Randomness

I was sitting here thinking: "One should not spend money they have not yet acquired or spend all the money they have acquired."  That is the problem America has, we are a nation of spenders; every penny we get paid we spend.  We worked all our lives to pay for things and then when the time came to retire we had nothing to live on, so what did we do? We cried out and said: "Government help us." What did the government do? They created Social Security and said well we are going to take money off your paycheck and save it for when you retire because you are not capable of doing that on your own. 

Then the years passed and the plan proved to be flawed, there were not enough money being taken out of one person's paycheck in order to provide for that person's retirement, and people were living longer than government thought they would live.  Now, Social Security is not solvent and my generation will probably not get to ever use it.  Whose fault is that though?

 

Partly is our fault, our society is bred to be spenders.  We live off the idea that we can always get a new credit card, charge what we want and pay it later.  We believe that eventually we are going to make more money and then when we make more money we spend more money.  As I was sitting here thinking why in the hell do we do that? And all I could come up was because we are unhappy. 

It is a human condition to get rewarded for things we don't want to do, we go on a diet and after one week of eating only herbs we say: "Well I have been good this week, let me buy me an ice cream."  It is something that comes from many many generations ago, we clean our rooms because our parents promise that we will get something in return, the reward for stopping what we were doing (having fun) and doing something we do not like. 

And then as we grow older we are marked by our parents telling us how we have to make a living.  A child comes with a dream they have, they want to be an artist and the parent will feed that dream until the child reaches a certain age and then the parent will say: "You are too old for that, you need to think about how you are going to make a living.  You cannot make a living by being an artist."  This gets repeated so much that eventually the child ends up going to college (something they did not want to do) and studying something they did not want to study, and then getting a job they did not want to get. 

The child, now an adult, was conditioned to go and work at a job they will never enjoy but that "pays well."  So they go to work every day, they are miserable because they don't enjoy what they do, at the end of the work day or the work week they go home in all their misery to find something that will make them feel better.  Video games, alcohol, drugs, shopping, food... Anything that will reward them for doing something they did not like to do. 

And so there goes the money they make, they believe that they deserve to buy the video games, the alcohol, the drugs, the food, because they did something that was draining and that they did not enjoy.  Every few months they have to take a break from their jobs because "they deserve it", "they've earned it", they have worked so hard for so many months that now it is time to spend money on a vacation.  But wait!  They are still paying off the last vacation that they took, and then what? Well the credit card is almost paid off so we can use it again right now.  Then we will get back to our miserable jobs and complain about having to pay them off.

After this I was thinking: "what if the reason we have so many depressed people and angry people wanting to kill others all the time was that we are all so miserable because we are conditioned to do things that we completely dislike?"

Could you imagine a world where the child is never told that they should just make sure they go work at something that will pay them enough to live and instead we tell them to go follow their passion and put focus on that.  Tell them that yes it will be hard work but that it is something they can do.  Teach them that hard work is not despised when it is something we love to do. 

Then probably we would have less alcoholics, less drug addicts, less angry, depressed, and violent people around.  Because they would be focus on doing something they love to do and not something they have to do in order to survive and then maybe all these different things they spend money on would never be an issue, that extra money could be put away for retirement.  It could be put away to pay off a house so you do not have to worry about paying rent when you are no longer able to work.  It could be invested and made more rather than just spent.  People could even help each other more rather than compete with each other so much. 

Maybe if we learned how to be and remain happy and full of joy then we would not cry and cling for the help of the very people who thrive and advance their lives by making sure we continue to have the same problems. 

Just a small thought...

I was catching up on one of my shows today as I was eating breakfast and a Walt Disney World Resort commercial came on; those darn Disney commercials always make me feel warm and fuzzy inside mostly because I am too much of a Disney fan.  The commercial focused on what most people now call a "traditional family" (mom, dad and 2 children); suddenly it dawned on me that every single Disney Park commercial that I've watched focuses on families made of mom, dad and children.  Before I started to write this I figured I would actually look at other Disney commercials and see if I was correct; to my extreme disappointment, I was. 

Now a days we seem to be trying to keep focus on what society calls a traditional family when the "traditional family" is becoming more  and more non-traditional; yet we seem to want to keep pushing it through to everyone.  In 2015, it is extremely sad to see that when you search for images of family on the internet the first pictures shown are of a woman and a man with 2 children, usually all of the same race... And we wonder why it is that people are having a hard time accepting the changes that society is going through. 

Print ads and TV commercials have been used for many years to brainwash people into buying something or choosing something over something else.  Even though most of us seem to pay little attention to the commercials and ads we see; they are and will always be a subtle form of mind control and society keeps being pushed to look at things in a "traditional" way, a way that is becoming less and less traditional when we actually look at society and how it has changed throughout the years. 

Families are composed of two parents of different racial backgrounds, with science taking of we now have same sex couples racing children, we have single parent families being raised and by single parent I mean either a man who has decided to rear children on his own or a woman who has decided to do the same.  It seems a bit silly that we are still pushing ads for this "tradition" that is no longer one.  

When I was a child, I was one of two children in my classroom that had divorced parents, it was rare that a child would not have their parents together and even more rare that the parents were not around to raise said child.  I was raised by my grandmother and I remember people actually feeling sorry for me because I did not have a "family".  Truth be told, I had the best family ever! my grandmother and her sister raised me and my cousin (whose parents are still together til this day but because they did not have the means to send her to a good school my aunt decided to take her on and well, she lived with us and we were raised together).  To me, my family unit were two women, who had worked hard their whole lives and had managed to make it in the world on their own, they were not married and did not ever seem to have the need to have a man around the house.  In fact, if you ask my aunt why she never got married, her answer always was that she did not want to be washing clothes for some guy and she wanted to always spend her free time travelling, and so she did.  

My grandmother separated from my grandfather when the guy that I was taught to call dad was very little.  It did not work out so she moved on and made a life for herself and on her own.  Both these women love us so damn much, and always made sure we were taken care of.  The household I was raised in was a house where I always had a choice and whenever I made it I would have to live with the consequences that choice had.  Until these day I still don't understand why people felt bad for us, we did not know any different so for us, it was our norm.  

Seeing these ads keep the focus on a "traditional family" one that is quickly becoming non-traditional because really has Disney not seen who visits their parks?  I am pretty sure that there are just as many interracial families visiting parks as families that come from the same racial background.  What about couples that decide to adopt children from other countries? And same-sex couples? We keep wondering why it is that people have little tolerance for same-sex marriage, interracial families and single parent families.  Look at TV commercials, at print ads in newspapers, magazines and billboards, look in the web and see how many times we actually see an ad that is promoting a vacation or a celebration where an interracial couple or same sex couple or even a single parent and their child is portrayed.  There are very little, and most times if we do see an ad like that we see it for a campaign that promotes tolerance to it. 

Want to see tolerance towards the society we live in now? The change has to start with the soft forms of mind control we are all subjects to, those big companies that say that they support gay-marriage should be the ones to have their ads showing that support, what good does it do to just say it out loud and follow a campaign when all of your ads focus on not just the opposite of it but on something that is no longer a big taboo subject anymore. 

I would love to see Disney create an ad for their vacation packages where we see different kinds of families, because it is not sad for a child to be raised by one parent, or by two parents of the same sex, or of two parents of different races, or to be raised by two parents that are of different race than their child or children (and I could go on).  It is sad to see a child being raised by people that do not love said child and that do not provide a save and comfortable environment for the child.  It is sad to see children being put in situations that they are not comfortable in but because we follow outdated views we force them to be in those situations.  It is sad that our system puts children at risk every single day by sending them back for the third or fourth time to abusive parents.  That is what is sad, but a child who has a parent or two parents or more, no matter the race or sex, that care, love and provide a stable home environment for said child, is not sad; it is something that should be embraced and should be shown to the world.  Maybe if we did that, we would start to see a difference in the attitude towards what society calls "non-traditional families". 

PS: Look up images of family in Google, see what comes up first!

Family

The past few months have been a true test and one question has always come to mind: what does it mean to be family and what makes someone your family?
I guess there is a conventional definition of family where family is someone who has some sort of blood relation to you or a legal relation to you through a piece of paper.  The bond, especially the blood related bond has been taken into a level where no matter who you are, if you are related by blood to a person whose views or actions you don't agree with then it does not matter that you don't agree with them or that you don't want that around, the convention states that because they are related to you by blood that you are supposed to put up with all that bullshit!!!!
Unfortunately this is not something I agree with and this is where society and I collide.  In the past few years I have learned that those who are blood related to me are people I don't necessarily want to be around, they are people I can't change and that have different views or ideas about life than I do.  This disagreement has caused a constant battle between these people, one battle that I realized I will never be able to win, and while it is sad because some of these people I love with all my heart I also realize that if you are going to be in constant battle with someone then it's better to stay away.
There is a saying: "You can't divorce your family", I was told you can't say "I am your ex-family", the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard and read.  For one, you can divorce a family, there are many different ways that a family is created and one of those is by marriage of two people from two different families and if that marriage does not work then the two people file for divorce and well you divorce the family you created.  Now, if we are talking about family that is related by blood to include: sisters, mothers, fathers, brothers, grandparents, etc... Well, no you can't literally divorce them, but you can stop being around them.  You can just say: I have no family.
And yes they will throw a tantrum because they are being ignored and for some reason whenever they need anything from you they use the: "I am family" card to try and guilt you into helping them.
That "I am family" card is one of the most overused and illogical emotional blackmail moves I have ever fucking heard in my entire life.  This is something that comes up when the sister that decided to be a fucking loser felon gets out of jail and suddenly mom and dad want the other sibling to spend time with the family and accept the sister back making believe that everything is fine and dandy and she did not do anything to get herself into trouble, so let me go ahead and say: well, she is family, she is your sister... and? So what if she is my sister? Has she actually proven that she has learned her fucking lesson or is she going to continue to be a fucking felon? I can forgive someone but that does not mean I have to let them into my life and sorry but the "they are family" card is not logical enough to make me change my mind.
Or the son that is a drug addict, has stolen numerous times from his parents and suddenly comes back asking for help, the parents are told well... he is your son and he is family, you have to help him... mmmm how about: he is your son and you have tried helping him by giving him money in the past and that has failed numerous times so the help he now needs to is to actually fall flat on his face and maybe he will actually find his way into becoming a good member of society.
I've had my family blast my fucking phone because they needed something from me and when I did not answer right away I was seen as the bad guy and as the person who always wants to create problems.  These people don't realize that they are not priorities in someone else's lives and when they figure out that they are not a priority they get pissy and they use the "well I am family and I should come first" mmm NO!!! NO!!! NO!!! AND FUCKING HELL NO!!!! Here is how I see family and people may or may not agree with me and that is fine and dandy...
For me family are just people, they are persons you came to know not by a personal decision you made when you were finally able to make a decision about who, what, when and where people would be allowed in your life; therefore you got stuck with them until you are finally able to say look these are the kinds of people I want around me, and if they are not one of them then tough fucking luck for them.
The people you surround yourself with should be people that add something good to your life not drain the good you have going from it.  They shouldn't be people who drag you down and try to emotionally blackmail you because "they are family".  You should be surrounded by people who love you, the good kind of love the one that does not ask for anything in return, not by people who are constantly throwing it in your face how much they've done for you; yes this is to include your parents!!! As a parent it is my responsibility to provide for my child, make sure she is fed and clothed and well taken care of.  Having a child is a choice you make and you don't get to grow older and say to said child: ohh I did this for you or that for you! That was your fucking responsibility so if the child grows up and decides to not show any gratitude for it, then suck it! It would be your fault for not raising a child with manners although, they don't have the obligation to say thank you to you for anything!!!
So, if your family, those blood related people are causing you more pain than anything else, then stop talking to them, go out and find people that are like you, build a new family, there is no need to keep people that drag you down around, seriously, in life there will be enough of those that you might end up being forced to deal with because of a job you want to do, or a school you decide to go to.  Family is not people you were able to choose at the beginning of your life but they are most certainly people you can choose not to have around when you get older, if they don't bring anything good out of you, why the hell have them? I mean I could see keeping them around if they neither added or took away from your way of life and from how you want to handle your life but if they are taking away more and giving you more pain than joy then don't feel guilty about not talking to them. It is not an obligation to be around people you don't really want to be around, it is not an obligation to try and make their lives better, make your life better by getting rid of those who, as much as it hurts to say it, have done nothing more than hinder yourself from moving forward.  Let the guilt go and go form new relationships with people that are actually worth your effort, the people that don't ask for anything and that don't use emotional blackmail to get their way.
I promise that after the hurt of realizing how useless it is to say one has a family, it will get better, you will attract people like you, people that have same values and eventually you will have the opportunity to make your own family and instill those good values in it, however when your kids grow up and they decide that they do not want to be like you or go with the values you have taught them, then... let your kids be, they are only given to you to care for until they are old enough and capable enough to care for themselves, you will always love them but that love is not something you should ever ask in return.

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.

Being Grateful

And so it happened that after being away from one of my social media websites I went in just to check on a message I had been sent and a wonderful friend had tagged me on a status, the idea was that he was nominating 3 people to write 3 things they are grateful for each day for 5 days.
And yes it did not mean I had to do it, but you know what I figured hey! It's a great idea and a great exercise especially since as humans we have the tendency to complain about things and look at them in such a negative perspective that we forget that some things we complain about we can change and the ones that we can't change are probably there as a lesson we must learn whether we want to or not, therefore it should not really be a big deal right?
As I started thinking about three things I was grateful for yesterday, I realized that I just kept adding to my list, there were not just three things I had in mind but several of them, and possibly this happens to me because I am just an avid thinker and if someone gets my mind started on something I just keep on going, so I figured I would make a slightly larger list and would actually make this list about things most people are rarely thankful for because they see those things as negative things and they tend to have a concept of a Utopian society that if existed would probably be extremely boring and in a way possibly depressing.
So here I go:

1. I am thankful for each person that has come into my life and intentionally hurt me somehow.
   Each of those persons, while they did some damage they also taught me a few lessons, lessons that had they not hurt me the way they did I would not have learned. Thanks to them I have learned how to spot good people, it was not easy but I learned there are certain things people who are out for themselves always do and say that those who are not don't do. Learning the difference has really helped me improved my life and taught me that it is not about how many people you have around but about the quality of the people you have around and when you get rid of the bad people, the ones that are left (even though they are not too many) make life even better! They have also taught me to be thankful for the few good people I have around, they made those people even more important and more valuable to me and that alone has increased the level of gratefulness towards those few good people, so much so that it seems I keep attracting them somehow and keep getting rid of the bad ones. 
2. I am thankful for sickness.
   Yes, why would anyone be thankful for that right? Well, let me tell you one thing about sickness... Anytime I've gotten sick it has been because I am working myself too much and I've learned that it is my body's way of saying "hello!!! you need to step back and relaxed a little" it is when I don't listen that things get worse. Today my little one woke up without a voice and coughing, I had a sore throat, the first thing I wanted to do (which is usually what the first thing most people do when they don't feel good) is complain, why ohh why am I getting sick and my daughter is getting sick after just one week of school and when I have so much stuff to do, meanwhile all I really want to do is go lay down in bed and sleep it off... Then it hit me, I needed to slow down a bit, she needed to slow down a bit, we both have been in this different way of living and just going along our lives on our own time throughout the summer and now we have to adjust to the schedule that is set not by us but by other people and the adjustment will take a little bit of time, and it's ok, it's ok to just take a small break, better to take a break than to get even sicker. Not only this but sickness reminds me of the times I am healthy and reminds me to enjoy those times even more, same when I hear about other people's sickness, it reminds me that it could be worse, it reminds me that I am not invincible, that I am a mere mortal and whether or not I feel like crap my job is to enjoy life as much as I can even when I am really not enjoy it much. 
3. I am thankful for the struggles that life has given me.
   Yep, I am definitely thankful for that, the struggles I've been through have taught me to see life in a different way. They have taught me how uncertain life is and therefore have allowed me to live a life where even if I plan certain things when things don't go as planned (and 99.9% of the time they really don't go as planned) I don't dwell on them too much while most people do, we want certainty in a world that is completely uncertain. We all want that, we want to be certain of things even though we know that there are no guarantees... ok there is one guarantee, you are guarantee to die, but you don't know when, where or how, everything else is not guaranteed, everything else depends not just on your decisions but on the decisions of billions of other people that live in this planet and are (I believe) connected to one another. So yes, I am thankful for life's struggles, they've taught me to live with less anger and less stress and to prioritize things in a way that most people don't.
4. I am thankful for death.
   Death is often seen as something so negative, especially when it happens to someone young and that has not "lived" to what most people would call a full life. The thing is that as I stated above, death is guaranteed for everyone, whether we believe it as a reality or not, the concept of someone dying and passing on is the same for everyone and it will happen to everyone. My acceptance of death and that it can come at any time reminds me to live life too, whether things are going great or they are not going so great, knowing and accepting that I can die at any time has made me see life in general and the life of others in a completely different way, a way that I've come to painfully realize that the majority of people (especially people my age) don't really accept because they are stuck on the believe and hope that they will be alive tomorrow and the next day and the day after for many many years to come. Some even create anxieties about dying and go about their lives worrying about the things they do that might kill them so instead of living they are pretty much dead before they actually die. The older generation though, most of them, and psychologically you get to the age when you accept that death will come and so that's when they actually start living each day, yes they have their complaints but they come to an understanding that life is limited and so they worry less about certain things like debts and actual things, but most tend to always go back and express with regret how much they wished they would not have put so much emphasis on those things back when they were my age because then their lives would  have been fuller. Even when you read about what is something that most people regret while they are dying it all comes down to the things that we as young adults believe we have to put so much emphasis on right now that we forget all the actual important things that we should be doing. 
5. I am thankful for debt.
   Yes, yes, WHAT? Most people want to get out of debt, they really just don't want to be in debt at all. But see we live in a society where we have been taught that we have to borrow money in order to buy certain things that we "must have" we get into extremes amount of debt, as students we use loans to pay our way through school, then we get out of school and we are worried about how the heck we will pay those loans. We complain about the loans, we complain about the car payment, we complain about the mortgage payment, the credit card bills... the list goes on. But what we don't realize is that for every single dollar we have ever borrowed we have actually acquired something we wanted at the particular point in time that we had acquire the debt, whether it was our education, or the new car or the house, but we wanted those things. Even if we say ohh hey I got debt for hospital bills, well you went to the hospital because you wanted to get healthy. Or I got into a lot of debt because things broke down in my house or my car, or some sort of natural disaster happened, still you wanted to fix those things that you originally wanted and with those things that you acquire comes a greater sense of responsibility because now you have more things to take care of. Anyway... to my point, debt has taught me to live a simpler life. There was a point in my life where I could walk into any store and I would get a huge credit line because I made enough money and I had excellent credit, but then shit happened and everything was lost in a manner of days, it all went to hell so I was forced to live a simpler life. The simpler life is not a life that most of the people around me are ok with and therefore is a constant battle to get them to stop telling me that I need this or I need that but... It has been worth it to me, and had it not been for debt and the complains of others about their debt, I would not be able to live simply and work towards memories rather than work for things. It really is freeing when you think about it. 
6. I am grateful for injustice.
   Yes, yes, I might be completely insane on that one, how can one be grateful for that right? Well... Let me tell you something, without injustice I would not know or enjoy those times when something just happens. And even though in my view of things each person has a slightly different concept of what justice is and the "reality" is that deep down we all have a collective concept of what justice is, and that concept changes as we evolve as a society which is why most times we can't even define what justice is, we tend to give examples of what it is, but we would not have those examples if we did not have examples of injustice.

So there... I am sure there are more things I could think about that most people would want to completely get rid of and do without because hey, they are not so good things for them and therefore would never think about being grateful for them but there is always something that those things teach us and the lessons we learn are part of the life we are living right now and one should never be ungrateful of the lessons we learn. In the end that is what we are here for, to learn, and the more that we fight the learning experiences the more we will be put in situations where we will be forced to learn those lessons, the harder we will make our lives and the more grateful you are for the things that happen to you the more positive you will begin to see your life...

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. :)

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. 

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.

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.

Our souls

I was chatting with a friend today and was asked what was a happy thing that happened to me recently, my answer was that this week I saw him shine... I had seen him at work sometime this week and there was this light surrounding him. Believe it or not I know that I was not the only one that saw it, you can always tell when the light of someone radiates on to everyone else, and you can always tell who the source of that light is.
So it got me thinking, or at least put this thought in my head, because long ago someone had said to me the same thing, their exact words were: "You walked in and you were shinning" now the day they saw me I was extremely ill and I really did not know what the heck they were referring to, let alone what the light they saw meant.  As I kept getting more and more curious and reading more and more I learned about auras and the light they give out and I learned about our higher selves, the different planes of existence that people have come to philosophize about, etc etc...
But today I realized that the light they talk about is nothing but our souls radiating through and our souls are nothing more than a little child and just like little children who aren't afraid of anything, who fall down cry for a bit after they get the biggest bruise but then they go and do the exact same thing that gave them that bruise, they forget quickly, they will get yelled at for doing something they are not supposed to be doing but even after getting emotionally hurt by the words of their parents they still come back to them and give them a hug and they forget quickly that we have yelled in anger.
That is exactly how our souls are, they forget and they want to go ahead and try again, they don't remember getting hurt, they don't remember the words that were said or the beatings we got, they just know that the only thing they want to do is go for it, they just want to be happy... It is our human part that remembers everything, it is the human part of us, that physical being with a brain that tries to make everything logical and that learns and remembers sorrow and pain that takes over as we are growing up, we are wired to remember how we got hurt and why, and then in order to protect ourselves we unconsciously decide that we have to go ahead and stop our souls from taking over and we stop ourselves from our soul wanting to do the things it wants. We stop ourselves from loving because we are afraid we will get hurt, it has happened before so why do it again? We stop ourselves from daydreaming because our human side says that the majority of times those dreams will never come true, and so we stop ourselves from doing the very things that feed our souls, our higher self, that self that does not have any boundaries, that knows no bounds and that is all good, the self that comes from a higher being who knows no evil, and when we do that, the light that our souls radiate slowly starts fading... And suddenly yourself is covered in this ridiculous cloud and you start feeling ordinary.
But make no mistake the soul is more powerful than the human in us, it will find a way to come out and shine through no matter what you do to try and kill it, it might be that it shines after an encounter with some stranger and having one of the greatest conversations of your life, at which point you start thinking that life is not so bad, that things could get better, that there are people out there that are good... Or you will get really ill because when we do not feed our souls, which I think are what fuel us to keep going and the soul starts dying out then our life force also diminishes, and so we are found in a hospital bed tied to machines and praying to get better, even if we have never prayed before.
So how is it that we can make sure our souls don't die out, how do we overcome the fears we have all learned through the years, that fear of rejection so you won't hug a friend when they are close only because they might just push you away, or the fear of getting hurt so you stop showing how much you really love another, what about the fear of people leaving you behind and just walking away, so instead you just don't meet anyone else, instead you just stay quiet when you really want to talk about what's going on... All we have to do is listen to it, instead of listening to the logic of our brains, we have to shut that down sometimes and just listen to the voice of our souls, that part of us that is never afraid to take a chance, the part of us that does not remember being hurt but only remembers how happy we were when we were truly loving someone else, that part that does not remember someone walking away but remembers only the times those who walked away where around, and really when our human side remembers those good moments, no one can say that they don't immediately smile.

How I found me again....

It's funny how sometimes we never think that we will ever feel like we don't know ourselves anymore, we get depressed and unhappy, we lose that joy we used to have and if we cannot find that "light" we naturally have we then feel lost.
I felt like that for quite sometime, in between all the stress from work, finances, new schedules, new adventures and having new people around, it is amazing how all of it combined can become so darn overwhelming that you just don't know where to go and sometimes don't even know what to do, I even got to the point where I was starting to feel lonely, I had forgotten what that word was, the last time I felt like that was when I was living with my husband and it wasn't until I left him that I did not feel whole again, I never understood that, I mean how do you feel so alone when you have someone by your side?
This past weekend I realized why, it was not such a bad thing and it was not a great realization either but it helped find myself again... So here is what I have realized....
In the past few weeks I have probably been surrounded by an extreme amount of people that have offered in one way or another to help out whenever I need, my usual self would just never even take a second look at those offers, I would just always not expect anything from anyone but myself because in the end you can't really control what other people do but you sure as hell can control what you do, so why ever put any expectation that one person or a group of people would ever do anything for you, why expect them to be there at all??? whether it is for them to be there for moral support or because you actually need them to help you out with something?
Well a few months ago I decided maybe I should expect a little more from people, maybe I should have a little faith in them I mean all cannot be bad right? Maybe one of them will really truly come through for me so I decided that I was gonna give them all a chance... well I guess in my head, my brain was not set to also just not get disappointed when they did not come through because in reality they owed me nothing, they did not have to offer any help and they did not have to help me out at all, but I guess the fact that I figured maybe it was gonna be different brought me more disappointment than I thought I would have ever gotten...
And that's when it started, that was the beginning of me becoming completely and absolutely lost, depressed and the beginning of me feeling like I was never going to find my light again....
I hated feeling like that, mostly because I know negativity is contagious and now I had all these different people around me and I really did not want them to end up in the same rut I was in.  A lot of time was spent thinking what the heck happen, where did I go wrong and what did I do to feel this way? Then a lot of things started piling up: bills, personal issues and finally what always ends up happening when you are being negative and end up stressing out: I got sick!!!
The tiredness, the sleepless nights, the stress, all of it added up to horrible migraines that lasted weeks!!!! It's amazing how much your body is affected by stress, it can literally kill you!
It was not until the end of week number four of terrible migraines that I realized what had happened, that was when I was so darn dizzy, throwing up every time I got up, I could barely walk from the pain and even the pain killers did absolutely nothing but seemed to make the migraine worse... That third day of this I was laying in bed, crying from the pain because it was extreme, I mean the pain was so bad that I would have rather thrown myself off a balcony than keep feeling it, I called those that had once offered help, I knew then I needed it, I really needed help, I had reached my limit, I could not stand the pain and everything I had tried has not worked, I needed to go to the hospital and someone needed to take me because I could barely walk and I did not think I would have survived a bus ride.
So that's when I started calling people, I could not stand the light of my phone at all, that's how bad it was, but everyone was either busy or did not answer... I cried some more, this time because that lonely feeling filled me up, my daughter was not with me, and I felt like there was no one around that would force me to be strong for, it is amazing how your kids feed you so much power, so much strength! So I kept crying and in my crying I asked God, the universe, the Spirit, whatever it is that you might call it, I asked why I felt this way, I asked why was I so alone? I asked why everyone was not around when I really needed them??? And then the answer hit me! It was like I was hearing someone loud and clear telling me: What do you mean you are so alone? You have always been on your own, never have you needed anyone and the times you have needed someone you have gotten someone there... That's when I called 911 and asked for help, one of the scariest things I have had to do because I feel like even though it was an emergency there should have been another way for me to get there, but there really wasn't so it was my last resort.  I got to the hospital and the doctor thought it could be something more serious than a migraine so they did a CAT scan and a lumbar puncture, that last one hurt so much, they pretty much put me to sleep when  I got there but for the lumbar puncture I had to be awake and all I gotta say is: THAT HURT!!! and while I was sitting there having a needle inserted in my back, I thought once again how nice it would be for me to have someone I loved and that cared about me there holding my hand making me feel safe, and how much I probably needed that at that moment, but then it hit me again!!! This is was not the first time you have gone through something like this and it is not gonna be the last time even though I secretly hope that it is, I really hope that I don't get a migraine that is that bad again, but hell if I do, I know I can take care of it myself!
I was alone and once again I felt lonely and I started missing those who had really been there for me before and who had actually kept their word when it came to that, and then I realized how the times I really needed someone there was always someone there, so this time maybe I did not need anyone and that was ok, it was ok because it reminded me of how strong I can be, how even when I am scared to death I somehow find it within me to keep going, how I always figured things out on my own, even without my daughter because one day she will leave and will have her own life and that's ok, that is how things are supposed to be, we are born alone and we die alone and any company we are ever able to get it's just supposed to be added joy.
The next day, even though my back was still hurting but I was glad it was just a really bad migraine, I found my light once again, that light I had lost when I put my faith in other people and not myself, that light that had been slowly turned off by every disappointment I have had in the past few months, and each one of them is no one's fault except mine... Yes, my fault for expecting more from people, rather than continue to not expect much and just be extremely delighted and surprised if they actually did anything, my fault for forgetting that the only person that has the power and that can make a true difference in my own life is me and no one else, my fault for allowing others to make me feel this way because in the end you are in charge of how you feel and while you are allowed to feel angry, sad, depressed, etc, you have the power to not allow it to consume you to the point of making you so sick...
Yes, I still have a ton of things to figure out, I still have a lot of things to get used to, yes there is still a lot of things that will cause stress in my life, but there is one thing I know for sure: I don't need anyone to help me out, I wanted people around but I learned that is not always possible, and while this is sort of a sad realization because some will say how sad it is that you have lost your faith in others, I say yeah it is sad and probably if they all knew that I am not expecting anything from them anymore, that I really don't expect them to ever come through for me, and I really don't think they care that much and if they do well that's great, maybe they would be disappointed in me but you know what? That's ok, because that would be their own feelings to deal with, they would not be mine.
In the meantime I will continue to be the person I know I am, the one that can pull through anything that is thrown at her and that will always be there for everyone not just promising that I will be there for those that I love, but actually being there when they want me there, because I know that the times they need me around I know for sure I will be there, that's the kind of person I am, and I truly hope I don't ever forget it again, life always puts you in certain situations not to make you stronger but to remind you of how strong you really are and now I can start working on climbing out of the hole I had fallen into and I can't wait to get completely out of it one step at the time!!! :)

If you'd let me...

Life has been a little hard sometimes, which has turned me a little cold, but deep inside I am full of love.
If you'd let me I would love you more than anyone could, I would care for you more than anyone would.
If you'd let me I would be the best friend you ever had, the one who would not leave your side, that friend that would always be there no matter what.
I know it seems odd to say all this after so long but if you'd let me show you I know one day you would not want to let me go.
If you'd let me show you, you could see that I'm the one for you, if you'd let me love you and care for you, you'd know I was telling the truth.
Too bad pride always gets in the way, because if I could tell you all this to your face maybe it would make a difference one day.
I'm sorry I was so cold and distant, it was not my intent, just know that I do love you and I wish you the best.

What I learned from a drug addict

So I was thinking about many things today, one that caught my mind was the way people are always telling me how bad they feel that I married a drug addict and ended up as a single mom, well I don't! I don't feel bad at all (I did feel like a complete idiot because I did not know he was on drugs when I met him and it was just so obvious he was on them now that I look back), you may now ask why I don't feel bad about the whole situation, sure I have a daughter with him who he has not seen in almost a year and a half and who does not really know him, I am raising her by myself when is supposed to be different, but I still don't feel bad about it, because I learned a lot from all of this.
First thing I learned was about drugs themselves, it is amazing how much a drug addict knows about drugs, any drugs, how they interact with other drugs, with alcohol, what they do, how they make you feel why they make you feel like that, how they work in your body to get the response that the drug was created for, etc. and to tell you the truth it can come very handy to have someone that knows about all this stuff, when? you may ask, well, I suffer from migraine headaches, they are awful! anyone that has ever had a migraine know that is one of the worst pains in the world, when I was almost 9 months pregnant I got a realy bad migraine and the doctors could not give me anything other than tylenol (anyone that has had a migraine knows that tylenol does absolutely nothing for it) well my walking pharmacist that I had as a husband at that time decided to tell me that the last time I had one of those migraines (before I was pregnant) and ended up in the hospital the doctor had send me some narcotics for my migraines according to my private pharmacist, the drugs that were sent to me that time were a mixture of an anti-inflammatory and caffeine, so a coke (the beverage not the drug) and an anti-inflammatory over the counter drug would do the trick, guess what? it did!!! (yes we consulted with the doctor before taking any over the counter medicine that was not tylenol) so guess what? from then on anytime I have a migraine or I feel one that is trying to kick in I take 2 advils and drink a coke and it goes away, amazing huh?
Second thing, after moving about 6 or 7 different times in approximately six months and slowly losing the things that were either given to us or having him pawned the things we owned so that he could get money for drugs, all of a sudden everything else that happened in your life has a different meaning, you learn to value memories because everything that you have that is physical and has some sort of value is gone, all you have is the picture of that thing he sold for drugs in your head lol, I know appreciate more a good memory with my family and would pay anything to have a good memory with them than to get them a something that may break later, get lost, sold or forgotten somewhere, memories don't ever leave your mind, even if you become totally insane somewhere in your head those memories will exist, no one can take them away, ever! and I am glad that I learned that, it has made me appreciate life in a different way, yes you need money in order to live and in order to have the things you need for every day life, but no you don't need to spend money on a boat that you are going to have to work extra hours just so that you can pay for it, or a big house so that each of your kids can have a room (guess what? your kids won't care about that, they'd rather see you smile everyday than be grumpy cause you have to work extra hours tomorrow so that you can keep paying that big house you don't really need) so yeah I am glad I can see life this way, now don't get me wrong, I do have goals for myself, I do want certain things but I am now not rushing to get them, I am less stressed out about getting those things and I know that because I'd rather create a memory than buy a brand new car I can stop myself and take a break from what I have to do to reach my goals and actually enjoy the little things that happen all around, and trust me is a lot better than what I was doing before...
Third, mmm well this one is a little more personal, I decided to study what I am studying thanks to him, you have no idea how a drug addict can manipulate you, how much power they can have on you, how many lies they can put together, and how much they all act the same, drugs have like a special effect on people that abuse them, it makes them all the same, they seem to think the exact same way, so I got interested in psychology, at first I wanted to study Child Psychology and work in the school system, as a counselor or teacher, but then I took this Personality class, and that just changed my mind completely, I wanted to know more about human behavior, not just for children but also for adults, especially criminals, so I decided I will go more towards Criminal Psychology, then I found out all the really cool jobs one can get with a degree on that, so guess what? is even more exciting for me, now he was not the only one that inspired me for all this, my dad did too, how? you may ask, well believe it or not there were many similarities between my father and my ex-husband, and that got me thinking even more, because my dad does not do drugs, so why where these two people so different yet acted in a similar manner? I still have to figure that out but maybe that will become a good subject to research in the future (and yes I have looked at their behavior and it is very similar, their personalities are, maybe is true what they say that one ends up marrying someone that reminds them of their mother or father lol).
Fourth, after you live with a drug addict and you find out that they are doing drugs and they go to rehab but they decide that they will lie about the whole rehab thing (yes he did that too) you become more aware of what they tell you, and you remember everything they say, because the story they will tell you on Monday will be repeated on Tuesday with a little twist to it :), I can definitely say that I have become a little bit of a human lie detector lol, yeap, it is so amazing how much you can learn from someone constantly lying to you, their stories never add up because people never remember a lie but the person that was told the lie has the power to remember it, so guess what? now I can tell when someone is lying and I don't even have to ask them to repeat the story another day, people that lie have this energy to them is hard to explain but once you have been around a liar, you can spot most liars in a heartbeat!
Fifth, with him I also learned to accept things the way they are, if I don't like them after I accept them I can change them, (this is actually true) a drug addict cannot stop consuming drugs until he or she has accepted that he or she is an addict, that also applies for everyone else, you cannot change what is wrong with your life if you don't first accept that something is wrong with it, what??? ok here is an example, I was still together with him and I was telling the world how good things were, how perfect things were, and I was denying that he was still taking drugs, to me he was clean, I did not wanted to accept that the family I always wanted was being destroyed by something I could not control, so it was not until I accepted that living in a rented room with my husband, having practically no food, no phone and weighting 85 pounds while breastfeeding my child while he made enough money to feed the three of us was absolutely not the way that a family was supposed to be, I mean if you are making enough money to pay for an apt and good food and still have enough to save but somehow out of the 5000 dollars a month that come in, you only see 1000 and instead of things getting better they keep getting worse, things still are being pawned, food that is given to us is exchanged for less expensive food so that it can last a little longer and still you end up having to control every single bite of food you eat and there are days of the months where all you eat is cheerios and milk there is definately something wrong with that picture, once I accepted it and accepted that the only person that could make a change in my life and my daughter's life was myself, I made the call to change myself, and I did, and no matter how hard it was to deal with a person that could not accept that something was wrong (cause I had to deal with him for months) I knew I would continue to get better, and I did, I had help of course but I got better, I went back to school, I sort of made a new list for my goals, and I have been reaching them little by little, after that I also became too honest, I tend to say things just how I see them or how they are (which can get me in trouble, so now I have also learned to keep quiet and think before words come out of my mouth or are written to anyone most of the time it works, I mean I am still human, especially when one is angry about something).
Another one of the things I learned and one that everyone should learn is to trust myself, I learned again that the little voice inside you, whether you want to call it intuition or you want to say is God talking to you, that voice is always warning you and if you trust it and turn where you are told you should turn that road will take you where you want to be, and with no stops, so now no matter how crazy an idea seems, I follow it, and somehow things come out just the right way, which is pretty interesting (maybe one day I will figure out how all that works).
So now you might say wow... that is a crazy perspective, others might say how much positivism from something that was so negative, but I say to myself, how can I be negative about the situation that allow me to become what I always wanted to become, a mom! (even though my dad and stepmom say I never wanted children, which is not true, I always wanted them but I had my own ideas on how they were going to come to the world), which is the best job in the world, and the one that is the most rewarding, no matter how tired I am at the end of the day, no matter how many times my child does something that frustrates me, seeing a little one grow, watching them learn every day and having them look at you and tell you they love you and you being their hero, the one that to them knows it all, the one that protects them and they can always count on; her presence will never let me see the situation as negative, because my baby girl brings only positive things to my life and that is enough for me to look at all this the way I do.