Life Is On Our Side

When I think back to any difficult time in my life, the single most affecting factor was my attitude. The truth is that all throughout life in general has been on my side. There have always been people who have loved me dearly, always been people who supported me warmly, there have also been people who have believed and trusted in me all the way.

The only stubborn, rebellious and incredulous one was me. Of course there were people who were stubborn, rebellious and incredulous when it came to me, and of course I was influenced by their negativity, but all I really needed to do was to check and see that it wasn't a big deal that I had jerks around, that the bigger deal was how much power I was giving them. For some reason, it seems like most of us prefer giving power to the fewer negative forces in life than giving the power to were it really is: the loving, encouraging and supportive forces of life.

God is way more powerful than the devil, in fact, at a certain point in our spiritual development the devil has absolutely no power whatsoever, the devil doesn't even exist anymore.

I think it's funny that now that my attitude isn't a stubborn, rebellious and negative one, most of the people and experiences I bump into are pleasant. Traffic jams aren't nearly as annoying, and my complaints are mostly for entertainment of myself and others. I laugh at my anger nowadays. Now that my attitude is aligned with the benevolence of life I make $600 dollars in 5 hours of work, I get more students to help and I feel more empowered to accomplish my goal of moving out.

I personally choose not to believe in the whole "I have no control" thing. Maybe I don't, but if I'm going to believe that, I believe that whatever it is that has control is on my side and is benevolent. Now that my attitude is corrected I no longer experience guilt, shame, rage, fury and internal turmoil. It's amazing when we see for ourselves that the main thing that was against us was our own attitude. It's even more shocking to see how long we have refused to notice this for ourselves.

It's really not the "negative" people around us, it's really not our "inferior" condition, it's really not the government, it's really not society, it's not the cops, it's not the bank, it's not the system, it's really not our boss, it's really our own attitude. It's not the gas prices, it's not our parents, it's not our neighbors, it's not our friends, it's not our lovers. It really is our stubbornness, our ingratitude, how bratty we are. It's really our own egos.

I don't pretend to say that I have overcome my ego, but I sure as hell know now that if I get in trouble the first place to check is inside myself. If I am in a crappy place in my life, I don't blame others and I don't even blame myself, but I immediately check my attitude. Am I in a victim position? Am I being impatient? Am I being a lazy brat? Am I whining and complaining too much? Am I being an asshole to those around me because things aren't going my way? Am I lying to myself and seeing that "others" are the ones being jerks.

I notice I have friends and family members who treat me like shit when things aren't going their way. I notice I do that sometimes too. That's just so unfair and irresponsible - and what happens to us when we do this is that we start to grind unpleasantly against life. I was about to write that life goes against us, but that wouldn't be true, it's that we go against life ourselves.

Life is so on our side and so loving that it doesn't hold a single grudge and it's always forgiving. Life doesn't get "mad" and it doesn't "punish" us. We do it to ourselves.

God have I been hurt by other people's egos! God have other people been hurt by my ego! But God has life been generally kind and loving towards me! Yes, in life I have experienced pain and grief... but all the ones that were generated by a divine grace taught me something wonderful and made me a better man. When I am hurt by the ego of others or when I hurt others with my ego there is so little to be learned and so much inconvenience. It's just amazing. Life is wise, fruitful, kind and generous while an unhealthy ego is usually just unwise, unfruitful, unkind and greedy.

It's nice to know though that other egos are only as powerful as we make them. I do not believe that even the president has any more power than the people give him... and even that power isn't his. I don't believe that any single human being has more power than any other! That power is something we give them or it's a delusion. I used to get so (really) angry at certain individuals in the media or even in my life... now I see that individuals are only as powerful as I make them in my mind and I still can get (kind of) angry at them. The difference is now I know that no individual is powerful enough to remove the fact that LIFE IS ON OUR SIDE.

:-) Let's realize this more and more everyday... if we don't... well... we might just destroy our race!

We Worship The Impossible

Have you noticed how we humans worship the impossible?

We worship permanent happiness, which is an impossibility and simply doesn't exist and will never exist. Not even animals are always happy and they don't have the issues we have. Our dog Noah is fed, taken care of and has absolutely all of his physical needs met yet he still gets occasionally sad, angry, bored, tired, withdrawn, etc. He is for sure not ALWAYS happy.

We worship permanent beauty, which is an impossibility because everything is always changing. Our hair-do will eventually get messed up, our make-up will eventually wear off, our clothes will eventually get sweaty. The beautiful flower will eventually wither, the beautiful tree's leaves and flowers will eventually fall.

We worship permanent youth, this is why there's all this Botox and plastic surgery going around, this is why all these anti-wrinkle creams are out there, this is why most of us experience a severe mid-life crises. We don't want to age, we want to be permanently young. We've all heard those stories about the Egyptians and those tales about people wanting to hold on to permanent youth. We refuse to accept that EVERYTHING is temporary.

We worship the permanent relationship, this is why there are so many shitty relationships gripping on. We are stubborn and we like to think that things are forever. We are afraid of what others will say if a break-up happens. "But I thought they were going to make it." This is why there are these notions of "the one" and "twin soul" and the "half orange." This is where all these songs of "I can't live without you" or "I can't stop thinking about how things were," etc. come from.

We worship permanent ease. As soon as things get hard we lose it. If we are driving down a stretch of smooth road we're chill and quiet because it's easy, but then as soon as a patch of traffic hit we go "Shit!" As if to say, ease and smoothness is supposed to always be the case.

Because we worship permanence we spend a lot of time missing our youth, missing the past, in nostalgia, wishing things were back, wishing we could go back, wishing to be young again, etc. Wishing for things to not change. Many of us aren't grateful of change, we just want to go back and we live thinking about how things used to be. Many of us are obsessed with the past and how much "better" it was. This comes from the worship of permanence.

Why is this?

Well, if you ask me, this is all due to our collective illusions and delusions of PERFECTION. We are literally taught and trained that there is such a thing as perfection and permanent happiness. We are literally taught that there is such a thing as permanence and guarantees in life. We are taught that there is such a thing as "ALWAYS, FOREVER, EVERY TIME, NEVER, ETC." These words, whether we realize or not are so extreme that they could only really be used for universal principles.

When we have not matured and awoken to the truth we think that reality is supposed to be what we hope or expect it to be, we walk around with IDEAS of what things SHOULD be like, and when these ideals aren't being met, we go nuts! We start to get angry, depressed, bored, tired, unhappy and miserable. Let's face it, there is no such thing as permanence.

No, you and I will never manage to always be happy. There is no such thing. You will not always be smiling, there will always be something to keep you on your toes. It's sad how spoiled we are and how entrained we are to believe that everything is supposed to go our way. It's NEVER going to happen. Life will ALWAYS have something to remind you that you will FOREVER have to deal with the ups and downs of reality and EVERY TIME this happens you will have the choice to accept or to argue, except you will NEVER win.

The impossible isn't possible and it's impossible to always get what you want!

Wake up! Stop worshiping the impossible... it's a fantasy!