The Pure Act of Forgiving Others

     

         Forgiveness is an act of forgetting and letting go of the pain caused by wrongdoing of others done to us in the past.  It’s very hard to forgive if the pain is still there gnawing our hearts and guts out, but forgiveness is also one of the main ingredients in having a peaceful life.  However, giving forgiveness is elusive to most of us, sometimes we need inspiration from others on how they conquered their anguish and learned to forgive in the end.  Forgiveness I could say is a must in our lives because without a forgiving heart we could never lead a happy life.   I’d like to share a story from my childhood that I could say one example of pure act of forgiving others even if the crime done was unforgiveable.  This story happened when I was only ten years old and I became a hostage victim. 

     One peaceful night, our town turned into chaos when suddenly we heard gun fire around as if terrorists were attacking us.  In a matter of blink of an eye, our place turned into a war zone.  Everybody flee to save their lives, hiding where they could be safe and away from danger.  I was not an exception, I searched also for my own hiding place at the back of our home where we had a small hut that serves as our cooking area.  I was accompanied by three adults who worked for my parents small business, we were all shaking with fear.  We hide there totally nervous and praying that the ordeal will soon be over.  When we were going back to the main house as we thought that everything was back to normal again, my three companions were walking ahead of me and I was at the back following them when suddenly a hand grabbed my arm and pulled me backward as he put his other hand on my mouth to keep me from shouting for help.  I don’t know how it happened, maybe due to too much tension and panic my three adult companions just thought that I was already in the house or maybe they thought that I preferred to remain in my hiding place, so no one notice right away that I was missing.  The man who grabbed me happened to be the one who was firing his gun like he go berserk.  He pulled me back in the dark hut and he warned me in his firm and full of tension voice “don’t run or shout for help, if you do that, you will die”  He loaded his armalite from the bullets that adorned his chest and many still remain on his pockets.  This man was an army, he was still wearing his army uniform and he looked like he was all set for a battle.  I was very young then, I could just easily collapse due to fear or I could just shout out for all I care, but I thought to myself then, he was  serious, I’d rather do what he told me if I still like to stay alive.  So I just nod at him with terror in my heart and dreadfully watched him as he continued loading bullets to his long gun.   After he was finished he grabbed me again by my arm and told me without too much ado that “you come with me.”  I was just like a lamb being guided to a slaughter house as I go with the man, I was walking but I felt I was floating in the air as I sensed a great danger looming ahead of me that could cost me my life in just a matter of seconds or minutes.  When we were in the main street, many people were there because they thought that everything was over but when they saw the army man with me in his grasp they stared at him in horror and to me a total helpless look because they couldn’t do anything to save me and they run off as the man started firing his gun again.  In just a matter of minute the busiest street in our town become totally deserted.  It was only me and the army man who remain in the street, a man with a gun and a child who was waiting for her soon-to-come death.

     As I looked around me, I couldn’t see even a single person around, so I was so hopeless that I will be save, I just distracted myself then with questions, how will it be to die?  Where will I go after I die?  How does it feel to have a bullet passed through your body?  These questions I just let it played again and again in my mind, as if to ward off the inevitable.  The man keep on firing aimlessly, the sound of gun fire was so deafening that I tried to cover my ears and the smell of the gun powder was suffocating me.  I even thought then that I could die from mere sound and smell alone.  The man was holding me in front of him to cover himself from the enemy and as he turned this way and that caused my footwear to slipped from my feet so I turned barefooted on the rough street.   I moved along his body, I was like a puppet being pulled by a puppet master in any directions he likes, like a rag doll being played by a cruel child.  The man was shouting in the eerie silence around us about his grudge and resentment on the unfair system of the military that he was working that time.  He wanted to put justice in his hands by involving innocent people and even a kid in order that the chip on his shoulder will be heard.  He kept on firing his gun to no one in particular since we couldn’t see anybody around us maybe even if he heard only a whisper he will fire his gun because he was also under panic and trepidation.  Little of us knew that many military men including policemen were scattered around us but only hiding just waiting for the right time to pull the trigger from their own guns when they were sure that I will be out of range.  But the hostage taker kept on moving in different directions so my rescuer couldn’t pull off the trigger of their guns to shoot the man who hostage me, the order was shoot to kill, he was still alive because of me protecting his life.  This horrible incident that was also both action and drama soon ended when the man run out of his bullets, he tried to escape pulling me beside him as he started to run for somewhere to hide.  I run along with him because I was still so afraid of him but to both of our horror when we looked at our backs an armored car was after us.  I was more afraid of the armored car than the hostsage taker so I run as fast as him too, we were like in the movie the two of us running in the middle of the street while an armored car was so near in our backs.  In the end, the man throwed his gun beside the street as a sign of surrender and stopped running and put up his arms in total surrender.  I stopped too beside him trying to catch my breath then the army men from the armored car get out and handcuffed him.  That was the end, when the man was no longer a threat, a surge of people come now to my rescue and they were thankful that I was safe and was not hurt.  When this hostage taking happened, my parents were not at home, my mother she was outside our home to buy food for our dinner and my father was on business trip so he was unaware also of what happened to me.  When I came home that time my mother was under the care of our neighbors and relatives because she collapsed when she learned that I was the kid who was taken hostage, so she was crying with happiness and great relief when she saw me still alive.  The following day we had a grand reunion when my father immediately goes home when he learned also that I had been hostage.  I had an overnight fame in our place, our house had constant visitors of people who like to see the hostage victim and the military officials were also our frequent  visitors  at home because they were observing  my situation if I’ve been traumatized from the experience, thankfully I was not. 

     The hostage taker was of course put into prison and after how many days everyone was waiting for the verdict of this man and they expected that he will serve how many years in jail to pay for what he did.  But the decision to file a case against him depended on my father as his daughter was the hostage victim.  And to the shocked of everyone my father didn’t file a case against him.  Many were outrage calling my father lousy, weak and stupid because how could he let go of this man without severe punishment after what he did to his daughter, even the military officials were very much disappointed also with what my father finally decided.  But my father was very adamant he just stick to his decision regardless of what others will say.  From that moment on I was given an example that forgiveness can be done even if the mistake committed was massive.  I was the victim yes but at my early age I was deeply touched when my father told everyone that he will not file a case against the man because I was not hurt, nobody was hurt, so he saw no reason why the man will suffer inside the jail for how many years and his life will be wasted for nothing when he can have the chance to change his life and move on with lessons learned from his mistake.  The example that my father set for everybody to see, opened also my eyes in a new understanding that he was indeed right, so it helped me also to not hold a grudge against the man, I even felt sympathy for my hostage taker, I saw him in different light, not a monster but a human being like everybody else.  When my family visited him where he was imprisoned, he literally cried and almost go down to his knees to my father and to me in his great thankfulness that he was forgiven and no criminal case was filed  against him.  That moment was still vivid in memory even until now how I had a very nice feeling when we forgave him and how his face brighten because our forgiveness eased away the burden of his guilt.  The man was discharged from the army but he goes to another place to find a new job and new life for him.  After more than a year, he sent us letter thanking us again for forgiving him and he told in his letter that he found a good job, he got married and soon-to-be father.  It was very touching that my father gave this fate to this man despite of the crime he committed.  He was given a chance to have a good life and start a family.  What if my father filed a case against him?  I think during that time that he wrote us that letter he will still be serving his sentence in jail.

     I admired my father for what he did and later on the people who said bad to him why he didn’t file a case against my hostage taker, understood his reasoning.  It was very clear then that our lives returned back to normal, so what’s the point of making another person suffer when he can still be given a chance to change his life?  In our everyday lives nowadays, it is a common occurrence that even simple mistakes are very hard for us to forgive causing for it to grow bigger and bigger then creating a wide rip in any relationship.  I think the secret in forgiving is to have a compassionate heart that still can understand the plight of the other person who did us wrong and still wish him or her the best of everything despite of what he or she did to us.  I knew it is very hard, as I said we could not do it all alone, we need inspiration from others so it will compel and encourage us on how to follow.  For me forgiveness is just a matter of forgetting and moving on with our lives again, like we are travelling and just had a stop in one point but after a while we continue our travel, we just didn’t remain confined on that stop we made because we knew that we still have a long journey ahead.  I knew there are bad deeds that are very hard to forgive, I think it is normal to keep holding a grudge for a time but not sensible to hold it for a lifetime.  Justice should be served of course to the crime committed or else all the criminals will have a merry party every night in the street because they were always forgiven whatever ghastly things they do to others.  Sometimes there are other people who don’t deserve forgiveness because even if they are the one at fault, they don’t know how to acknowledge their mistakes and just keep blind eyes to it never asking forgiveness.  However, for some faults that can be talked over and we could have a place in our heart to forgive sooner then why not we do it for the sake also of our own peace of mind.  The only problem is, being a mere human like we are, we have our tendency that if someone do us wrong we always want to get even, to have our own revenge because we feel a sweet victory if the person who hurt us is suffering too.  It’s only normal feeling that if you hurt me, I will hurt you too.  We can never allow a person to hurt us and we will just stay in one corner and weep, of course we will have our sweet revenge.  My only point is, there could always be good in any worst situation, it’s just up to us how we will turn the bad to be good.  It’s all in the state of the mind, if we will think that he did us bad so we will also do him bad, of course our action will conform always to what we are thinking.  Sometimes even the smallest mistake can have a gigantic effect to the extent that it can even cost you your life.  I remember I read in the news somewhere that there was this guy singing in some bar but his voice was not pleasing to the ear so the other man on the other table got irritated listening and told him to stop singing but the singing man being drunk himself didn’t head his advice so the irritated man pulled out a knife and stabbed the man who was just innocently singing and enjoying himself.  This lack of forgiveness of the man prompted him to do a crime out of a very inane reason, if he only switch his mind to positive thinking, instead of being irritated he just laugh to himself hearing such poor quality of voice then he will not commit an instant crime.  Our thinking is the one prompting us to act, positive thinking produces positive outcome as negative thinking will produce negative outcome too but even if it is negative we have a choice to make it positive, the decision is all ours to make.  One irony of life is that sometimes the simplest thing is the  hardest thing to do, we just make complication out of the uncomplicated.  Life is too short to just be confined in a negative state, who knows today or tomorrow we will leave this world without any baggage to bring other than the deeds we did while we were still alive.  So if we will just hold on to our hatred and unforgiving heart how we could have a happy and peaceful life?  The pure act of forgiving others is one secret tool to continue our life journey without hassle but we will just have a smooth and baggage-free travel until we reach our final destination…

  

The Role of Sex in Our Lives

     As I am looking at the pictures of the star fish and sea urchin, I couldn’t help thinking that these two sea creatures could be compared to sex and the role of it in our lives.  Maybe I am being funny but looking at these two sea creatures you can see both distinct beauty and danger, like beauty and the beast but on this case I am only talking about one thing but it possess two descriptions that contradict each other.  Sex is a hot stuff topic nowadays but there are still some who consider it a taboo to ever talk about.  In today’s modern world you can browse through internet anytime you want  and you can find almost everything you need to know about sex, from positions to applications.  I read  even before some ‘sexercise’ techniques to keep you fit, healthy and happy sexually.  However, if we think of it in a deeper sense, what is indeed the role of sex in our lives?  Is it a necessity or can we just live without it?

     In my encounters from chat online before, I was shocked at first at the lewd and vulgar manner in which many persons treated sex, and you can see from their approaches that they just consider sex as just something to do to pass the time, like scratching an itch when feeling horny and indulging on it without any feelings at all even to a complete stranger just to satisfy the craving of their flesh and to forget about it later.  My shocked reaction over this crude behavior was replaced by questions, why some people are doing like this?  Why some people treated sex like it has no value and importance in human life?  Why sex is just treated like a cheap commodity?  I think I had hundreds of 'why'  that needs an answer but I came also into  a realization that it's only me who could satisfy my inquisitive mind.  If we will only be judgmental it will be very easy to judge these kind of people from their inappropriate behavior.  We can think that they are mentally sick, weird and even pervert to act that way.  However, if we will broaden our mind, we can hold back our judgment because we will consider the fact that we don't know them personally, we don't know  the real reason why they were prompted to act in a vulgar manner.  We have individual differences, so of course we also have different point of views,  opinions and tendencies, hence,  we can never judge others for what they are because it's their opinion and tendencies that's involved and not ours.  If it's wrong to us, it doesn't necessarily mean that it could be wrong also to others.  Other people have different minds, past lives and experiences, so we could never impose to them that this is right and this is wrong.  What could be right to us, it could be wrong to others and what is wrong to others could be right to us.  Our views in life even if it's the most perfect as per our opinion is not always right, so it's only normal that most of us will not meet on the same wavelength.

     In my opinion, the culprit  why sex today has lessen it's value, the blame is to be laid only in ourselves.  Sex can be found everywhere, be it visual, artificial, service offered  and even through internet.  Anyone can pay for sex, can have it for free and even through impulsive action or inclination.  We made sex very easy and accessible anytime and anywhere.  As goes the saying that anything  we get easy, we also forget easy, so of course the value of it will  lessen in our very own eyes, we can never truly appreciate its worth because it's just easy for us to possess it.  These practices are like an uncurable disease that will never deminish on earth, it will only grow worst because as time become more modern and liberated sex will only turn depreciated from its own real value. 

     But what is sex?  Personally, I define sex as an action of love between two persons who want to show or express their love to each other physically. Sex can be the most awesome and amazing experience a human being could ever have if he or she were doing this act because of the special feelings they have for each other.  Sex can deepen a relationship, make it more stronger and binding but sex can also destroy trust and respect if not mutually desired.  Sex is a responsibility because a human being can be created through sexual intercourse and its a fulfillment both physically and emotionally if you did it with the right person, in short, sex is  beautiful yet dangerous too if not responsibly handled because it can destroy us  emotionally and can rip away from us our self respect and worth as an individual.

     Men and woman in general has different view when it comes to sex, men are more liberated while most women are still conservative.  Men can be forward while women tend to hold back.  In one of my discussion among my friends, one opinion says that sex is a necessity, one cannot live without it, but I contradicted the opinion, for me, sex is not a necessity but a choice to have an intimate physical contact to the person you choose to be the right one for you.  It is never a must-to-have in our lives, we can live without it, our lives are not dependent on it.  Sex can even create complications that we can only regret in the end, so it's not worthy to give even a try in the first place if we know that we will only lose and get hurt in the end.  But as I said, it's all a matter of opinions and choices because we are all created different, so we will not always meet on the same wavelength.  However, we could salvage some remnants of the damage we created on how we value sex, we should at least give respect on it through words and actions.  We were all born from physical contacts of our parents, so we should keep sex in a respectable image since it's still part of our very own nature.   Yes, we cannot deny the fact that sex is being treated like just a cheap commodity on sale nowadays but at least let our minds not be corrupted that this is only the value of sex, sex is still an act done with intense emotion, we make it especial because by nature it is indeed special.  This is the role that sex played in our lives, to make us feel special and beloved and to give back this feelings in return, therefore let us not tarnish sex by just playing it dirty.  It's the very essence of the creation of every human being, so sex can never be cheap, we are only the one making it cheap.  Let us just open our minds that despite these bad things happening around us, sex is still beautiful and the most fulfilling act on earth.  Let's always consider it with exceptional feeling and respect not just mere craving... 

    

The Hidden "Beauty" Within Us

     Beauty if commonly define is a physical description of almost perfect human form, but beauty is also based on the eye of the beholder, so it has different varieties which conform to the opinion or taste of the one who is looking.  In today’s modern world many are lamenting at their lack of near-perfect features so the beauty industry is certainly a boom because being beautiful in physical sense is the trend of the new era.  If you like to have a pouting lips, a pointed nose, a high cheek bones, well proportioned body, etc… lots of cosmetics surgeries are available all over the world to give an immediate remedy to exterminate the inadequacy a person possess.    Sad to say, external beauty is the one that we always see, appreciates and give importance as if our life depended on it.  But our inner beauty is the most neglected, given less importance and locked away in dungeon and the key is thrown at the very depth of the sea retrieving it needs time, extreme effort and determination.

Little of us knew that hidden beauty even if the most neglected is the one that played the most important role in our life since inner beauty is our true self that has yet to emerge.  To uncover the inner beauty within us, we don’t need surgeries or drastic changes in our appearance.  We simply have to submit ourselves to life’s realities to understand what’s lurking deep inside us.  Why is it important for us to discover our beauty within?  It’s very important in the sense that it’s our true self that we are talking about, our true self that needs to be recognized, appreciated and well understood.  In discovering our inner beauty we promulgate our worth as an individual and we receive the reward of being respected for who we really are.  This doesn’t mean that we will boost our own ego to high level and make us a proud person it should be the other way around.  If we discover our inner beauty we will in fact embrace humility and be detach from worldly things since we will be aware of what matters most in life.

I came accross on the dictionary the other definition of 'beauty' which is very much appropriate on my topic.  It says:  beauty are the qualities that give pleasure to the senses.  Exactly this kind of beauty is the one that should emerge from us, it should be good qualities indeed to give pleasure to others, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be a man or woman but just be the person that you are now because everyone of us has beauty witihin that just needs polishing.  In all my life as a writer and also my working abroad helps, I encountered many types of people from different races and with different characters and I could honestly say that to anyone whatever color of the skin, the good character of a person always leaves a more lasting and excellent impression than the mere physical beauty alone.  I met a lot of persons with physical appearance to wow a crowd but they simply lack good qualities in character so the beauty they posses lack luster like a diamond buried in a thick mud we cannot see the glitter, and I met a few whose looks are very ordinary but if you can see inside their heart and mind you will feel that you won jackpot in the lottery because these people are so rare.  However, one reality in life is that, if a person was born in this world, his or her tendencies are to be physical, we need everything to be tangible to some extent that if we are not seeing that thing or person we tend to forget the existence because the physical presence is not frequently there.  It has been my observation also that it easily pleases us if things or  persons are pleasing also to our eyesight.  Good example are the actresses and actors, because of their good looks we adore and praise them, more than the good deeds of the saints.  The reasons behind are because physical beauty instantly merit compliment because it is seen, accessible and advantageous in lot of ways while the good deeds of the saints althought very noble and good, it will take time and effort from us to discover and appreciate its true beauty.  But to unleash the beauty within us, no need for us to be a saint, we can just be the person that we are now but with fuller understanding of who we are and what's the true purpose of our subsistence.

Understanding of who we are is just actually simple, it's only by acknowledging the fact that we are not perfect and life is not perfect either.  We can live a happy life if we give allowances to our mistakes because mistakes balances our lives.  Mistake will teach us what is right and will teach us also important lessons that will prompt us to advance ahead from our present mindset.  Committing mistakes make us more human and help us put our feet into the gound.  If we don't commit mistake we will never learn what humility mean, we will live in a pedestal considering ourselves better than others.  Being good all the time although frequently advised will make us proud too because if we are conforming always to what is right it will give us reason to easily judge others for their faults and wrong doings because there's no more fault in us, but if we have faults we will be more understanding, patient, open minded and compassionate to others.  Mistakes will help us learn the humane way of living in this world since we are all still human beings.  The saints, before they became holy they undergo many mistakes from their past lives before they submit themselves to be selfless.  Their mistakes were the reason even, why they became a saint in the first place because they learned from these mistakes and taught them wise learnings. 

My only point is, from bad we can get good results too, so in every mistakes that we committed, it has relevant purpose in our lives that will show us direction to do something good.  I said this line in some of my writings before that 'life is like a coin always having two sides and one cannot exist without the other because even if they are two they are just actually one'.  See the coin? it has two sides but its only one in physical sense and life is also like that, the two sides of life are good and bad, good will not exist without bad and vice versa.  Good and bad always compliment each other as black color compliments white, imagine if all color will be black it will all be gloomy and dark and if it will be all white it will also be just plain and dull.  The same with love and hate, the world will never be a world of love, hatred will always exist because that's the other face of love.  When there's hatred you should learn how to love and when you love, you will learn also how to hate.  This is the way of life, life is just a constant change, a routine of rotation, from good to bad and bad to good from love to hatred and hatred to love from night to day and day to night.   So everything in life has a perfect combination that compliments each other, even if they are world apart different they still will not exist without the other.  This is what nature endowed in each of us, we have all the goodness and bad traits inside us because no man was ever born perfect.  The main point now is, by understanding our true self it will help us realize that life was created this way so we will have a more wider perspective on how to manage our life, how to accept things as they are and how to be more balanced.  If we have mistakes or adversities, we will not be confined to this negative state only because we know now that after the bad the good will certainly follows.  Its like after the rain, the sun will always shine, so if we have this way of thinking we can have a fuller understanding of who we really are.  A mistake committed by us should not be look upon only as faults but as an eye opener also that we have always a chance to change it to good that will be beneficial for our personal growth.  We should only know the relevant purpose and hidden message lurking behind a mistake and soon good outcome will surely follows. 

This is the true purpose of our existence, we are born in this world to commit mistakes and to learn from them so we become a better person even if we don't become a saint.  Just understanding this simple life principle can create big changes in our lives and can make us happy from inside and beautiful from outside.  This is the true meaning of beauty, if we polishes our beauty within us it will shine from inside us, making us feel youthful and happy for everybody to see and be inspired.  And by polishing it, means fuller understanding about lifes' realities.  Beauty just lay within us, waiting to emerge, let us just make an effort to make it come out in the open because we owe it to ourselves to free our inner beauty from a long time bondage.  The great feeling that we will feel after this, is like being imprisoned in dungeoon for how many years and finally set free! 

Learning to Live the Life We Wanted

    

     If we are asked how we want to live our life of course our immediate answer will be we want to live happily, peacefully and with contentment.  We can enumerate few more but the most basic desire of every human being is to have those three previously mentioned to be present in our lives.  But as goes the saying that life is never perfect so we can never have everything we ever wanted.  Well, it could be true but at least we could do something to make it near perfect if not totally perfect.  The desire to live the life we wanted will always start from us not from others.  But human being as we are, we have many turning points in our lives that deprived us this privileged to live the life we wanted.  We undergo crucial trials, unbearable sufferings, unhappiness, loneliness, boredom, low self-esteem, etc… Some didn’t even recover from these emotional tornados that hit their lives so they draw verdict on their own fate that life is not worth living anymore, hence, they opted to simply vanish from face on earth in order to run away from all these anguish.  Running away is never a solution but a cowardly and inanely thing to do.  I understand that during these very down moment we consider ourselves nothing.  We can even appreciate a trash if compared to us because we simply lose our worth as a person that literally we cringe  from this unworthiness we feel.  We don’t have a face to show to anyone so we look for some place to hide, if not physically hiding but emotionally too.  Sometimes we became a recluse and we create our lonely world where it’s only us as  the lousiest person on earth exists.

     If ever you are in this state, wake up!  It’s not the end of everything.  You’re not a lousy person but just a lazy person.  You are just lazy to change direction it’s like you are sailing and when you encountered the rough sea instead of changing course to avoid being thrown overboard you continued sailing mindlessly.  Life’s oddities are like curse of nature, nobody can stop hurricane, storm, earthquake, etc… The same thing with our own troubles they were meant to happen or occur in our lives whether we like it or not.  The only problem is we set a certain standard for ourselves that should be followed (but according to us only) we are this and that, so we don’t deserve this pain, we are good person we don’t deserve to be hurt, we are helping others so nobody has the right to deprived us of what we want.  We are beautiful we don’t deserve to be criticized, we are intelligent how dare them correct us?  The culprit of all our troubles is our ton of pride.  We are simply too proud and too selfish that we want ourselves exempted from life’s imperfections.  If someone bruised our feelings it’s our pride that received the hardest blow, our self-importance diminish so we want to get even, we want to have revenge.  If revenge is beyond our range we will then start making an enemy of ourselves, we will self-criticize, under the mercy of self-pitying and the feeling of remorse will eat us alive. 

     The big trouble is we simply love our pride or self importance more than we love our true self.  That’s our greatest fault , we pampered our pride like a fragile child but if we are confronted with it, we will deny it to death because we are blind to see this truth even if it’s slapped on our face.  Pride woke up every morning before our true self wake up, pride nag us as we start our day and continue nagging the whole day.  Pride sleep late, it waits for our true self to be soundly sleep before it closes its eyes but half-sleeping only.  Pride is always on guard, it wants always to manipulate us, so its 24-hour watching the moves of our self like a jealous woman watching over the moves of her husband because she wants to keep the secure position in her husband life.  The same with pride, it needs security in our life so it will do everything to set aside our true self so in the end until our very last breath we don’t even know who we are, what had been the true purpose of our existence and we will just die weeping deep inside that our life had only been wasted for nothing and a pity we cannot turn back the clock again to rectify the damages caused by our pride.  And the irony of it, pride dies 24 hours after our body. 

     To live the life we wanted is basically simple, we just become more human not robot in human casing.  We become more sensitive with others feeling and also we become sensitive and honest on how we truly feels.  We should live the life we like to lead not because it’s expected from us by others, but according to our own will and to top it all we must always surrender to fate because we are not the fate designer/maker we are simply the player.  If someone hurts us, we just consider it like we are learning a lesson for our personal growth because we can never learn without experiencing the pain.  It’s like in school when a teacher has a stick in hand the student will pay more attention because they knew that they will get hurt if they didn’t learn the lesson being taught to them. 

     To be happy, we just keep our expectations in life moderate, we don’t expect high or too low we just keep a low key or profile because we had not been given any assurance of what will be the result on the future.  Everything will just happen according to the dictate of fate.  What is the relevance in expecting high in this life when everything has no guarranty?  We should just simply relax and expect both better and worst.  If we have this kind of disposition chances are we will not be easily hurt by others because we already conditioned ourselves that not everything will turn out the way we had expected.  If we are in a relationship we just take it as it is, we don’t make plans and expect something to happen.  We should not believe a promise because we know that sometimes it’s meant to be broken.  We don’t give what we cannot take and we don’t expect high because things, events, emotions or situations can always happen contrary to our expectations.  We should always consider that we are still human here on earth and not everything we desire even if it’s the most perfect plan of all times will materialize.   What’s fueling our expectation to its high speed is only our pride.  We want this plan to materialize because we created it.  Sometimes we want to keep this person in our life not because we truly love her or him but simply because our pride will not allow that we will be left behind, it will shatter us into pieces.  The shame feeling of being the looser after a broken love affair will start gnawing out guts and in the end nothing will be left on us, all will be eaten by this monster pride. 

     Losing someone we love by twist of fate our pride can even intervene.  Pride will pressure us to grieve and engulf us in our sorrow.  Pride will constantly whisper, "What now? You’re all alone, weak like crippled, no one can expect anything from you.  Don’t continue working, what for?  You lost the person you love, no reason earning a living.  Don’t comb you hair and put in the garbage all your make-up, what for?  The person you want to be beautiful with is gone.  Just be comforted with your misery so others will pity you.  Look like a bulldozer rolled over you, avoid water no taking a shower or even brushing your teeth, just drink liquor it will help uplift your mood and spirit.  Make yourself a total mess so you can get sympathy from others, so they will just support you, assist you and comfort you.  You deserve it you’re mourning you lost someone you love."  And of course we will just follow what our pride dictates.  See what this pride is doing to us?  It’s depriving us the chance to be happy again and if we don’t do anything against it, it will continue manipulating our lives until it will totally destroy us.

     To be happy we should also consider the fact that life is a journey not a destination, I read it somewhere and it’s very true.  We have stop-over in certain point in our lives but we must not stay permanently on this stop-over we should continue our journey.  Our destination is only until we have our last breath because from this moment on nothing and no one can hurt us anymore.  So after a catastrophe in our life we just pick up the pieces of what had been left and move on.  We don’t stay on that place and mourn over the wreckage, even if we shed all our tears what was lost will never come back again, so we should not only be mentally wise but emotionally wise as well.  This is for our own good and also for the people around us since if we are happy a positive energy will radiant from us and will attract positive results also from others who are in contact with us. 

      Life adversities should not divest from us the right to be happy they were only meant to teach us lessons and to show us a different trail to follow.  We can see good things even from the worst situation, the only requirements are humility and an open mind to accept changes in our lives.  To be happy will not just be spoon feed to us we must work on it and instill it in awareness because it’s only by doing this that we can attain inner peace and if we have peace in our heart and mind we can achieve total contentment in life, and we can say now to ourselves that we are living the life we ever wanted...