Tag: death

  • Have you ever truly lived?

    Have you ever truly lived?

    Is your definition of success really your definition of success?

    Or did you perhaps borrow it from society without really noticing?

    Our fixation on appearing successful is so toxic, that we readily give up our hopes and dreams in favour of acceptance.

    Most people don’t have a greater purpose in life beyond achieving what secures their place in society, or in their social circles.

    The chase for acceptance or validation is how we die a million deaths in a single lifetime, but rarely live a single wholesome life before death.

    Do we even know what a wholesome life feels like between all the distractions and our efforts to appease others?

    When was the last time you reconnected with the idealistic teen in you?

    If you had to meet your teenage self, would you be proud or disappointed in who you are now?

    Or were you already wasted to the peer pressure back then that you’ve never known a life beyond that?

    Today is a good day to reconnect with you.

    death

  • Break the stigma

    Break the stigma

    I think it was Dr Wayne Dyer who said that if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

    This is true both positively and negatively.

    Do you know someone who has a problem for every solution? Who sees doom and gloom at the happiest of moments? Who is preempting a negative outcome despite things going in their favour?

    Do you think they have a mental illness, or have they just been hurt so many times before, that they are afraid to hope for a positive outcome? Are they simply protecting themselves from being let down again?

    This is how we experience life when we finally give up hope about the future, or we give up hope about being appreciated.

    That absence of hope is what causes us to feel depressed. Depression is a legitimate experience of human emotions after we’ve taken one too many hard knocks from life about something important to us.

    The same is true for every other emotional experience.

    Emotions are not deficiencies. They’re the essence of what makes us human.

    If we ever hope to win this battle against a consistently declining quality of life, we need to stop referring to emotions as mental health, and we need to stop defining the duress that we experience in life as a mental illness.

    We need to reconnect with the human behind the pain, instead of dehumanising them by denying the legitimacy of their emotional experience.

    Break the stigma. Stop the labelling. Embrace the humanness.

  • Break the stigma. Stop the label.

    Break the stigma. Stop the label.

    I think it was Dr Wayne Dyer who said that if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

    This is true both positively and negatively.

    Do you know someone who has a problem for every solution? Who sees doom and gloom at the happiest of moments? Who is preempting a negative outcome despite things going in their favour?

    Do you think they have a mental illness, or have they just been hurt so many times before, that they are afraid to hope for a positive outcome? Are they simply protecting themselves from being let down again?

    This is how we experience life when we finally give up hope about the future, or we give up hope about being appreciated.

    That absence of hope is what causes us to feel depressed. Depression is a legitimate experience of human emotions after we’ve taken one too many hard knocks from life about something important to us.

    The same is true for every other emotional experience.

    Emotions are not deficiencies. They’re the essence of what makes us human.

    If we ever hope to win this battle against a consistently declining quality of life, we need to stop referring to emotions as mental health, and we need to stop defining the duress that we experience in life as a mental illness.

    We need to reconnect with the human behind the pain, instead of dehumanising them by denying the legitimacy of their emotional experience.

    Break the stigma. Stop the labelling. Embrace the humanness.



  • Celebrate the dead. Discard the living.

    Celebrate the dead. Discard the living.

    Ever notice how often people are revered when they’ve passed on, but the same people were neglected, ignored, or even treated badly while they were alive?

    Sometimes the reverse is also true. The one who passed on may have left a path of destruction in the lives of those around them, but because of their social standing or their role in their family, they’re revered to the point of exaggerating their good while dismissing the impact that they had on those who were victim to their ways.

    Some would have us believe that it’s because we must not disparage the dead. Which is true. We shouldn’t.

    But does that also mean that we must exaggerate their good to the point of diminishing the damage or harm that they caused?

    The reason we do this is not out of respect for the dead, but more likely because it draws attention to our virtue.

    It’s easier to demonstrate such kindness towards the dead, because they have no expectation from us to follow through with sincerity or commitment towards how important we say they are in our lives.

    If we were truly committed to establishing good, we would place as much emphasis on remedying the harm that they caused, while remembering the good that they did.

    If we don’t, we end up revering the dead to the detriment of the living, thereby reinforcing the harm that the deceased caused, and further oppressing those who are already struggling with the impact of the harm done to them by the deceased.

    That’s how we enable generational trauma.

    That’s how we create more harm for the victims of those oppressors who have passed on.

    That’s how we become part of that cycle of harm.


  • The silent ones

    The silent ones

    True misery doesn’t love company.

    It decays the soul in silence.

    When someone is complaining, it’s because they still have hope that someone cares enough to listen or respond.

    Or even to empathise.

    When they give up on these three things, they go silent because they have grown to accept that no one else cares, or understands the state that they’re in.

    Too often we see their silence and assume it to be acceptance of their struggles or challenges, meanwhile it often symbolises the slow death of dreams, hopes, and ultimately, a life.

    Silence is the silent killer, more than rage.

    Listen with both ears and your heart.

    Pay attention to the silent ones.

    Your noise of ingratitude may just be drowning out their silence of pain.

    Find the balance between living loud and loving sincerely.

    The one without the other will smother people closest to you.

  • Save yourself from regrets

    Save yourself from regrets

    I believe that among the great deathbed regrets will be the realisation that we never truly showed the world who we are.

    It’s the what-ifs and if-onlys that cause more regret and heartache than any bad decision.

    Bad decisions are made with good intentions, yet we always choose to remember the negative outcome, rather than celebrate our innocence and sincerity for trying.

    We do this because we’re more focused on what others think of us, than we are about what we know to be true about ourselves.

    This bias against ourselves is one of the roots with which ingratitude takes hold in our life.

    When that happens, we become martyrs in our own mind, as we focus on everything that didn’t work out, while losing sight of the beauty and blessings that we have.

    Living up to your convictions, despite society, is what will provide you with peace and fulfilment when you need it most.

    That is, in those final moments when you look back at the sum total of your life and wonder if you made the best of it, or did you only focus on the worst of it?

    Redefine what peace means to you. It is always beyond just the absence of disagreement or hostility. Peace lies in being true to yourself, and appreciating the opportunities for growth that such conviction creates in those around you.



  • The Sound of Inevitability 

    The Sound of Inevitability 

    One of my favourite movie scenes is the one in The Matrix where the agent holds down Neo’s head as he has him pinned down to the railway tracks. With the sound of an oncoming train rumbling in the distance, the agent pulls Neo’s head up and says in the coldest, driest, and most deliberate tone, “Hear that Mr Anderson? That’s the sound of inevitability.” The rest is history. But that sound of inevitability always resonates with me.

    The endless jokes about the light at the end of the tunnel need no retelling. It’s not the light that is important, but rather the inevitable nature of the passing of every trial or tribulation that weighs us down. Too often we’re so distracted about the light and whether it is good or bad, that we forget to step out of the way if it’s bad, or embrace it if it’s good. Most end up just feeling overwhelmed, while others entirely miss the opportunity that presented itself because of the fears associated with the assumptions that they made before it even happened. A rare few embrace the light and work it to their advantage.

    That’s the obvious part. The not so obvious part is when we define what we believe is inevitable or needed. I’ve noticed in my own life how many times I’ve set out focusing on establishing some means to an end. That means, be it a car or a house, or some other tool intended for a specific purpose, usually had a huge effort associated with its acquisition. Let’s stick with the house for this example.

    It started out as a need to have a place of my own if I wished to get married and start my own family. Like everything in this world, everything needs maintenance, and so the cycles of maintenance started not long after I moved in. Along with the maintenance my creative side kicked in because I needed to at least get something out of the burden of maintaining the place, and suddenly maintenance turned into a renovation. Then the ego kicked in and soon the space was just too small to achieve what I wanted to achieve. Suddenly I couldn’t entertain as many people as I wanted, nor could I get a quiet space to contemplate the next renovation or upgrade to the house, or to just forget about the house and all its demands. In between, the marriage was neglected and the upkeep of the home became the pivotal point of the relationship. Making ends meet became the focus, and suddenly the tool that was intended to enhance our lives and create a space for us to grow together became a shared burden instead, and created a tension that eventually eroded the very foundation that the house was built on.

    This is one simple and often relatable cycle that we go through. The inevitability of the outcome was entirely defined by our actions and decisions, or more accurately, our shifting priorities as we placed material gains ahead of what was initially important. None of that mattered though, because the moment it became contentious, it was no longer about finding a path back to what our starting point was, but instead it became a struggle for significance. Whose needs were taken care of and who was making more compromises. That’s all that mattered.

    Stepping back and taking stock requires more than just an arrest of the ego. It requires a desire to return to a point of sincerity and authenticity in our lives when we were filled with hope about the future, after finding ourselves filled with a longing for the past instead. Arresting the ego becomes easier if we believe that what we stand to gain is more valuable than having to swallow our pride. Swallowing our pride only becomes palatable if we recognise one or both of the following. Holding on to it will turn us into someone that we do not wish to become, because our self worth is more important than the value that others place on us. Or, swallowing our pride holds little risk of ridicule or reminders amongst those that we hold with significance in our hearts.

    While the former is substantially more difficult to achieve because it requires a level of self knowledge and mindfulness that escapes most of us, it is the shortest path to retaining some level of sanity in our lives. The latter, however, as wholesome and embracing as it sounds, means that an important part of who we are is still shaped by how we are accepted by others.

    Not realising the difference or the gravity of either will result in much stress and strife, as we find ourselves hamstrung between what we want for ourselves, versus what others want from us. And that’s an important distinction. Realising that even though others indicate that they want the best for us, their perspectives are often tainted by what their association with us means for them. This realisation has caused me to pause and reflect more than any other realisation in a very long time. Not only does it provide insights into my responses to the expectations of others, but more importantly it provides key insights into my expectations of those around me, including my daughters.

    Inevitability is often a cacophony of silent screams that we feel, but rarely hear. It’s only in the most quiet moments of reflection that it dares to surface and whisper a chilling note that shakes us from our deluded or distracted state, so that we might have yet another chance to course-correct as we trundle down the tracks leading into that tunnel with the inviting bright lights. Inevitability is only guaranteed in one single outcome, that is the final end of your current life. Everything else only remains inevitable as long as we choose to remain stagnant when we should be taking action instead.

  • Stark Reality

    There is a starkness that stares you in the face as you see the distractions for what they are. Looking to the future with great expectations, I always found myself pushing the boundaries within which I operated. It was never about what is, but instead, was always about what could be, what is possible, and what I could improve. What if the world could be different, better, more enthusiastically engaging, rather than predictably boring and rigidly traditional? Thoughts like these, despite rarely fully surfacing, tickled my mind throughout my life. With each change I influenced, I convinced myself that I was making progress. I was improving, and more importantly, I was contributing positively.

    Years of reflection tend to strip away the candy coated layers that colour my perceptions of reality. Pursuing a career meant seeking purpose and being able to contribute towards society. Establishing a home meant adding to the wholesomeness of this world that is in such desperate need of more of it. Encouraging others to prevail beyond their self-imposed limitations seemed like a noble pursuit as I tried to infuse my passion for progress into the lives that I touched. That’s the candy coating that maintains the pleasantries of life. Chipping away at it quickly reveals the lack lustre tone of the core that is less palatable, like a sugar coated pill with a bitter core.

    I see, with great disdain, the hoards that cherish this life as if it were not fleeting. Selling our souls to distract ourselves from the bitter core that we tasted in moments of defeat, moments that robbed us of the comfort of being in control of our delusions, as the reality of someone else’s delusion prevailed in our lives instead. We live lies, blatant, obvious, and well known lies, but hold on to it because of the emotional highs that it offers. Emotional highs are easier to solicit from delusions because we make it what we wish it to be, because in the absence of such delusions, our impotence in the face of certainty smacks us down.

    Reality is never known, except in death. Everything up to that point remains a distraction from its inevitability. We hate inevitability. It denies us control, which denies us power, which reminds us of our insignificance in a world that we cannot control. There is not a single king that reigned forever, regardless of the mythical statuses we endowed on some to the point of deifying them. The greater the collective weakness of the masses, the greater the delusions needed to maintain social order. Those that subscribe to the delusions as wholesome gatherings of human connections weaken themselves, until those with an inkling of recognition of those delusions become estranged from the common good while the distracted lead the masses down the garden path to oblivion. But oblivion can be a beautiful place, just like collective self-imposed suffering.

    When everyone subscribes to a harmful behaviour, its perception of value makes it healthy, but only within the context of the collective delusion that we live. We compete to excel above our peers in who can most accurately and elaborately articulate the distraction to the point of giving it purpose. They are the ones that are celebrated as leaders and spiritual guides. True guidance cannot be obtained from others similarly or more elaborately distracted. Such leadership is akin to the guides that demonstrate the strategy behind a video game. It is leadership focused on how to excel at a commonly respected distraction.

    This world is full of such common subscription to common distractions that have grown to define our purpose and objectives in life. Study the cycles and the systems with such intensity, that your mastery of it leads you to believe that you are in fact mastering life, when in essence, all you’ve mastered is your own ego. That is not the same as subduing your ego, but few would recognise the difference.

    The painful irony is that the ones less distracted are not easily found, if ever, because they do not circulate among the distracted. They avoid the systems of delusion that attempt to cheat the inevitable outcomes by soliciting collective celebration about achievements that prevail in part beyond our moments of inevitability. Inevitability is death. Some meet it while still breathing, others don’t see its imminent arrival until it has overtaken them, while a few spend their lives preparing for it. They’re the intelligent ones. But faced with a sea of distracted delusionists, they appear as nothing more than an insignificant lot of fools who just don’t get it.

    A fool, if left to judge the merits of others, will deem the entire world a charade except for those that respect their foolhardiness. This world is overrun by fools, pretending to be leaders, providing spiritual indulgences that alleviate the burden of seeing reality for what it is. The starkness of reality exists somewhere in between all this insanity, but fortunately for most, its starkness is also its rarity.