Reclaim Your Life: Act upon the Dreams You Hold Inside.
There are two trends that enter my awareness daily, thanks to social media — this web that connects a mother/writer/photographer/student/volunteer who lives in the city of San Antonio, Texas, to various other points of view from all over this world.
In a nutshell, they are this:
- More and more people are recognizing that this planet we call home provides a unifying connection more powerful than nationalism. As long as we reside on Earth, we are one people. Our actions have an effect every day on others within this world. We get to choose what kind of effect that will be: chaos or harmony.
- Those of us earthlings who are waking to the prior realization are growing more and more disenchanted with our present-day forms of government and community that seem to serve so few. Many people seem to struggle just to live, or live but in a way that has been laid out before them, sensing that following the prescribed life path is another form of slavery when they feel that they would prefer a different way of existing and living should they just know how to break free from the mold.
I don’t adhere to any religion, but I was raised in a Christian home, so certain verses still strike a chord within me, I suppose. The following verse entered my mind one dark night a couple of months back:
[Ecc 3:1-8 KJV] 1 To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up [that which is] planted; 3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Our modern-day dilemma is perhaps feeling the existence of these times all at once, now that our world is more connected than ever.
My social media activity feeds allow for one friend’s announcement of a multi-million dollar property for sale in NW Connecticut to fall just ahead of another European friend’s call for the EU to recognize the inhumane treatment of Syrians pouring across their borders seeking refuge from death and destruction. One friend’s post sharing something as trivial as a dog’s Halloween costume falls just after.
And my feeds go on and on like this in discord, until I cannot separate my time to get from another man’s time to lose. I cannot separate my time of peace from another man’s time of war.
We are one.
We feel it. We feel the pains collectively, and our individual joys are taken with a heavy dose of guilt, becoming a distant relative to the same boundless joys of youth. How to rid my soul of this guilt?
- Abandonment: I can abandon the actual task of being conscious and active while on this earth through the use of various mind-numbing outlets, or
- Full Engagement: I can walk straight into the storm, where the rest of me (we) swirls about, and I can go step-by-step giving myself over to the task of serving the greater welfare of all.
The obvious choice for me is full engagement, mostly because I hate to dull my mind and senses. What encourages me in my choice is the second of the trends that I noted earlier: the growing discontent of those wide awake. I see this as a huge positive for reaching some form of eventual change.
Mainstream logic will tell us that we should be concerned about the general lack of faith and trust in our current governments, because it’s leading to a larger population of people disengaging from political processes related to these forms of government. My question is: Why? Why should we view this as a bad thing? I think the only way people welcome the new is by giving up on the old.
The more people disengage and disrespect these institutions of power, the less power these institutions will have. The more comfortable people grow with questioning these forms of authority, the more comfortable they will grow in recognizing that they may actually be capable of finding a better way for living out what remains of their own brief lives.
You see, I have a crazy and wild dream.
It’s a dream where these lines of division drawn by men hoping to maintain control and power are erased by the ordinary citizens of this world that outnumber those currently in power.
It’s a dream where each man feels so free and valuable that he is excited to engage in this life and offer the best he has within him to his surrounding community.
It’s a dream where men are given the space to see the need for peaceful co-operation in order to serve their mutual self-interests.
It’s a dream where people of the earth can move freely from place to place as they wish.
It’s a dream where no man owns anyone or anything other than his own personal responsibility.
It’s a dream, and some might call it a foolish dream, but today’s dreams are the seeds of tomorrow’s reality.
If we never dare to act upon the dreams we hold inside, we are only resigning ourselves to living our lives as another man tells us. This is my only life. This is your only life. How will we live it? As free men, or merely as actors in a story we don’t write? If we don’t reclaim our lives now, when will we?
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Audrey Marie Keel claims her self-renewing hope to be her greatest strength. She is a constant dreamer who struggles to keep her feet on the ground. Fortunately, she has four children who have a knack for keeping her down to earth. There’s literally no time for dreaming some days, or nights, for that matter. She’s aspired to be many things during her short life so far, and she likes to think that she’s become a little bit of each. Her heart’s current pursuits are in the areas of writing, photography, philosophy, education, wellness and volunteering.
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