Musings
From The Heart
An
Essay A Day For A Year
By
Roe
Day
121 April 30, 2012
The
No Compromise Of Selfhood
Living a life of compromise
is living a life watered down, unless we live a life of acceptance and
gratitude of living a life of compromise, in which case we are truly living a
full strength life. After a harrowing
childhood where I had to deny and suppress my innate self just to survive, after
a lifetime of searching and recovery, I still do not fully know my self or who
I am, or what I truly want, or where I am going or why. As I write this I realize that this sounds
sad, and that I sound perhaps unhappy. In truth I am so acceptant of my whole
journey as an Earth soul, and so grateful for every part of my life, that in
fact I am happy to be me, and I am satisfied with my progress in my journey. To
be thankful is to present in acceptance and value of our situation and in fact
to be truly living. To be grateful for anything requires awareness and
judgment, and to be grateful for anything requires humility and appreciation.
Living a life of awareness and judgment, and living a life of humility and
appreciation, is truly living, no matter what our situation. I have accepted
and I am grateful for my life of compromise.
When we live a life of
awareness and judgment in gratitude, we naturally earmark the things that we
are grateful for, and are fulfilled by, as well as the things that we are
grateful for, but wish to change or improve. When we live a life of humility
and appreciation, we naturally earmark the things that we humbly appreciate and
want to maintain, as well as the things that we humbly appreciate and wish to
better or to end. Living a life of
gratitude is living with an open and present, acceptant mind, ever willing to
dwell in the grace of the moment, even if unhappy, but in this humble and
grateful awareness we are ever willful to continue to evolve towards our own
true fulfillment. This feeling of
acceptance and gratitude is an innate expression of our Love heart, and it is
not a learned trait or trait needing practice, unless we lose our true
selves. A self that is not acceptant, or
not grateful, not aware and not in valuation judgment, not humble and not in
appreciation, is a self that is lost. Any soul that is lost is living a life of
compromise, but without the awareness and gratitude to fully live.
When we encounter ourselves
or others that are lost from themselves, it is our natural, compassionate and
empathetic response to reach out to this lost person, or ourselves, with Love
and care, with comprehension and grace. Poor souls we are and poor souls there
are out there who are lost from themselves, lost from Love, lost from
appreciation and gratitude for this harrowing, but miraculous life that we are all
living. Any person struggling with any
illness, physical or mental or emotional, any person involved with violence or
criminality or war, any person struggling with compulsions and addictions of
any kind, any person who is unhappy and unfulfilled in any way, is lost from
their true selves. We are all living a life of compromise where we are settling
for less than who and what we are, and settling for less in our lives of
compromise where we get a tiny piece of the many things that we truly dream of
and deserve. Only lost souls find it difficult to reach out to the lost souls (sick)
and lost souls (criminal) and lost souls (insane) and lost souls (suffering). How can we reach out to others when we cannot
reach out to ourselves, or even become aware that we ourselves are lost from
ourselves? We are all lost from
ourselves and trying to find our way home.
When I was a boy I dreamed
of many things that it turns out had very little to do with who I really was,
since I was long lost to myself. I worked and tried and hoped so hard to
fulfill these dreams, and I did pretty well, but each time the fulfillment of
my dreams brought me no closer to happiness, no closer to acceptance and
gratitude, no closer to humility and appreciation, than before embarking in
whatever the endeavor was at the time.
It finally crept into my consciousness that I was in fact truly unhappy,
truly lost, and truly in very real danger of the temptations of Life that took
down so many of the people that I had admired and respected during my life. All my life I witnessed the destruction that mistakenly
falling in Love and then being badly jilted caused, the destruction that
perverse sexuality and drugs and alcohol caused, the destruction that greed and
ambition and selfishness caused, the destruction that religion and spirituality
and this and that belief systems caused, the destruction that depression and
suicide and criminality and so many other escapes caused. All I could muster doing was to become very
cautious and very conservative, very self absorbed, and very loathe to
compromise. I intuited from deep within that, without gratitude and acceptance
of my self, I could never truly compromise and be happy with anything.
The largest detrimental
effects upon my self and life were the very effects pleading and demanding of
me that I compromise, and in effect become “normal” like them, my parents, my
family, my culture and country, my politics and religion and society, all that
had spawned me and my lost-ness. My
answer I declared, against all odds, all warnings, all tears and fears from
virtually everyone, was to embark on an indefinite trip around the world on a
motorcycle, “for the adventure”, and “in search of my self”. What I did in fact was to “not compromise”,
and to follow my own self and heart, despite the fact that I could not feel my
self or my heart consciously at that time. During the many years that I was “on
the road”, I ritually avoided all sex entanglements, (no compromise) except for
the one beauty that was right for me, I ritually avoided all alcohol and drugs
and crime and career (no compromise) and entanglements that were not for and
about me, and I ritually avoided invented crutch religions and ridiculous
belief systems that simply pasted more compromise on top of everyone.
During this time I truly
descended into loneliness and unhappiness and misery. I think back even today
to these years 20 years ago and tears well up in my eyes at the loneliness and pain
of my lost self struggling to surface, and of the trust of self that it took to
never compromise or settle for less, despite not having a clue what that was or
why I was doing it. Now I realize that I simply followed my heart, taking heat
from everyone all the time for my being “different” and “odd”, and never really
being accepted by anyone. I finally
chose the girl I was meant to love my whole life, no less different or odd or
uncompromising than me, and we have had 4 soul bending, prodigious children. As a unit of 6, we have made many, many
difficult yet wonderful compromises. The difference now is that after decades
of feeling the grief and tears and pain of having lost myself, and after
recovering pieces of my self, I now look back with humble gratitude for all
that has happened to me, not as a belief system or effort of any kind, but as
natural thanks, like smiling at the bus driver and saying thank you as you step
out onto the sidewalk.
I have never lived anything
less than a full strength life, never watered down until I was ready, willing,
and able to simply appreciate and be grateful for the compromises that Love and
Life and Family expected of me. A watered down life is not a weak compromise at
all if we are grateful and acceptant, for there is no such thing as a watered down
life when you are your real true self and you are happy. May you all be as selfish as you need to be to
recover and be acceptant and grateful for your true self and your true life.
See you tomorrow.
yourpersonalmuse@gmx.com
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