Your truth or mine?

I’ve been reading so much about the upcoming primaries and it really makes me wonder why people think they way they do, why they believe the things they believe in spite of evidence to the contrary and not only regarding politics but with everything.  The truth is really all in the believer’s perspective. Everyone has their own “truth”, no matter what the subject is. The only anomaly to this would be science, which is based on actual fact and even then there are people who will argue it.

Generally speaking when we listen to both sides of any story we come away with a belief for one side or the other when in reality both sides believe that their’s is the truth.  Taking one side or the other really comes from the listener’s perspective on the whole story. Where politics are concerned it baffles me that anyone who is a part of the middle class in today’s society would vote against their own best interests based on what the right-wing politicians are telling them and yet, don’t I do the same when I listen to the left-wing politicians?  Of course I do, and I choose to believe it because they appeal to the side of me that wants to see the kind of change they propose.  Putting that in perspective is something that I think we all need to do when it comes to politics. I used to argue with people and have even lost a few “friends” over it but the older I get the more I realize that it’s nothing more than whose truth we choose to believe. Not to say I won’t still argue, especially if the facts are clear, but I’m learning to give others the benefit of their freedom to believe as they see fit. Easy? No…but necessary if I want to stay connected to people I love regardless of their politics.

The same holds true for families.  Funny how families never turn out how we envision they should be. That’s because our vision of how they should be comes from our own perspective of course and everyone in the family has a different perspective. Families are bound together and torn apart by their individual perspectives no matter what the subject is. Our belief systems are shaped as we grow into adults by the people we meet along the way who shift our views and the life experiences that move and change us.  Losses can literally shift our consciousness in ways that we never imagined. Miracles can hold our hearts in places of love and light.  All of these things and more shape our own truths. Sometimes when I listen to the memories of people who are telling stories from the past that I’m involved in I wonder if I was even really there because I remember it so differently than they do.  Individual perspective.

I think we are closest to the people whose beliefs mirror our’s because it gives us common ground. What I’m working on is trying harder to see things from the perspective of people I’m not as close to, who don’t have the same belief system or “truths” that I do.  Some days I’m awesome at it….some days I don’t even want to try but my truth is, it’s worth the effort when I do.

Love and light, always.

Where is the magic?

I just watched a video that brought to me the realization of what life seems to become as we get older. Ironically it was a video about death and dying and how we perceive it as a whole and how the notion of living forever is ingrained into us very early on. Our logical selves know we’re going to die, but we try not to “believe” it. I would guess that is because we don’t really want to face the pain that comes with losing people we love, and in the case of our own death, don’t know what happens afterward and so we simply skip over it like it will never happen even as we prepare most of our lives for it. One of the most interesting things about this video was the concept of children and how we have them so that in a way, we do live forever through them and their children and so on.  I love that. I love the thought that my children will carry me on and their children will carry them on. But another concept in this video was about survival and profit. One sentence made me realize that I’ve been so busy working toward making a living and surviving that I’ve lost sight of just living my life.

I haven’t lost sight of the vision of living my life, but it occurs to me that it’s always just a vision. The consistent need, when I was in my 20’s to just pay the bills and buy the groceries has now morphed into this consistent need, in my 50’s, to do the same. I am still in survival mode despite the fact that I make more money now than I ever have. “That’s just life”.  I hear that all the time but is it?  Or maybe the question is, should it be?  The vision of enjoying each day, being around my friends and family, loving my work and not having boat loads of stress every minute of the day is a strong one. I have friends who are living this vision. I also have friends who are, like me, still stuck in survival mode. Time to break the cycle.

Not to say I didn’t choose this, of course I did. But I wonder when it became automatic. As I’m watching the video this morning I realized that I have ceased to see the magic somewhere along the way. The magic of everyday things, the magic of people I love and what they bring to the world, the magic of life as seen through the eyes of someone younger, all because I’ve been so focused on survival for most of my adult life that I’m stuck on repeat.  I do have an awareness of these things but I want to wallow in them. I want to stop, drop and roll so to speak. Put out the fire that has become my everyday existence. I want to make new choices and quit living for the almighty paycheck because the truth is, we are all going to die. I’m going to die at some point and I don’t want to do that without pure joy in my heart, surrounded by the people and places I want to be, having created more memories than I ever thought possible.

I took my youngest son on his graduation trip a few weeks back. It was his desire to go to the Rooster Teeth Expo in Austin. He’s been following this production company for a very long time and it has been a dream of his for years to attend the expo they host every year. It was the best weekend of his entire life thus far. It was also the best weekend of mine as well and the reason is that I was able to watch his dream come true. In real time, I saw this awakening, this beautiful expression of pure, unadulterated joy just radiate from him. He created a memory that will last his lifetime and I was there. The joy of watching his dream come true is hard to describe and yet, it’s the very thing I want to experience more often in my own life. I’m interested in a lot of different things and it’s high time I start exploring the possibilities.

Am I having a midlife crises?  Eh, maybe…but I would like to think that I’m just waking up.

Love and light your way, always.