See You Around The Bend

     Hey, everyone!! I figured I might as well take some time off and just write about what it means to live in today's world. Have you ever thought of how people must have lived, say, around the 18th or even the early 19th century? Well, let's just take it all in perspective. For sure technology isn't as it is today and the leaps and bounds we experience in medicine that we often take for granted wasn't available to people then so we can pretty much expect their life expectancy to be much lower without the advent of antibiotics. People back then didn't really have the creature comforts we have at home like heating and pretty much have to do with spartan accommodations. Travelling meant either via horseback or carriage. You pretty much get the picture, right?

     Well, fast-forward to today. Have you ever wondered what sort of pressure we have to constantly cope with just to keep up with the times? If you aren't proficient in almost anything it's hard to keep abreast with the goings on with today's fast-paced living. I guess the most  obvious question I would like to pose is this," Is technology imprisoning us?". Are we so dependent on it that we simply can't live without it? Imagine losing your cellphone for a week and the stress you have to put up with trying to update contacts and replying to messages. Is life really easier this way? Well, let's step back for a minute and try to see the whole dilemma on a more natural light. Technology is in and of itself a tool. A tool we devise and utilize to make our lives easier, to say the least. Yet, as we progress and as the world's population continues to grow we find ourselves facing more diseases, more wars, more epidemics than before. Yet we tiptoe on the belief that there is always a cure, somewhere, around the bend. Are we really finding more solutions to problems we ourselves incur? 

     There is no real answer to the question when the question itself seems rather inadequately asked. Life is full of mysteries but certain things in life are immovable. These truths do not change regardless what timeline you wish to live in or what type of lifestyle you aspire of living. Don't be caught up so much with the world around you because there is so much more out there. So much more for you to see, to feel, to experience. There are parts of the world where television, the internet, or even cellphones are non-existant but people still live in harmony with nature. A place where people listen to what nature tells them, where they still tell time by the seasons and not by the hours of a day. They are more intact, more real in their relationships with one another, and there is a rather discreet genuine aura around them. When we picture a society like this we immediately associate it with tribal groups of people or people closed off to the world outside. 

     In my travels I have met some of these people and my first assumption  of our encounter was they would see me in awe. A man with a camera and a medicine bag, with stethoscope in vest, must seem rather strange to a group of people who still pound tree barks or dry deerskin for clothing. I assumed wrongly. Yes, they were curious and no they weren't awed by our presence. They simply asked a lot of questions and although, try as I might, answer their questions to the best of my abilities and somewhat limited understanding of what they actually understand about 21st century living, I probably induced more confusion than clarity. It was until my interpreter told me that they couldn't quite grasp why we have lost our connection to mother nature, why we need to drink medicine in the form of tablets or capsules when the leaf of the plant I was sitting next to can do a better job curing my indigestion. Where have we gone wrong? Why don't we harness knowledge like this? 

     Sometimes I think it is we who are primitive because we simply can't live in a world without technology. If we were thrown back to the byzantine age we probably still don't know how to start cook fire with primitive tools. Heck, we can be thrown back to the 15th or 16th century and we still couldn't do it. We have lost a lot of skills and knowledge when we became slaves to technology. Most importantly, we are beginning to lose ourselves. We feel less connected with the world and one another, less accessible, and less available. We simply run out of time to connect with the people we love and the world in general. The internet has made it easier for us, albeit less genuine. We need to feel more, hug more, pat each other on the back more, shake each others hands more. A connection more real and tangible than emails or even social media can provide.

     So when I see you around the bend in this road called Life, I'll make sure to ask you how your'e doing, if your travels have been light, and if the road you are planning to take ahead is easy. You are never alone. We are also fellow travelers, and it makes no sense travelling alone when we can share a good story or two along the way. Until our next post, folks. Take Care. 

Reinventing Yourself: Attaining Inner Calm

Imagine for a moment that you are staring at a painting from up close. If it were a landscape rendition you would probably see minute details such as blades of grass or boughs of trees precariously hiding a nest or two. You see how each detail plays a part in portrait. However, if you take a few steps back and look at the whole painting in perspective you'll see that you can no longer appreciate the minor details as you would have before, but, rather, have a keener sense of understanding how each contributes to the whole portrait or theme portrayed by the painting. Now, imagine if it was YOUR life portrayed in that painting and it was you who was looking at it from at close and from afar. Do you see the difference? Can you honestly say that there is harmony and fluidity in it?

They say everything is a matter of perspective. How you perceive, process,and react to certain aspects or events in your life ultimately defines who you are, essentially. I think that's not true. Yes, everything can be seen from a perspective or any perspective, for that matter,  but the true power lies in our ability to choose. It is the power of CHOICE which defines us. It is the one true thing which ultimately dictates our actions.  More importantly, our choices are the road maps which gives our life direction.

Amid the hubbub of daily living there arises a need, eventually in all of us, to be able to stop for a minute, take a deep breath, assess or reassess our bearings, and forge ahead. It is during these times when you need to find your inner calm, your quiet moment of peace. It is when we hurry through life that everything seems a blur, leaving us questioning, if not wondering, at times, if we could have done better. Well, as all eventualities, the outcome is a result of two things, really; what we set out to do and what we actually do. The choices we make defines the paths we take in life.

The key ingredient to make wise, informative,and better decision making lies in one's ability to remain calm. To be able to assess any situation from the placid to the gravid or to even the lucid depends entirely on a firm composure and an open mind. Inner calm or inner peace, if you want to call it that, can only be attained if we realize this truth: how we see and interpret events in our lives dictate our reaction(s) to them. What I mean by this is we don't necessarily need to be controlled by life's problems or challenges, we can take control by dealing with them directly, neglecting them altogether, or choosing to deal with them at a later time. In other words, we need to be in control of life's stressors. Mind you, many things in life stresses us and they can run the gamut of from the most mundane and heedless worries to the most life-threatening situations and anything imaginable in between. One thing remains the same regardless of what faces you, you need to convert whatever input you gather from the situation into a decisive plan of action.

The question remains, then, and as with my other posts, the how-to's are the gist of it all, is how do we attain inner calm? First and foremost on this short but rather How-To list is learning how to relax. Well, ok, let's make a quick rundown and cover the finer points in detail later.

How To Achieve Inner Calm

1. Relaxation is Key

2. Open Mindedness

3. Eliminate Stress and Stressors

4. Proximity and Relativity

5. Be Like Water

Lean to relax. Relaxation is not just sitting around sippin' your favorite concoction, no, far from that. Relaxation must entail not just physical rest but emotional, spiritual, and mental, as well. In other words, you have to view relaxation in a whole different light, from a holistic approach. Deep breathing exercises in slow but constant rhythm allows your cardiac rate to slow down and be regulated. The role of relaxation in achieving inner calm is that it prepares you for the next subsequent phases.

Open your mind to any and all possibility. Lose your standards. Know that in this vast world full of rich and vibrant life and cultures, you are essentially naive and ignorant to anything beyond your zones of familiarity. With an open mind acceptance becomes easy and second nature. It is when we accept that we essentially say we are committed to THAT particular truth. Having an open mind allows us to view options and choices not in the context of preference but in their value in finding solutions to a problem or situation.

Eliminate stress and stressors in your life. I have covered this point repeatedly in my previous posts and stated clearly how stress is unhealthy and may even cause disease. Know, however, that anticipation is, in and of itself, a stressor as well. When we know something bad is going to happen and know that it will happen and we wait for it to happen, well, we are causing ourselves undue stress. 

Proximity and Relativity has something to do with the way you perceive events and situations in your everyday life and how you assign value to them. Are they in your priority lists or are they not? When you assign a level of importance or value to something it causes you a lot of pain and discomfort when you are in discord with it or if when you have no control over it or even if you lose it. Let's take for instance a mundane everyday happenstance such as leaving at 6:30 in the morning in order to get to work by 7:30. Imagine the stress you will be experiencing if you had to leave, say, 7:05? This example cites a common problem we encounter daily: our relationship with time. 

Lastly, go thru life like water. Overcome your obstacles not by knocking them down, but going over them, going around them,wearing them down with the power of your will and your resolve. You have in you infinite strength you just don't realize or maybe even accept it. Flow in your everyday life. Don't flow like a raging pipeline in Hawaii but rater, like a quiet mid-autumn spring, slow but with constancy and clarity. Know that whatever comes your way, you are prepared for it, and you will overcome, just as you have in the past, and just as you will, again and again and again. You will realize that your only real true enemy in the end is yourself, for your lack of faith, trust, and belief in yourself. Flow like water. Gently and surely. Until our next post, folks. Take care and love one another.