Whether we know the answers or not, there are questions which I have been asking throughout these journal entries. Hopefully, the questions are enough to make us think. Better yet, hopefully the questions I’ve been asking are enough to inspire us to act mindfully or to push us to reach for the next level.
But hey, this is life, right?
There is so much going on around us. Isn’t there?
Is there really a question why we lose our tempers? Is there even a question about why or how we freak out?
I say this honestly because I would rather attack my goals from an honest and humble perspective. I would rather be true to my thoughts than deny them. Instead of hiding my fears, I find justice in exposing them because they lose strength and now I see that I am stronger than my fears because, at last, I have the bravery to speak about them, out loud and in the open.
I have begun this journal as an unwritten manuscript to detail the patterns and the plans of my next round of success. I am jumping the line and switching the order. I am moving my position and working my way to the front so that I don’t miss the show.
Understand?
Our goal has become to create a plan.
Like I’ve said to you before, our aim is to navigate our way through life using our G.P.S. which is our goals, plans and the strategies it takes to achieve them all.
Still, whether we find our inspiration or the motivation to make our lives more desirable, we have to understand our drive.
We have to know where this comes from and why this is important to us.
I remember waiting to do a presentation in front of a roomful of people. Of all places, this was my first move towards working in a corporate setting. I had never spoken in a place like this before. I was afraid and intimidated. I was worried that my skills and presentation would be either rejected or simply, I was afraid that I was out of my league.
Maybe I was. (In my head.)
There was a plan in mind but the presenter who went before me decided to use my same material. In what seemed to be a display of dominance and competitiveness, he designed this with slides and in a pretty fashion. So, rather than carry out my plan, I decided to show up to this event raw, live and in person.
I would never repeat this plan again and maturity has shown me that I don’t have to compete at being me with anyone else in this world. Instead, all I have to do is be loyal to who I am and let myself shine, come what may, and no matter what; by any means necessary.
This dovetailed into a valuable lesson because this allowed me to dig my roots deeper into something I love more than life itself. This sparked a trigger and flowered into a new occasion; whereas, if I were blind before this moment, you were there to open my eyes and allow me to see that I am far more valuable than someone who brags about their abs and their yoga consciousness.
I have these questions which I need us to ask ourselves:
What’s important to you?
What matters?
What makes your heart thump? Think about this.
Stop for a second and really think about this.
What makes you want to scream, or laugh, cry and everything in between?
What does this to you?
What excites you and scares you all at the same time?
Is there anything like this in your world?
Is there anything that opens your eyes and fills your heart?
I’ll ask this one more time.
What’s important to you?
Is it life? Is it living?
Or is it the fear of being alive and not living for the moment?
Is there a fear of missing out?
Are you afraid that you might have missed your shot or that the window of opportunity has closed?
I suppose this is one of my fears. Then again, I suppose this is one of many.
I’ve always been afraid of just coming up short.
I’m afraid that I’ll show up to the window and when it closes, I realize that it closed just a few seconds before I showed up to place my bet – and go figure, wouldn’t you just know it?
This would be the day that my horse would come in first.
I wonder if this makes sense to anyone. Maybe it does.
Or maybe it doesn’t. Either way, this makes sense to me.
This is one of my fears. One of many, in fact.
I’m afraid that the one stone I’ve left unturned is the one that I should have lifted because that’s where the treasure was.
All this time, it was right there. Right in front of my face yet I looked everywhere else but here with you, which is the obvious place – of course.
I have other fears too which are that I might never have the chance to pull of my tricks.
I’m afraid that I might not find the chance to right the wrongs that I’ve done, or to create the amends, or to fill the voids and repair the rifts or even more, I admit to the fears that I might never have the chance to say I’m sorry, or that I might not have the chance to let my love be known or be felt.
Maybe none this would even matter to anyone else. But to be clear, I know this would matter to me.
To be exceptionally clear, I know that in my heart, I look to settle all of my accounts and to solve all of my debts, both personal, emotional and financial because I have seen what happens when I’ve let this go to waste.
I’ve seen the interest accrue and build and create a personal debt which karma comes like a loan shark from the street to collect, one knuckle at a time
.
I have lived behind the eight-ball, so-to-speak. I have lived inside the cages of impending doom. I have been both a victim and volunteer for the outcomes of my occasions and yes, at times I can say that I have been a hunting stalker, ferocious and cruel, to survive either emotionally, physically, or even financially.
I have lived selfishly. I have committed the acts of being a romantic predator.
I have used and misused friends, folks, relationships and as a means of protection, I have allowed myself to manipulate the systems around me.
But why do I say this?
Why do I admit this instead of omit this? Instead, why do I even bother to mention what my internal fears look like?
Why mention these things when all this does is expose me as ugly?
My answer to this is because I want to be beautiful.
The reason is because my ends have always been the same. Only now, growing older and understanding that my time is more valuable and that time is only limited to a few more occasions before my time is up; I have come to recognize the beauty and the freedom of honesty. I have come to understand the degradation of shame and that in no way, shape or form will shame or shame-based thinking lead me to the restoration of my sanity.
To put this forward, I am only a real person and in my realness, I admit to every aspect of my being.
I admit to this openly, as if to confess my sins. I understand what it said in The Book of James when it said, “Faith without works is dead,” because what does my faith mean?
What does anything mean if I have no work behind me?
I have to show that I am capable of being and not just believing.
I have to do; otherwise, nothing is done for me.
I have to be open and honest, which is why I admit to both the brightness and the darkness which exists in me.
I have to because I have learned that the only thing that my denial can buy is a momentary blind eye to the truth, which inevitably comes for me anyway.
I have goals and dreams and hopes and aspirations.
Also, I have deadline anxiety which, as we know it, deadlines can be a real bitch sometimes.
I am finished with the lurking mysteries and the impending tragedies or the dooms that my mind tends to focus on.
I am through with losing to outside priorities.
I am through with allowing myself to slip away from my dreams, one grain of sand at a time; and there she is, the sands in the hourglass. There she is, right there, the sandcastle of my dreams, blowing in the wind – or vanishing and, to me, I want to stop this.
I want to rebuild this. While I can’t stop the wind from blowing, I can learn to shelter my position.
Years back, I saw some words that were spray painted on a wall in Midtown Manhattan,
New York City, where no one stops . . .
The words said, “Beware. This moment is more precious than you think.”
I saw this in the middle of the mad dashes between workers and commuters and daily inhabitants and more, I saw this as a sign because how many people passed this note without giving these words a glance or a second thought?
Am I one of these people? Am I aware?
Or am I as unaware as every other mindless passenger on this trip around the sun?
I ask these questions again:
What’s important to you?
What do you value the most?
What gets you out of bed?
Better yet, what keeps you up at night?
What gives you the fear that tomorrow might not have the window we’re looking for?
Beware, this moment is more precious than you think.
So are the words we share with each other.
So is the time we spend together.
So is this life we live and so are the dreams we have and so it is here, the time is now and it’s morning.
A new day has decided to join us in the fight of finding our rebirth of sanity.
Our life is right here (if we choose to find it).
Nothing can stop us now.
Nothing can take this away.
And me, nothing will ever stop, stall or prevent me from saying “I love you” or apologizing, or claiming my place in the circle, or sharing my moments in the sun when its cold for someone else, or sharing the shade when the sun is high, the day is long and the heat is too hot for the skin to bear.
To maintain our lives, we have to understand the way we’ve lived. In the face of our changes, we have to allow ourselves to transform, to improve and to act on this means we have the right to act now; as in right now, so that no more time will get between us.
So, not another minute will pass by without being lived or loved or cared for . . .
Cared for . . .
I love those words
Because they remind me of you.
The Written Addiction 