Accidental Tourist of Life

Life is like a road. There are long and short roads; smooth and rocky roads; crooked and straight roads. In our life there are many roads which come our way as we undertake our great journey.

There are roads that lead to fame and fortune on one hand, or isolation and poverty on the other. There are roads to happiness as there are roads to sadness, roads towards victory and jubilation, and roads leading to defeat and disappointment.

Just like any road, there are corners, detours, and crossroads in life. Perhaps the most perplexing road that you could encounter is a crossroad. With four roads to choose from and with limited knowledge on where they would go, which road will you take? What is the guarantee that we would choose the right one along the way? Would you take any road, or just stay where you are: in front of a crossroad? There are no guarantees…

You do not really know where a road will lead you until you take it. There are no guarantees. This is one of the most important things to realize about life. Nobody said that choosing to do the right thing all the time would always lead you to happiness. Loving someone with all your heart does not guarantee that it would be returned. Gaining fame and fortune does not guarantee happiness.

Since life offers no guarantee and you would never know that your decision would be wrong until you have made it, then you might as well take the risk and decide. It is definitely better than keeping yourself in limbo. Although it is true that one wrong turn could get you lost, it could also be that such a turn could be an opportunity for an adventure, moreover open more roads. It is all a matter of perspective.

You have the choice between being a lost traveler or an accidental tourist of life, and ultimately this means having the courage, faith and belief to sometimes just “Go with the Flow”.

I’ve been at a crossroads the past few weeks. Not lost. Just an accidental tourist.

Miss you all like crazy …

xoxoxox

Lilly

I am the decisive element

I have come to the frightening conclusion…
That I am the decisive element.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration,
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides
Whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated,
And a person is humanized or de-humanized.
If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.
If we treat people as they ought to be,
We help them become
What they are capable of becoming.

~ J.W.Goethe ~

The Highway Of Love

I’m stuck again.

Not sick, not tired, just going backwards in my mind.

A psychic practitioner stopped me at the end of a party yesterday, and told me I was about to have a detour.

Today.

I don’t quite remember the exact words she used, but it was something along the lines of “Right now you’re going down the 405, and you’re about to take a detour, and then you’ll have to decide what you want to do with your life.”

And then she disappeared.

Okay.

So one part of me sees only possibilities in that scenario – Wow, choices, new things, new roads, new…. And then another part – Gremlin Voice soaked for sure – screams Other shoe dropping!

Any minute now!

Watch out for falling shoes!

And I look around me, furtively, searching each car that passes by, each person who passes by, each word that passes by, for a clue.

For a sign.

For impending disaster.

I have three choices.

One, I can call up this practitioner and ask for clarification. But, I realize, nothing she says will change the fact that I must make one of the other two choices.

Two, I can wallow in fear and try to be very careful and watchful and vigilant, analyze everything that shows up in my life at every minute, and forget I’m actually alive and living.

Three, I can choose the choice of possibilities.

I can – regardless of what the psychic has seen or knows, regardless of what she says or what she thinks, or even more profoundly, regardless of what I think – see every car that passes by, every person who passes by, each word that passes by as a “detour” into a new possibility.

And, if I make choice Number Three, I’d better know what I’m getting myself into – this new possibility might lead to another detour, to another possibility, to another, and another, where the choices are endless.

Am I more afraid of being stuck or of getting lost?

Is it that I’m really so certain I can’t choose right every time, or does it really matter if I choose right every time?

Lots of questions, and sometimes the answer is “I don’t know,” or “None of the Above.”

So how do I know what to do and where to go and what to think?

And how do I stop; my mind from racing to fear instead of flowing to possibilities?

Well, first off, just because I investigate another road doesn’t mean I’ve left the Highway of Love. In fact, what if I’m not even on it at all!

What if, even though I think I’ve been on the Highway of Love all this time, I’m really only on a side road?

What if I’m not even on a road?

What if I’ve been going in circles?

So, what if I want to continue down this so-called detour of a new possibility?

What then?

What if the detour leads to a bigger Highway?

What if I’ve been on the Highway of Where I’ve Always Been and What I’ve Always Done, and the detour will lead me smack to the Highway of Love?

Well, how’s this for a job description: Adventurer!

Lots of men and women are making thrilling, actual lives out there being Indiana Jones – finding lost civilizations, solving ancient riddles, leading teams through the jungles of the world.

Everyone has a different tolerance for risk and a different idea of what’s in the pot of gold at the end of the Quest, and some of us quake at even the thought of stepping a foot into the unknown.

So many of us are traveling up and down a dead end wash we call “love” in the middle of something we only know of as “familiarity.”

Sometimes we ride it in souped-up all-terrain vehicles, and sometimes we crawl along it, but we hardly ever fly over it, and actually see, with our own eyes, that it’s been a dead-end all along.

So, what if the Highway of Love is truly a super-highway leading to… who knows where?

And, what if it’s really not all that hard to navigate?

What if the only problem with it is it’s just not a dead-end wash?

What if the only hard thing about it is it’s not “familiar”?

So I bless the psychic.

Not for giving me a clue to what’s next, but for giving me a clue to my fear.

Perhaps the 405 isn’t all there is.

Now I have to deal with myself.

If I’m so afraid of detours, how will I handle the Highway of Love when I’m on it?

Will I run back to my dead-end?

Will I swear off detours?

Will I swear off possibilities?

Will I choose “Familiar” over “Better”?

Will I choose “Safely Stuck” over “Scary What I Really Want”?

Will I stay in worry and doubt and fear and not leave my house, or will I move out and about with abandon?

Will I keep my eyes open for danger, or will I allow in possibilities?

The choice is mine.

The choice is yours.

Try this way of choosing:

When you find yourself stuck, or afraid, ask yourself what road you’re on.

You may answer – I’m in love!

I couldn’t be happier!

Or I’m safe and fine, I don’t need a relationship, I don’t need someone else to love me, I love myself just plenty.

Or I don’t have time for all this.

I’m busy, I’m tooling down my road just fine, and, Rori, what do you know about it anyway?

Okay, so you know what’s up.

You’ve made your choice, and it feels good, and here you are, and you’re right – you don’t need me.

And if you answer I’m tired of the same-old-same-old.

I’m tired of the souped-up cars and the dry runs and the circles, then, maybe, you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain by choosing “Better” and “Scary What I Really Want,” than “Safe” and “Familiar.”

So, put on your new hat.

The one marked “Adventurer!”

Imagine that your emotions, your instincts, your heart rhythms, are a beautiful, powerful Horse you can ride across the landscape of your life.

Your Horse knows the way, clean and clear, to where you want to go. And if you should ever steer it wrong, it knows the way back.

Now, sit your Horse tall and proud.

You are about to let the whole world see you shake from fear, thrill from excitement, breathe hard from anticipation, tense up from the knot in your throat and shimmer from the hope in your eyes.

You are about to let go.

The Horse of your emotions, your instincts, your connection to life, your heart, is feeling feisty.

You’re about to let your Horse run free.

Imagine doing it.

Imagine tolerating the fear, the excitement, the heavy breathing, the tension, the shimmer.

Imagine riding the Horse somewhere new and feeling everything you’re feeling.

Believe that anytime you want, you can stop.

Yes, you can stop.

You can say No, turn back, go forward, take a rest.

You can.

You can say No when it doesn’t feel right, and you can say Yes when it feels right.

Sometimes it can feel right, but it’s just a little (okay, a lot) scary.

Don’t let that stop you!

Fear feels way different when you’re out there riding the Horse than it does when you’re stuck stock still.

Fear is many things, and it wears many faces, and we build all kinds of defenses on top of it to pretend it isn’t there or hide it away, or fight it.

If you don’t believe Adventurers feel fear, you’ve been sitting in the safe dead-end too long.

Fear is part of the Highway of Love. Bring yours along with you for the ride.

Soon, it’ll get tired and old, and you’ll be too busy having fun to even notice if it’s there or not.

So, wear your Adventurer hat (yes, you have one!), take along all your baggage, and imagine the exhilaration of having what you want.

Then, kiss your Horse, and let it take you somewhere new – to the Highway of Love.

Let me show you all the ways in which you can let go of fear and live the love life of your dreams.

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By Rori Raye

In her Have The Relationship You Want eBook, Rori Raye teaches any woman the secret of how to quickly stop the pain and frustration in her love life and get exactly the romance, affection, attention and love she really wants (and deserves!).

Rori’s Tools will help you attract a man instead of accidentally pushing him away, no matter how uncertain things feel right now.

Good Deeds Will Shine

Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storm of time can never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love, grace, and mercy, on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year. You will never be forgotten. Know your name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind as the stars on the brow of the evening. Good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven.

~ T. Chalmers

President Obama Wins the Nobel Peace Prize

A Letter to the President:

Dear President Obama,

How outstanding that you’ve been recognized today as a man of peace. Your swift, early pronouncements — you will close Guantanamo, you will bring the troops home from Iraq, you want a nuclear weapon-free world, you admitted to the Iranians that we overthrew their democratically-elected president in 1953, you made that great speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, you’ve eliminated that useless term “The War on Terror,” you’ve put an end to torture — these have all made us and the rest of the world feel a bit more safe considering the disaster of the past eight years. In eight months you have done an about face and taken this country in a much more sane direction.

But…

The irony that you have been awarded this prize on the 2nd day of the ninth year of what is quickly becoming your War in Afghanistan is not lost on anyone. You are truly at a crossroads now. You can listen to the generals and expand the war (only to result in a far-too-predictable defeat) or you can declare Bush’s Wars over, and bring all the troops home. Now. That’s what a true man of peace would do.

There is nothing wrong with you doing what the last guy failed to do — capture the man or men responsible for the mass murder of 3,000 people on 9/11. BUT YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH TANKS AND TROOPS. You are pursuing a criminal, not an army. You do not use a stick of dynamite to get rid of a mouse.

The Taliban is another matter. That is a problem for the people of Afghanistan to resolve — just as we did in 1776, the French did in 1789, the Cubans did in 1959, the Nicaraguans did in 1979 and the people of East Berlin did in 1989. One thing is certain through all revolutions by people who wish to be free — they ultimately have to bring about that freedom themselves. Others can be supportive, but freedom can not be delivered from the front seat of someone else’s Humvee.

You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. If you don’t, you’ll have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Your opposition has spent the morning attacking you for bringing such good will to this country. Why do they hate America so much? I get the feeling that if you found the cure for cancer this afternoon they’d be denouncing you for destroying free enterprise because cancer centers would have to close. There are those who say you’ve done nothing yet to deserve this award. As far as I’m concerned, the very fact that you’ve offered to walk into the minefield of hate and try to undo the irreparable damage the last president did is not only appreciated by me and millions of others, it is also an act of true bravery. That’s why you got the prize. The whole world is depending on the U.S. — and you — to literally save this planet. Let’s not let them down.

Beautiful Road Home

To find truth you must experience it in your soul. You can read hundreds of
books, or study the religions of all time, and find that all of them have one
common point, one common denominator: and this is love ~ which is another word for
light or soul illumination. To realize this soul illumination you have to shut
away the clamor of the lower mind, to become humble, very simple.

by: White Eagle  from page 58 of Beautiful Road Home

On needing approval

To seek approval is to have no resting place, no sanctuary.
Like all judgment, approval encourages a constant striving.
It makes us uncertain of who we are and of our true value.
Approval cannot be trusted.
It can be withdrawn at any time no matter what our track record has been.
It is as nourishing of real growth as cotton candy.
Yet many of us spend our lives pursuing it.

~ Rachel Naomi Remen

Photo is “Death by Cotton Candy” by Daniela Edburg