Saving Myself

I am shattered...These last several years of a recession have stripped me of all the things I thought I needed to be safe. A secure job, health insurance, income properties, 401K retirement fund, a loving partner- all gone in an instant. The dust has settled and I'm bare as the day I was born. I say goodbye to the world I thought I lived in, finally ready to shapeshift into a better, newer version of me. The next battle will be fought with my wits about me and in a battleground of my choice...no longer a banal corporate drone, I will pick a career not for a big paycheck or benefits but for a cause -something, anything that means more than just pushing-papers. My credit may be destroyed but like the honey badger I don't give a shit. The Credit Rating system is just another mechanism to control the masses and maintain debt slavery. I will do like the Germans and save and buy when I have the money on hand, if I don't have it, I won't. 

I'm at a crossroads but don't know which road to take to begin my "second act". I chose a secure job for the good salary and to feel secure, never able to be daring enough to be a starving artist, giving up all materialistic comforts to reach my true dream. I'm now ready to deal with that fear of not knowing where my next paycheck will come from and replacing it with knowing that I will create my own sense of security and "inner wealth".

On this Doomsday year, I stand ready and waiting to welcome the new world -for whatever it will be will be more true to me than the last one. A paradigm shift is happening before our eyes. The old ways are crumbling from the weight of their own unsustainability.

 The American Dream has AIDS and it's in urgent need of a blood transfusion, new ideas to revive its potential again. 

Adversity forces analysis of how one conducts their life and how one can do more with less. Necessity is the mother of invention- I will learn to do more with less. Living on a salary that is now 1/3 of my previous one means more eating in. My bicycle, pool and running outdoors = my new gym. Who needs health insurance when I can manage my own health. Meditation is free and more of it = no need for antidepressants. My talents brought to fruit will be my retirement fund. I will harbor no fear of being poor or not achieving the American Dream, for I already had it and I still wasn't happy. It was never enough. The new American Dream will be "My American Dream", custom fit to fill my needs, my definition of success. Who needs the Wizard of Oz, I will find my own yellow brick road to happiness. I will be own savior, my own wing-man. 

The Hopi indians believed you should not chase after happiness and success but to have the awareness that you are already happy and successful. To them it’s a state of mind, not a balance in a checking account. The Hopi saw the world alive and full of purpose. 

Instead of dwelling on my limitations or imperfections I will focus on the powers at my disposition to make a better world around me. My success will be measured by the number of smiles I can bring to others, and the happiness I share with my loved ones. I will channel my inner Buddha and guide myself on how true I stay to my inner "right or wrong" while staying true to my mission. I will be my own best friend first and second to my closest family and friends. My legacy will be how others remember me. What I will have are the good memories instilled in others which will live on with their spirit- for eternity. It's time to start asking ourselves what will our "after-life" be like? Fuck retirement  -I'm planning out which planets and undiscovered galaxies I will travel to in my afterlife. Like Prince sang, it's time to go a little crazy because "there's something else, the afterworld". 

Each one of us can be a revolution...we can all be revolutionaries to shape our world in a better form. When we give up, we relinquish that power.

Like the gay men fighting in an American mall earlier this year after being called faggot, echoing the day the gays at the Stonewall finally had enough of the police abuse and fought back. The masses are awake and fighting back...no longer resigned for a savior that never came and probably never will, the "second coming of Christ" is, I believe the Christ or God consciousness inside each of us, the awareness that we have the same power to fix things as a God, demigod or whatever you choose to call it.

"Come to the edge, He said. They said, We are afraid. Come to the edge, He said. They came. He pushed them...and they flew." Apollinaire

We are being pushed to our edges globally in every nation and we are not going to keep quiet anymore..."the hungry will only stay hungry for so long". Occupy movement, Anonymous hacktivists, Susan Komen uproar over cutting Planned Parenthood, self immolations in Tibet, mass unprecedented protests in Russia, the Arab Spring; the examples are popping up everywhere like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Activism and communication of injustice is at an all-time high with many times, quick resolutions as fast as the internet can carry them- ending the injustice, once revealed. 

I choose now to be savior of myself, to mirror God's potential as much as I can dare to believe. I will be my own personal hero, turning myself whatever I want to be. I am swimming in the infinite ocean of possibility, lighter now, having shed my tattered carcass of humility. I serve no one by lowering my head to others. I am proud, I am strong, this is my revelation.

The universe is a democracy a cooperative commonwealth. What we are now witnessing and living is a "pornocracy". Our leaders have sold themselves to the highest bidder to hold on to their warped, greedy version of the American Dream. Greed is no longer good. 

I am one of millions who have finally been freed of most of the trappings of capitalism that were wearing down our very essence. Stressing every day to maintain it all was barring the masses from being in the moment. Sure, we had the best toys and coulf afford vacations with healthy doses of socializing amongst friends but our minds were always cheating on our true selves, the secret, closeted heroic version of yourself that you keep in a vault in your mind. That guy that would one day come out and kick life's ass, and wear it's balls around his neck as a trophy! For too long, we've been racking our minds, balancing money and bills on a see-saw in our heads, feeding a false sense of getting close to the ever fleeting golden fleece of success. Stripped of all of these capitalistic accessories, we are now forced to re-evaluate the concept of "success" and how a person values himself in America of today. I believe the old American Dream is being incinerated before our eyes. Glowing-red, wispy embers from a forest fire falling softly to the ground. The embers of the old America fertilizing a completely new, reconstructed, sustainable American Dream, where humanity is paramount and finances are not.

Unemployment, not paying your bills, collectors blowing up your phone, whatever it is your feeling that is keeping you down, feeling innadequate, unloved, undervalued or underappreciated...just "shake it out" and believe you are worth more than a paycheck, or whatever assault to your self esteem from outside forces..shake it out...let it roll off your shoulder, believe the revelations will come and you WILL find a new way to live. You will find a new way to get "unstuck"...eventually. Savor the process.

"Break your heart no longer. Each time you judge yourself, you break your own heart. You stop feeding on the love, which is the wellspring of your vitality. The time has come. Your time. To live. To celebrate, and to see the goodness that you are. Do not fight the dark. Just turn on the light. Let go, and breathe." -Swami Kripalu

IF
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling 

If you need help walking this new path alone-here's a great post to read.