As you Grow, You Become a More Beautiful Expression of Life
We use the phrase “you are perfect just as you are” as a way to express appreciation for others. But it is wrong to think we are perfect. Perfection is an illusion, it has no definition, it is not an image fixed in time. The fact is we are always changing and evolving. Telling someone they are perfect just as they are belittles the self-reflection they need to continue seeking their most authentic self.
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Is Having a Love Partner Necessary to Live a Successful and Meaningful Life?
There was a time when propagating our species was the highest priority. To do so, one needed a mate to create families, which made having a love partner very important. That may not be the case today, for we can all see we have bred humans to beat the band. Although some would argue this, I believe our human species today must adopt a new priority; that of self-actualization. This has been coming since enlightened humans (Christ, Buddha, Muhammed, to name a few) opened our minds to life’s spiritual realm and changed the world as much as science and technology.
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Make Pleasing Yourself Your Highest Priority
In his book, An Audience of One: Reclaiming Creativity for Its Own Sake, Srinivas Rao states,“Work for an audience of one. When the only person you are trying to please is yourself, judgements vanish, and in that process we become more present.”
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You Are Everything You Think You Are
We misunderstand the power of the mind to create our reality. This is apparent from the way people use affirmations as though they were wishes someone out there can fulfill. I think the use of affirmations is important, but I don’t trust repeating them daily can get you a million dollars or a date with Halle Berry. Mind you, believing you can get these things is better than not, but I don’t think just wishing for them provides any guarantee.
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You Are Always on the Verge of Your Greatest Days
There is a myriad of sayings about age that are frequently used in American culture. Their seeming purpose is to make us feel better about growing older. Here is a small sampling;
“You are only as old as you feel.”
“Age is just a number.”
“Wrinkles are traces of where our smiles have been.”
“Old age is a lot better than the alternative.”
“He/she is —– years young.”
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Some Basic Dating Advice for People Over Fifty
A few days ago, a friend and I were reminiscing about our lives when our conversation turned to our dating adventures. After some heartfelt belly laughs, we both delineated the many mistakes we have made in search for a romantic partner. I wanted to share them with you. Although I present my perspective from the male point of view, I think this advice is good for women, at least it will help shed some light on the pressures we all face.
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We Can Find Contentment in the Way We Manage Adversity
A news show I was listening to proposed the idea that the nation needs a particular candidate as president because he knows loss and pain. Perhaps I misunderstood what they meant, but I don’t think this is correct. By all means, we need leaders who struggled in life and have suffered, but that is not enough. While we all suffer different degrees of stress and anxiety in life, we don’t need a consoler-in chief; we need someone who can help bring us together. This cannot be achieved by someone reminding us of what pain and suffering is like, leaders who envision what the triumph over suffering will be like for all of us are the ones who can unite us.
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Although it May Seem Like It, the World is not Really Coming to an End
Another mass shooting, missile launched, high profile controversy, along with all the assorted bad news we hear so often and it is easy to believe we are spiraling the world into oblivion. As an immigrant child who was separated from my parents by Castro”s Revolution when I was ten, news about raids on immigrants, the crisis in the southern border and the separation of children from their families leave me feeling depressed. My heart aches every time I see pictures and videos of the empty and sad faces of children in American internment camps. This experience of family separation that saw me start life over in an orphanage in a country where I didn’t know the language is by far the greatest trauma I have ever survived.
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You Don’t Have Any More Birthdays to Waste
A few weeks have gone by since two of my greatest childhood idols, John Havlicek and Bart Starr, passed away. I mourn their losses and thank them both for the thrills they brought into my life. Who can ever forget Bart Starr leading his Green Bay Packers to victory against Dallas in the “Ice Bowl”, one of the greatest football games of all times? John Havlicek won eight NBA championships during his sixteen-year career with the Boston Celtics.
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Six Perplexing Things You Must Learn to Understand about life
My parents were batshit crazy. It wasn’t so much that they had faults, every human has them, it was that their marital union blended their failings into a cocktail of emotional and psychological poison. As you read this article, make no mistake, I am grateful for them and how they helped shape the person I am today, but it was no picnic.
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