Living Life to the Fullest

"As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to
ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably
more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so
remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best
friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry
because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you
love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never
been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of
happiness you'll never get back.
Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin."

~anonymous~

Uh-oh...More thinking...

{Okay, okay. I know. I think too much. But it's kind of hard to stop when you've been doing it all of your life. ;)}

I used to think that it was impossible for me to be happy. Sure, I could be okay, content, feeling pretty good, or even feeling pretty damn good, but never happy. The reason is that because I noticed that whenever things were going well for me, inevitably, someone close to me was having a rough time. Of course, it worked the other way around, too. But I never wanted happiness unless I could share it with others. It just wasn't fair for me to be happy when everyone else was miserable. And since my observations indicated that there will always be someone close to me who is having a rough time, I decided that it was impossible for me to be happy. Now, I didn't stop there, either. I took it to a more global level. How could I be happy when there was so much suffering in the world? How would my happiness help a starving child in Africa? That being the case, I decided that my happiness wasn't important. What was important was that I spend my life helping others.

Hehe. Sometimes, I amaze myself. Too rarely, I surprise myself with the realization of how clever I am. This is not that day. Today, I have surprised myself with the realization of just how dumb I can be. Because of course, how is being miserable going to help that child in Africa? Not a damn bit. The only people my happiness or unhappiness will affect are the people close to me. And while I'm sitting around waiting for the world to change so that I can finally be happy, I'm hurting the ones I love the most. So why wait? Get a move on. If you wait for the world to be "perfect," you'll have a long wait. Besides, is it really about withholding happiness until everyone can share, or is about sharing the happiness that we have? Should the question be, "Why should I be happy when someone else is suffering?" or "Why should that person suffer when I'm so happy?" In both cases, I think it's the latter.

Of course, this reasoning works in the local universe, too. Wait for everything to be "perfect" for everyone else in your life, and you'll have a long wait. So, let's go to center of the galaxy. Wait for everything to be "perfect" within yourself, and you'll have a long wait.

Moral of the story: Happiness is not "perfection", and "perfection" is not happiness. Look for "perfection," and you'll never find it. Look for happiness, and I guarantee that you'll find it.

So, yes, change the things you don't like about yourself, but never loathe yourself. Love yourself. And if you find that hard, be still and listen, and your heart will tell you who you are. And whoever that is, he or she is who you should love. I think that if we all did that, then most, if not all, of our problems would go away. Too many of us spend so much time wishing we were someone else, or at least "better" in some way. That's why we write about super heroes. Well, look around you. Do you see any super heroes? Neither do I. I see heroes. I see a lot of those (about 6 billion if you're only counting humans...of course, we should include animals, but I have no number for that...;) ), but no "super" heroes. Why is that? Is it because it's impossible? Not really (although, in many cases, I'd say so...;) ). It's because we don't need them. The truth is that the world really doesn't need a Superman. Every problem that we have is something that we can solve by just being who we are and doing what we can do. You don't have to be anything else. YOU ARE ALREADY PERFECT. You can never become better or worse, you can only understand.

I think that's the problem with the world. Not enough people understand or are even trying. That's why there's evil in the world. Not because of some guy holding a pitchfork waiting for your soul to enter Hell. I, personally, don't believe in Hell or the guy with the pitchfork. People do evil things because they don't understand. And in my opinion, a benevolent God would not eternally damn anyone for a lack of understanding. You don't condemn a five year-old for stealing a piece of candy, right? Same principle. Of course, you do explain to the five year-old that it's wrong and why. Well, same thing happens to "evil" people. A friend of mine once told me that at the end of our lives, we review our lives and come to understand where we have succeeded and where we have failed so that we can learn and come to a better understanding. In my opinion, this is what is meant by Purgatory: when we have to face ourselves, our shortcomings and our merits, and we learn. As we go through several lifetimes, we learn and understand better. So, it really is like growing up. Those who we consider "evil" are possibly very young souls who don't know any better. As we get "older," we come to understand better, and we do fewer and fewer bad things. So, should we condemn, or should we teach? If a teacher walks into the classroom and yells at the top of her lungs, which do the students hear: the screaming or the lesson? Exactly. The students can't help but hear the screaming, and the lesson is lost. This is also why you don't punish your children while angry. They can tell the difference between just punishment and punishment out of anger (and too many parents make that mistake). For these reasons, not only should we not condemn others, but we shouldn't condemn ourselves. "Evil" people are "evil" because they don't understand, they don't accept and love themselves. And if they can't accept and love themselves, how can they possibly love others? They don't understand what love is. That's not a person you should hate, but a person you should pity. Obviously, I've been doing a lot of soul searching lately, and I've realized that all of the people who have ever hurt me or tried to, I can look beneath their surface and see. And I pitied what I saw. Of course, I'm not quite mature enough to get past anger completely, but I do understand better. It was the same thing everytime. They didn't see and love themselves, so they couldn't see and love anyone else. So, of course, I got burned. But I hope I'll never forget that they are suffering ever so much more than I ever will.

So, to make a long point short (ha...too late): Ultimately, we are supposed to learn what it means to love and be loved. We should look within and find out who we truly are (not what we or others think we "should" be) and love and accept that. Only then, can we be truly happy, and yes, we all deserve to be happy.