In all things...give thanks.

If I were to sit down and start jotting down a  comprehensive list of all the things that I currently have in my life, I would easily be overwhelmed with a rush of uncontrollable emotion, awe and utter gratitude. From the family that raised me, the friends and colleagues I interact with on a daily basis, the possessions that I own, the finances I have acquired, the knowledge I have absorbed to the health that I currently maintain.

Through this simple practice of sitting in silence and recognizing where I am at this current stage of my Earthly Journey, I can see just how much I have truly been blessed from all angles and in all aspects of my life. Modesty and humility aside, it really doesn't take long for me to realise that there are people, situations and material items that I have in my life which I really don't deserve.

See, when you are taking an honest account of your life, there are certain things you will come across which you know deep down you have not worked hard enough to receive ( if you even worked for them at all) , yet are still endowed with, regardless. The more religiously inclined may chose to call this Grace... and if that is the case, then yes, Grace this is, and I ackowledge it wholeheartedly and am truly grateful for it.

I am a very ambitious person and I have been my own life, born with a natural burning inner-desire to progress, achieve and succeed, always planning, plotting, wanting and desiring.. more, more, mooore!!!. Yet, what I have come to realize over the recent year and a half of being exposed to the harsh unfiltered realities of this world we live in, is to never, ever take anything for granted. 

We as 'educated' individuals, living in this socioeconomic bubble - always surrounded by 'The Jones's' and infiltrated on a daily basis by the heavily biased media, cannot help but selfishly get caught up in our lives, our habits, our dreams, and of course our ever-pending brighter future that we forever fantasize about and cling onto ever-so longingly. And it is because of these egotistical distractions, selfish desires and narrow minded perspectives of this dimension of existence, that we forget to sit down, reflect, give thanks and just appreciate what we have, who we are, what we are, where we are and how we got here.

T4aM.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In every thing give thanks..." - 1 Thessalonians 5:18
"No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks. - James Allen
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Know thyself: confessions of a control freak.

The Confession:
Hi, I'm Ben...and I'm a control freak :( .

This is something that I used to be proud of, a title I was extremely happy to identify with while growing up, until recently when my life exploded into a pool of possibility.

See the ladder of life up until the end of University was quite easy, predictable and deterministic for me, and because of this I would and could easily plan every single life event up until the very last detail. And due to the fact that there were only so many possible options going forward, I would usually have a + 90% hit rate (yes...really) and life was breezy, I was happy, comfortable and fully in control.

But after graduating at the end of 2013, a whole new world of options lay before of me. Leaving the University of Cape Town with a first class honours degree in Computer Science; a heart of ambition and a soul full of passion determination and drive to change the world, there were literally hundreds of local jobs I could apply for, thousands of career paths I could follow and an infinite number of lives that I could be leading a few years down the line. Now you would think that me and my control freak nature would happily welcome more options, but due to the glorious Paradox of Choice  the more options I have, the more anxious I become. So nowadays what happens is that the more and more I think about where I want to be and what I want to do with my life, the more my mind completely and utterly spazzes out, especially when I compare my ambitions to my current situation. Disappointment truly is the deficit between expectation and reality....and I have felt this first hand over the recent months.

Don't get me wrong, my life is still in my control but the problem that swiftly arises now is that:
1. There are many more variables to control.
2. There are many more external factors that I cannot control.
3. The fact that much as I think I know what I want and need in my life, I cannot guarantee that it is truly what I want and need.

See I learn more and more about myself on a daily basis and this reality added on to the above points is preventing me from confidently writing up and following through with my trademark detailed life plans. Because what the me that I am today wants, needs and knows (by the way knowledge and awareness play a massive role in desires and ambitions...), is never completely the same as what the me of tomorrow or next week wants, needs and knows.

The solution: Living in the present!

This past week I had an epiphany that Eckhart Tolle himself would be proud of. See in a deep state of anguish, anger, confusion and disappointment I remembered all the books, videos, lectures and other ad hoc material that I have consumed over the recent years that speak about living in the present moment. From the life changing book The Power of Now - by Eckhard Tolle, to the wise words of my homie  Siddhārtha Gautama (AKA The Bhudda), the teachings of the great Thich Nhat Hahn (Zen Bhuddist monk) and the profound insights of one of my more recent spiritual role models Mr. Alan Watts (western teacher of Eastern Philosophy). Years of learning from such great men have really molded and shaped my understanding of how to approach living in this world, but up until a point it is all just theory, until you wake up one day and are faced with mountains that seem truly insurmountable.

And then the "aha moment" arises when through revelation you truly and deeply understand that life can only be lived in the now, and when you do this, most (if not all) of the stresses, concerns, troubles and worries fade away and fall to the wayside. Because in the now, the future and the past are irrelevant and essentially non-existent. When you are fully present, you don't need to continuously think about where you want to go or how you are going to get there, you are fully embraced in the present moment and current occurrences of life. You accept your current situation and you give it the full respect and attention that it deserves, because in all honesty it is really all we will ever have in this lifetime...

Yes, I still have many ambitions, desires, hopes and dreams but I am trying my best to let the Universe take care of all the admin (the macro) as I take the responsibility of living my life one day at a time (the micro). In as much as I thirst for the 'finish lines', the multiple objectives and the ideal end-goals, the truth is that now I do not even know the best path that I should take to get there and what is even more concerning is that I don't even know if I actually want to be competing in some of these races of life that I so willingly signed up for...

What I do know however is that 

right Now.. I am Here 

and the Here & Now is the only place that I can ever fully be.

#T4aM

Know thyself: Once you label me..you negate me

Who we think we are, who other people think we are,who we are expected to be and who we think we are supposed to be form the basis of our thoughts, our behaviors our actions, our preferences, our allegiances, our friends, our careers...our life. Overtime we get so caught up with defining ourselves, our surroundings and our possessions, adding layers upon layers of labels, explanations, tags, ambitions, desires - all in the hope that we are making more and more sense of the world when we are actually just making ourselves more rigid and restricted. Limiting ourselves and others from sincere expression and the possibility of having a truly limitless life experience.

"I am this, I am that", we think and say to ourselves as we try so hard to fit into groups and relate to other people. Quick to add more and more words to our arsenal of self-definitions in an aim to form a proud egoistic worldly identity, all in our deep burning desire to be a 'someone'. Quite sad it is really that throughout all of this we tend to forget that it is not who or what we are that actually matters, it is that we are.

You see the idea of who we are is just a collection of labels and descriptions imposed on us by ourselves and those around us, in an attempt to categorize, to understand, to predict, to model and yes, as 'true' and 'reflective' as these labels may seem on the surface, personally identifying with them just restricts you even further because you now associate your deeper self with these superficial high-level definitions, that in all honesty have nothing to do with your real true essence.

You cannot be boxed, you cannot be categorized, you cannot be defined.

You just are. 

#T4aM

---------------------

"And God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you." - Exodus 3:14

"I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge." - Herman Melville

"I don't think people change. I think they definitely mature. But I think the essence of what I am today is the same as when I was five years old. It's just maturity. I've become a healthier, fuller expression of that essence." - Ricky Williams

----------------------