There’s got to be something more to this life than what we see. I mean more than the status symbols that we were taught to envy or admire and more than money or who has the most toys. There has to be something more than who we are in the ranks of popularity or where we live or work or how much we earn.
Life has to be more than an exclusive address or club memberships.
There’s more to us than that.
I know there is.
Yet, the grass is always greener, as they say. Or, we can learn that the grass is greenest where it is cared for the best.
There’s more to us than the car we drive or the bed we sleep in. There’s more to us than the acreage behind our house, if at all. And there’s more to us than the clothes we wear or the watches, the jewelry, or diamonds, or where we vacation, if at all, and how it feels to ski the Swiss Alps or spend time in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
I have to believe the world is more than this.
I have to believe that we are more than just a skin-deep appeal or that looks are everything and beauty is objective instead of subjective. I want to forget this type of thinking. I want to reject the mottos that looks are everything and that yes – it’s true that if you are beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside – then you could only be average at best.
Who wants average?
There has to be more than this because while I agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, inner beauty or beauty that goes beyond a skin-deep appeal is often overlooked. It would seem to be that this sort of beauty is passed over for something more bright or shiny and obvious, or otherwise popular – like fashion, for example.
Like the styles we wear or the name brands we buy.
Is this it? Is this the key towards success?
Are the threads from the fabrics we wear an equal depiction of the threads which make up the fabric of our internal life?
I ask this because if this is so, how can anyone be happy?
How could anyone find joy if they’re always afraid to be second or outdone?
How can anyone achieve balance or personal greatness while always chasing an image we call perfection?
There is an embodiment of this which I used to consider my resentment of what I used to call, “the red-velvet rope people.”
They were the so-called pretty people, the gifted, the privileged, or the so-called lucky gene pool who inherited a ton of unusable wealth beyond compare.
I see this as a personalization of my insecure features which allowed me to put people above me while I willingly allowed myself to be stationed below them.
So to this I say – to hell with you.
To hell with the old me too.
To hell with my old silly and superficial thoughts or ideas.
To hell with all of my materialistic notions and values.
Take your Rolex and learn a thing or two about real life –
To hell with the theory that “he who dies with the most toys wins” because the truth is whomever learns to enjoy their toys, regardless of how simple or few they are; blessed are they because they are truly the meek. Since it is the meek who shall inherit the earth, the reason for this is because they have learned to enjoy and flourish with little to nothing at all – and this is what I want to learn how to do.
Blessed are the meek because it is they who understand the value of the earth beneath their feet. They take nothing for granted.
Not even a second . . .
They are the ones who waste nothing and learn to enjoy everything.
That’s who I want to be.
I want to be “the meek.”
I want this with all of my heart but not so I can inherit the earth. But instead, that would mean that I am not meek at all.
I want to be “the meek” so I can learn to enjoy what I have instead of looking at others with envy, greed or pride.
I want to understand the actual value and the substance of real life. I want to feel the texture of life’s true existence and be grateful that I can say yes, I have my finger on the pulse now – I understand. I really, really do.
I want to enjoy the roots of the world and taste the bread of the earth.
I want to know what it means to have less and be happy is if I had more – or even more, I want to know what it means to be so overjoyed by the simplest things that misery would never recognize me again.
I want this. I want this now and with all of my heart because this is a soul’s true freedom; to not be bound by materials or status; to enjoy, to smile, to appreciate and to exude the pure force of gratitude –
To me, this is what tales place when happiness and freedom are combined.
Hence, life becomes pure and we become inhabitants of paradise.
I have met countless people who look to distract or destroy the owners of the world around them.
And yes, I have met the villains of paradise.
They’re alive and well and sneaking behind you with a smile and a blade that cuts deep.
I have seen people with bigger bank accounts and high-priced homes, who live in high-priced neighborhoods and who drive around in their luxury cars and wear luxurious suits and clothing that cost more than a year’s pay for some people. I have seen people who live the lifestyle of envy and drape this around to anyone who notices yet in the end, as true as this is – it is also true that their misery could not be cleansed by the span of their wealth.
I have met miserable millionaires.
I’ve spoke to the pissed-off poor person.
I’ve heard the hollers from the homeless and the helpless
Sure I have.
I’ve seen the jail cells of the convicted and heard them weep.
I’ve seen the drunk tanks and the holding cells and heard the barred doors roll shut.
One could say that I have been no different from all the above
I could say that I know what it’s like to live in a big house or to have a big backyard or to be driven in a limousine and still – in my heart, I had nothing.
I know what it’s like to open my fridge and see it empty or to worry about the gas in my car and sift through change to find enough quarters to buy a few gallons of gas.
I can say that I had a previous life. I can say that I lost so much of myself to an idea and to a belief that material wealth is more valuable than emotional wealth – in which case, I was wrong because wealth does not protect a person from being absolutely poor. Perhaps I have always been poor or maybe my concepts were.
Maybe I never realized the value of my own true worth; therefore, I never saw things like the simple beauty of life around me and enjoyed them for what they were worth.
There has to be something more than this.
There has to be something more than an address to where I live or the car that I drive.
There has to be something more than a year-end number AKA: our yearly earnings which tallies up and makes the tax-man smile.
There has to be more than buying power or the weight of a person’s wallet.
Blessed are the meek because they are the ones who understand the meaning of the word “serendipity.”
Serendipity –
as in understanding the unexpected and fortunate discovery of something as simple as a four-leaf clover in a field of camouflaged grass.
This isn’t luck- no, this is one’s ability to see beyond sight and have the intuition to understand how small things can be so absolutely huge.
I go back to when we were kids: our toys were less technical. We had less. We went outside more. We played pretend more and we acted, we played games, we used our imagination – we had tea parties or we played house (or some of us played doctor – wink, wink) and we allowed ourselves to enjoy the journey of wonder . . .
We allowed ourselves the ability to imagine or dream about wonderful and simple things.
I am thinking about the simpleness of youth. I am thinking about the times before money and status took priority.
I am thinking about the little gifts that Grandma would give, like a dollar, right?
I used to get those gifts too. How wonderful they were, how kind and how loving and generous because these were true gifts from the heart.
So?
I am sorry America.
We seemed to have lost our way.
We seemed to have forgotten the roots of our decency. Instead, we traded this for technology and the different components that think for us or take our imagination away.
I am sorry that we have allowed ourselves to go soft and thicken our pride as if, somehow, we deserve more for doing less.
I want to be meek.
I want to be better.
I want to scale down and remove myself from the hinges of envy and pride. Sure, I still want to have nice things.
Of course, I do. But I want my definition of this to change as well.
I want to see purely instead of having a vision that’s been tainted with greed.
I want to earn a simple feel for this world.
I want to step away from the old concepts of mine and learn to create a better sense of wealth and values.
I don’t want to ever be so proud that I look down on others or so weak that I look up with envy.
I want to rid myself from the word pity on either side of the spectrum.
I am like Sebastian –
Do you know him?
Sebastian is a character from The Never-ending Story.
I want to keep my feet on the ground and at the same time, I want to be free to do what I dream.
I want to believe that my dream has enough value to save my own life (and yours) so that at last – we can be free
(together).
I might not live in the world of Fantasia and I might not have “luck dragon” or the powers of a princess behind me.
But, I do have dreams. As old as I am, deep inside of me, I still have the heart of a boy who wants to live or dream or play pretend and use my imagination to envision my hopes to the best of my ability.
If you never saw the movie, “The Never-ending Story,” well, you might miss out on all of this – but, in the case that you know what I’m talking about (or not) let me explain this as simple as I can – it is good to remember who we are. We have to know who we are at our core, as in, this is our true self; as in, this is the person inside who laughs and smiles at the sight of lightning bugs at the start of summer or when the fireworks go off on the Fourth of July. You look up with amazement, as our hearts will never get old.
Whether I am old or aging is irrelevant to me – and no, I’m not asking for my youth back.
Not at all.
I’m asking for my happiness back. I’m asking to learn that when it comes to wealth or status, or the superficial worth of materialistic things, no one can serve two masters.
I get that now –
And me, I’ve served the wrong ones for long enough.
So here I am, world.
Humble. Small.
Living and learning.
Ever find a little toy from your youth?
You look at it with a million different memories and it’s enough to make you smile.
It’s enough to make you wonder why we lost hold of such simple and beautiful things.
I was never able to solve a rubix cube . . .
But, I remember this making me think and building my imagination while occupying my time for hours.
No bells. No whistles.
No batteries needed.
The same thing with jigsaw puzzles or building blocks.
I used to color too.
I liked to color . . .
Did you?
I had a whole box of crayons too, which my brother tricked me into eating some – but I digress.
Either way, there was a time when life was simple.
I don’t want my youth back. I’ve earned too much since then.
I want my simplicity back – so this way,
the rest of my life will be happy
(And easy).
The Written Addiction 