Remembering remembrance...

To: Larry White

'The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.'
-Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

Just nine days before my departure I have sat down to contemplate what a year this has been.
I have made plenty of enemies, haha, willing or not.
There has been so much drama, I could write a novel with all of it.
There has been sad moments...

But none of these are worthy to remember. These are placed down on a dark and musty chest, which is closed and sent to the bottom of the sea, its key left to rust on the seashore.

Now friendship, on the other hand, will mark us forever. In doing so, friendship makes each one of us a better person.

Think for just ten seconds of whose name comes to your mind when you hear the word 'friend'.
Now, think again whose name comes to mind when I say 'true friend'.
A true friend is a person we love, even if we love to hate them at times. That person who does not have to say much to mean much, and whose mere gaze strengthens us. What best to arrive at that friend's house and feel you're at home, and welcome.
And how great the feeling that your particular friend has your favorite dish prepared for you.
You know why? Because you are loved.
Let them know how much they mean to you, and how much you love them. You never know, they may need to hear it right at this moment.

Think now, would your name come to people's minds when they think of the word 'friend'? How about 'true friend'? If not, then you're doing something wrong...

Thank you, my dear friend Larry. If someone ever asked me what a true friend is I would just have to introduce them to you.

Lesson learned: The ornaments of my life are the friends I keep.

Asking why...

'Everything has got a moral if you can only find it.'
-Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898)

Why...
Three letters that are just so familiar.
That is the question we have learned to ask the most since our earliest childhood.
Its a simple word that holds so much power, for it can stop our personal growth on its track to leave us defenseless like lost children; in the wake of our realization that we lack wisdom we become weaker, conquered.

Why...
...does X happen to us?
Why...
...does Y have to die/leave?

It is not the question that matters but the answer, for unanswered questions just raise more questions and doubts to solve nothing. And yeah, trying to find an answer can seem like an ordeal in itself. Sometimes we must not seek the answer, but let the answer come to us.

Whenever you face an unexpected event ask yourself why, sure, but choose not to dwell on the questioning. Be patient, seek, explore, understand the answer once you got it, for then you will have peace instead of living in the stressed caused by the uncertainty of 'the why'. And even then, in the end, don't just conform yourself with the answer. Learn from it, grow, become stronger and wiser.


Lesson learned: Answers are like squirrels, sometimes all there is left is to wait...it may be eating its acorn right atop your head.

Dream on...

'All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible'
-Thomas E. Lawrence

'It was just a dream' we hear say(when we are not saying it ourselves). With those simple words the magic of that moment is dispelled so that we, in the reality of our daily lives, can live on. We wake up, dress up, eat, and go to work/school, come home and go sleep...the next day it all happens again, and life becomes dull, and it all falls down to our looking forward to our vacations or retirement.

When, I ask you, did you stop dreaming? When did your thoughts of a bright future, of adventure, of loving, get replced by the boredom of your current daily life?
Some say you stop dreaming when you finally grow up...
Was Christopher Columbus a child, then, when he sought to conquer the seas to follow his dream? I believe he was not.
You stop dreaming when, for some reason, you start not thinking, but actively BELIEVING you have achieved all you can ever be, and then you become one more statue in the museum of our daily existence. A simple statue, just existing, just being there, to be seen.

You can surely remember every time you dreamed, or remembered a dream a feeling of joy permeated your soul. You basked in the light of that bright future that you saw for yourself.

Today, take a single minute to sit down, relax a minute, and dream...

Lesson learned: Dreams are the fountains of youth inside each one of us