I Miss You Grandpa

Have you ever taken the time to listen to the elderly about their lives? Could you imagine all of the things that they have seen in their time living on this planet? It's sad to see that younger generations aren't more respectful to the elders. Just the other day, as I was making my way out of church and I was ready to hit the road to grab a bite to eat. I found that people ahead of me were walking slowly. I didn't mind it but I did notice the significant change of pace. I was curious to see what the hold up was when I noticed other people were jumping over the railings to bail out of the slow moving cluster of people. I looked ahead as far as I could, there was an older man whose body was tired and rigid, yet still strong enough to support who I assumed to be his wife. She was short, slow and used a walker for she was incapable of walking without assistance. I took compassion of the old couple and found myself growing less anxious to move past them. Instead I conformed to their pace, in part because it would have been completely rude to pass them up since the walkway was quite narrow and would require me to squeeze past them. In the meantime I began to think to myself, "I wonder how old they were, how long they have been together, and if they knew they were holding up the line, or if they even cared." I don’t get to interact with older folks very often, so this was interesting to experience. The fact that I made the choice to slow down to their pace rather than hurry past them was a perspective changer. While most people thought that waiting was a waste of time, the slowing down gave me the opportunity to appreciate my surroundings. I have been attending this church for 6 years and I have never even noticed the beautiful rose bush at the entrance of the building. If it weren’t for the elderly couple slowing down the crowd, I might not have noticed the gorgeous shrubbery.

Young people don't realize that patience is a virtue. Everything has become so fast paced and advanced, that we have grown accustomed to getting everything in a matter of minutes or seconds which has made our patience grow thin. Take the people at the church who decided to jump the railing, they did not take the time to appreciate the moment and did not think about how the elderly couple felt. Their act of impatience was purely rude, and they can never take back what they did. Respect your elders, they came before you and deserve to be celebrated and honored.Teaching our youth to respect the elderly will set the expectations for future generations. A lot of youngsters these days can be so rude and their disregard for their elders is utterly disgusting. Everyone deserves the same respect regardless of age, race, sex, and gender. We are all human and have been fortunate enough to walk the earth, we should honor that and keep that in mind always. We are only here momentarily, sooner or later we will all depart this cruel world. Growing old is a privilege, not many people get to grow old. Studies have shown that old people are growing rapidly extinct, let’s enjoy them while we can.

My grandfather passed away about a year and a half ago. He was a great musician and played in a band with his sons and his grandchildren. In his younger days he was a busy man. He played in different places around Mexico and taught music to a number of people, some of whom became famous and are still very successful today. My grandfather built a legacy for our family, and it has carried down through the generations. I wish I could have spent more time with him to get to learn more about his life and his travels around Mexico and the US as a musician. As someone who wishes they could have had more opportunities to learn more about their grandfather, I encourage you to be patient with your elders and elders in general. Fortunately I still have my grandmother, however, I don't have the privilege to be with her every day. If I'm lucky, I get to see her at least every OTHER year. My grandma-ma is the only living link I have to my ancestors and I will cherish every moment with her and not take it for granted. Take the time to get to know the elders in your life, they will not always be here. Learn all that you can from your antecedents and cultivate the relationship as much as possible so that when they are gone, you won’t be stuck with the feeling of utter regret and sorrow. When they are gone, they are GONE. There is no turning back the clock because time waits for no one.

Remember this, treat others how you want to be treated. Even though older people are slow to walk, hard of hearing, and some smell funny, they are still people who live, breathe and matter. Anyone who has an impact in our lives will take a piece of us with them when they are gone. When it comes to our grandparents that bond is stronger, because without THEM, WE would not be here. In order to move forward in life it is important to know where you come from. So take the time to learn what you can from them … treasure it, not everyone has that opportunity.

LIVE, LOVE, LAUGH

Lets Take a Trip Down Adventure Lane

3am:  I’m sitting with my friend in the dorms and we look at each other. He says to me, “Edith I’m bored let’s go do something!” I look back at him and say “Okay, let’s go” We get up off our lazy asses and head out the door. We couldn’t decide what to do but we just kept walking on campus and talking about our long and strenuous day. When we get to the top of the hill, there are two individuals talking to each other. One of them was laying flat on the floor as if he were bored out of his mind. The other guy was standing idle looking straight at my friend and I. We approach them and say “Hey, what’s up?” the one on the floor said “Bored as fuck, what about you guys?” My friend and I looked at each other and we both giggled and responded simultaneously, “same.” We followed up by introducing ourselves and they introduced themselves. The guy that was standing asked us why we were walking around campus at 3am and my friend proceeded  by telling them that we wanted to do something. I returned the question and they told us that they felt a strong desire to be outside. I immediately introduced the idea that we should go exploring and everyone agreed, the guy on the floor shot up from the floor and screamed “LET’S GO!”. The night was young and we set forth on an adventure less than half planned. We were going to go to the cave on campus :O. None of us had flashlights but we didn’t need them, the moon was high in the sky and so bright that it lit the path all the way through. When we got to the cave we had to use our phones, everything was pitch black inside but we were having a blast. Finally, we finished exploring inside the cave and decided it was time to head back out to the world. We walked our new acquaintances back to their dorms and my friend and I parted ways. When I got back home it was almost 5am and I was EXHAUSTED to say the least but it was all worth it. Even though I never saw those two explorers again I knew that all four of us shared an experience together of a life time.    

Some of the best adventures are spontaneous and risky, but that’s the best part about them. We need to be more spontaneous, life is short and we never know when we will seize to exist. Don’t let let life happen to you, make life happen! One of the most fulfilling experiences one could go through is to feel alive, filled with enough adrenaline to take over the world. Take chances and see where life takes you and what it has to offer you. Feel ALIVE! DARE TO BE ALIVE >:D If you haven’t felt scared shitless or excited beyond belief, you haven’t lived yet. Don’t be afraid to feel emotions and don’t let your fear of the unknown prevent you from living life to the fullest.

Ask yourself this, when was the last time you took a trip to the beach? When was the last time you went star gazing? When was the last time you tried something new? When was the last time you said ‘fuck it! I’m going to drop everything I’m doing so I can do what I want!” Now ask yourself, Why? … What is preventing you from taking a spontaneous trip down adventure lane? Part of living life is about experiencing the unknown and taking risks. You will accumulate so many meaningful memories that in the end you can say it was all worth it.

Instead of spending money on a bunch of designer clothes, designer shoes, designer bags, expensive jewelry, spend it on experiences. Those materialistic “things” won’t help you grow as person nor will they help broaden your perspective and they won’t give you something to share with the world. You can’t say much about a designer bag other than how much it costs, whereas when you talk to someone about an adventure, there are endless stories and make for intriguing conversation. There’s nothing wrong with designer items but I personally do not find them very interesting.

Enough about bags back to the topic. One day you and I will die and that is the sad truth. When you have memories of well lived moments with people you love, it fills you and helps to complete you. People aren’t going to remember you for the ‘bling’ you wore, they will however, remember the experiences they shared with you. So, find a group of people that you know you will have a great time with … and do something adventurous, planned or unplanned, just go outside and have a great time. Make your life what you want it to be.

Live life don’t just exist.  

Warfare: Immortality? Mortality? Morality?

A few months ago I had the privilege to visit a retired aircraft carrier that has been converted into a museum, it was amazing to see. Many of the people working at the museum were veterans and they all had very interesting stories to tell. The aircraft carrier itself was extraordinary. Many questions came to mind, from the technology that went into making it, to the maintenance aspect that made things run smoothly during war. These are just a few of the questions that came to mind when touring the ship. However at the end of the day, in reflection, my final take away was look at how much money we throw at warfare, when our education system is suffering, and people are starving! Now, I feel that it is important to point out that I am appreciative of the people who have fought and continue to fight to keep our country safe and free. People aboard these aircraft carriers today, are simply following orders, but when will it end? We are all one in the same, so we need to stop “othering” people. We all want to be happy, so why do we inflict pain on to others? What is there to gain from killing innocent people?

I was looking online to find exactly how many wars are proceeding today. Check out the link for yourself, and I am sure this link does not mention every conflict. Wars occur when there is conflict, and that conflict is backed up by power and money which results in violent consequences. War is expensive, and it affects people’s lives. When people in power decide to launch an attack on another group of people, they do not stop to think about how this might affect bystanders in the crossfire. If they do stop to think, they do not care enough about the innocent people caught in the middle because they are only thinking about their interests. According to that link, there has been a war going on since the year 1967 … that’s a long 46 years and counting!! Can you imagine, there are generations that are born into warfare, and do not know their lives to be any different, war is their reality.

I turn on the news everyday and hear about different conflicts, where innocent children are being bombed in schools! Young kids cannot even go to school without the fear of dieing. Money SHOULD be spent on setting up the students for success, and not putting fear in their young minds. As corny as it may sound, children are our future, and if all we are teaching them is war then that is what they will pass on. The education system is only one of the countless things that are affected by war, we spend so much money and energy on harming others that we do not realize that we are only harming ourselves. Our future rides on our investments and right now we are investing in war. For example we can spend that money on feeding the hungry. There are people all around the world who go to bed hungry, or have to rummage through a garbage-can to find their next meal. Is this the image we want to invest in?

Aside from the social issues we have created, we are harming our earth. Think about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, EVERY living thing was destroyed because of the radiation. Even today the land still remains useless. People who survived the bombings had to live with long term effects of the radiation exposure, changing their lives for the worst. The people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were living their lives, this was a normal day like any other, people were happy until it all changed in that split second. Their happiness was ripped away by this one bomb. The Allies had the power, and they used it. What did these innocent people have to do with the political issues between Japan and the Allies? What did the US gain from killing innocent bystanders? What did they gain from knowing that they are responsible for the suffering of thousands of people? Who is anyone to crush another’s happiness, much less toy with their lives?

War is an endless cycle, and chances are the parties involved do not even remember what they are fighting about (Shakespeare had it right … The Montagues VS.The Capulets … ringing any bells?) At the end of the day warfare is about power, everyone is trying to prove who is the bravest and the strongest, when in the end all efforts made to “win” cause irreversible damage. For as long as there have been nation-states, there has been a need to assert one’s power. The way to do that is to have control and you gain control through WAR. When will the nation-states stop and say they have enough? We need to step back and realize that we are all HUMAN first, and killing another being is never the answer. It is not about who is wrong and who is right, it is about doing what is humane.This post will not stop wars all together, but it opens up the platform to questioning why we are spending so much time and energy on war and killing our fellow humans. The year is 2014, and science has proven time and time again that we are all the same, the next time someone asks me where I am from or what my race is, my answer will always be, “I am of Earth and a member of the HUMAN race.”

~Live and let live

We are All Going to DIE.

If there is one thing in life that is a guarantee it is death. No one knows what is going to happen after we are born, the promise of tomorrow is a lie. We all know that one day, it may be sooner or later, but we will all die. It doesn't matter when or how we die or where we end up afterward, what really matters is how we live and how we live is the only thing in our control.

I heard this analogy once that compared our life to a book.The two things that we know about a  book before we even read it, is that the book has a beginning and an ending, similar to our lives we only know about birth and death, but we don't know the story. My question is why do we fear death? We already know that it is a sure thing, we will all die one day, so why waste our time fearing something that we cannot escape?

Our days are numbered. We need to live our lives so that we never take anything for granted. There is no time for emotions such as; regret, anger, fear, jealousy, etc. focus on the positive, and be happy. I realize that this is easier said than done, but when you find yourself in a compromising position, just think about who you want to be and how you want to live your life. There is NO reason why you should be unhappy. Pick up that book you have always wanted to read, go workout, stop putting things off. Life is short, focus your energy on something positive.