It's okay, you're not the only one...

I just received an email from a very close friend who moved to the other side of the world a couple years ago to follow her dreams.  She has.  But it's not enough.  It got me thinking (and writing) about how just about everyone I know is struggling right now.  I don't mean to say that people's lives are falling apart, in fact most "strugglers" I know seem to be doing okay "on paper".  They seem content and in most ways, they are FINE.  But fine just isn't enough when your soul is knocking on your brain and saying, "Hello, it's me, your higher self.  You're here for a purpose.  A big one.  And it's a big undertaking.  You won't fail, but you will have to change a lot of things - let's get going."

Sound familiar?

That's all well and good if you know what that purpose is (or at least think you know - or have an idea) and it's easy enough to live with if what you need to change doesn't cause you too much pain, or financial burden... but I don't think that's the case for many of us.  Maybe most of us.  I think we are all releasing something huge... and in some cases, we are releasing everything.

At first I thought it was mainly happening to my "generation" (let's call that Generation X - fancy label isn't it?) - but even that isn't right.  My mom is changing in ways I never imagined.  Others her age are turning over MASSIVE stones in their own lives.  At first, I thought my former students (who are now 18-24-ish)  didn't face as many of these challenges - I thought they had a different perspective because of their innate open-mindedness - they grew up living and breathing a kind of openness that has existed in their world view because they were born into a world that is connected via the webosphere.  They ARE the children of the global village.  But that assumption wasn't right either.  Many of them find the norms of society to be boring, redundant, pointless and un-engaging.  And they're right. How can we lose them before they've even really begun the "grown-up" journey?

Actually, I don't think we are losing them, I think they are leading us on this journey into Change.   For their generation, it's a default setting.  For us Gen Xers, it's a kind of refusal to conform.  For the once-radical baby boomers it's an overdue rebellion (they who got distracted raising us Gen Xers).  For all of us humans though, it is a very personal and very difficult set of questions, doubts, worries, self-examinations and, in the end, a battle that can only be fought and won with love and honesty.  Love and honesty with Ourselves.  Talk about a tough audience.

I wish I had answers for my girlfriend but I feel as though my only advice to her is to stick with it.  I'll stick with it too. (Mine is no less open-ended, unsettled, raw and inside out than anyone elses.)  Not only will I stick with my own uncertainty, pain, loss and confusion, I will do it right beside her (thank God for the internet).  And apparently I'll do it out in the open for the rest of the world to witness if they care to.  I suppose a big part of the self-honesty in this is admitting that we are not alone in the uncertainties - and then reaching out to ask someone to stand by us while we go through it.

This great collective of individual struggles is part of a greater human struggle to find what is right for all of us.  Collectively.  The Collective Human Population.  After all, we are all the same, aren't we?

What are you waiting for?

What about us?

This is so well done.  

What are we doing to our world?  

When will we stop?

Keep praying, keep praying....

None of it has gone away.  None of it has gotten better.  None of us are immune.

Japan, Haiti, Gaddafi, Eman Al-Obeidy, Lebanon, war, famine, fear, pain and inequity - it is all over the world.  It's all still happening.  As you struggle with your own pain, fear and disappointments, remember at least for this moment that there are millions and millions of us living in horror and desperation.

Please don't forget.  But please don't dwell in the sadness.  There is power in our emotions.  Our job, if we have the strength (and every single one of us should have at least that), is to send love and hope and prayer to all who suffer in the world and to do what we can to end suffering in any way possible.  Whatever it may be.  Wherever it may be.  We are all one and we grow closer every day.  We are closer to the Japanese than we were one month ago when the earthquake hit, even if we have forgotten amidst the busyness of our daily lives.

Keep praying.  Keep giving.  Keep loving.

(Part 1) War is never the answer... Peace is.

I believe that there are some universal truths.  Among those, one is very strong and very universal:  Like Attracts Like.  I have learned over and over in my own life that this is true.  What I know...

• Miserable people don't attract happy people (for obvious reasons) - and happy people don't allow miserable people to affect them.  But happy people do attract other happy people and misery loves company.
• "Do unto others as you would have done unto you"  There's a simple biblical take on Like Attracts Like.  Want to be treated with love, respect, kindness?  Then treat others the same way.
• If you think about or worry about something, it is very likely that it will come to pass. 
• Doing things the same way will always garner the same results.  So many people fail to realize this and they continue to hope for change but their behavior never changes.  They do this over and over and suffer mounting disappointment.  To change your outcome, you must also change your actions.
• "Fake it till you make it" works.  Want to feel better?  Happier?  More confident?  Act like you already are and your body/mind/cells will follow.
• Smile and people will find you to be more approachable, bringing more smiles to you in return.  Smile Attracts Smile.
• Fear getting sick and you will get sick.  

This is certainly enough of a list to get my point across.  But the real reason for this list and this post is to ask why, why, WHY can't we learn as a human race that WAR does not create PEACE?  

War Attracts War.  

War attracts hatred, fear, anger, defensiveness, retaliation, wrong action. 

Peace Attracts Peace.  

Peace is made of and creates more love, compassion, hope, understanding, openness.

War is never the answer.  

Peace always is.

The question, then, must be HOW do we create peace in the world?    I know how I work to create peace, how do you create peace in your world?   It is those same ways that will create peace between nations, between peoples and across the entire world.  But we must start now.  Wars have been fought since one man realized that he could fight for something he wanted rather than finding a way of obtaining something through love and cooperation with another human being.  If, for thousands of years, war has never "worked" (as evidenced by the massive amounts of war and hatred that still exist in the world today) then perhaps it is finally time to try a new approach that is not based in war.  Inciting more fear and hatred will only waste time, resources, energy and worst of all, human lives.

...It is not coincidental that I just heard a newscaster say the words "not a significant number of lives have been lost" since the bombing began in Lybia.  I'm afraid I've never met a living soul whose life wasn't significant.  Mine is.  Yours is.  We are all significant.

PEACE.  It's a UNIVERSAL song:

Sixteen thousand six hundred lost souls...

Over sixteen thousand individual human beings have perished in Japan since the disaster struck almost exactly one week ago as I write this.  These are lives that have ended violently and unexpectedly.  People like you and me with hopes, dreams, fears, lovers, crushes, pets, jobs, siblings, hobbies, favorite colors, memories, good days and bad days... dead.

...The "Fukushima Fifty".  A group of anonymous engineers on a suicide mission into the radiation to try and slay a monster that can't be seen, nor, seemingly slayed.

...Lybia.  No-fly zones.  Lybians asking for help from the US and even offering to pay for it.  Surface-to-air missiles.  Rebels attacked. Genocide.

There were so many reasons for me to be happy today but I struggled to be my typically cheerful self.  It's St. Patrick's Day today but the collective jubilation of the day seemed to be muted in a subtle way.  I shopped for a dress to wear to a friend's wedding and I found myself irritated by my own vanity in the dressing room.  How can this be important when I live on the same planet with so many people who are suffering right now, on a daily, hourly basis?

Surprising, unsettling, shocking things are happening all over the world.  Natural disasters, man-made disasters, war, famine, disease, depleting resources, abuse, slavery, power struggles, fights for freedom, and humanity's greatest and most realistic fear: nuclear destruction.  It's everywhere.  Even if you turn off your television or choose to ignore it, it's still there.  And we are getting to a point in our collective human story where we are all affected and none of us can ignore the problems any more.  We can distract ourselves, we can drown our sorrows for a night but when a new day dawns, it's all still there.

I wish I had more answers but I only have one.  I hope you trust me on what I do know and I hope you join with me in opening to it as well, especially if you feel as helpless as so many of us do.  We must give love.  It takes nothing from you yet it gives so much.  We all determine what it means to give our love.  None of us are immune to what is happening.  Just as Siddhartha longed to know what existed beyond the walls of his kingdom and then ventured out to learn the ugly realities of life, we will all one day either seek to know the truth or the truth will come find us.  Let us be like the Buddha and seek the kind of enlightenment within ourselves that will, in turn, serve to bring more love to the world.  Because...

Sixteen thousand six hundred people just like you and me had no idea that their lives would end one week ago.

The families of sixteen thousand six hundred people had no idea that they would lose loved ones.

The community of sixteen thousand six hundred citizens had no way of knowing that it would be turned to rubble.

The nation of Japan had no idea that it would be ground zero for the greatest natural disaster in written history and the unwitting host, now, to a man-made nuclear disaster with no foreseeable conclusion.

As far and as wide as we will look for answers, there will be many experts with many answers and no answers just the same.  The one answer that does exist for all of us lies in the hearts of Six billion seven hundred million people.  And it is this:  The choice we make to love and take care of one another for as long as we are on this earth.  It is the one answer we will always have and we can always employ.  It is universal to every situation in every corner of our world.  Love exists in an endless supply.  As long as ONE of us chooses to do Good for another person, then I believe humanity is on the right path.

...The path to love.