Film and not photo

Everything is in constant movement, even ourselves. Each second things change: we are older, our hair grows, we burn calories, we know something else, the weather changes, we see something we haven’t seen from where we are standing, we step where we never stood before and so on. No second in our life will be the same as any other second, even if we wanted to repeat any second in our life, it’s impossible, at least time won’t be the same.
We are experiencing small changes that we almost can not perceive, but sometimes bigger changes occur even without our consent. We lose something or somebody, we are transferred to other cities, we get wet in the rain, we catch a cold, and so on.
So, if everything changes, and we can not control most of the changes, why we try to live like a photo forcing things to stand still? Our live is not a photo we like, is a film that is rolling, let’s see what comes next.

Fear

I heard from a teacher something impressive: fear is linked to things we think we have to protect, the more we believe we have to protect, the more fear we have. Its impressive for two things, first because fear inhibit us from doing a lot of things, and things we want or we would like, and second because we are convinced that we can have control over what happens. So in the end, we don’t do things just because we forbid ourselves with no real reason. We won’t speak to a person because we fear what this person may think of us, we won’t invest in a new venture because we fear we’ll lost the money we saved for some time, and so on. What do we think we are protecting?

Lying to ourselves

For me, the main reason for the course of the events that we want or prefer to avoid, is less related with actions we develop and more with our real intentions. Clearly is not the same hurting somebody intentionally than without knowing, the intention generates a lot of bad feelings, bad thinking, and for sure even without success the harm will be done, but to ourselves. We can lie to everybody else, but we can not lie to ourselves. When we do something, we can do all the planning, actions, and even effort, but without the real good intention, our body, our mind, our energy won’t be pushing for the same outcome.
But for sure, good intentions without any action won’t take us anywhere either.

Expectations

I went to a meditation retreat in Thailand and witnessed exemplary lives, I went to see the sunrise and got only rain, I thought it was going to be difficult but I almost ran away, I went looking for a small part to complete my puzzle and I got a completely different game, I went looking for a Thai monk and found lovely European people, I went to meet an enlightened and a dog bit me, I went for breakfast and got a wheat beverage, I went to a tropical country and had to use winter jacket, I went for explanations and received smiles, I went to take pictures and was the main attraction, I went to be happier and got control of my mind, I went for a glass of water and got my head shaved. That’s what happen when you have expectations.

Possibilities

In the last months I made a great trip around some Arab and Asian countries. This exposure, made me realize a lot of things, such as the reason why I didn’t went to China (something I didn’t understand when happened), and my main conclusion was how self-limited we are. After being amazed by 5.000 year old inexplicable constructions, after witnessing one of the most desirable metropolis in the middle of the merciless dessert, after being surprised by creativity without resources and after understanding the wealth of the poor, I can only say we limit ourselves to what we know and to what we think we deserve, only that we know almost nothing, and what we think we deserve is only a small fraction of what we could have.

Take a deep breath and go ahead

It’s going to be three years in a few months, and after all the process, my life changed for good. Although sometimes I feel like from another planet, as my decisions and obvious common sense guesses seem odd and not too common for the rest, I firmly believe I’m on the right track.
But is this right track the only track? Is it the fastest or the shortest? Can we go faster?
It’s time to speed things a little, but how to do it? Well, as it has been happening in the last years, I bump in to the places and situations I need.
There’s an inefficient visa process I have to follow, to renew my visa in Brazil. In the mean time I have to be out of the country for at least three months. What to do during that time? My boss suggested taking all my vacations and taking a license to complete the time. Ok, sounds reasonable, and what to do with all that time? My initial plan was to study business and art courses in different countries in Europe and then travel to India for tourism. But as all happens for a reason and what happens is the best, I couldn’t get my Shengen visa in Brazil, business courses dates didn’t match my schedule and what was the result? India for one month and a meditation retreat for 35 days in Thailand. And how did it happen? A friend met a guy in the internet, the guy took my friend to a course, in the course my friend met another outstanding person, and my friend send me this person’s email. He lives in Thailand and as soon as I wrote, he answered that I had a room reserved for a retreat. As soon as I read the answer I knew that was it!! I didn’t know how a retreat wasn’t my first option, but in the end, all the obstacles, coincidences, and luck will take me to this place, and I’m sure this is the highway. Maybe is not the only one, but for sure it will take me to another level on this process.
This is a trip that will change my life again, if I was in a comfort zone, this will mess things around; I was expecting it, and I love it.

Economics

What is the Gini index? Yesterday I saw a young couple arriving in a restaurant to have lunch, driving a car obviously bought only for sunny weekends. They gave the keys to the valet parking driver who would have to handout his monthly income to have one meal at the same restaurant, or work more than 312 years to gather the money equal to the price of the car. This is a Gini index of 56,7 the 10th highest in the world, and shows that something is completely wrong.