Success

How do you measure success? My measure of success rests on my ability to survive. I wonder sometimes what I am missing and crave the the things I do not have. My partner has a much broader maybe healthier veiw on success. He talks of savings, holidays and assets. The tools on which you "get ahead" in life.

I have lived with poverty, raised a child single-handedly on a pension, struggled with chronic mental and physical illness and sacrificed a life I might have had had I been born different. I am not bitter anymore but sometimes my deficits bite me and I feel desperately hopeless and useless. So my measure of success is based on the fact that I have a healthy 14 year old, a partner that loves me for WHO I am, a lovely dog whom I treat and love like my own child and a two-level rental townhouse. Doesn't take much to impress me.

I do not drive, I don't like pools, I don't like socialising, I don't like heights, I don't like fools and I hate confrontation. But part of me loves where I am. I don't want to stay here forever, but I am content to be here for now. There is no point trying to fight it or make sense of it. I did not always feel this way. I have spent my life bucking the system, or butting heads like some overzealous mountain goat and I am tired. I cannot do it anymore.

This is my lesson......the universe has forced my hand and said " If you will not understand what I am trying to teach you, then I will strip you bare so you can have a close, somewhat perverted look at yourself. You may not like what you see but you must go through the painful process of birth so you can LIVE .......like you want to. BE PREPARED!!!!!"

I don't know how I can help my partner to see what I do. He struggles spiritually with our financial hardship and I don't blame him. I hate the heartbreaking idea that every week he has to sit with his head in his hands, a sick feeling in his stomach and the choice of what bills to pay, do we have enough to eat and........"How much longer can I do this for? We have no savings, no house, no anything!! What have I become and where am I going?" Is that right, honey? Well, I love you.

I cling on to the fleeting but reassuring and fundamental idea that this is all for a reason. I am sick of hardship and desperation but without the notion of a universal "get out of jail free card"(providing you put the effort in), I might as well throw myself off a cliff. There has to be a reason for living beyond what earthly possessions you acquire or there would be no logical reason for me to go on. I cannot measure my success by the standards of other people. If I do that I would be filled with envy and jealousy and I would probably go mad.

I don't know what the answer is.......I just want to live with stillness and become loving of all that is difficult, insane, traumatic and nasty. I want to give up all that I know that is dangerous and deathly and replace it with flashes of divine love. I must live without to achieve this or I will go through the rest of my life repeating the same spiritual atrocities.

Wish me luck........

Intellectual and Spiritual Impotency

Well, I am stuck. Words are not flowing and ideas are stagnant. Before Xmas I had a better idea of which direction I was going in and felt a lot more peaceful than I did at the beginning of the year. My sons fathers death kind of threw me and all my intelligence just dried up. I am unfocused and I cannot concentrate. I am also really tired - more tired than usual and everything makes me slightly angry. Nature makes me cry more than ever and I cannot be bothered socialising at all. I guess I am grieving in a angry, hollow, very unspiritual way. Funny that, considering we were far from being friends and I cannot count the times that I wished he would drop dead. Be careful what you wish for! The Universe was definitely listening and displayed its true awesome power that day. I'm not sad that he is dead, I am just sad that he had to die. I spend all my life trying to discover my "true potential". He obviously didn't feel that he deserved his true potential or that it was to scary and maybe he wouldn't know what to do with it if he found it. Hell, I don't know either! I guess I've got that "keep going" button, even if I am terrified. Maybe thats what made us different and unable to communicate. Who knows.........I am going to let it go and, UNIVERSE, PLEASE GIVE ME BACK MY MOJO!!!!