Life, living and the meaning of it all…

I don’t know what you believe, but I tend to believe you only get one shot at life. What’s beyond our lives here on earth has been debated and fought over for centuries. No one really knows. With so many religions all over the world and so many of them willing to fight and eliminate those who don’t believe the same way they believe, how can any of them possibly be right? If you’re looking at the big picture, a global picture, how do you take any of it seriously?

We hope there’s more to all this in the end; some profess there is and they make a living at it on television and in the churches, some truly believe in it and allow their beliefs to guide and to some degree take over their lives, and then there are some simply deny it or don‘t believe in religion at all. I guess I’m stuck out in left field somewhere; one of those who for now simply hopes that there’s more to all this.

There's only been one instance where I’ve felt certain about the after life and it was something I can't explain. It wasn't long after my mother in law passed away from cancer. My wife wasn’t home at the time. It was morning and I was laying face down on the bed, arms around my pillow which is the way I like to sleep.  I was awake and I felt the corner of the bed by my feet sag as if someone sat down. What’s odd is I tried to move to look around and see who was there, but I couldn’t.

I tried moving my head to see and I tried turning over and getting up, but I was for lack of a better word, paralyzed. I could lift my head up off the bed, but I couldn’t turn it. I sensed that it was my wife’s mother sitting at the edge of the bed. There were no voices and nothing other than the feeling of the bed sagging as if someone sat down and the feeling of another person sitting there with me.

I can’t prove any of this and I have explanation as to how or why it happened. All I know is that everything inside of me tells me that it was my mother in law and she came to pay me a visit. What does it mean? I have no idea.

The only thing I can think of is the night she passed away in the hospital, I stepped into the room to say goodbye to her and I remember looking her in the eye and promising her that I’d take care of her daughter. Maybe she came to check on me, maybe she came to say thank you, maybe it was more like ‘Hey, I’m watching you’, I don’t know... but I do know that I’m confident it happened and I didn’t dream it.
That’s one thing that makes me think there might be something more to all this life after death stuff. For the time being however, I really enjoy life and living, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Around the age of 30 I think I started to become a little more self aware and I started trying to live by the golden rule, which meant treating those around me the way I’d like to be treated. Sometimes its easier said than done, but if there’s any guiding principle in life, I believe that’s probably a good one.

An acquaintance told me once that I was going to hell because I hadn’t pledged my life to his church. This person wasn’t exactly the nicest person I’ve ever met. He has actually said some absolutely terrible things to people who didn‘t act or respond they way he wanted them to, so I had to take his theory with a grain of salt. I’ll gamble on my own theory of trying to treat people right. If pledging yourself to a church gets you in heaven, but along the way you can treat people like crap before you get there, then what‘s heaven going to be like?

Maybe I didn’t always know what I believed and maybe I didn’t always appreciate what life was about, but at this point, I know that it is fleeting. I know, to put it simply, that just like a bug on the sidewalk it can be cruelly taken away at anytime.

Not to be dramatic and certainly not to create sympathy, but I’ll share with you that I’ve experienced two near misses with death and made it through both of them. (I’ll write more about them one of these days)  Maybe you're heard when people die they lose all control of their bodily functions and some of them see a bright white light?  Well, it all happened to me, however I can't say it was a white light.  Things didn't go dark, like when you close your eyes to sleep, they went white and I then I went down.  I don't know what all that means, but I think of myself as fortunate not only because I’m still here, but because those experiences changed me. They changed my outlook, mostly for the better, but depending on your perspective, you might also say some for the worse.

When I say worse, I mean I’m more apt to say the hell with it and do or say something that some might view as reckless or too blunt which I may not have said or done before. I’m less likely to keep my feelings and thoughts to myself. That can have it’s good and bad points. I don't think I'm mean or anything like that, I'm just honest.  Some people are so timid or politically correct they have a hard time with it.

My thing is, I believe I only have so much time and I want to make the best of it and not have any regrets. There have been times when I’ve been told I should slow down or rest and my response has been, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. Probably a foolish way to think, but I’m not going to give up ‘living’ just because I’m getting older. Yes, I can be stubborn.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t eliminate every bad habit, every negative thought, every inconsiderate thing you might say or do, but you can make an effort. Like I said, I try.

I believe that no matter how old you are, no matter where you are in life, you should live life the way you want to live it. There’s a balancing act when living your life however. Some fools take this thought to the extreme and hurt people along the way, whether criminally, financially or emotionally as they live their life. They are selfish and take advantage of people; taking and taking and never giving back. Obviously that’s not where I was heading with that thought.

If it’s your dream to travel the world, then do the things you need to do to lead to that outcome. If it’s your dream to build a family in the suburbs then you need to do the things that will lead to that outcome. If your dream is as simple as taking your family to Disneyworld, then do the things that will lead to that outcome. I believe we are in control of our outcomes. Every decision we make has an outcome. Nobody is going to hand it to you and it may not be easy, but in the same respect, the only person that can ever really stop you from achieving something is yourself.

Everyone has a different level of achievement that makes them happy and a different level of what they can be satisfied with in life and some of those achievements involve decisions that are difficult. Some people can’t bring themselves to step over the edge and actually do what they say they‘ve always wanted to do. They don’t take action.

While I haven’t achieved fame or fortune, I’ve achieved a great many of my younger dreams and desires. Along the way there were difficult decisions I made. Not everyone would make the same decisions. I’ve left a very good paying job, I’ve moved away from friends and family (knowing I’m hurting them and myself in the process) and I’ve sold everything I owned in my process of starting over.

Sometimes I feel selfish for some of my decisions. Sometimes I look back and think about what I gave up, but I pursued the life I wanted and for the most part and I‘m happy with life. It probably went against what my parents wanted or thought was best, against what my kids may have wanted and against what friends may have felt was right and to this day I’ll tell you that leaving and pursuing the life I wanted is still the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  I miss my parents and the others I left behind...

Thinking about it now is difficult and it still hurts today, but since I was a child, I grew up saying I wanted to live in a warmer climate; a place where it was summer all year round. I also wanted to travel. I was serious. One day I saw an opportunity and I stepped through that door. That was about 12 years ago. I’ve traveled and experienced a lot since that day and I’ve met a lot of people along the way. There’s more that I want to accomplish; places I want to go, things I’ve yet to experience and people I’ve yet to meet.  I look forward to it all.

Funny, I feel like I’m rambling... Maybe I’m just writing this to try and justify past decisions to myself, or maybe I’ve offered some level of encouragement or insight to those who might have dreams of their own. Or maybe I‘m just being too introspective after listening to music on YouTube? In any event, this is what was on my mind today so thanks for listening. Now go live your life… I’m definitely going to. I’ll be at the beach this weekend and I will fill you in on it next week!!!  :  )