If you can stop one moment to appreciate your life.
If you could slow down and take this moment to look around, you could feel alive.
All you have to do is stop. Stop thinking. Stop doing. Stop working. Stop trying to figure things out and just be.
Being is the apex of human living.
The reality of your core is you are awareness incarnate.
The diversity of our experiences makes the shape of our characters mold over time like The Grand Canyon or an ancient stream.
There are paths that other men build to try to mold men and women into being something they are not. We create expectations of right, wrong, good, bad, and all kinds of religious bullshit. We as humans do this to try and make a more palatable society. We are not able to make space for others for true diversity.
The simple reason for this is conformity removes change and change is pain. Accommodating for others is inconvenient. But by restricting others this we miss the rich, deep beauty of humanity.
We all experience life’s journey… Even the shortest life. Like the saying goes, we are all three dots between the date we are born and the date we die.
The more we become awareness, the more we give into our good desires (there are bad ones), the more we live.
If you have it in you, you can live a thousand lifetimes just by meeting new people. The same goes for reading. Once we appreciate other’s journeys, we can appreciate our own small one.
One man dreams of a simple life, raising his family, loving one wife and enjoying a family meal. The other a life of adventure, never knowing what will come next or who will bring the next adventure. One could live a life of holiness and mediation. Another a life of pain and failure.
Each life deeply desiring to live and grow and each attacked by fear and scarcity. Some succumb to the harsh realities of human frailty and society’s callous nature, and they give up looking for light to bloom in. Others overcome the darkest moments with hope. They dream, they desire, they live and do whatever it takes to be the embodiment of their dream.
The shell that carries us is a part of the journey, each with a weakness and a strength. Our minds and bodies are a part of that shell, no two alike and no two equal. And it is this that we help each other. One’s strength compliments another’s weakness, and together we make more than a whole as we build life together, we make a community. And if you would, that is the benefit of diversity. Together we live a thousand lifetimes.
Nino Olson 