All of a sudden, a car from the right side crashes into us, instantly killing my brother, who was sitting on the right side of the back seat. I lived, while he died. I was completely devastated and incredibly sad.

Later that night, I had to break the news to my parents. We were getting ready to sit down for dinner, and I grabbed our three bowls of food and handed one for each. As I sat down, I hesitantly said, “I have to tell you something …” My mom stood straight up from her seat and started screaming, “No, don’t say it, don’t say it!” It was as if she already knew what had become of her only son. My dad was in silence, in complete shock.

I started sobbing uncontrollably and our wails grew and grew. I thought how sad it was that I’ll never get to see my brother ever again, to see his grin, to be with his casual, laid back self.

I woke up in a terrific tremor and was so utterly thankful when I realized it was all just a dream.

**

Later that same day, I recounted this dream to my partner and a couple of close friends of mine. One reassured me that it was just a dream and it’s not real, so I have nothing to worry about. Another asked if I heard of the theory that when someone dies in our dreams, that these people, whoever they are, all, in fact, represent us. Like a part of us is dying, such as an ending of an endeavor or chapter in life with a new beginning after this death.

That made sense to me.

There is a great shift occurring now and in the months to follow. Endings and beginnings, of all kinds. It’s exciting, but also a lot to process.

Another asked if I was watching anything the night before I had this nightmare. I said, “Well, yes, actually. I was watching a documentary called The Woman Who Wasn’t There about a woman who lied about being a 9/11 survivor.” There were images of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers, people wailing, as well as survivors admitting how guilty they felt of being alive while everyone else around them had perished.

“What you watch, you embody and bring into your psyche,” she reminded me. “So it’s not a surprise that you weaved those feelings you felt while watching that documentary into a dream that included those closest to you.”

That made sense to me.

The car which crashed into us was the plane and we, the tower. I was the survivor, with immense guilt that I lived while my brother died. Wails from my mom and I were the wails from people and sirens. Silence and shock from my dad were the silence and shock of the world when we learned of what had happened.

This dream is one of a few that I have had in my adult life of either me or someone very close to me dying. Once or twice, I dreamt my mom died and I couldn’t save her no matter how hard I tried. Another time I died and I knew I was going to right before I did. Now, I dreamt my brother has died.

And you know what? It never feels any easier. I wake up from it, shaken to the core, and as I go about my day, I may forget about it completely. But years later, I still recall these dreams vividly, as if they had actually happened.

These dreams remind me of the little things in life, which are actually the big things, the things that mean the most. Like calling my parents and telling them I love and appreciate them. Texting my brother and saying, “Hey lil bro. I love you. I’ll always be your big sister and you can always come to me for anything.” His teenage self may not understand it now but I hope one day he will.

Tell the people you care about that you love them. Maybe you haven’t talked to them in a while and there’s the lament, “But it’s been too long and wouldn’t it be awkward?” No. No, it won’t be. Because you love them and that’s the truth. It is never too late to say what you mean. Never too late, until one day, it is.

What do fast food, TVs, multiple vehicles, multiple houses, a bursting closet with clothes, shoes, accessories, food in the pantry and refrigerator that can feed a family of five for the next ten weeks, all have in common? They share the notion that more is better, quantity is more important than quality, convenience is better than slow preparation. More is less, less is more. The more we accumulate, the less we are happy. The more we stuff ourselves with physical and mental junk, the less we are at peace with our bodies and minds.

**

To work not for personal gain or ulterior motive is to work for the sheer pleasure of it. It is to work because we choose to work, not because we have to or because we believe we’ll gain something from it. There are countless people in jobs they dislike to have more money, thinking this money is their salvation, but, rather, creates some sort of hellish way of life. The vicious cycle goes on and we are the ones who created it by first believing in it to begin with.

Is this being unrealistic? Unrealistic is the way we are living right now. We are literally destroying each other and ourselves. We are literally destroying this world we live in. We are destroying and we are happy about sustaining our division amongst us. We slap labels on each other, just to box each other up, put a grand, wide-sweeping statement over a broad category of people and place prejudice or stereotypes on such people. In reality, we are so very unique, each and every one of us. I no longer am just an American. I no longer am just a female. I no longer am just Asian. I no longer am just Nina. I no longer am just a human being. I am me. No more labels, no more divisions, no more boxes.

At the core of every action and reaction we make or take are two emotions: fear and love. Out of fear comes jealously, greed, anger, lust, hoarding, consumption, materialism. Out of love comes compassion, empathy, kindness, patience, understanding, peace.

What we do becomes who we are. And who we are is based upon what we believe. What are the thoughts that make up who we are? Are they based out of fear or out of love?

Fear-driven living is addictive and all consuming. Most of us live in fear whether we believe it or not. We do not have to believe in the sun to rise for it to rise, it just does. If it didn’t rise, then all this has been an illusion.

Those hypnotized by the illusion that money is everything and will bring them what they need or want in life are sometimes so possessed of this mindset, this illusion, that they murder, steal, lie, or cheat, whereas if they did not believe in this, they would not have. It’s a terrible tragedy, one I am witness to or hear of almost on a daily basis, and all centering on this fear-derived belief. If we do not work harder, we may lose our jobs or won’t get that next promotion. Why should we work in order to gain something that can easily be taken away from us? Why do we work just for the fruits of our labor? Why has our society — us — created this world we live in that centers around a credit-debt, gain-loss, reward-punishment system? Isn’t it diabolical that we should want that, that this is what’s become of our human race? I am saddened by our humanity sometimes and I am disheartened when I see people treating other people, animals or things with no compassion, with meanness, with hatred.

Even seeing a person’s car with the boot on it made me sad the other day while I was riding the bus. This spawned my thoughts of how we are constantly butting heads, how we are constantly in a metal stage, the stage of rigidity, lack of fluidity, hardness. How we want something for something and that we can’t just be happy with what is. This world is far from utopia and it’s because we’ve made it so. Not Nature, but Man.

In The Walking Dead, sometimes it isn’t the walkers (the undead) that the people should be wary of. It’s the other survivors. What’s worse? The dead killing the living or the living killing the living? How is it any different? One operates without a brain or human emotion and the other one does. But both can destroy, infest and kill, and without logical reason too. Who is to fear then, really?

We are already killing each other. We are killing ourselves. We believe in things that do not bring us happiness and we applaud each other for attaining stature, prestige, power, money, things that don’t really mean anything in the end. We believe in an illusion and we are the ones who have to live with the consequences of our beliefs and actions. Look at our bodies. Look at our mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health. We pop pills and push away responsibility onto our doctors to make us healthy and well. We don’t take any responsibility yet expect all the results of taking action would. We want something for nothing. Nature gives freely, expecting nothing in return. Why can’t we?

Flowing with Nature, with the Tao, with our truth, we become our true and real selves. We no longer become limited by what we’ve believed to be our limitations or what someone says is our limitations. We are freed to live as we are and as who we are. No one can tell you that you are unnatural if you know in yourself that who you are, what you feel, what you do, is the truth of your essence. No need for affirmation or validation to justify who you are. What good does that do?

**

There is no pressure except for the pressure we place upon ourselves and there is no place to go, thing to do. You know where you need to go, so go. You know what you need to do, so do it. No need to rush to a thousand places just to do a thousand things. “I have no place to be. I have nothing to do. This is where I’m at, this is what I’m doing. Be here; this is it.” This mantra helps me to slow down and stop rushing.

When we know that our future is nothing but an idea, we can then start to live fully in the present, the here and now. What’s happening in us and around us is it. Life can change the very next moment — and it does — so to try and predict an outcome or event that is, at best, a mere guess, is wasteful. Live in the now, live in your truth, be who you are.

When we think we’re supposed to do something or not do something, this becomes an idea, an opinion, an expectation. So when we fall from that expectation, we become miserable and hurt by it. Leave those expectations, they serve nothing. We end up serving our expectations and becoming the slave to our preconceived notions. This is loss of our true being and promotes polarity, dis-unity, non-harmony.

No longer can our spirits remain the slaves of ego, money, advertising, status, achievements, expectations. We can’t any longer. There is so much suffering in this world; it is time to lessen it. We can only start with ourselves first. From there, we move forth.

**

Now a year later, I mentally review what had transpired. Oh, so much I have learned, where to even begin? As a freelance yoga teacher with my first year of teaching behind me, I had to learn how to form relations with various studios and teachers in the city. I had to, as one would call it, ‘network’. But I don’t think I like that word. It makes the human relationship sound impersonal and strictly business-like when it is quite the opposite at its true core. There is a serious business to yoga, of course, a whole other side of yoga besides the postures we do on the mat in a nice studio space. Networking has been an interesting experience and I don’t view it solely as a business relationship. Rather, for me it’s about a human connection where we are coming together as one because of the shared love for yoga. Can we be friends? Or are we to simply remain as colleagues, keeping our distance from one another?

I had to learn about the extremely diverse and eclectic personalities just within Chicago’s yoga community. There are so many schools of thoughts, on how we are to approach teaching yoga, let alone practicing it. Teaching is another entity altogether. Everyone comes with their idiosyncratic style and personality, taste in music (or no music, as some spaces are), preference in what to wear to class, chanting Om or no chanting, the use of Sanskrit or no Sanskrit, the practice of pranayama and meditation (or the lack thereof), and so forth. The differing opinions abound but, ultimately, we must like yoga enough to a certain degree, enough to want to teach and share this holistic practice with others. I would hope it’s not just about the money although that is a very real concern.

It hasn’t been necessarily smooth sailing my first year, as I’ve had to learn some lessons the hard and nasty way. I can’t count how many classes I’ve gone to where it was just me in the room. I can’t count the times where I’ve been disappointed, sometimes because of my own doing and other times because of external circumstances. I can’t count the times where it was really tough to get out the house and be the confident, graceful person I know I am when all I feel inside is hurt, insecurities and doubts about my own ability. This is all a part of my growing too.

Not to say it’s been all rough patches either. I’ve had the amazing privilege of getting to know some of Chicago’s great yogis. I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to work at several different studios either through a word-of-mouth referral or because a relationship developed organically. I’ve had the honor to teach lovely, just lovely, students of all backgrounds and types. They are one of my sources of inspiration, and to see them grow and get over some hang-ups in their life while using yoga as one of the healing arts, is just awe-inspiring. I’ve been able to take some educating workshops and additional teacher trainings to further enhance my yogic knowledge and depth of understanding. The beautiful things I’ve experienced and will experience are limitless.

**

As I head into my second year of being back in the States and a second year of teaching, I am keeping a positive, open attitude on what’s to come. There is balance and there is beauty in the ebb and flow of life, life’s natural ups and downs. Just like when we invert or backbend, how are we to know the benefits and feelings of being right side up when we never flip our bodies and minds into another perspective? It’ll help to shake things up, to never grow bored and dull of life, to keep things fresh and invigorating. I’m excited by it all.

Caution is a product of human nature, conditioned by our forebears to heed with care, lest we be the hungry lion’s next scrumptious meal. This is fine, until taken to light in the current age we are living in. We (mostly) do not roam the wild, free lands of the world looking over our shoulders to see if anything will sneak up and eat us. We sometimes judge others for their ways of living, preferring to act with self-righteousness and pomposity than to address the inner discontent that dwells unattended. We are quick to serve generous helpings of advice but slow to take our own. We laugh and jeer harshly and unfairly at others who seem to fall off of society’s edges, preferring to clump together in hoards of the 99% than to reflect upon the fact that the 1% actually are doing what they’ve set out to do. Rejection by others is a commonality amongst the bold adventurers, surrendering any notions of flagrant luxuries, manifested greed, and copious uselessness of generic living to our driving sole and soul purpose that fuels everything that we do, see and are.

We are the brave that walk amongst the wild, uneducated, misinterpreted, neglected, rejected, forgotten and unloved. We are the few that shift the world into places before unknown, unseen, misunderstood. We go where the common shun, choosing to dive two feet first into the crevices of absolute darkness but just to burst forth on the other side in the brilliance that is a shameless and regret-free life of sojourning exploration.

We unreservedly admonish the guarded, sheltered life for one filled with a new rising sun on outstretched horizons, each day bringing in abundant possibility, opportunity, beauty and friendship. No one holds our hands as we tip toe into the vast wilderness, playing make believe in search of precarious notions of grand disillusioned living. We blaze our own paths, fearlessly insistent and committed to the monumental storyboard of our lives, one page at a time, one step at a time we create it. To close one door that leads to expectant living and bland regularity is to turn our backs on that way of life forever. And when finally the back has been fully turned on any notions of standard vanilla living, one shall discover the tremendous and impressive beauty in the landscape of pure adventure that resides within us all.

Our culture nowadays depends vastly on communications via phone apps, instant connectivity anywhere in the world, even in far and remote places, and relentlessly pursues instantaneous gratification of the digital consumer. Our culture sixty years ago also used media outlets for its advertisements but to a far lesser degree. Now, it is nearly unavoidable. Every day we are bombarded with an average of 3,000 advertisements in its plethora of forms. We simply can’t turn away from it and not because we don’t want to, but when we do turn away, another quickly springs up begging us to look at it.

Even in the natural sanctuary that nature provided for us, we bring with us a litany of tech toys and gadgets, just so we can be safe and entertained. To be sure, of course some of these products help, and immensely, at times. A GPS on hand whilst deep within the Amazon rainforest could help prevent us from becoming incredibly lost and bewildered. But then again, so does common sense and survival instincts. To “get away from it all” really isn’t about getting away at all, is it? We physically remove our bodies and place ourselves in a different environment, say, in a mountain or forest preserve, by the oceanside, or in a small country town. But are we psychically removing ourselves from what really needs to be attended to? Our mental and spiritual health? Are we?

The use of all these goods, to a degree, is perfectly fine. When it becomes almost irreversible in its damage upon our spirits, that is when it isn’t perfectly fine. That is when we need to literally yank that plug out of its socket, take those batteries out, uncharge, disengage, remove, and run. No longer can we bear the terrible burden of the psychological toll not just corporate advertisements have upon us, but each other’s advertisements as well. Aren’t we all promoting something to a more or lesser degree, even on a subconscious level?

Nature has given us everything we could ever have needed. We’ve only invented things that we think we need and as a by-product, become so dependent upon what we have created that the user becomes the tool and the tool becomes the user. We’ve become something of another breed. This breed is unnatural and moves against nature rather than flows with it. Like a seed, we need just a small amount of water in order to grow. Too little and we don’t sprout. Too much and we drown. Right now, we are drowning but most of us don’t even know it.

There isn’t anything one ever needs outside of ourselves on a superficial and artificial level that supplies our happiness and joy. Nothing external gives us what we eternally long and crave for. What we think, we believe and shall manifest its impression upon our psyches. Believe you need something outside of yourself in order to be happy and thus it shall be true. Believe that nature has intended for us to live in harmony with all other beings and living things in this world and you may just find that deep peace you’ve been wanting all your life.

The thoughts in our mind, that creates our reality. If enough people believe that flying on airplanes are extremely dangerous, then airplane flying would be warranted as a dangerous activity. Our minds would then look for clues, examples, stories, close calls or catastrophes to justify this reasoning, which is actually, at its most simple level, just a thought. A thought or idea that is thought up by one person, and then another, and then another, soon becomes mass belief, or as I’d like to see it when the situation is appropriate, mass hypnosis.

We don’t shout fanatically every night when the moon rises or when the sky becomes dark in order to convince people that evening is upon us because the earth has rotated and that is because everyone believes it to be so when day becomes night. Is this just mass belief, or mass hypnosis?

What about the asinine or irrelevant idea of the ‘perfect’ life? What is perfect, anyway? Isn’t perfect merely a subjective thought, rather than an objective absolute or meaning? The fact that we have a dualistic way of viewing things, our perspectives, the way we go about our lives, etc., means we are not in union with our higher consciousness. When there is an object and a subject, there can never be a ‘one’. That ‘one’ that was intended to never break has now been divided into two and, therefore, is already apart from its authentic wholeness.

This is — in Zen philosophy, the martial arts, yoga, meditation, and similar deep inward journeys these vehicles of self-exploration takes us on — what we have been trying to understand all along. It isn’t about how different can I be from others, how to stand apart, how to be noticed, how to not blend in, etc. Who cares about the others at this point? If you are divided within yourself, how do you ever expect to have union with another human being? Address the self first, then proceed from there. Inner to outer, not outer to inner, which is a common fallacy and trap of those who are stuck in the physical realm tend to fall into.

Like physical exercise, it won’t really matter if you spend two hours at the gym everyday working on the external physique when the rest of the time you are destroying your inside body by smoking or eating and drinking poorly. It just won’t matter because the attention is not focused on what is truly more vital. Take care to attend your vital needs, and that is of sustainment, health, longevity, life. Not simply doing another fad workout or diet plan that promises to give you a stealth six-pack abdomen or killer arms. The plethora of quick fixes are out there for those who want it but be leery of anything that promises anything. There are no promises except for the ones we believe into, including the things we tell ourselves.

When we are dominated by our senses — and the senses are merely a part of what constitutes ourselves, not the whole — we are living trapped underneath the reactionary pattern of life that is the common day-to-day. Every day is filled with reactions to events that have just occurred a split second ago. We are simply reacting to things in the past, even if it just happened. And what is the past? What is the future? The present holds all, the past and the future. We cannot know anything of what will happen before it has happened; all theories are exactly that: theories. They are simply hypotheses to predict a likely outcome of a certain occurrence, should it even occur, that is.

Our reactions to events, people and things, we really ought to realize the lasting effects of such reactionary responses and how it manifests itself, ever so minutely, ever so subtly, into our immediate future. The driver that cuts you off in traffic, you become so enraged at that you end up cutting someone else off. Thus, the cycle has begun.

In the end, do we really know if anything is true? In the end, do we really know anything at all, all the things we claim we think we know or expect to be real or true? In the end, who really knows anything at all?

All I’m trying to find out is, what is real, what is true, and how to be my own truth. Sure, there are a million other things I want to find out, like if unicorns actually exist (many of my friends would say yes, so there you have it), if the guy sitting next to me on the train is actually an alien disguised in a human body (debatable, but what’s really to debate? it’s a yes or no question, really), who I was in my past life or lives and who I will be in future lives if reincarnation of spirits is true, and what other worlds are out there, if there are any (which I believe has to be case. how ego-centric of us to think we are the only ones that exist? silly humans). Alas, the questions abound and the answers are few, if any. I suppose that’s what’s fun (and frustrating) about life. We get to ask these questions and then go about seeing if there are any answers. Sometimes, all the fun lies in thinking of those questions that mill about one’s head when laying in bed at night. It’s all pretty interesting if you ask me.

I think people are oftentimes afraid to be by themselves, that they will be alone for the rest of their lives, no one by their side to hold their hand, to comfort them, to play chess or a board game with, to eat with, to walk in the park with. Sometimes, it’s the simple things we desire the most. We just want human connection, in the end. We want to know that we are, and have been, important to someone else in this world — someone besides ourselves.

But, have you considered this question? Why are we afraid that we’re going to end up by ourselves? Why is that? We don’t know how our lives will end, we don’t know what will even happen tomorrow. Why worry about something we cannot ever know?

Being by yourself can be the most enjoyable, peaceful time you can ever experience. Meditation, for one, is all about being with the self, silently sitting or as the Zen Buddhists put it, “just sitting”, walking quietly, letting thoughts come and go without any opinion or judgment or attachment. Any practice you take up can be regarded as meditation, really.

When there’s nothing blocking the pathway to you and your thoughts, it is a most personable experience you can explore. I’ve discovered that is just one of the little treasures being alone can offer you. It’s really quite nice.

A lot of energies are going this way and that and lately, it seems like many energies have been of the negative kind. I had one woman call in tonight to complain about her food order and was so angry as to use the F word. She picked the right day to call because I was in no mood to entertain anyone for talking like that to me. She was spilling, rambling, nitpicking, just plain angry. Some people are full of anger. It saddens me to see it.

One of our neighbors is an older man who swears and yells like there’s no tomorrow. He will go on and on about money, bills, the home, rent, car, people, etc., and scream it all out (and seemingly to no one — not terribly shocking) until my girlfriend yells “SHUT UP!” outside the window. He quiets down after that. But he is spilling. He is also full of anger. The man does not sound like a happy person or one that likes to dance in the rain when it’s pouring outside.

I was taking a yoga class today and as I glanced around me, I saw so many people struggling. Struggling to get into the pose, struggling to look good while getting into the pose, struggling to breathe, struggling to look as if they’re not struggling. Just let it spill! Right onto your mat. Let it all out there. Who cares?

More often than not these days, I look around at the people milling about, going about their day-to-day, and I think to myself, “Our days are numbered. Are they doing what they have always wanted to do? Are they happy? My days are numbered. Am I happy?” I can answer my own question but I can’t say it’s a positive answer for some people I observe. I can’t say it’s any answer at all simply because I’m not in the other person’s skin.

A patient of my best friend Lesley, who’s a chiropractic doctor, came into the clinic today and they were chatting about how it is difficult to get teaching jobs, as Queenie, Lesley’s younger sister, was having a hard time finding a job teaching second grade. The patient went on to say, “Oh, that’s what I’ve always wanted to do: teach. But I got an office job instead, because you know that pays better, and before you know it, here I am. Not doing what I wanted to do.” Spills infused with a tinge of bittersweet regret.

Some of the people closest to me are spilling. They are working themselves to death, trying to make ends meet, running around until they all but collapse onto their beds exhausted. I know the feeling all too well. I really enjoy good work and am not afraid of getting my hands dirty. In fact, I feel kind of restless if I’m not working (or working on something). Of course, when I do put on my working hat, I can’t seem to stop. Roeper was right in saying to Flynn, “Watch out for that one.” She knows both Flynn and I can be workaholics. Roeper already saw the worker bee in me and though there are many positives in having a partner who hustles, it doesn’t come without its risks and side effects.

These spills are feeling too overwhelming. I see so, so many people walking around with puffy faces, swollen and tired eyes, a limp walk because of the weight they carry on their frame, a defeated vibe. I also see many people who have no consideration of others around them, as if they are the only ones in the entire world. As if they are God. Oh, how these folks frustrate. But you know what? They are also spilling. These spills harm; they don’t help. Like an oil spill in the middle of the ocean, no one benefits. Millions (probably billions if you count the microscopic critters) of sea creatures and animals are the very unfortunate causalities of such a catastrophic spill. One moment they are swimming along, doing what little sea creatures do, and the next moment, they suffocated and could no longer breathe. That was it.

We are those sea creatures. But rather than an external spill happening to us, the spill is an internal one happening in us. We are overflowing and many times, it’s not the unicorns and rainbows that make up an idyllic dream. It’s the raw stuff coming out. Like the pus oozing out from an untreated, infected wound. Like the salty tears sliding down one’s cheek. Like the snot that runs down your nose when you’ve been crying pretty hard. Like the beat of your heart racing, your blood boiling, when you’re on guard or someone has ruffled your feathers one too many times. Like the intense throb in your knuckles from punching the wall because you got so upset. Or when it feels like the last straw.

Pema would say to embrace it all. To invite groundlessness in. To be alright with the state of things, exactly as they are and what they are. If there is no ground, the spills would have no place to fall upon. They’d simply float about, forever suspended.

Our bodies obey the law of gravity here on planet Earth. Our physical selves have a place to fall upon. But our inner selves experience groundlessness. That’s why some things that have happened two decades ago can still haunt us to this day. Our spills, and others’ spills, float about and intertwine. We don’t necessarily like it but maybe some of us invite these spills in. We invite them in because we spill over so many times every single day.

I want to tell people that it’s okay to feel like shit sometimes. But to walk around and treat others like how you feel inside? Not okay. Like Flynn said to me, “Not everyone can handle their shit well.” By all means, don’t hold it all inside and let it stew. Find a way to release your pains that doesn’t hurt every person you cross paths with. Yoga is wonderful for this and I’m not saying this just because. It really is. Go to the back of the room if you need to, off to a corner, sit on your mat, close your eyes, and start to breathe it out. Those spills have to go somewhere; they can’t all stay within.

I’m turning 28 this Sunday, August 12. I’m happy to say that I have grown a lot this past year. I’m happy to have made so many new friends all over the world. I’m happy to have journeyed deeper within myself, to allow truth to seep deeper within my very being. I’m happy to have such deep love, to experience love, to be in love. I’m happy for my personal health, for the many opportunities and exciting adventures, for the abundance that is really everywhere when one looks for it. I’m just really happy to have this life and to be able to live it the best I can, every single day I am here.

It would delight me, for my birthday, if you could support my work by purchasing a copy of Truth. If you already did, maybe get one for a friend, relative, or coworker! Thank you so much.

Spills or no spills, forward we move and onward to adventure, life, love, Truth …

Have you ever noticed yourself speaking of something as if it was the final answer? That no other way of thought, life, perspective, method, or consideration even is allowed to challenge whatever notion you speak of? I have. And it bothers me when I find myself doing it, not to mention, loathe it when I see it everywhere else.

Recently, I saw a Sprint commercial featuring their new HTC EVO smartphone, where hundreds of users were playing a digitized version of Wilco’s “I’m Always In Love” using a synthesizer app. For whatever reason, I quickly became irritated at this advertisement and I believe it is due to the wide sweeping assumption, especially with “younger” generations, that anything newer and faster is automatically better.

This caused me to think of where our current apps, gadgets, newest versions of phones, computers, cars, appliances, and so forth, really derived from. Where does Guitar Hero get its inspiration from? Guitars, the original instrument! Where does the laptop get its inspiration from? The typewriter; the classic pen-and-paper; the charcoal-to-stone method! Where does GPS get its inspiration from? Actual paper maps; hand drawn navigations; homing pigeons!

I just don’t see why my generation of people have to automatically assume that whatever is latest out there, which very much includes smartphones and the plethora of tech toys we have at our fingertips, is better and smarter and needs to be adopted now, lest one be left in the digital dust storm.

Am I so old school that I actually don’t mind texting with my simple flip phone, sans frills (you know, actually punching in four times the number 7 in order to get the letter “s”? remember those days?)? Now, I’m not saying I’m better than anyone who is far more up-to-date on their gadgets. What I would like others to consider, however, is the unconscious statements we utter when we come across older forms of the same technology.

It isn’t just disrespectful of that particular technology’s evolution (the roots of where it came from), but it also sounds downright ignorant. By all means, integrate your life with tools that will help you live better and safer! But don’t forget, even the latest of the greatest will soon be outdated; be wary of saying something is the best before the next wave of innovation wipes out whatever you hold in your palms today.

Manmade things, including the concept of time itself, shall always exist, so long as our mind can wrap itself around the thought that infinity is real, that longevity of the absolute Life has always been around. Our thoughts, they make up who we believe ourselves to be. Adopting a poverty mentality of “there’s never enough time” shall be your striking blow to the greatness of your life, while adopting an abundance mentality of “there’s so much in this world, including time” shall grant you the gift of eternal joy that is pure existence. Celebrate the life you have, no matter how many years, months, weeks, days or hours may be left.

One day, to some, may be the longest day of their life, perhaps experiencing painful loss or an exhausting day of work they don’t enjoy nor love. One day, to others, may be the sweetest, most beautiful one ever, perhaps slowly savoring the stupendous nature and genius of the world all around us, the magnificent love we are able to give and receive all the while. Our perceptions and attitudes matter when it comes to living life to one’s fullest. What is full to some is stark barren and empty to others. So practice patience, compassion and love when it comes to your own life.

Only to the extent that we fully comprehend time is nothing but a finite box we’ve built, can we begin to step outside this box and really start to live in the way we were intended to.