I
just managed to understand it, after a life devoted to the infinite search for
freedom, the “struggle” for freedom, my freedom, I now understand this instant
that freedom is not a state, but a journey, a way to go about life.All I can do is smile!
And the author of this heresy that has
enlightened me today is my teacher, Richard Bach, with his impeccable Jonathan
Livingston Seagull.Freedom is not
a final stage, freedom is a life choice you make each second.Being free means understanding that,
every instant, we choose to live the adventure of finding our own purpose.Being free depends on nothing and no
one outside of us, because being free is a choice.Today I discovered the heresy of my life: freedom is a
choice
And if freedom is a choice, the
responsibility we have to our soul and the wind is in our hands. It is so
easy and convenient to think and feel that we are not capable because something
outside of us is limiting us.It
is so easy to feel that we have no power because we lack freedom in one way or
another... but no, it turns out we have all the power in the Universe, the
power to choose to be free, the power to choose to live based on freedom.
That is why freedom never comes, because freedom is not a
destination.Freedom is an
attitude we use to choose to travel the path of our life.And that has changed everything for me.
A
coin falls: heads.We can’t see
the tail.It’s on the back.It falls again: tails.This time we can’t see the head.It is the same coin, just one, with a
head and a tail.It somehow seems
like two coins, depending on what side you are looking at.I say it to myself once more; it’s just
one coin, the same one...
That’s the way happiness and sadness are;
two sides of the same coin.We are
so happy over something that can also make us taste the bitterest sadness, and
when we are sad about something, we cannot see that so much sadness exists
because the source where it came from is the cause of the deepest happiness.Perhaps we think that if we see it, it
is going to hurt even more, so we do not even consider it.
My heresy today is the product of my
heart, if have this coin in my hand and hold it tight; it is the coin of my
soul, confused at times over the intensity of my feelings.My heresy is the confirmation that pain
is proportional to love, the source of all emotions, happiness and sadness in
one, fully exposed and unmasked.Sadness is happiness with no mask on and vice versa.My heresy is to live based on the
illusion of reality.This world is
perfect.This flow will take us
where we are supposed to be and flowing is where life takes place.It is in the steps on the way, not the
destination, where our existence occurs.
What better way to conclude this heresy
than with one of my favorite poems: Ithaca by Konstantino Kavafis. This heresy
is for you, Pili.
“Ithaca
When you set out on your journey to Ithaca
pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge. The
Lestrygonians and the Cyclops the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them. You
will never find such as these on your path if your thoughts remain lofty, if
a fine emotion touches your spirit and your body. The Lestrygonians and the
Cyclops, the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter, if your soul does not
set them up before you.
Pray that the road is long. That the
summer mornings are many, when with such pleasure, with such joy! - you will
enter ports seen for the first time. stop at Phoenician markets and purchase
fine merchandise mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony, and sensual
perfumes of all kinds, as many sensual perfumes as you can. visit many
Egyptian cities to learn and learn from scholars.
Always keep Ithaca in your mind. To
arrive there is your ultimate goal. But do not hurry the voyage at all. It is
better to let it last for many years and to anchor at the island when you are
old, rich with all you have gained on the way not expecting that Ithaca will
offer you riches. Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage. Without her you
would have never set out on the road. She has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not
deceived you Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must
already have understood what Ithacas mean.”
A
commonly accepted paradigm is that we have to live “with our feet on the
ground”.This way we think we are
acting like the adults we are supposed to be, many times choosing “our feet on
the ground” (our interpretation of whatever that may mean) over the alternative
of what it would be like living in our own freedom, practically choosing what
is accepted because we think that is the right way to do things…
I
have an idea.Let’s live life
“with our soul exposed”.I mean,
let’s live like we want to live, not like we are “supposed” to live.Let’s live unprotected, without the
restrictions of caveman ideas that limit our essence; live and gamble our
existence because our own happiness is worth it; live fully aware of the fact
that each smile is the best reward for the risk we take when we simply do not
prefer other people’s criteria over our own vibes.
My
heresy? In the end, truly living “with your feet on the ground” should
not mean that we have to please a society that is alien to us, but rather that
we should take responsibility for our own happiness and simply live "with
our soul exposed".My heresy
is that the most intense act of personal responsibility, maturity and good
sense is precisely a life lived without the limits of our skin, fully committed
to our essence. If you want to have your feet on the ground, you have to
learn to let your soul free, you have to feel the adrenaline from taking the
most heavenly risk: giving your all for your own happiness.
Here is Alejandro Sanz and his “Alma al aire” [Soul in the air].
I’ve
heard it time and again: in the middle of creating a dream, we stop ourselves,
cut the flow, dream less because we think that perhaps “that much” is
“impossible”. When I ask someone what his or her biggest dream is, the
true dream is not usually manifested, because it somehow feels impossible.And why should it be?
We somehow think we are not worthy of our
best dreams.It even sounds funny,
because it is.If we are capable
of dreaming it, we are capable of making it come true, and we are certainly
worthy of experiencing it.Aren’t
our dreams the most intimate offspring of our creativity?
Therefore, my heresy is clear: not only
are we worthy of our biggest dreams, but we are also entitled to even bigger
dreams.The sky is the limit.And to make each and every one of our
aspirations come true, without hesitation, without even doubting whether we
deserve them or not, whether we will manage or not.In life, we have the right to take anything the Universe has
put on our path for our consideration.Of course, nothing comes easy, but if our dreams are worthy of us, the
cost will always be justified.
So I suggest that deep down, we feel the power of the divine
right to dream and make each of our dreams, the biggest, most beautiful dreams,
come true.If our dreams are
worthy of us, we are certainly worthy of our dreams!
Today
I had an interesting chat about “old aches” in our lives; those fractures from
old "falls" that seem they have not healed altogether and start to
hurt once more on cold nights or during a full moon as if they were happening
all over again. I’m talking about the wounds from our past that we refuse
to forget, or at the least, we have not “let go” to simply allow them to
heal.By doing so, we are
constantly bringing the past to present conversation.That is to say, we are making it worse by living life with
old aches.
It is so absurd for old aches to
condition our present.My heresy
is that old aches and fractures make us more interesting, rich in experience,
wise and mature, but that is all they are good for.We have to live the rest of our life as if we had never
fallen down, as if we had never felt any pain, especially the sharp pains of
the soul.My heresy is that the
"scar" from learning should remain, but you have to say good-bye to
the old ache.It's time to enjoy
the present, in the present.
So, go through the fracture inventory and see which ones are
still hurting.Look them over and
sincerely understand how senseless it is to keep on experiencing past aches,
when the past does not exist and all we have is today; where we have the choice
to smile, or remember yesterday's fall and cry all over again.What do you choose to do?
Who
are you when nobody is watching? With whom in your life can you be whom you are
when no one is looking?I bet in
most cases you are yourself with one or two people, and I wonder what keeps you
from simply being yourself, as if no one was watching, but when everyone’s eyes
are on us?
My heresy today is an invitation to try
to be whom we are when no one is watching, our authentic self, with no makeup,
masks, chains, walls, brakes, fears. Because in the end, what keeps us from
being ourselves is actually the fear of what others think of our true, naked
self, and the irony of it is why be afraid if the others will never be
completely pleased.There will
always be those who do not like the way we are or who we are pretending to
be.In our yearning for approval,
we loose ourselves.We loose that
wonderful, fun being that we are when nobody is watching.
I say fun because I also bet that when we
think of whom we are when we are ourselves, it puts a smile on our face.Perhaps we talk to ourselves, sing or
dance… Whatever we are, there is sure to be a smile behind the mask.So why not let it show?Why not give the world the most
extraordinary being we have inside, who we are when, like Alejandro Sanz put
it, “our skin is no limit".
So let’s live as if our skin was not the
limit to our being.This leads me
to some words that I love and I believe are anonymous wisdom:
