I read an interesting article today that posed the question, "Would you give up personal accomplishments to have a successful and happy love relationship?" The article went on to state that if you have to think about the answer for more than 3 minutes you are crazy, OF COURSE you should always choose to be happily in love.
Well, count me as part of the ones that thought about it for more than 3 minutes and choose the opposite. I believe that the article was intrinsically flawed in the first place. It, of course, equated personal accomplishments with money. I value money less than I value pretty much everything else, so I had to disregard that aspect of the article. How crazy is our society, where we are judged on our success as a person by money and possessions? That topic is for another blog entirely, so I won't get into here, but suffice it to say that thinking is flawed on so many levels I can hardly wrap my brain around it.
Truth be told, I wouldn't trade who I am, how far I've come, and what I've accomplished as a human being for anything in the world. If you believe that in the end, we all truly walk through this world alone, then how can you value a relationship, more than you value who you are? In the end, we only have ourselves to answer to. People are meant to enrich our lives and conversely, we are meant to enrich others. But, that doesn't mean that other people should become your whole life. I have faced it before, loving someone, but knowing that in the end, it doesn't enrich my life to have them in my life and so I have had to let them go. I have been let go by people as well. Sure, it stings, it hurts down to the core at times, but in the end, I am content and I will continue to strive to be content with who I am in this world.
Sometimes in life, we are the tree on the river bank rooted in where we are and others are the water flowing by, stopping for a moment to say hello and give the tree what it needs and then flowing on. The water doesn't get angry, it just is, flowing on to new places and things, knowing what its purpose is and happy with what it is. The tree doesn't mourn the passing for too long, it got what it needed and continues to grow. Be the tree, be the water, it doesn't matter, what does matter is that you are content with who you are and what your personal triumphs, failures, and accomplishments are. That is what makes you whole, not striving to become whole in the eyes of another.
Peace and love,
Lara
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Smiling Through the Hassles
I'm sitting in the Vegas airport right now, waiting to fly to Tahoe for the week. Surrounded by travelers much like me, all of us scurrying to our destinations. I'm sure that there will be people in this airport today who's flights are delayed or who miss their flights and have to reschedule. Really, any number of small things can happen to make it a hassle to travel. I don't think the majority of us realize and even appreciate how much we take for granted when it comes to traveling.
I just finished reading one of the best books I have ever picked up. It's called "The Lunatic Express" by Carl Hoffman. In a nutshell, Hoffman decided that he was going to experience and document what travel truly is to the majority of people on earth. The word travel comes from the French word "travail," meaning, "work." And boy do people have to work at traveling throughout the world. Hoffman meets and spends time with people that ride a bus for 36 hours to and from work. Yes you read that correctly. A crowded South American bus with no air conditioning, sharing seats with chickens, stopping to piss off the road sides into ditches filled with garbage and human excrement.
He flew on planes not allowed to fly anywhere near the US or Europe. Planes in which the seat-belts didn't work, the carpet was thread-bare and there certainly were not offers of drinks and food. And delays, some planes were delayed for days. Taking off when and if the various airlines wanted them to.
Right now, as I sit here in the terminal, a dude across from the aisle is saving 15 seats for his group and yelling at anyone that gets close. If it happens again, I will laugh in his face and tell him to chill the fuck out. At least he isn't sitting on the concrete floor in an hot terminal with no bathrooms or food options. He is in a padded seat with an actual seat back. He can feel the air conditioning making his environment comfortable. He is surrounded by people that are (mostly) showered and clean. He can pop on over to the Pizza Hut kiosk and grab a bite. In comparison to most of the people on earth, he is living as a king right now.
Maybe, in the end, we should all ease up on our expectations of travel. A common thread throughout the book is that people all over the world, even in the worst conditions travel with a smile on their face. They are willing to protect those solo travelers they meet and share what little food and space they have to help others. Perhaps we are too protected here, too isolated from other people and as a result we have lost the ability to even comprehend what other people go through to simply arrive at a destination. On this and all other travels in the future, I will be smiling.
I just finished reading one of the best books I have ever picked up. It's called "The Lunatic Express" by Carl Hoffman. In a nutshell, Hoffman decided that he was going to experience and document what travel truly is to the majority of people on earth. The word travel comes from the French word "travail," meaning, "work." And boy do people have to work at traveling throughout the world. Hoffman meets and spends time with people that ride a bus for 36 hours to and from work. Yes you read that correctly. A crowded South American bus with no air conditioning, sharing seats with chickens, stopping to piss off the road sides into ditches filled with garbage and human excrement.
He flew on planes not allowed to fly anywhere near the US or Europe. Planes in which the seat-belts didn't work, the carpet was thread-bare and there certainly were not offers of drinks and food. And delays, some planes were delayed for days. Taking off when and if the various airlines wanted them to.
Right now, as I sit here in the terminal, a dude across from the aisle is saving 15 seats for his group and yelling at anyone that gets close. If it happens again, I will laugh in his face and tell him to chill the fuck out. At least he isn't sitting on the concrete floor in an hot terminal with no bathrooms or food options. He is in a padded seat with an actual seat back. He can feel the air conditioning making his environment comfortable. He is surrounded by people that are (mostly) showered and clean. He can pop on over to the Pizza Hut kiosk and grab a bite. In comparison to most of the people on earth, he is living as a king right now.
Maybe, in the end, we should all ease up on our expectations of travel. A common thread throughout the book is that people all over the world, even in the worst conditions travel with a smile on their face. They are willing to protect those solo travelers they meet and share what little food and space they have to help others. Perhaps we are too protected here, too isolated from other people and as a result we have lost the ability to even comprehend what other people go through to simply arrive at a destination. On this and all other travels in the future, I will be smiling.
Click here to purchase a copy of "The Lunatic Express". It will move you, inspire you, and renew your faith in humanity.
Happy travels wherever you may be going!
Peace,
Lara
Happy travels wherever you may be going!
Peace,
Lara
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Mai Pen Lai
Mai pen lai-to the Thais these three words encompass a way of life. They mean simply "never mind". Not in the typical American sense of "never mind! Ill do it myself", but rather, "never mind, drop-it-and get-on-with life". Pretty simple concept actually.
I don't really know why we need to go over events, words, and thoughts until they become a jumble in our minds. Always planning, angling, and searching for a solution for actions done by us and done to us. It is much simpler to take the attitude of mai pen lai. Move on, don't reach for closure because in the end it doesn't really matter, don't live with regrets, because in the end, you can't go back. Thoughts and words about the past and the future are just that, thoughts. Not allowing us to see the beauty in the moment.
I am sitting in my gorgeous yard right now. The sun has started to trace its way across the sky and I see the perfection. Looking with fresh eyes everyday, may just be the secret to bliss.
And yet, my little corner of the world has me yearning for faraway corners soon to be explored. I can see the ocean in my mind,tiny little sea towns nestled in a corner of the world with perfect waves to ride upon. Sometimes I think about the choices made for me before I was even born and wonder. If I had been born to a coastal family, how different the paths would have been for me. I might have been a sea biologist, I might have been a professional beach bum. Who knows how my life would have unraveled. I heard once that people are born to different landscapes. If you are a mountain person, you will never feel quite at home near the water. If you are a water person, the desert will dry your soul. If you are a desert person, reveling in the sun-burnt landscape, the mountains will cloister your thoughts, you will feel as though you are trapped. I am a water person and when I see the ocean after a long separation, I feel tears springing to my eyes.
Mai pen lai. In the end, we all land where we are meant to be at the time. Life is not stationary, but rather fluid and filled with grace. Never mind, I am happy where I am now, on a scale of 1-10, I am an 8.5. Most of the people on earth are a 5-6.5. I have it good, I have it great. And when you land at happiness their are no words. Only unhapiness has meaning, which is why we feel so compelled to talk about it.
Someday I will land near the ocean, it is where I want to die. But for now, never mind. I can't plan and I can't yearn for it. If I do that, I will miss the beauty around me, where I am, where I am meant to be at this moment in my life.
Peace,
Lara
I don't really know why we need to go over events, words, and thoughts until they become a jumble in our minds. Always planning, angling, and searching for a solution for actions done by us and done to us. It is much simpler to take the attitude of mai pen lai. Move on, don't reach for closure because in the end it doesn't really matter, don't live with regrets, because in the end, you can't go back. Thoughts and words about the past and the future are just that, thoughts. Not allowing us to see the beauty in the moment.
I am sitting in my gorgeous yard right now. The sun has started to trace its way across the sky and I see the perfection. Looking with fresh eyes everyday, may just be the secret to bliss.
And yet, my little corner of the world has me yearning for faraway corners soon to be explored. I can see the ocean in my mind,tiny little sea towns nestled in a corner of the world with perfect waves to ride upon. Sometimes I think about the choices made for me before I was even born and wonder. If I had been born to a coastal family, how different the paths would have been for me. I might have been a sea biologist, I might have been a professional beach bum. Who knows how my life would have unraveled. I heard once that people are born to different landscapes. If you are a mountain person, you will never feel quite at home near the water. If you are a water person, the desert will dry your soul. If you are a desert person, reveling in the sun-burnt landscape, the mountains will cloister your thoughts, you will feel as though you are trapped. I am a water person and when I see the ocean after a long separation, I feel tears springing to my eyes.
Mai pen lai. In the end, we all land where we are meant to be at the time. Life is not stationary, but rather fluid and filled with grace. Never mind, I am happy where I am now, on a scale of 1-10, I am an 8.5. Most of the people on earth are a 5-6.5. I have it good, I have it great. And when you land at happiness their are no words. Only unhapiness has meaning, which is why we feel so compelled to talk about it.
Someday I will land near the ocean, it is where I want to die. But for now, never mind. I can't plan and I can't yearn for it. If I do that, I will miss the beauty around me, where I am, where I am meant to be at this moment in my life.
Peace,
Lara
Commitment is a Dirty Word
(Originally posted February 5, 2010)
I was married long, long ago. It seems like a different life now, who I was at 20 is completely and wholly different from who I am now. The day I got married, I knew that it wouldn’t last. I hold that image in my mind, those words spoken by that little voice in my head “This will not last more than 5 years.” And yet, I drifted down the aisle, my white Doc Martens peeking out beneath my dress. The ceremony is a blur to me. He leaned in to kiss me and I instinctively pulled away. A long lost VHS tape from 1997 captured it all, but the reel still runs in my mind. I am embarrassed for us now, thinking of that kiss. In my immaturity, I thought that getting married was just what you did.
I left him 3 days after 9/11/01. I wept watching thousands of people die and the thought that some of them had died, not truly happy, not living up to what they could be, forced me to act. I had fantasized about leaving him for over a year, but couldn’t bear the thought of hurting him, vowing at that moment never to hurt someone to that extent ever again. I moved out 9/14/01 car loaded with what I could fit and left the rest to him. Our divorce was final 6 months from the day I left him. I choose to sign everything over to him, keeping my car and clothes and little else. The day after our divorce was final I packed up my things and moved to Atlanta. I had never been there, but applied to be transfered with my job in a couple of different cities and Atlanta called first. Driving away, in those first moments, I felt an incredibly sense of freedom and fell in love with that feeling, but choose to bury it once again.
The notion of having some sort of security in my life through a committed relationship continued to follow me. I entered into a wholly dysfunctional relationship soon after settling into my new life. We broke up and got back together to many times to count. It was a seemingly endless cycle, a battle of wills. And yet, I loved him with every part of me. At the time, the parts of me capable of being in a relationship were fragmented. A push and a pull, fighting to control him and myself. Of course, all things harmful eventually must come to an end and the ending nearly destroyed me. I moved once again to get away from it. ”It” was leading me to the darkest places imaginable and I had the foresight to know that. Summoning whatever courage I had, knowing that when I left I would be leaving the only person I had ever truly loved, was one of the hardest things I have ever done. People say that you can’t run from your problems, but I disagree, sometimes all you can do is run and hope to find a healthier place.
That relationship continued to color all others for years. I learned through counseling that you can’t project actions of others onto the future. I am in a much healthier place now, but sometimes think I have swung too far the other way. I feel like commitment is more often than not, a dirty word. I now love myself more than anyone else could and hold onto that like a life raft at times. I love men. I love sex. I do not however, love any sort of commitment that tethers my dreams safely to the ground. These days, I prefer to spend time with my friends, you never know when life will happen and those moments won’t be able to be replayed. I don’t like to date, I don’t care for the rituals our society puts upon us. I am a horrible flirt and I have pretty much zero game. I refuse to present a different, subdued portrait of who I am to men I meet.
When I was a kid, I would play hide and seek with the neighborhood boys. I would purposely make a lot of noise just to be found. Sometimes I still make noise, just in case someone is looking for me and hasn’t found me yet, but I don’t worry about it so much. Until I am found, I am content in the knowledge that I will not settle for less than what I am worth, less than what I deserve. Cuddling up to the fact that my life will be taking some twists and turns in the future that I will willingly travel and knowing that even if I travel them alone, I am being true to who I am. Finally, security is living inside of me, not in the arms of another.
Peace and much love~
Lara
The Compass Points to Courage
(Originally posted anuary 27, 2010)
The scattered pictures of my life creep into my mind occasionally. I don’t mind those moments so much anymore. All the mistakes and triumphs of my life are a collage of snap shots, organized in neat rows, staying put where they belong. In the past. I have never been one to dwell on the past much. I have always been content in the knowledge that somewhere deep inside me, lessons learned will live and that I will instinctively know not to make the same mistakes.
One of the biggest mistakes I have made, is trying to fit into the mold society thrusts upon us all from infancy. I tried for so very long to fit my hopes and dreams into a prison I call security. I nearly destroyed my life and others at one point, trying oh so hard to conform, to meld it all together into the picture perfect life so many people seek. I didn’t have any sort of epiphany, I didn’t wake up one day and realize “That’s not who I am”. It was a long road, stumbling over potholes of boredom and mediocrity, that got me to this point.
Perhaps the fists of my childhood, the hateful words thrown at someone so small, are still a huge part of who I am today. Not in a “I blame you” sort of way, more in a “Hah, you didn’t/couldn’t beat me”. The bruises faded and the words became a compass pointing me towards someone I truly wasn’t and then, I gradually changed course, one of my own making.
My compass will never point towards the outside world to fulfill me. I’ve never been particularly materialistic, I just don’t care about those things people are taught to reach for. I fight against putting down roots in the typical sense, but I realize now that I do have roots. The roots of my personal tree are scattered across the country, remaining strong in the lives of people I have met, people that have touched me in someway, people that love me for who I really am. Often times I get advice from people. It goes something like this. ”Are you ever going to settle down? You are going to end up old and alone. You can’t keep seeking the new your entire life”. To those people, I say “Why not?” If this is the only life I have, then I choose to take it. I choose to live the life I want to, the life buried deep inside all of us. I asked myself what I really wanted and the answers were right there all along, just waiting for me to have the courage to accept them, to have the fortitude to act. The only security I cling to, is the knowledge that no matter what choices I make, I am strong enough to not only act on them, but to live them. No matter what happens to me physically, I will always know that I can get through anything. In the end, we have only ourselves to live with, no one can save us, no one can decide what is right or wrong for us. It’s all about courage, and courage is something we all need a little more of.
Find your own personal courage. It is the only true destination worth seeking and your compass has been pointing to it all along. It’s out there just waiting for you to grab it, love it, live it.
“…a profound insistence on authenticity, a way of believing in an identity our culture does not reward, asking understanding of values and disciplines that don’t answer our sense of what one does with a life…”-Daniel Duane
Lara
Taking the Measure of a Life
(Originally posted January 10, 2010)
How do you measure a life? I’ve been pondering this question and I don’t have a concrete answer to it. Perhaps in the end, it’s through the profound human experience that follows us all, the one we all live. Is it the ability to affect those around us with a genuine kindness, even if it’s just a smile? The thing is, those things matter immensely in this jumbled up world we all live. When someone is kind to you for no other reason then to connect with you as another human being, it does matter. It matters where it counts, in your heart and in your mind. Perhaps those smiles graced upon you by another human being shine and sparkle in your heart forever.
What I do know is that to truly live a worthy life we have to take chances. Some people take chances on the world, going out and doing good and trying to live a life the way they see fit. Other people take a chance by starting a family, by contributing and living within a community. There is no “right” way to live a life and no one way of living is better than another. They are all just different facets of a global community, tied together at the heart of it, with the need to be connected in some way to those around us. However, if you aren’t taking those chances, you aren’t really alive.
It saddens me when I see people chained to the past, chained to a routine, not living an authentic life. They are easy to spot, the ones drowning in unhappiness and I want to grab them and shake them. I want to tell them that stepping out on the ledge is easy once you realize that nothing can really hurt you. It’s not a big, bad, scary world out there and people everywhere are good.
Be free , love intensely, take a risk either going to the store or traveling around the world and smile at people. Be nice, being nice is risky. More than anything, jump off that proverbial cliff of life. You will soar.
“Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.”-Marilyn Ferguson
RIP Amir.
Hello readers!
(Originally posted December 9, 2009)
Adventurist: A person who is involved in risky enterprises without regard to proper procedures and possible consequences.
If their is any word that defines me, it is the word adventurist. I find myself jumping head first into activities, without regard to the myriad of pitfalls. One of my new activities will be this blog, to be used as an outlet for my work, my adventures, and the many situations I find myself in, caused by a lack of planning. Bad luck seems to follow me, but I actually embrace it. Good things also happen to me on a daily basis, so maybe its just natures way of creating some semblance of balance in my otherwise unbalanced world.
I own a PR company in Las Vegas, handling the media for some of the most well-known poker celebrities in the world. I love my job and love the community of interesting characters that I am part of. My other love is the outdoors, or rather, anything extreme that I can do outdoors. I spend my money on gear, traveling, and whiskey. I crave the extreme and the rush of adrenaline that I get when trying new sports, or being thrown in a new situation that I have to wiggle my way out of. I also have a tendency towards addiction. I will try something new and throw myself into it with all that I have. Not a typical addiction, as I have never done drugs and can take or leave the whiskey.
I have been thinking alot lately about the concept of fear. Fear is defined as a feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger. I developed the anti-fear gene somewhere down the road and have basically wiped it from my character. I’m not afraid of getting hurt, of death, of rejection, of heights, of being alone, of looking like an idiot and the list goes on and on. I love that quality, but also think that a little fear is healthy, I just don’t know how to get it back. I have a basic disregard for my own safety if said disregard will throw me into a new situation.
I am also rampantly free-spirited and fiercely independent. Both things that I love about myself. On the flip-side, one of my many faults is a lack of compassion for people that use excuses to explain their life away. I can’t stand victims and often times will tell them so. I also need to work on tact, as one of my clients says, “You have no filter, you just say whatever you want, whenever you want.” This gets me into trouble at times and is something I am striving to fix.
So, I will be talking about all of that in this blog. All of my faults and all of my strengths. I’ll mix in some stories from my past, present, and my hopes for the future. If you choose to read it, thank you. If not, I don’t really mind.
Untill next time, have a blast and go get some adventure in your own life. We are not really alive unless we experience the new.
Peace,
Lara
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