Why Are You Pointing Out My Flaws on Your License Plate?
Those were my thoughts when I read this van's plate. Well, that and the very dismissive bitch assumption that I thought about any person who would drive a vehicle with a plate like that.
Yep, much younger me was a gem... a peach... with a potty mouth.
But... I digress.
Back to the story...
I first saw the words, "YRUPOOR" on a van in a parking lot in the Target / Pavillions parking lot in Huntington Beach, Ca in.... about 2000 or 2001. I saw the plate on my way into the store and the van, still there when I came out, seemed to smirk at me.
Why are YOU POOR?
It taunted me.
Finally, after about 10 minutes of ranting in my own car, I finally cut the engine and began to write. It may be simple and may seem silly, but I think about that letter a lot. I wrote angrily into this little notebook, filling the front and backs of 10 pages. I then ended with my name and phone number. I wasn't hiding. She wouldn't call, I knew she wouldn't.
I got home about an hour later...
My phone was ringing.
How coincidental.
I got into the kitchen just in time to hear a relatively nice woman's voice telling me how I was obviously upset about her van plate and she thought that perhaps I had misunderstood. She was cheery and polite and left her number for me to call back and in a sickly sweet, but somehow honest sounding, country voice.
My stomach sunk. I was a kid caught, a child playing an adult game. I had jumped too fast, I had made assumptions and I could tell by her assuredness that she knew why I was wrong before we ever talked.
I learned a lot from that whole incident and it is a lesson that I keep with me today.
The lesson I was supposed to learn wasn't about how I should listen to my elders. It wasn't how I should look before I leap. It wasn't that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.
It was....
No No NO
That's not right.
The lesson was...
*Not everyone is an asshole."
What Is Your Purpose?
Do you feel the life, slipping away in this very moment? Do you understand the powerful and limitless possibilities that exist in the world are slipping away every second and every day.
Well, whether you do or not, it doesn't matter. Life may be infinite, but it is not finite to one being. There is a limit to what we can all do, in the allotted time that we are given.
Every conscious second that you spend in this world, your vessel here on Earth is fading. From the moment we are born, we are beginning to die. For this reason, it almost seems silly to try to improve our status and yet as people, this is what we do as if instinctively.
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As we play the victim, as we try to make it in this word through any means necessary, and even as we aim for mediocrity in attempts to just get by without attaining too much notice, we all make a choice to develop certain parts of the self and to cast away others.
Resistance
The path of least resistance is usually the one that most will take. The easy way. Usually, this path isn't the one of greatest success. Rather, the easiest path is the one that provides the least amount of challenges. This means that it is instead of focusing on being the best or contributing the most, getting the most out of, etc... this means people will instead focus on the shortest or easiest task to get them whatever they want.
Do the Life Thing!
One of the simplest ways to take the easy way out, without straight up killing yourself is to find active involvement opportunities that you enjoy. If depression has taken hold, then that might not be the easiest thing to do. I don't say any of this glib or even to be insensitive, but deciding to live is a choice. Those that choose not to live waste away but not without a cost. These are the sorts that become toxic. There are a lot of people out there, who allow their depression to grow and twist until you have a burgeoning cesspool of an aura.... that is so not good. So again, aside from quitting and moving beyond the much slower death of wasting away in mental illness... you may not like it but the only other option is to do things differently.
It is my personal belief that many people AHEM! NO ALL use mental illness as an excuse to be sick. They say that because they have depression or because they are bipolar, that they are unable to live a happy or even comfortable life. I give credence to certain limitations, but a limitation, even at the worst of it is by any other name, simply a limitation.
There are plenty of people that figure out bouncing back and it isn't as hard as you think. In my experience, it requires a little bit of repetition and the act of just doing something that your brain is probably not going to want to partake in.
Why is it EASY to be Uncomfortable?
The truth of the matter is, none of us like being not ourselves. While some like pain and have a deviant taste for anguish or other unpleasant emotions, most people work within the realms of their own pain tolerances. It is almost like humans create a tolerance to pain, ignoring the truth of the limitation and try to live with it. They then wallow, either intentionally or unintentionally. This is where the undesirables ultimately come from. Sometimes the person who wades in the shitty emotion will rot on their own. Often, they will spread this disease of depression, rage or whatever negative that they carry with them and then they become the seed for the mental mutiny that spreads.
The walls, they come tumbling down.
How do we prefer to sit in this rather than wading in more secure emotions?
My theory is that the discomfort felt emotionally is one that we acquire strength for. We are used to the voice that tells us in some recognizable voice in our head that we aren't good enough, that we will always be alone, that we are broken or whatever else callous commentary exists in our heads... we know this dialogue (or diatribe, in some cases). Beating this inner dialogue takes a lot more than just distraction. It means changing the way we react and interact with ourselves on a regular basis.
What is harder than feeling pain? Change? Of course, I mean... what if the change doesn't make anything better? What if we don't know where we are headed or don't want to be responsible for all the big scary consequences of the future.
Thankfully, there are a few things that you can do to ensure a little success.
Help You, Help You
We look outward a lot. I mean, a lot of us do anyway. We look towards idols, parents, role models, clergy, mentors, teachers and a host of others to show us how to fix our problems or how to act. Then, there are the self-help professionals, the religious gurus and the spiritual "know it alls" of the world that will claim to have the secret.
There is NO SECRET
There isn't a real easy way out of depression. There are sometimes happy circumstances that help you to mask depression. There are those times when your funk fades and you feel as though a cloud has lifted. Many people, when this happens, they simply wipe their hands and move on with their lives.
What if we make the same mistakes over and over?
If you are asking yourself this, this is a very good question. Once we learn a lesson we have a habit and once we have a habit, we pretty much have a way of doing things. Until this is challenged in our lives and we choose to change things, we are kind of boned. Ultimately, it always comes down to choice. Many people are unwilling or unable to accept that they have the power to change their station in their lives and so they just keep going through the motions...
The ones that are able to recognize this are the ones that rise up and beyond.
But... how????
This is always the big question. The HOW of it all. It is obviously more than simply wishing things were different. If wishes and prayer were enough, we would all likely be living very different lives. No, it requires more. It requires more than faith and dreams, it demands your blood and focus. Your will and your intent represent the elements of fire and air, astrologically, but like any mundane elemental correspondence, these two elements can be the best and the worst for a situation. For those that use their intent to spur their will, the breath of gentle air to stoke the fire, they will see happy benefits. Some may not make a lot of progress, but then suddenly, often unexpectedly explode, much like a backdraft. It may be a bit messy but it won't be easy by any means!
Finding a Balance
The quickest key to life, making it work and not hurt so much is finding a balance. If you look at religion, fraternal magickal traditions and even psychology, there is a trend that balance is the key. Harmonizing your soul, finding your zen, or otherwise chilling the fuck out is easy enough if you can identify what you're missing and then bring that into your life. At least by introducing something new, you are doing something different and that in itself can often lead to positive changes
Seek out some of the following avenues, focusing on the areas that you feel are lacking.
With that being said, take some time to first think and meditate on what you are midding in your life. Focus on the areas that you feel a lack and then consider the easiest way to fill the gap. If you're feeling lonely, jumping into a relaitonship isn't the only way to fix the blues. New interests, friends and changing things up in other areas of your life may be enough.
I have plenty more to say on the subject... which I will in Part 2 -
Stay Tuned!
This is the first series that I have done. I don't know, I hate breaking up content, bt there is quite a large amount of information to cover. I didn't think about it at first but as I kept on the rant direction, I cme to realize the problem is that I can't jut make one thing the issue. For example, I can't say that technology is the problem when I also now that tech is what makes my own likfe simpler. I am able to work from home, cotact my boyfriend before a panic attack begins and the cutest kids in the world that are a strep from becoming Johnny Mnemonic in their own right. How else, but technology, will I be able to talk to them as I grow older and slip into dementia and they become cell phone dependent? There is a limited amount of time and I digress.
So yes....
Stay Tuned for Part 2
In the mean time, feel free to share your own experiences, discussing your own challenges and linking them to the elemental energies. Right now is a good time to break down the issues in your life to the bare minimum and this will allow you to start on the more simple solutons. Fro there, you can more easily move forqward and hopefully you can cure your own sad sac status in no time!!!!