I’ll Meet You There

I love to sit in silence
beneath the shady trees
and listen to the song of birds
and to the buzz of bees.

I love to sit in silence
and watch the Clouds roll by
then read a book or sing a song
and hear the wild bird cry.

I love to sit in silence
when the day is almost done
and see behind the distant hill
the paint glow of the sun.

I love to sit in silence
in the evening twilight
and listen to the whippor-will
singing with all its might

I love to sit in silence
beneath the Starry sky
and pray to all in earnest
to live in silence all the while.

-via Goodreads

I’m The Type Of Person Who Is In Awe Of Pain

Everything I have created in my life, be it drawings or poems, was driven by suffering. Through you, however, was I able to create something driven by love and happiness.

I wrote you nothing but beautiful words.

The tables have turned today. For the first time, I reach out to you with melancholic words—yet I’m not sure if you deserve any more words from me.

I’m not the type of person who blames other people. When it comes to you, I’m only blaming myself.

I lulled myself into thinking you loved me. Doing so gave me a sense of security. I kept coming to you like a dog would come to a treat. But the truth is, you never asked me to come; and maybe this is why I blame myself.

I blame myself because it was crystal clear that we were not going anywhere and yet, I kept myself living in a shell of delusion. I translated your passiveness to humility, your silence to empathy and your reluctance to hope.

I drew a thoroughly different image of you than who you truly are. And yet, the universe was intelligent enough to spin the wheel of events and unveil the reality of your flimsy emotions toward me.

You never understood love, for if you did, you would’ve understood that nothing can keep you away from the person you truly want. No mistakes, no uncertainty and no doubt can keep your soul away from hers. No temptation and no desires can have you kissing lips other than hers.

A man who truly loves is a man who aims to fix, to understand what went wrong and own his part of the problem.

A man who loves is a man who forgives, who helps his partner remove the cloud that’s shadowing the truth.

A man who loves is a man who overcomes his fears and strongest insecurities.

But here I am today, learning more about the type of man you truly are. I am waking from the dream I’ve been in for far too long. You’re not the one who woke me up though—time and situation did.

And it seems you have woken up as well, considering you have disappeared. You were like a storm that knocked me over then vanished into nothingness.

I don’t hate you—I have loved you deeply, to the extent of not allowing any traces of hate to occur in the future.

But I suddenly feel indifference. I feel what I should’ve felt long ago.

As for you, we both know now that you were already indifferent about all of this. There is no need to keep speculating whether you love me or not. You see, love is simple and easy to spot. Love is a moment that transforms into forever. When you fall in love, there are no doubts, no speculations, no over-thinking.

You just know that this is the person you want to wake up next to every morning for the rest of your life.

And so, love defeats all. To love is to tightly hold a rose with all its thorns and allow them to deeply sink in your flesh. But if you’re not in love, you’ll behold that rose and think twice before scratching yourself with the tiniest thorn.

And sadly, you only stared at my rose, but never held it the way I thought you would.

Passive man, I set you free now. I set you free from my love, myself and my being.

Although I thought I wasn’t expecting much of you, the ugly truth is, I was. And thus, I too set myself free from the expectations and delusions that I willingly delved into.

You’re the one who taught me what love is and at the same time taught me what love isn’t.

And now, I can only thank you for the lessons and the memories.

~Relephant

Why Becoming An Interesting Person Is No Longer Interesting To me

“I don’t care that you’ve been around the world, I want to know what you’ve experienced in those places that has shaped you into the beautiful human who you are now.“

“What are you passionate about and how does it show up in what you do?”

I was asked this by someone I met the other day.

I found it to be one of the more interesting questions I’ve been asked recently.

Generally, when I meet people at conferences, events or social gatherings I’m asked one of two questions:

“What do you do?”

“Where are you from?”

These two questions feel forced, canned and certainly not interesting.

So when someone asks me, “What are you passionate about and how does that show up with what you do?” I’m intrigued.

Well, intrigued and slightly stumped.

I knew that I could answer this in a number of ways, so I wasn’t yet sure of what I wanted to say.

I had to really think and feel into what I wanted to share with this human who I had just met.

You see, most introduction questions attempt to put us into a metaphorical box—but her question did the opposite.

I certainly wasn’t thinking, “Is she going to judge or stereotype me based on what I do?”

I was relieved. And her question opened up the conversation into a deeper understanding of how we can create more awesome and meaningful relationships.

This leads to an (interesting) discussion about being interested versus being interesting.

But first, I’m curious: do people generally feel more connected with someone when they’re talking about themselves (no matter how cool their world is or isn’t) or when they’re asking you questions about yourself that they actually want to know the answers to?

For me, it’s the latter. I love when people ask me questions that really get me to think and feel.

Not, “What do you do?” or “Where are you from?” questions, but questions that make stop and really consider the answers.

These questions don’t have to be fancy, but meaningful and connective.

Asking these questions is something I try to do whenever I’m getting to know someone else.

Most of us have been conditioned to believe that in order to become “cool” or interesting, we must be interesting — travel the world, own a business, live an unconventional life or do significant things.

This, however, is not the case.

In fact, the more I make relationships about myself or all the “cool” things that I’ve done, the more off-putting I become to others.

Ever hear someone brag and talk about all the places that they’ve been? Someone who doesn’t share this information with the intention of orienting the listener to another culture, but rather as something that makes the speaker feel significant or better in some way?

I’ve certainly experienced this and have tried to not be “that guy,” at times.

Being interesting is exhausting and it puts a lot of pressure on ourselves to keep up with an image that we think we need to be for people to like us.

Personally, I don’t care that you’ve been around the world. I want to know what you’ve experienced in those places that has shaped you into the beautiful human who you are now.

I don’t care that you’re about to sell one of your businesses for millions of dollars—I’d rather know why you started it to begin with.

I don’t care that you’ve written a NY Times best seller, but I do want to feel what you had to sacrifice to get to that achievement.

I want to know who you are, not where you’re from.

I don’t care what you do, unless you share it in a way that allows me to experience more of who you are.

So, I’ll do my best to not ask you questions that rob you of the opportunity to share how wonderfully human you are.

Will you do the same?

Be interested in an interesting way.

Ask better questions.

Listen—really listen—and watch a world of opportunities open up for you like you never expected.

Not because you wanted them to, but just because you decided to be interested in an interesting way.

~ Relephant

 

Goodreads

The older I get the more I realize the value of privacy of cultivating your circle and only letting certain people in. You can be open, honest, and real while still understanding not everyone deserves a seat at the table of your life.

Today’s Feelings

I feel like people get lost when they think of happiness as a destination. We’re always thinking that someday we’ll be happy. You know, we’ll get that car or that job or that person in our lives that fixes everything. But happiness is a mood and a condition, it’s not a destination. It’s like being tired or hungry, it’s not permanent, it comes and goes, and that’s okay. And I feel like if people thought of it that way, they’d find happiness a lot more often.

– One Tree Hill

Finding The One Later In Life

The Mystery

Having met you later in life,
there are no memories of
young romantic love,
high school roller skating parties,
college weekdays longing for your touch.

No memories of experiencing together
life’s first tastes of freedom
or the innocence of believing that
we had all the time in the world.

I never knew your young body nor you mine;
those days when I looked radiant in the morning.

When life finally brought us together
We stood before each other
In the stark reality of all we had become.
Too mature to hide
Yet secretly wondering
If the other would stay
And if love was worth the trouble
After all this time.

Piece by piece
We removed the layers of life
Shedding off what no longer served us
Until we discovered a place deep inside,
Beyond judgment, expectation,
Or what anyone else thought

Where we found only pure light.

Smiling, we instinctively knew
We had everything we needed
For the rest of the journey.

Now
With you by my side
I can see the light in your eyes
Reminding me
Of who we really are.

Forgiveness has never been so easy
And love so real.

Having met you later in life,
The knowledge that our time here is limited
Grows stronger with each passing moment.

Instead of running,
I pause and breathe.
Hold your gaze.
Feel your energy.
And open my heart to the mystery of life.

Author: Christy Sperrazza

Potatoes, Eggs and Coffee Beans

In life, things happen around us, and things happen to us. The only thing that truly matters is your choice of how you react to it and what you make of it. Learn, adapt and choose to make the best of each experience.

Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee beans in the third pot.

He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter, moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing.

After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup. Turning to her he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?”

“Potatoes, eggs, and coffee,” she hastily replied.

“Look closer,” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

“Father, what does this mean?” she asked.

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity– the boiling water.

However, each one reacted differently.

The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.

The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.

However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.

“Which are you,” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean? “

Moral:In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us.

Which one are you?

~via Facebook

Note To Self

When I get lonely these days, I think, So be lonely. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.

– Elizabeth Gilbert

Why Do People Cheat?

Is cheating bad? No, but I think most people would argue that it’s just plain wrong. But if we get stuck in cheating being “wrong,” we lose the opportunity to understand what drives it.

So, why in God’s name do people cheat? What is their problem? Are they just mean, cruel narcissists?

Nope.

Are they just bad people?

Wrong again.

Cheating is a normal human behavior when a person doesn’t know to do relationships (which is most people).

Cheating is what we, human beings, do when we purchase a fantasy about relationship and then expect it to feel good all the time. When the relationship gets hard, the doorway to “cheat” opens because we are suckers for avoiding pain and seeking pleasure.

Contrary to popular belief, cheating is not for losers, and cheating isn’t done by sociopaths that are out to get us.

Cheating is done by normal people who don’t know how to articulate and express their frustrations with their current relationship and are too scared to be honest about it.

Cheating is a great release for people who are not able to sit in the hot fire of their experience when the relationship gets uncomfortable.

In other words, people who cheat seek relief from pain. Understandable, pretty much everyone is carrying around a certain amount of pain.

Little do cheaters know, that like wack-a-mole, they are exchanging one set of problems for another set.

In other words, you can run from your relationship problems, but you can’t hide.

But what the person who gets cheated on? What’s going on with them?

Victims of cheating are, nine times out of ten, in my experience, people who feel bad about themselves. In other words, cheating happens most often to people who don’t value or respect themselves.

So, what to do to get cheated on? Don’t respect or value yourself.

These same people, instead of being open to this perspective, will deny this truth and claim, “I love myself completely, I don’t know what you are talking about! He/she is just a mean jerk for cheating on me.”

Not so fast folks.

If we point the finger at them, it keeps us in the victim seat. Is that where we want to stay stuck?

If we truly respect who we are, we wouldn’t be paired with a person who cheats on us. We’d have a different set of relationship challenges.

By getting cheated on, we are being asked to value ourselves.

So, if you are a cheater, instead of cheating on someone, face your relationship problems and the part of you that is addicted to the dopamine rush of instant gratification. Or, give yourself permission to be polyamorous for a while and stop pretending that you can do monogamy.

And, for the folks who got cheated on—instead of complaining about being cheated on, see and own your part—that you value yourself only to the degree that they value you. Next, see how you being cheated on is your opportunity to value yourself way more than you do.

~ Elephant Journal

Pink

Try to forget what objects you have before you – a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, ‘Here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow,’ and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives you your own impression of the scene before you.

-Claude Monet

Reflection

I am always fascinated with water and how it reflects its surroundings. Somehow it makes everything more fascinating, more mysterious, more magical…

Sometimes The reflection is better than the real image…

But no matter what it will always be a sight to behold.

 

Pursue

“Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.”

― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

Daily Prompt

Ephemeral

Everything is temporary. Emotions, thoughts, people and scenery. Do not become attached. Just flow with it.