The Essence of Being is Realization
We need to accept our experiences and realize how they all combined to make us who we are today
We are all the sum total of the lifetime of our experiences. Good and bad, positive and negative, our thoughts, our decisions, our actions and inactions have all brought us to this point in time.
When we finally realize the nature of our essence, it is all-encompassing. It is the composite of all the relationships we have forged in life, friendly and romantic, neighborly or aloof, allies or enemies, simple and complex that we shared with others over the years to bring us to this point of “nowness.”
Our essence is the part of our minds that deals with processing and meditating on the complex and difficult results and ramifications of our decisions and choices, reconciling our inner and outer selves, our perception of ourselves, and the way others perceive us.
It is as if everything had coalesced and combined to bring us to this point in time.
All the tinsel and ribbons, all the books and movies, all the dinners and fasting we have done, all the mixing and matching are all part of the recognition of our special and unique personalities.
At this level of awareness, we are all able to freely meditate and see clearly in retrospect the choices we made.
The forks in the road of life, the twisting, turning, meandering pathways through our recognition of the labyrinth that is life.
As we progress through life we realize we all are the sum result of all the choices we made, the chances we took, and the results of those choices.
There is no going back, not ever, not for an hour, a moment, a microsecond.
Time is a locked and bolted door, barring us from ever reentering a dimension we can no longer access. It is irrevocably gone, lost, but never forgotten.
We can look back on it, we can reflect on lessons learned and fears overcome and memories that can guide us, but the past is something we can never recapture.
We can never relive it, never make a different decision, never zig instead of zag on the freeway of life. We can never change our past, it is who we are, and shaped what we have become.
What if we hadn’t decided to have just one more drink, pop one more pill, or snort one more line at the party our parents warned us not to go to in the first place?
What if we had listened to them, acknowledged the wisdom of our elders, and rejected our youthful feelings of superiority, arrogance, and invincibility?
It doesn’t matter, because that was yesterday, and yesterday’s gone.
The future is equally inaccessible.
It is opaque and cordoned off like the velvet ropes around a grand opening of a gala event, one that we can never unlock and enter until we get there, but we never will.
The future is a locked box that has no key, a vision we can only glimpse in dreams or nightmares, feelings and fantasies, hopes and aspirations, goals and objectives.
By the time we arrive, it is already too late.
Because the future morphs into the present and leaves us with only a vague, unsettled sense of incompletion and frustration, of rapidly disappearing chances or lost inspirations.
Of dreams never achieved because they are still in the future.
That really only leaves the present, and it is only in the present that we can realize, finalize, and enjoy the essence of our lives.
It is the only time we have to consolidate our past experiences and achieve our goal of living in the moment.
To find the joy and the passion, the fire and the fury, the drive and the ambition to finally be able to become who and what we desire.
Free will is our constant companion, our moral compass, and we must stay in the present moment to take full advantage of the experiences of the past.
And anticipate the full benefits of that future that is always tantalizingly just out of reach.
To take full advantage of the clarity and vision of the moment and not just waste this precious opportunity for self-awareness.
Savor your essence. Become who you are meant to be. We are all connected…
