Meditation – Nobody is Better Than You

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YOU are on your own journey. Even if you find the love of your life, the path you are on is only wide enough for one person. From time to time you may walk beside someone else, at other times you will struggle with yourself.

That voice of self-doubt and that feeling of insecurity? They are not real. They are the result of comparing the behind-the-scenes reality of your life with the highly edited film that everyone else has produced of the life they want you to see.

The simple truth is they have just as many fears, worries and concerns as you do. They look at themselves and see a train wreck unfolding, just like you, instead of the brilliant bit of editing that you see of them.

Just remember, you are on your own path. Forget about what everyone else is doing and seemingly achieving. They look at you and think the same thing that you think of them. Perhaps they wish they had different elements of your life like than you wish you had of theirs, but it is all the same in the end.

Take a moment to think about it. Do you wish you had their mortgage? Their failing relationship? Their screaming kids? Do you really want their medications?

I didn’t think so.

I know you wish you had the glamour they are trying so hard to project. You wish you had their big house and fancy car. You wish you had their closet of designer clothes and their bank account. Well, they wish they had your freedom. They wish they had the life that you take for granted as well.

So start living your life, but live it YOUR way.

Forget about what everyone is doing. YOUR life is about finding your limits and then breaking through them.

Find out what it is you want to do and then go after it. Take it step by step and do not stop for anything.

  • If it’s taking longer than you think it should. Do not stop. It always does.
  • If it is harder than you thought it would be. Do not stop. It always is.
  • If you are overcome with doubt. Do not stop. Overcoming doubt is what this is all about.

If you do not understand it yet. All of this is just an illusion. Your real life is lived in the here and now. The real challenges you face are not in the world around you, but in your mind.

Don’t believe it? All you have to do is think back to when you were most satisfied with who you are. It always occurred when you overcame a personal hurdle, didn’t it?

Not somebody else’s, but your own. Yes I thought so.

So find another hurdle for yourself, one that only matters only to you and then jump over it.

That is what real gold medalists do.

A Meditation on Immortality

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The universe continues to amaze me. The more I look, the greater my wonderment grows. I sit back and stare at the stars on a cloudless night. I stand on a boat and stare into the depths of the seas. I am eternally curious about the nature of what lies beyond the visible world around me.

Did you know that there are jellyfish that are, depending on your perspective, immortal. Like any other jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii begins life as a larva, called planula. The planula swims before settling to the ocean floor where it matures into a colony of polyps. These in turn spawn genetically identical medusae, or free swimming jellyfish.

The fully mature Turritopsis dohrnii are only about 4.5 mm, or 0.18 inches across. They are tiny. They have bright red stomachs which are visible inside its transparent bell-shaped bodies, and about 90 tiny tentacles reaching downward.

What makes these tiny creatures remarkable is a survival skill that is called transdifferentiation. When attacked, or facing starvation, they respond by taking a step back in their maturation process. They literally turn back the clock and become polyps once again that are genetically identical to the injured jellyfish.

In time this polyp colony continues the process, releasing more medusae in a process that defies what we think of as the normal cycle of life and death.

If we can look beyond the physical body of this jellyfish, and into its DNA, it becomes easier to see that the idea of the self has more to do with transference than physical existence. With this new perspective, it makes it easier do the same for our own sense of self.

Are we the physical collection of cells we see in the mirror? Is it our psychological being? Or is something more? Our essence? Our spirit? Our soul? Or a combination of all three of these? Is it, like the DNA of the jellyfish, the collection of experiences and attitudes we carry with us?

When we physically die is that truly the end? Is there more at play? Does our spirit transcend with whatever code it carries?

Like the genetic material of the jellyfish, do we pass through the process of polyp, medusae, and adult, carrying the essence of our being forward, a code we do not see?

What are your thoughts? I am curious to know.

 

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