Gator Love Letter

Living in the moment...

         I've spoke of this in a previous post, but one of the most famous teachings uses the example of an hors d'oeuvre tray. They say that if the tray is in front of you, eat happily what you want from it. If it has not yet come to you, do not crave it, and if it has passed you by, do not long for its return. 

        We all root from the same innate lack of satisfaction and desire for more. 

We are all in some way the same person, and we all want the same things. "More" of whatever it is that you don't already have or don't have enough of. Whatever you're afraid of losing or afraid may not come your way. If we are smart in our endeavors to get "more" or be "it" then we will do good things with whatever is that is placed in front of us. 

To truly experience the privilege of having good people and great opportunities in our lives, we must appreciate the nature and the presence of everything around us. We must be dedicated with absolute devotion to the moment and the very instance that we live in. 

Consider a life where we're constantly racing to the next best thing to acquire whatever it is the rest of society wants. If that is where we live, constantly longing for something else, than what happens to the moments, the people, and the instances that we currently have now? We will have indirectly lost them all in the desire for something that we think is that much better. 

         If you are sitting on the bench, waiting for your shot, than you should be longing for far more than your spot to open up. You should be hoping for more time and opportunity to prepare yourself. Acquiring more strength and the courage for that very moment.You should relish in the opportunity of proving everyone wrong, in being the unspoken and doing the unexpected. You should live for the second you get your shot and make them hate that they've waited this long. 

         In everything that you do you must figure out a way to love where you are and realize what you have. You've got to find a way to ice everything in front of you, regardless of whether you thirst for it or not. 

You must STOP constantly wanting more, and by default eliminating what you already have. 

When I was at Stanislaus I felt like I could live forever and loved everything that was right in front of me. As much as I no longer wanted to be in school, and was so ready to move on, I realized that the people around me, my teammates and my family were people that I wouldn't find in any other part of my life. The girls I met on that team, my best friends, my mentors, were the catalysts to making me who I am today. The program I played for was, in my opinion, the best in the CCAA. Our growth spoke volumes to the conference, and we had the pleasure of playing against teams that hadn't changed since the first time we played them. 

We were constantly overwhelmed with opportunity. Not because we had any more than others, but because I knew we had it so much better than everyone else. We loved the team we played for and we may not have been the best in the league but it always felt like we were. 

SF State who had the same shitty game plan, same hideous uniforms and same crappy ass field was our perspective. They were never changing, yet always longing to play better soccer. I always felt like they were the worst team to play, yet the best confirmation of our blessed reality.

       My point is to say that although I love where I am now, I also really love where I came from. I spend little time worrying about the future, or how great the next best thing was, because I am so busy in awe of everything right in front of me. 

This life, for all of us, is so much better than it is for everyone else. We've got to stop trying to change it. Stop longing for  something else. For we have so much work to do with what we have right in front of us today. 

      I'd rather sit the bench at Stanislaus, than ever sport that awful yellow at San Francisco State. 
      That is my perspective.

I like to think that I don't appreciate any entity that isn't worthy, and I by default love my Alma Mater and the current place it has brought me to. I guess I'm STILL living in that moment.

       Appreciate that.

The Graduate

          I know a lot of people graduated this weekend. Earmarking a pivotal time in their lives, and even quite possibly an important movement in the world and particularly our generation. 

Going to school today is essentially saying that even tho the economy sucks, there's no jobs, and tuition continues to rise, that you're still going to believe and invest in the improvement of your life and the education that comes with it. It's putting aside off the distractions that exist in the world, and committing to not be strayed by all the hardships that enter your life.

Students that just graduated find that all of the things that were once so important become surprisingly minute compared to what their life has now become. They find that the majority of their successes and failures, and their temporary struggles all shrivel to irrelevance. It no longer matters the exams you passed or failed, or the courses that you slept through, or rarely showed up to on time. Most of the grudges, resentments, and disappointments that once seemed so important, soon disappear. Behind that cloud of obscurity lies new motives and dreams and a livelihood for your future. What lies in the distance is what may or may not take over your life forever. 

You see, as hard as school was, the good and bad times, the uncertainties and insecurities all soon fade away. You're immediately confronted with real life. You're immediately faced with your next step in your future and the world's idea of the "American Dream".

You'll find that the decisions that you make in that instance can define who you are for the rest of your life . What you bring to the things your life touches, along with what you learn determines the ways in which you affect the world forever. 

Every person, entity, organization that you encounter is looking for their story, as are you, and the way in which you interact with them may forever change them in whichever way that you choose.  

You'll find that the measure of who you are and who you become is simply what you choose to do with what you have. The choices that your class, along with the rest of your generation make will decide the fate for the rest of the country. 

We don't realize how strongly we affect the things around us. We don't realize that underneath all the nonsense, the incessant texting, obsession with social media, and all of the terrible strategies, that we are still a generation of incredible change. We believe in furthering equality and innovation. We're a generation that is prospering through war and a terrible economy. We are anything we want to be.

So, I encourage you to think strongly about the life that makes your heart beat, and not the qualities of the world that make them glorify you. I encourage you to take heed to the box that the world has put you in. To realize that the world has put parameters on everything that you can do. That they judge you based on how much money you make, the color or your skin, and what neighborhood you come from. They you tell what sex and race you can and can't date, and spell out a body type that's socially acceptable for you. The world puts you in a tiny box and in an attempt to fit in, we find ourselves conforming to it. We find ourselves chasing dreams that we don't believe in, simply because they told us to.

          I encourage you to put yourself in places where the opportunities are endless, and forget about the standards that the world has created. I encourage you to set goals that people believe are unrealistic, and consider the idea of what it feels like to not conform.   

I simply encourage you to be more than what they said you were.
          Because in between the Miley Cyrus', the social medias and the marijuana craze, we are still one of the greatest generations to grace this earth.
          I'm not requesting that you start a riot, or that you act differently than who you are, but I do request that you to be better than who you were yesterday. That you attempt to be better than the front runners of today, and that you dare to be different in the most forward direction possible.

Sex and Drugs Continued...

Lastly, because I cant stop(in reference below):

They say celibacy has died, and it is absolutely absurd for anyone in this generation to expect or still believe in it. But the truth is that celibacy is almost never introduced for the benefit of self worth and security. It is almost always introduced for reasons of religion and avoiding sin. 

Consider the idea of teenagers, keeping their virginity for the simple fact that the main reason they lose it is in hopes of staying socially accepted. Teenagers lose their virginity in order to gain confidence. But what if they kept it in order to first learn how to remain beautiful and worthy in the initial absence of sex. What if they were taught that sex was something that someone should long for from you, and require considerable care and patience to attain. I guess it doesn't matter much, because like I said, to each their own. But regardless of it all, sex is rampant, and with that self worth, self confidence, and security are probably at an all time low. None of us know exactly why, but most of us will blame it on society. We'll blame it on the media's depiction of the perfect and "acceptable" yet unattainable body type. We'll say that the world is not accepting enough, but the truth is that we make our own choices and we follow our own motives. Society does not make u feel unloved. You and the actions you take, young and old, are the reasons why you feel the way that you do. 

One of their most familiar teachings uses the example of an hors d'oeuvre tray. They say that if the tray is in front of you, eat happily what you want from it. If it is not yet come to you do not crave it, and if it has passed you by, do not long for its return. In theory, if you have acted wisely, you savored the treats while you had access to them, but would not have been sad had they not come your way, nor will you be sad once they are gone. For both of those circumstances are out of your control. The only thing you can control is your opinion of the situation (to care or not care about that tray that is so far away from you, and hence your expectations for the situation) and of course, your interaction once the tray arrives before you: to savor the bites of food, or to wolf them down without appreciation for the tentative nature of their presence in your life.

I’m not too worried about my next snack at a party, but the metaphor extends itself to all sorts of other things in life that we want for ourselves, that we yearn for regardless of practicality and build up all sorts of unreasonable expectations around, be it jobs, or money or that special someone. Most of my friends are skeptics of this Stoic point of view and its 'have no expectation' line of thinking, believing that there are some fundamental flaws with the outlook.

As a disclaimer, I must admit, that here I am talking about sex and love, and of all people have little to no experience in it. 

You see my problem is that I want to get married just like everyone else, but I have no desire to date. I don't want to date partly because I don't want to have sex. And I don't want to have sex because I don't want to come down from the high. I don't want to crash from the crazy ride that it takes you on from the very beginning. I don't want my sex life to become part of my identity. To affect when I go out and when I stay home. To have control on my self confidence and self worth. I don't want to depend on anything that is hard for me to control. I guess I just want to be free.  

Citing unknown source :(

Sex, Drugs and Holding off

I find the relationship between men and women to be very intriguing. The desires that both parties harness, especially in my generation, is certainly worthy of processing. It's like everyone is trying to get something out of someone else, while still trying to grow up, find themselves and figure out what it is that they even want in the first place.

The idea of us, say those under 35ish, attempting intimacy, falling in and out of love, having passionate or non-passionate sex, whatever it is. 

The idea of us trying to find ourselves in someone else, through temporary or even long term fulfillment, is almost comical. I realize that we've heard this before, but the truth is, that casual sex is really so much more than we are making it.  

On one hand, it can be a medium for satisfying natural hormones, which is fine, but on the other, it can simply be an attempt to temporarily satisfy the ways of the world. It can be a way for you to escape from your problems like drugs, or even worse, a way for you to build yourself back up, from a previous partner that broke you down before. 

On one hand drugs are ok and I presume that they're fun as long you keep them in control, but you see sex is different. Sex, when used for the wrong reasons, almost always fails tremendously. It gets so intertwined with you emotions and who you are as a person, along with who and where you want to be, that it simply cannot be controlled. 

You may be having sex because you want so badly to fit in, or to emulate the relationship that your happily married friends have. Maybe in that moment that you begin to take your clothes off you feel irreplaceable. Like your body is so much more beautiful than it was before you started. Maybe your ability to have sex with whomever whenever you choose is the only sense of security and control you have in your life. Maybe you want a baby, or to be loved, or just an easier way to fall asleep that night. Maybe this is just a chance for you to satisfy you hormones, or you're on your period or drunk or just giving in to what your body what is calling for. All in all, at the end of the day or night, all of the reasons I stated, stem at the onset of something like lust or a lack of self control or self confidence. They all stem from mediums that attempt to fulfill themselves through sex, but almost always fall short. 

You see, my point is not to say that sex is bad and you should necessarily wait til' marriage. To each their own, but my point is to mention that these desires and mediums that we acquire are not necessarily innate to who we are. Maybe, the majority of them stem from men watching too many hip hop and R&B videos. From girls re-pinning too many wedding ideas or spending too much time watching The Bachelor. Maybe these mediums come from constantly monitoring who went from "in a relationship" to "engaged", or women and men only going out and putting on their best when they need attention. I am guilty of these things myself, so this is not to say that I am by any means above it. But it is to say that we continue to direct our motives based on social media and entertainment. That we alter our actions accordingly, and may or may not suffer from it later on. We continue to attempt to acquire something from a place where it does not exist. This action, after time, can go from being fun, to sad, to devastating and then just stupid. 

These ages, and these actions come at such an impressionable time, and its so much grander than casual sex and a good time. Don't get me wrong, I am a big believer in getting it while u can. I believe that sex is beautiful, and although I chose to abstain, I believe that you should do what is best for you and what makes u happy.

I think that love is actually everything it is cracked up to be, and thats why people are weird and high strung about it. I believe that it is really worth fighting for and it is worth the risk. That every once in a while its also worth some discernment and some patience. I think that sex is worth holding on to and sometimes worthy of more than someone that is just average or casual.

Sometimes the things you want the most to happen don't and then what you least expect to happen does. You meet thousands of people and none of them really touch you. And then you meet one person, one in a crowd of thousands, and your life is changed forever. The only time this is an issue is if you have already given everything you have away. If you've wasted it all on trials and the people that came before, then sadly enough you may not have anything left to give. 

My only thoughts to some is to beware of diluting the true and only wealth they have to offer. 

Business

I've thought recently how badly I want to start a business, but oddly enough I haven't got a clue as to what I want to do, or what this business would entail. Here recently though, after much thought, I believe I've come to understand why I even really want this. 

You see, a small business is a place that responds instantly to any action we take. A place where we can practice implementing ideas in a way that changes lives. A place where we can begin to test all assumptions we have about ourselves. It is place where the world is reduced to a manageable size. Small enough to be responsive, big enough to test everything we have. A small business, both your's and my small business, is a true practice hall. 

A practice hall or any institution of influence, is something that we should utilize as a people. I find that in todays's society, people along with myself, are watching the world and our lives dwindle down to frequent breathtaking tragedies. This is followed by detestable practices and perceptions, and mixed with a glut of irrelevant addictions and desires. This cycle continues to repeat, and everything good and beautiful and innocent eventually just starts to slip away. We've witnessed death and hatred and violence in almost every domain possible. Today, you can get shot anywhere from a movie theatre to a kindergarden class, have a bomb go off at your place of work on monday or the marathon your going to run on saturday. We have exemplified hatred and discrimination towards everything from love life, to body type, skin color, financial status, and religion. I could go on, but you see the details of why we discriminate and hate each other is just as meaningless as nature from which that hatred comes from.

  We sit here, with the idea that most of us are good people, and all we need to do is work on the bad. If we simply just implement gun laws, increase security, stop any type of progressive change, and hinder equality to anyone different than the accepted, then we have essentially fixed everything. At that point all we have to do is pat ourselves on the back, and continue to do what we've done. It is now, that we have apparently fixed the problem. We tell ourselves and our government and our children that we have done everything we can, but the problem is that we have actually done nothing. We have simply raised the restrictions on the people that are "not us". We have done nothing to attempt to fix or remedy the nature of who we are as a species.  

Our feeble attempts to fix the world have not solved the overall circumstances in which we find ourselves. These attempts have been unsuccessful, because they have been directed to the wrong places. We are constantly believing that we have found the source of the chaos, but we actually haven't at all. The chaos isn't "out there" in everyone else. It's not "out there" in the world. The chaos is "in here" in you and me. The world's inner chaos is a reflection of our own turmoil. If the world is violent and greedy and heatless and inhumane and often just plain stupid, it is because you and I are that way. So, the reality is, that if the world is going to be changed, we must change more than the lives of those we don't approve of. We must make changes to the nature of who we are as humans. 

We are an "out there" society, accustomed to thinking in terms of them against us. We want to fix the world so that we can remain the same. And for an "out there" society, coming "inside" and making changes or improvements is a problem. We don't wish to change ourselves, or even attempt to look inside and understand who we are. We just want to fix and expel those that are different. We want to point out the specific ones who seem to be causing the problems. All we need is a re-do. A complete altercation of who we are and what we stand for.

We must start attempting to make the right changes. Without these changes the chaos will increase and tragedy and sadness will become a source of complacency. School shootings will be normal, discrimination will be tolerated to whomever we choose, love and altruism will be a thing of the past, and we will simply be a species cycling through it all. We have got to make these changes within ourselves. The time has clearly passed us. It was a few months ago when those innocent children were shot in their kindergarden classroom. It was last year when people were killed watching the premiere of a Batman movie. It was years ago when Jaycee Dugard was found after being kidnapped and raped for 18 years. It was in 2001 when another country showed its deep and dark hatred for us. Or back in the times of Jim Crow when we showed that same hatred for one another. Regardless of what the time was, we can no longer afford this much chaos. We are in dire need, and we are simply running out of time.  

Citing The E-myth revisited

"What do you want to do"

Onset:

She asked me what "I wanted to do"…It was odd, because at the time I was on the brink of a crazy sucessful career. With a fancy masters degree in Engineering from a decently ranked school. Coupled with a lucrative job offer from a big time consulting company. It wasn't necessarily weird, but jus a different and somewhat interesting question. 

I mean I was about to start all this swanky government work in the pretentious Washington DC area. With the word 'Engineering' in my background, and coming out of an average family, not particularly known for education, people certainly treated my 'new life' like an anomaly. I laugh at the expression of a 'new life', because my idea of a 'new life' is when you somehow manage to change your outlook on the world. 

You know, when you make a conscious decision to affect and influence the world and the society around you in a way that will not only changes your life, but the lives of everyone who reads your story. 

You see, finishing a degree in math, followed by one in engineering, then going on to solve problems for the government…Well that is certainly a mark of success, and I am proud of it, but I have to say, that that is nothing in comparison to helping create the world in which you wish to see. 

Nevertheless, People were genuinely excited about this 'new life', and I mean particularly the financial aspect of it. The details of my job description along with my pay rate were consistent sources of conversation to my friends and family, as of late. To be fair, I would never diminish this adoration from my loved ones, because it typically comes with any level of success and I will forever mark this as love. More often than not tho, what happens in society, is we mark 'life changes' with any financial or status change, and we disregard the idea that there may be more to someone's visions of their life. In both their and my opinion it would be dishonest to glorify something as simple as a status change. It would be taking away from the long journey we wish to take, in order to leave this world with something a little more selfless and monumental. Sometimes when the people around us glorify the idea of you simply making more money, or acquiring nice things, we as individuals forget that we personally don't care so much about those things. We forget that there are more important advancements that we hold near to our heart. We eventually find ourselves chasing things that only matter to the people around us, but are actually minute to the inner core of who we. I call this consumerism and the idea of keeping up with the modern day Jones'. Please don't get me wrong tho, I believe that getting married, having kids, and making money are great feats in life, but even after acquiring these positive status changes, some of us yearn for something a little more philo- or philanthropic in life. 

This is why I was so taken aback when my sister asked me the incredulous question of "what I wanted to do".  You see, I hadn't been asked this question in a very long time. The reason being, that based on the educational path I had chosen, people assumed that "what I wanted", outside of the obvious good health and happiness, was a fancy high paying job to furnish the fancy needs I would eventually acquire. I understand that this is a common mentality for people, especially young, but my incredible sister is far from the common individual you will ever meet. You see, she is so far unimpressed by the majority of what society, at least on the surface, has to offer. She see's things differently than most, and she doesn't suffer from being let down by the different materials that the world has to offer. She never experiences the curse of becoming complacent or putting a cap on her life or her career. It is incredible, the level of contentment that she harnesses in her life, and her constant attempt to grow and do more. The affect that she can have on those whom she encounters could be major if allowed. 

So, here I sit as if theres a revolution that has been incited within me. Its almost as if I am on the brink of change and promise, and that is amidst all the blessings I have already experienced (Far beyond the ones that show on the surface). 

Yesterday my sister asked me "what I wanted to do", and today I haven't exactly narrowed it down, but I realize that it Is far more than engineer and pay cash for nice things. I realize that I haven't quite answered the question, but also that there's a chance that my words may one day echo. The truth is, that keeping them to myself and reciting them in the shower or in the car, dreaming that someone will one day hear, will never warrant that type of positive influence. 

So, for now, her(my sister) suggestion is that I write, and I'll hope that one day, my words may eventually incite a revolution in someone else. 

Here goes nothing…