By Tere Ruiz
Ever since we were kids our moms and dads, our teachers and even our grandparents
told us about how difficult life was, how hard it was to succeed,
how much life was about struggle, about hard work, about suffering. Even when
we fell in love with someone, they would always tell us how much Love hurts...
Do you remember when you were told that in order to achieve success,
you needed to be the best one, to be number one in the class, to get the best
grades, to go to college, to become "the boss"?
Everything was about hard work, competition and struggle.
I strongly believe that there is something not quite right in this equation
because, success is about joy,
about completion. So how could
you ever feel joy if you reach success
when you have never practiced it? How can you live in joy
if you have never tried it before?
On the other hand, do you remember when you were a little kid and you used
to enjoy the simple things of
life...?
So then, where did we lose the joy? Why did we lose the joy?
Well, first of all, I don't think anybody told us how to enjoy
anything at all. I think that even when we had a celebration,
everything was about how much it would cost, how hard it had been to get this
or that, how difficult it was to cook all the meal, how many people had come,
who hadn't come, how bad so and so looked in that dress, how nasty so
and so was not showing up or showing up late and after the party, how hard it
was to clean up all the mess... Ah! ...and talking about the presents
or the things the people brought, don't even go there, they sucked!
Joy is like water, you can dissolve
so many things in it. You can dissolve freedom,
success, truth,
Love...
Struggle is like oil, you can only dissolve oil soluble things on it, but success
is hydro soluble and you can't dissolve it in oil, and don't even
think on trying to mix oil with water...
On the list of the oil soluble things I would put difficult, hard work, suffering,
pain, competition and bossy!
Well maybe we learned everything about success
the old way, and maybe you did succeed
in your life, but is your success
hand by hand with joy? If it isn't,
it is never too late to practice some chemistry, tearing apart the old formulas
and making new ones. Isn't life about that? Yes, it is, every day we have
a new opportunity to start all over again and to go back to basics. I've
found out that when something gets stuck or I feel a little bit "lost"
in something, I can always go back to basics. The good thing about it, is that
every time I go back to basics I am much more mature and can see things from
a much different perspective than when I was younger. This is when the "Ahh!"
time comes and suddenly you have it all figured out.
Where did our child joy go? And
more important, where is our children's joy right now? Have we learned
our lessons and done our homework making our children's life successful?
Forget about the past. Give yourself a chance to go back to basics, to being
a child and grab that joy of those
times so you can nurture your life and your spirit. And don't be afraid
to pass the word to your children, forgive and be forgiven and together take
advantage of the opportunity that this brand new day is giving to you to start
enjoying, freeing
yourself, living in truth
and in Compassionate Love...
then you can be sure you are complete
and that you have succeeded!
Tere Ruiz-Rodarte: Director of Research and Development FocusOnMexico.
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