2021 Letter For Everyone

I journal every day. It begins, as a slew of rambling words about chaos and order and life and death, scribbled across pages in an unruly fashion. And ends, in a somewhat beautiful spectacle of short paragraph wisdom.

At the end of each year, I gather up all of my notes and journals and strange philosophical musings and put together what I consider to be the best lessons to take into the next year. 2020 was an extra special year for everyone, so this time around I put in extra work and produced an eBook out of my writing called, "Wisdom to Reduce Suffering".

Wisdom is experience turned into lessons and remembered. It doesn't take a sage or guru to see this. Two things I am not. However, what I can bet you I am, is someone just like you. An average Joe, trying to make it through the trials of life.

Hopefully, some of my lessons can be yours to learn from too.

The Best Bits

1. Another year has passed. A new one lays ahead of us. There is a certain gravitas/momentum/energy around this time. As many people choose to embark upon new journeys, using the fresh year as a blank canvas to begin again, as if the old year is moldy with painful experiences and memories left unwanted, like old clothes in a scrappy box on the side of the road. Do not act in this manner unless you wish to poison your mind and remove your balance. Instead, deal with your old baggage responsibly by always maintaining good habits daily. Sit in silence often, to allow your mind the nature of itself, let it unbundle the old clothes of the mind, the regrets, fears, pains & hopes. Let your nature wash those clothes, sew on missing buttons, repair bad stitching, perm press those bitches, and hang them up neatly for good. Do this each day and you will never have too many dirty clothes that they become a burden to carry.

2. Be understanding of what truly brings you happiness. Do not cloud or muddy your pool with too many things at once. Stay present and alert but be soft and agile. Train your mind to allow strength of soul, stay open to possibilities, show love graciously, be compassionate to others, count your blessings daily and move forward with gratitude. Open your arms and your house to others and surrender.

Do not wish for circumstances to be different than they are right now in this present moment, your place on the path is purposeful, embrace it and love it. Hold a strong moral compass, let it guide you, close your eyes, go into the darkness inside and fight your own demons before anything external. Choose peace over war but if you find war on your doorstep do not turn a blind eye, strike it down where it stands.

Understand other people’s perspectives, stand in their shoes, show humility. Work towards being a better friend to yourself than you were yesterday. Choose to sacrifice for your loved ones, laugh often, smile even more, accept your losses with dignity and respect. Learn from your mistakes and others, choose what you value, and choose wisely, what you aim your focus at stares back at you. Forgive quickly. Share food with others.

Make people laugh or at least be fun to be around. And remember, you and everyone you know will soon die, everything, your time here, relationships, successes, failures, memories. Soon, it will all be turned to ash and be long forgotten. Our time here is small, too small to understand the grandness of it all, but, important nonetheless.

We are all actors in the game of life, and all have a role to play in working towards the common good, the better world, inside and out. We were made for each other and what hurts the bee hurts the hive. Care for your neighbors. Ask for your best self to be present every day. Enjoy yourself, in love, pain, anger, peace, in every moment. Amor Fati.

3. Why are you still in pain little one? Is faith not enough to guide you? Have you forgotten about the infinite cosmos above your head? Are the lights too bright that you cannot find your way? Have you forgotten the lessons you learned over the years, the love, the loss, the pain, the joy? Have you forgotten the interconnectedness of everything? Have you forgotten the games we play, the troubles we cause? Have you forgotten how to dream?

4. There are things/qualities the mind possesses that will aid in your tranquility and peace.

Self-reflection allows the ego to stay in check.

Meditation allows the separation of the self.

Journaling allows tribute to be paid to the nature of the mind.

Breathing allows connection to the divine source.

Movement allows for focus of the bull.

Stillness allows for focus of the grasshopper.

5. It is okay to have desires, you are human after all. And it’s okay to want things, be that material or ephemeral. What you don't want is to have too many desires, this will be akin to a pond with poor visibility; too much stuff floating around you just can't see. Instead, if you desire only a few things, the pond's visibility is better, and you can clearly see your path ahead. Remember what Marcus said, if you seek tranquility, do less.

6. How do you expect to move on and passed your trauma if you do not believe in and have faith in a path from the divine? Do you think you will be given your answers if you do not harbor faith and trust in the first place? How silly of you. Does a soldier expect anything different from battle, keeping a casual but alert sense awaiting conflict yet prepared in comfort?

7. Why do you continue to be thrown around by the shadows? Is the pain you have already felt not enough? Why do you attempt to relive your past through your present? Why can't you see the bigger picture? Why can't you step out of yourself and away from your identity and see things as they are, a thousand shades of gray.

8. The belief that oneself is solely governed by the mind, is a shallow depth of perception. Intelligence does not reside solely inside the pathways between the neurons of the brain. Intelligence is everything and everywhere. Organs, birds, rocks, dust, sand, hair, silk, whales, gems, solar systems, and universes.

9. Memento Mori. Remember you will die. Let that sink in. Truly let it flow into you. Let it sink deep into your being. Not only will your life end but so will that of all your loved ones. Remember also, this life was not yours to begin with, you are on borrowed time. Grow into a being of purpose, sooner than later, you will have to give it all back.

10. Ask yourself, why have you momentarily lost faith? Why have you forgotten nature's intelligence? Why do you think of yourself apart from nature? Do you think you just sprung into existence? Do not be so foolish. You grew out of this world like everything else. So, what happened? A couple of roadblocks, unexpected obstacles? Isn't that what you train for in the first place? Isn't that why you choose fists over knives? To always be at the ready. To embrace every stage of life, no matter how big or small. To love wholeheartedly the place you are in and know deep down at the very core of your being that this is exactly where you are supposed to be. Choose faith. Choose trust. Choose letting go. Choose love.

11. How often will you allow the fragility of your own mind to be bent by external distraction? Ask yourself this at every step; is it in your control or does it lay outside your grasp of fate? Remember, you can only work with what is yours to affect, and what is yours to affect are your own actions and your thoughts/perspective. Do not fret over other people’s actions/opinions, you have no say in that so hold your tongue and save your energy. Keep it for doing what is good.

12. Premediatio Malorum. Remember the world is not kind. Nor is it cruel either. It just is. Yet, what we consider to be good or bad will manifest. Understand the possibility and probability of painful, negative lessons being dealt to yourself, your dreams, wishes, desires, jobs and tasks. Understand the trouble that can fall upon your loved ones. Make yourself more capable of dealing with the blow. Absorb, and let go, like water.

13. The mind shares space with the divine. It knows no boundaries and therefore can never be held back. The mind can move through dimensions of thought occupied by all things. Unhindered by form, it can reach past, present, and future as if by magic. It can share in thinking with all other things as if there is one giant pool upon which thinking manifests and its boundarylessness is shared by all.

14. Do not allow yourself to be thrown about by the whims of other people. How often does your face resemble an expression that is unnatural because of the opinions of other people? How much time will you waste in the thoughts of others? I repeat; do not care or judge what other people are doing or how they go about their business. Only focus on what you can do right now, and whether you are doing the right thing; the right thing is natural, and not placing anyone in harm, nor yourself.

15. Your problem is your identification with emotions. The actions themselves are not difficult, although the thought of them torments you. They will define you. It is easy from the outside to see how simple your wishes could be true if you simply acted upon them but from the inside, the decision torments you as it is fraught with charged emotion. Our minds are troubled with expectations and too many decisions and a lack of trust and patience. Failure to separate oneself from emotion in times of need can be a vice unwelcome. The opposite is the same truth.

16. Do not spend too much of your time on otherworldly devices. It is often not hard to see, but you do not need much to live a good life, and a lot of what we do is simply to distract us from this.

17. Moderation is vital to a healthy ecosystem of self. If that means breaking down your day into segments of time, allotted in such a way that you can balance the essentials of life then that is what one must do. Be sure to make room for the following:

Meditation or internal reflection

Purposeful movement

Surrender or gratitude

The truth

Pleasure/reward

Consumption of food

Work; towards a better you

Work; towards a better standard of living

Maintaining relationships

Building relationships

Sleep/rest

The amounts of these will vary depending on your circumstances, values, beliefs, goals, dreams, and current or previous environment.

18. Remind yourself each and every morning that good things happen, and bad things happen and you are in no rush to get anywhere. It doesn't matter if you are 40 or 24 when you realize this, it's always the same person doing the realizing.

Do not fret about trying to get somewhere or something or someone into your life. Things and places and people will come and go like the seasons. Appreciate each part of them with presence and reflect on them positively after the fact.

Remind yourself of the temporary fleeting nature of life and emotions. Stand back and watch them arise, participate in as much as possible, feel deep down in your core as much as possible.

Remind yourself of the luck of your draw. You have made it this far already, have faith in where you stand, and bring presence into the moment.

Remember to let go at every step. How can you move on to the next stage if you do not let go of the one you are in. Remember that change is indefinite and that if you focus correctly, and surrender, sometimes you can manifest great things within the window of change that is your existence.

19. Forgetting Amor Fati is a crime unto yourself and those you come into contact with, as-is;

Forgetting not to take yourself so seriously.

Forgetting you will soon perish and be forgotten.

Forgetting your small but meaningful place in this world.

Forgetting what you are a part of.

Forgetting to love yourself and all others.

Forgetting your worth and value comes from inside.

Forgetting your many bias and inability to see the truth.

Forgetting the innocence we carry.

We are children. Can you see even the worst of acts as a bad environment?

Forgetting our limited reality, our small, narrow consciousness, our fixed mindset.

20. Give up a part of yourself when you are ready to do so. You will know when that time has come. Be wary of being pulled in too early by a desire for the things you want most deeply. Want more so what you have now, not what you may have in the future or what you had in the past. Make your desire for the life you live right now but do not allow it to grow sufficient that you become rigid like dead trees or old men. Stay supple and open and do as water does, manifest in the lowest of places. The simplest of things.