Teachers...

I don't even know where to begin so I guess I should begin by stating that I was raised by who I believe to be the best teachers I have yet to meet.  With that said... I don't know why but I have always had some issue with at least one teacher, most times the issue is them treating every single student like they are all the same, they all learn the same way and they all do things the exact same way.  The problem I have is that the reality is that not everyone is the same and this false idea of equality does not go well with me.  Some students are more intelligent than others, there are some students that are extremely dumb, and others that no matter what you do, you just can't teach them anything. 

Yesterday I had one teacher piss me off to no end, it probably did not help that I am sick and it's hard for me to tolerate her when I am healthy, it's even harder to tolerate her when I am sick.  Wednesday I left her class early stating: I don't feel well, I have to go.  Yesterday, I got my quiz back with a long ass note stating: You owe me an explanation because you cannot just leave class telling me that you don't feel well and that's it. 

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Then yesterday she decided that even though everyone else was on their laptops and she had no idea what the hell they were looking at, I was going to be the one that she would say: put down your phone because you are distracting everyone...

She got a really long e-mail today, nicely stating what I wish I could have add a few curse words because the reality is that she pissed me off!!!! 

1.  She is fucking teaching a college class not fucking grade school, adults go to college, I am an adult and there is nothing that states that I have to give anyone an explanation for leaving class early, arriving late or not coming at all.  If there is an attendance policy then it is my fucking responsibility to show up to class and if I don't then I take whatever grade I get because hell, I did not do everything that was expected. 

2. "I don't feel well, I have to go" is explanation enough, add to that the fact that I barely had a voice which added to the statement of how terrible I was feeling. 

3. If she is stupid enough to not realize the obvious or she is too into her own damn world that she cannot perceive how sick I was when everyone else was perceiving it.... Well that is not my fucking problem, it is hers! Now, if she has some sort of disability that does not allow her ass to perceive things like other people do then my fucking apologies, I did not know you had a disability but now that I do I will do my best... But still you are not getting a fucking explanation other than: I don't feel well, I have to go. Now if it is that she does not care about me being sick, well I understand that because the reality is that it is none of her goddamn business!!!

4. If the little 18 year-olds in the class are distracted by my looking down at my phone then they have a fucking serious problem.  Life is fucking full of distractions and if someone looking down at their phone is distracting them from doing their work while they are also looking at their damn computer... Well let me tell you something, reality check! you are not going to go anywhere in life if you get distracted by such little things. 

5. The truth is that the only one that was distracted was the fucking teacher, why? Because she has an intense need of attention, she cannot bear anyone not looking directly at her at all times, so she did not like me looking at my god damn phone and when I told her why I was looking at it she decided to tell me it was not her fault (which no one was telling her it was) and that I needed to tell her this before class... Yet again, NO NO NO and fucking NO!!!! I don't have to fucking tell you my whole life story, it is none of your god damn business!!! I am an adult and if I am looking down at my phone there is good reason for it. 

6. How fucking dare you say anything to one of the very few fucking people in your class that walks in there and gets an A in every single test she gives out... Because as I stated to her, this class is just a fucking refresher for me, I already know what she is teaching and I don't even have to open the damn book nor do I ever have to study for it, so another reality, she is pretty damn useless to me because she is really not teaching me anything... (ok, maybe she is teaching me a valuable life lesson of being tolerant to fucktards, but that is another story). 

With all that said to her, without the curse words, I ended my email by letting her know that I don't tolerate her, so I will be happy to drop off my homework for next class if there is any and I will see her for my final exam and then I hope to never fucking see her again... To which she replied: Please schedule a time to meet with me and then proceeded to give me her office hours... ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS??? Which fucking part of: I DO NOT TOLERATE YOU! Do you not fucking understand? 

And so I have said my peace, and spent an extreme amount of time trying to nicely tell a fucktard to just FUCK OFF!!! I don't fucking like you and I don't owe you an explanation for getting out of a class early because I was sick! In fact, the I don't feel well, I gotta go was way too fucking much! 

Religion, religion, religion...

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

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

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

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.

A break from the world...

Ohh how wonderful life is....
And then there is that one moment when everything seems to pile up on you and all you want to do is kick and scream and send everyone to hell...
Everything seems so peaceful for just one moment and then the next moment everything seems to be so out of control and you just feel like you can't deal anymore, all you want is to escape and be left alone and there is no where you can go to hide or escape, all you can do is try to keep it together... But that is so fucking hard!!!!
And no, it isn't that things are not going your way, nothing like that... It is that there is a never ending list of things that need to get done and then you get the list done and you think: ohh I think I am going to be able to rest easy after this and not have to worry about it, and then BOOM!!!! it turns out that you were not really done for a little while with that and now you have to sort of start all over...
And while starting all over might be in your best interest overall, it does not help that there are a hundred other things that you have to take care of and for one moment you thought: hey! this one important thing that is taking all of my time right now is going to be able to be set aside for a little bit and I will be able to go ahead and focus on the other 100 things I need to focus... But it was not like that, and that is the stressful part. That is the part that makes you want to scream and say PLEASE I JUST NEED A BREAK!!!!
It then works out that as soon as you say that, something else gets added for you to deal with, because hell!!! Sometimes the universe, as fair as it usually is, just likes to laugh on your behalf and say hey! let me add this to your list!!!
It's exhausting, it is extremely exhausting... So I guess that instead of saying I need a break when I am on the verge of losing it, I should just ask for more things, then maybe the universe will take some off my back and help me out a little... Maybe that is how this works? I mean seriously... Lucky are those who have just work to worry about, when you add all these other little things that you have to do because they are important, it gets annoying, it gets stressful, and then to top it all off you have to add that you gotta deal with people. Not just on your regular job but you also have to deal with family and friends.
Ohh my dear universe, I know you think all these things are things that could be handled, but let me tell you something... Some of us need you to send them just one at the time sometimes, not always but sometimes...

Life and faith...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nightly Thoughts...

And I guess all we really need is one question to actually get us thinking, but it is always up to us whether we want to think about the question or just dismiss it and keep on going...

And so today after a long day I got a message from an old friend, a friend that had moved back to her home country when we were still teens and now time has passed, life has happened and she was wanting to know how things were going, she was a best friend during those high school years but time and growth have happened that it appears harder to have a conversation with any of them. As much as I love them and I am here to listen to them, the time that was not spend through the years just letting each other know what was going on seems to have caught up with us and the easiness in which we were able to strike a conversation is no longer there. 

Anyway... enough of that because I am sure everyone has gone through that at some point, you stop talking and communicating with someone and then suddenly you try again and all you get is small talk, something that most people are ok with but unfortunately I am not.  All in all my friend asked me why I had moved to the city I am living in now, why so far away from family and some friends that were left behind, it seemed incomprehensible to her that I would just go out on my own and find a new place when socially we all want to always be around people we love and that are familiar to us even if those are no good for us.

I sat here and just wondered how to answer her, no answer would have ever suffice to explain to her how I just really woke up one day and felt like this is where I needed to be and then went with it.  It has come to my attention how hard it is for people to understand the concept of going with your gut, of following your bliss, going where you feel you will be happy, whether that place is full of friends or not, whether there is family there or not, the place where your gut feeling is telling you to go is the place where you should be. 

Most people decide that they have to make everything fit for the purpose of making it logical right now, any move, any change in job; it all seems to be an issue of how much money will I make, how much family support will I have or how many more opportunities will arise from this move.  Life never seems to be about whether or not we will be happy doing what we are doing and the sad part is that now a days I find it not surprising when people look at me like I am a total weirdo because I just don't have a 5-year life plan that I am following.  

It is sad because life is not planned, it is also sad because when I say: "I am doing this because it gives me joy and while your offer of working in this company that has great benefits and great pay which will according to you allow me to buy all the things I (according to you) need, I would die working in a place I don't like, so I am sorry but I choose to be poor of money and rich in joy." I am looked at like a completely irrational person... I don't know when it was that life changed, I am sure that at one point human beings looked for joy rather than things and it was the amount of joy they had in their lives that measured their success and not the amount of things or the amount of money they had. 

But hey! I think I've written about this before right? Follow your bliss, you gut, your intuition... Lately in my own spiritual path I have been doing that more and more, and all I can say is that while it is extremely hard to let yourself be guided by something you don't quite understand, it has also been extremely rewarding and fulfilling.  I have learned a lot in the past few years and even recently, still learning to trust because as any other human being in this planet I want logic and I want everything to be connected at the moment I am doing things but life is not like that, life connects all the dots as you are living it. 

Last Sunday, another old friend contacted me (I guess one can say that there is something that needed reminding), this friend was one that I had worked with for a a few months a few years back, from a distance I have seen him achieve certain things in his life that anyone else would love to have, so far he has reached part of the potential I knew he had, just this gut feeling telling me hey that guy over there, he has the ability to be great! What kind of greatness he achieved was and will continue to be up to him.  So I am sitting there letting him know about how life is going (and this is one of those people with whom you can always talk and he will always listen, and it just makes you feel like hey it's all good and I get what you are saying, and that part of him has not changed) and he is letting me know how his life is going and then he stated how he had recently come to appreciate free time more, work was busy, managing people is harder than expected, things change when everything you and accomplish is not based only on your work but it's actually based on the performance of others. 

And so I said to him: This is why I do what I do, I might not have a lot of money, I might not have a brand new car, I might not have all the things that people say I should have to be happy, but I have joy, the only time I am not full of joy is when I am talking to people that are trying to tell me what to do. And so, I said, I have ended up with not too many friends and I have a hard time talking to people my age because they are all looking for that, they have graduated college, they want to get a good job, get married, buy a nice house, have kids and all that "good stuff" meanwhile I am here saying to myself, I tried that and life slapped me so hard when I went with what was supposed to be done and I was not happy, now, some of those folks my age have their good job, some have gotten a house and have the nice car, but the job they have is not something they really want to do and so here comes Friday and they are all getting ready to go out and party and go to the bar and get drunk because they just can't stand their job and they need a distraction (he was laughing while I was saying this and nodding, possibly because he is one of them) and I am at home saying to myself ohh I love my job I want to go and work some more and then that is what I do. 

But this concept is so hard for people to understand, it is not until they are about to die that they realize ohh I should have lived more and worked less, maybe my life would have been different if I would have not planned it so much and I would have done what I truly wanted not what would have given me more money.  It is so hard to understand that your fate is to die and that you don't know when that will happen but that whatever you do between now and then should be something that fills you with joy not with pain and regret.  That whatever you do right now is what counts and it is even a harder concept to accept that when you do the things you love the most then the money usually follows, it comes with it, you get good at what you love because you practice it daily without frowning at it, you love it so why wouldn't you do it? you want to work at it, you want to get better, it's not forced, and anything that is not forced and that is allowed to flow and is full of love it's always great! I don't think there is anyone that could tell me right now that anything that was created with love and passion is not a great thing. The energy it gives out is amazing and yet we refuse to do what we love and end up doing what we think we must. 

I've probably rambled enough tonight... point is though, follow your gut, your intuition, trust it, where you want to be right now, go there! Nothing is stopping you, life is about living it and doing what you love, when you do what you love you attract love.  Don't sit there and think that because parents have raised you to think that the goal of life is to acquire things so that you can have a safe retirement and no debt and blah blah blah, and that the only way to get that is to have a good job that your job might not be perfect but it's good as long as it pays well, mmm let me tell you something, those parents were about your age when they had you, and they are probably not at the end yet but just about to reach it, a period when everything changes and then the priorities change and then life is given a different meaning, time is more important because then it becomes quite clear that you don't have enough of it, and you look to spend that small amount you have left with the ones you love but we are busy being busy and so it is an endless vicious cycle, then death arrives and we regret the time that was not spent and the moments we missed.  And the flaw in all of this is that we all keep thinking that we will reach that age and that we will have time to do the things we do but we really don't, meanwhile we are missing out on the best things in life.  The song Cat's in the cradle by Harry Chapin puts this truth out there, but I guess it's just a song we sing until the time we actually decide to listen to it and get the meaning out of it. 

So, go do what you love, go where you want to go and don't worry about figuring it all out, even those who think that they've got it figured out are still trying to figure it all out, as one of my friends stated to me today: I will figure it out as I go along but I will be joyful along the way...