All There Is To Do

My work on personal development started with my losing everything in 2003 and facing my worst demons as a result. I subsequently made a commitment to have the best life possible and could already see that in order to do so I would have to strip away all the self limiting beliefs that had created my life as it was at that time. The resultant liberation allowed many benefits including the ability to write from my heart and describe my pain and also see life with new eyes, optimistic ones, hopeful ones, ones where whatever the circumstances would allow me to see the benefit even in the most sad events. In this case, I tried to see the positive aspects of struggling to cope with and rationalise my mother's suffering with Alzheimer's disease.

All There Is To Do

As her illness prevents much further participation in life, I realise my mother has done all she came here to do; nothing more; nothing less. For me, the expectation of this or that fulfilment leaves me empty, looking for what shouldn’t be and ignoring all that is and was; failing to acknowledge the contribution she has been to me and so many others.

Seeing that all there is to do in life is what we do in life and that there is peace without expectation gives us the freedom to get on with life with a sense of urgency and not to take for granted that there’ll be another tomorrow.

There will always be things that we do not have time to do and we can either fight it or accept it. Then all there is to do is to be unreasonable and not put off till tomorrow what we can do today: how exciting and dynamic: even if tomorrow doesn’t come, we know we savoured every moment of life and squeezed every last drop there was to get. And then there is peace.

Who Am I?

I wrote this piece a short while after doing some personal development work in the UK that was based on the thinking behind Zen Buddhism and focuses on what actually happened in our past contrasted with what we made it mean about us and now take as "true". It is very liberating to find we are not the things we thing we are: the ego is built up of many such decisions - they are the young mind's attempt to work out who we are by looking at how people treat and react to us. Not only has it nothing to do with us therefore, but worse still, we usually get it wrong because we don't usually know what other people are really thinking and so we make it all up! So it is that in stripping such things away, we find freedom, inner peace and happiness like never before.

The piece in verse format reads:

Who Am I?

Who am I?
All my life I have been who you say I am;
Or rather, who I believe you say I am.

Like the weeds at the bottom of the river
Pulled to and fro by changing currents,
Thrown against the rocks
And choked by silt and pollution.
As I grew older, the “me” that I was bent this way and that
But never stood firm and confident.
The “who I am” started as a blank canvas
That in time was filled with soft oils that set hard.

But now restored to my former potential,
Who am I in my midlife years?
I am who and what ever I say I am,
Whatever I commit to being, I am
And suddenly I am unbounded;
No longer anchored to the river bed
But flowing free in whatever direction I choose.

The canvas is now a mass of vivid colours
And yet there is space for still more of me
As one area fills, another becomes blank
And who I am now is glorious,
A celebration of life and freedom;
An inspiration to the weeds that still cling fiercely to the rocks;
A powerful presence that provides firm guidance
And offers hope for peace and harmony where before there was conflict.
And that is who I am.