and left, those who don't seem to be physically around because either they passed away or are far away but that with just one thought I can bring them closer to me even when they don't think I am thinking of them.
I think I have given my best to this life, I have given each person, each situation the savoring that was needed.  And I have faith, I have true faith that things go exactly the way they are supposed to so that the big picture, the end result is true happiness and contentment, with that faith I realize every day that if I was to have to leave this plane of existence today it would be for the best of everyone.
I am ok with thinking this, with knowing this and accepting this, I have found myself ok with living on the right now for 90% of my time, which is a lot given that most humans like to live in the tomorrow rather than in the right now. I am ok with all of this because this has allowed me to not miss out on anything that life has to offer. I have enjoyed the lessons and the happy moments, so how could I possibly ever sit here and ask for more days to live so that I can accomplish more? Instead I ask that if tomorrow I get to get up, I don't forget to live in the now, and I don't forget to enjoy the now at least 90% of the now, to enjoy the pains and the lessons, because the day that I decide to constantly live in the tomorrow and stop living in the today I will become dead while still alive, my soul will then die and that would be worse than physical death.

Life and faith...

I have not actually sat here and blogged about anything lately, life has been as hectic as it can get and more annoying than ever. 

It's kind of hard to get yourself together when you have so many people around you that are counting on you, that see you as something that you don't really feel you are at the moment. 

It is even more annoying not having the time to actually heal from past wounds and at the same time have new ones being caused on you. 

It can be extremely hard finding yourself as the person everyone needs to go to for advice and yet not feeling like you are able to put your things together. 

Some say life is messy, it is possible though that we make it messy.  It is possible that as we go through life we busy ourselves with so many things and then forget that there are things that needed more of our attention. 

Other times we want to trust people, give them a second chance because a part of you felt like that was the right thing to do, and then those people turn around and do what they did before but three times worse than before.  Then life gets messy, but it was not messy, it got messy because you trusted and unfortunately you cannot go through life with distrust. We all need to have some level of trust of others, but unfortunately even when we trust the bare minimum we can still get hurt, we can get burned.

I can always count on my good friend karma to come to the rescue when things like that happen to me, when people that are given a second chance just completely turn around and mess up again, when I make life messy because I keep on trusting and giving the second chances.

And when that happens, when that blow comes towards you, it is easy to distrust, to lose faith and to thing that life is messy, that is not that life is made messy but people but that it is naturally messy. It's hard to remind ourselves that human beings are the ones that are naturally selfish and that because of that they tend to make this life messy. That our own selfishness is what causes us to not live in peace and tolerance of others, because it is our selfishness that makes us stubborn and unwilling to see when we have made a mistake. 

But life is is about having faith that even when you have created a mess or someone has brought mess into your life that as long as you leave that selfish part of you to the side that you will be able to see how life has a way of cleaning things up and making them right, rather than making them even messier. 

It takes a while to see it, it takes a while to start to trust again in something bigger, something you cannot see or have proof of its existence, some people don't even get there, but I think that if we just put our trust in humans, just in ourselves... The ones that are constantly making mistakes and that half the time don't even know what the hell they want. Those who hurt with words and actions, the ones that come in to your life to hurt you and then leave, the ones who say they will do certain things and then either do the opposite or do nothing at all and end up breaking promises. 

Why would I ever trust in people, in the selfishness of people? There are very few that are not like that and those are really hard to find, I wish they weren't but keeping to themselves is the only way they won't get as hurt. 

Those that are not as selfish are the loners, the ones that don't ask for anything when they help others, the ones that don't want the glory after helping someone, the ones that don't throw it in their faces after having helped someone... They are hard to find because they don't fit in the world we live in, it is easier for them to get hurt because they want to see the good in people.  Eventually they tend to close themselves up and not say much, the war against the ones that hurt turns into a pointless thing, it becomes a waste of energy because the reality is that there are more selfish people than there are unselfish ones. 

So I trust and have faith that there is something greater than humans, that there is one thing that we don't understand or see, that helps those who have been intentionally and undeservingly hurt. Maybe it does not really exist, maybe because I can't find proof I am irrational in believing in it but we are all irrational. We believe in someone we don't know only because they have a title, we believe in pictures even though they can be easily manipulated, we believe and trust in our family because we think that they will always have our best interest at heart.  All of it is irrational, we have no reason to trust, we don't know if they are lying or not, we never know if they are plotting something, we don't know their intentions, we can never really know who they are, yet we trust in them only because we can see them.

So why not trust in something that is all good and that has our best interest at its hands even when we don't see that what has happened is actually good for us at the moment that it happens.  Why not create it? why not just believe in its existence and give myself some hope that all of it has a purpose, because if it doesn't have one then why do it? 

I wish people were different, I wish that everyone could live in peace and harmony. I wish there were less bad and more good done for everyone's sake, but that is something I might not get to see in this particular plane of existence, all I can really do is change myself and accept that I can't change the world.

Only one guarantee in life...

I guess I love pondering about life... I was making my daughter her dinner and suddenly I was thinking about something that most people really think of as a negative thing, death. Most people look at death as something bad, we tend to mourn, we miss, we want to not deal with it sometimes and yet death is the only guaranteed thing that you are given. We go through life thinking that we are guaranteed all these different things, in fact we even tell our selves that if we do certain things we will guarantee that we will get other things we want like if you go to school you will get a good job, if you do well and work hard you will earn enough money, if you save money you will be able to buy a house easy.
And yet none of that is really guaranteed isn't it? You can walk in and get a great job but then it does not matter how hard you work you just don't end up getting that promotion. You can save all you want but that does not guarantee that you will get to buy that house, things can happen that can change all of that. You can work really hard and the money might not end up being enough. Life is unpredictable, and I have learned that I am unable to guarantee anything that I once thought I could guarantee that would happen, but there is one thing I can guarantee to everyone I meet, I can guarantee that they will die. I can't say when, where or how, but one day we will all die.
I think everyone knows that, but we tend to not really be aware of it which is truly a pity because when you think about it, how would we live our lives if we knew exactly when we and our loved ones would die? Would we live them differently? Would we spend more time with them? Would our priorities change just a little bit?
See, the reason we think of death as a negative thing is because when someone we love dies we are filled with regret, even though we don't say it, we don't acknowledge it, we regret the time we did not spend with them. We regret that phone call we did not make, we regret not picking up the phone when they called.
I remember when my great-grandmother passed away, it was one of the saddest days of my life. She helped raised me and I had moved away to a different country, she would send letters sometimes with people that would come and visit, she loved when I would call her and talk to her, that used to make her day, but those calls were very few, one because they were expensive and the other reason was because I was busy trying to get ahead in life, trying to be someone important, someone that would make enough money so that I could get to do all the things I wanted. Then the day came and I was not even around to pick up the phone to hear that she had passed, I ended up receiving a text message from a third person who was telling me "sorry for your loss." It was probably one of the most horrifying experiences of my life and yet even after that, I just figured it was the pain of losing someone who had gotten me so confused and once I sort of got used to the idea (because you never really get used to it, it will always come up if you think of them) and stop thinking about it, I went back to doing the exact same thing, trying to get ahead, make money, be important.
I never realized that I was already important to one person, I was not only important to them but I meant the world to them and I was so busy working and trying to be someone that I completely dismissed it. It's funny how it was not until a few years ago that I realized how much of our life we waste on things that really don't matter in the end, we worry so much and put so much effort on acquiring things rather than acquiring moments. We dismiss the people that are around us that love us so much and to whom we mean so much because we get so caught up in things, that's it, just things.
And some of the things we get caught up in are not even things we enjoy, we go to a job we hate because we believe that eventually we will be able to move up the ladder and get a better job, with better pay. We go to study something we don't like because we think eventually that one piece of paper will guarantee us a good job, with good benefits, with good pay. We forget the dreams we had as children because someone told us that it was too hard to make them come true. We end up living to work and we forget that we are here to work on living. We set aside the ones we love and we replace them with things. Then when their time comes we regret not having spent enough time with them and we dismiss that by saying death is bad, it's negative, it's sad. The truth is that death is guaranteed, death is something every single person will go through, whether it is by their own doing, by someone else's doing or just by nature taking its course, everyone will die.
I feel that the day I accepted that, I started living in a different way, one where most times it feels like I don't really belong in this world because most people don't like talking about this, they say it's too negative and too depressing and maybe that is true for them but for me, it is more depressing to see how much people miss out on because they think they have one more day to live. I see it every day, the moments they are given, they take each of them for granted, some people spend their lives trying to get revenge, others spend it trying to acquire things, others spend it trying to "become someone", they work so hard for things... And then there are those who are older and who have been where you are at right now, living to work, who now don't have to "work" anymore, and all they really want is a phone call, they will tell you how much they work in their life and now they are having health issues, they are too tired to go out, they wish they would have had more time with their loved ones and most of all they wish we could see that all that we work so hard for, all that we worry so much for in the end it all becomes irrelevant. They wish we could see that we are already important because we are important to them, because we mean the world to them and they wish we would just stop for one moment and think how today could be their last day and if it was then what would we say tomorrow if we got to see it?
And let's not forget those who are around our age, the ones who are working so hard to get ahead, what happens when a friend loses their life? They get shocked that their friend die so young, what about a close friend? Usually the same thing, but it is not that they died so young that we are shocked at because we all know that death is guaranteed at any age, we are shocked because we are reminded of it. But do we ever change our habits, or even attempt to change them in order to not have that regret when a loved one dies? Usually it ends up being that we mourn and we sort of learn to live without that person, and then the next one dies and we do the same thing, never acknowledging where the pain is truly coming from. Could it be a little less painful if we had spent more time with them while they were alive? I always wonder, when I say to myself I have so much to do that I don't have time to pick up the phone and call my grandmother, someone I mean the world to, what would happen if today was the day death took her? How would I feel tomorrow about not making that call today, it forces me to slow down, and while yes there is a lot that is going on and a lot that I have to do, I still stop and wonder about whether my time, the little time I have is being well spent or if it is being spent too much on trivial things, because if this was to be the last day I lived what would I want to do differently? If I say nothing, then I know I am on the right path, but if the answer to that question is something different than what I currently am doing then I know a change is needed.
With that in mind, with knowing that you are guaranteed your death, what would you do if today was your last day? What about the people that you love, if you knew today was their last day, what would you do, would you do something different than what you are doing right now? Think about it! Maybe there are changes that need to be made. :)

Faith

I guess today I am more "inspired" than any other day because my seems to be super busy contemplating a lot of things.
What is faith? What a wonderful question that is... As a kid I grew up thinking that faith meant that I had to go to church every Sunday, study catechism, read the bible and believe in one God, if I did all of that then I had faith.
As I grew older and started learning about other Christian based religions I was taught that faith was the believe that if you do what the Bible says to do (which is believed to be the word of God) then you will always be fine, no matter what happens to you.
Most people believe they truly have faith, they all repeat how they trust that they are protected by God, the Universe, Spirit; however a few moments after they say that and something "bad" happens they start wondering why "bad" things happened to them, they start praying for the things that they have already stated that happen because God has a plan. That is not faith.
Faith is the true believe that no matter what happens it will be ok, it is the blind acceptance of life the way it is. Whether you believe in a God, Gods, or don't believe in anything higher than yourself, faith is something that comes from within you. Faith is a feeling so strong that it brings you peace when you truly experience it. Faith is the ability to take that extra step into the unknown while everyone is telling you that you should not do it.  Even when yourself is filled with doubts, you still go for it, that is faith and faith says that it will turn out fine no matter what happens when you take that step.  What needs to happen for your best interest will happen and you know you are guided.  Because you know this you go ahead and take that next step blindly, knowing that it will turn out in your favor no matter how it seems at first.
I've learned that very few people have the capability to have true faith, most have just hope and a religion they follow.  They just hope that everything will be fine but they don't trust that it will, they think faith is religion and that is just not true. They confuse hope with faith when they are two different things. As Jim Carrey once said: "hope is a beggar, hope walks through the fire and faith leaps over it", so different and that is why having true faith is so hard, because in order to have faith you don't only have to believe that everything is going to be fine you also have to take that next step.  You have to believe in yourself and believe that the universe is there to make the things you want to happen happen. That is so hard to do, to believe in ourselves and to push ourselves to do it.  To believe we deserve what we want and then once we embark on the path to our dreams to actually have patience to work and wait for them while the universe is taking care of the things you have no control over.
So, have true faith! Trust and believe that everything will be fine in the end because it will.  Trust your inner voice however crazy it might sound and just go with it.  When you have true faith you learn to see the world in a more positive way.  You learn the patience that you need to see through your goals, and no matter how hard it ever gets you learn to keep on pushing and not let yourself be brought down.

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!

Three kinds of people...

I am not a fan of categorizing anyone, but in the past couple of weeks I have realized that there are three kinds of people, and I am talking about it in a spiritual sense here, you can basically put each person you meet in one of the following categories:

The "Good" kind:
I put good in between quotation marks because the reality is that every person has a little bit of "bad" or "evil" in them, we are not 100% good and that is ok, but the "good" people have more good in them than they do bad. These are the people who have the ability to make you smile just by them smiling. The people who have an aura, a field of energy, that always draws you to them and when it does you just feel good and at peace with yourself. These are the people that even when they are having a bad day they are still able to make you smile somehow. These people are also ones who like to see the good in the world, the good in everyone, usually they tend to trust more, especially the people that are closest to them and because of that they tend to get hurt more but in the end they always pull back and never lose that hope and faith which always radiates out of them and spreads wherever they go.

The "Bad" or "evil" kind:
Again in quotation marks because we all have a bit of each side right. There are people in the world who are only out for themselves, these are the ones that care about absolutely no one else but them and what they can get out of a situation whether the situation is good or bad. It is about them, there is no remorse in their actions whatsoever, some of you might say: well this is the psychopaths out there and there is thankfully not many of them plus they all end up in jail anyway and I will tell you: yes, the psychopaths and sociopaths are in this category but not all psychopaths and sociopaths turn out to be criminals, some of them go through their lives trying to "steal" the best out of everyone. These are the people who you meet and you always feel like there is something not right about them, there is always this bad nervous feeling and you end up ignoring it sometimes because it usually makes absolutely no sense at all... Some, if not most of us are taught that we have to give people a chance to show us what they are made of and how they truly are, with these kind of people you will always just see what they want you to see and what they need you to see in order to get what they want. These are people with whom you have to be very careful and just be more aware of how they treat others and not how they treat you, it is how they treat others that will show you exactly who they are.

The third and what I believe is the most dangerous kind of people, the Neutral kind:
This is what the world is mostly filled with, the people who can go either way depending on who they surround themselves with. The saying "tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are" is what applies to these people, the good kind of people are not easily influenced by the bad because the good always want to do good, they always weight in the options and what is best for everyone involved, the bad people will always want what is best for themselves no matter what that might be or who it might hurt. But the neutral people, they can be easily persuaded to one side or the other at any given time, these people, when you encounter them, spiritually you don't really feel anything bad or good about them unless they are influenced by a good or bad being in their lives at the time you meet them and even then you don't quite make up the energies they throw because essentially if you are one of the good kind of people then they sort of absorb that energy and you feel as if they are not a threat. And that is why this are the most dangerous people you can ever encounter and unfortunately the ones that you will encounter more often than not. People that are easily persuaded one way or the other and that are usually targets for the "evil" that hovers around because it is easy to use them for your own gain and evil is always looking for those who will easily bring them what they need.

With that said, I started to think if one could ever be completely safe from any of these? I have seen all three kinds and been surrounded by all of them at one point in my life and it has been hard lessons that I have had to learn from each encounter, but each has taught me something and I hope that I never forget it. For the "bad" people I have encounter, I have learned that the majority of times the worst you can do is fight with them, or fight back if they are trying to fight with you, they feed on this energy, it makes them more powerful, more aware of what is going on and makes them extremely careful which in turn keeps you from finding out who they really are. It's best to stay away and listen to your gut when you meet these people and you feel uneasy about them, but if you can then the more you observe them the more you will learn, strategy is the best way to win when it comes to them. With them you just really have to take a step back and pretend you are watching a movie.
The good kind of people are the ones that have given hope back to me, that there are some that really care about others and really want to make this a better place, that there are others that want to inspire, be balanced and look at both sides of situations without judgement and with a lot of objectivity. That there are people that really could change the world if they did not doubt themselves so much. But that is the soul of the good person, they are always thinking they could have done better, they could be better and that everything they do can affect someone else in a way they don't want them to be affected, and they always doubt after they have done something good whether that something was good for everyone, even if it is not good for themselves, everyone else has to be ok. The best lesson they teach is that you cannot always make everyone happy but just because you cannot make everyone happy it does not mean you are hurting someone, that we need to try really hard to doubt ourselves a little less and in the end rely on the faith and hope that it will turn out alright no matter what.
And the neutral people, the most dangerous of all three... Because they are easily influenced by outside factors, these are people that if they are under the influences of a "bad" person or being, they are also able to be influenced by a "good" person, and if you find that they are being influenced by someone bad then while being careful if this is someone you care about you will be able to influence them in a good way. They are not looking to hurt anyone but they have the capability to do so without remorse when someone bad has taken "control", they are able to be cruel just as much as they are able to be caring, they are what you will find the most in this world and because of all of that, these are the people you need to learn to live with and be the most careful of while at the same time be a good influence in them so that they are more of a person that does good rather than one that does bad.