Then again...

Sure, it's easy to look at the wasted moments and lost opportunities of my life and draw a negative conclusion. It's obvious.

At the same time, however, there is progress. There is a life of some learning. I am grateful for that, mostly because it's something I can hopefully pass onto my girls.

The biggest lesson is that life really is theater - and every bit as real and hollow as a play. One's own feelings and thoughts, aspirations, ideas, even relationships within and with life are not very real. They pass along like switching a station on the TV or radio and therefore I've learned I can simply wait for the time to pass when I am no longer affected by my job or my body or my friends, because I'll have a new job a different kind of body and different types of friendships (even if they're with the same people). To not participate in the theater is boring, even depressing, but to engage in the various realities that others are trying to project (and protect) can also be exhausting and unfulfilling. No one is like me. Very few people understand me, yet what's the alternative? Being a slug. So, I participate in the theater of this often silly world and use my awareness to try to learn more and to try to identify opportunities and threats.

I've also learned that my self image is so seemingly irrevocably combined with my own emotions and egotistical visions and desires. I may never know myself. Naturally that can't stop me from trying.

Part of the theater of life and the mosaic-like perspective on my identity is grappling with my own passions and desires, which, at this point I feel are perhaps the only real thing. My marketing intuitions,my interest in mentoring others, my sexual passions, and my sense of humor all are ME, but defended by varying degrees of courage - but that's another story.

Meditation and meditative prayer really are the only ways to connect with the true self. They are the best ways to buttress the ego's need for importance and indulgence - not to mention society's need to inundate us all with a mood we're supposed to follow.

I think one can create a better environment, with evolved and fun friendships, romances, business associates, etc., and should! Marriage is a life-partnership. Its a shame there isn't more written about how to find a partner and be married. Most of the lessons are learned while married, and if you're married to the wrong person (someone who doesn't want a shared purpose; someone who doesn't know you) you're basically screwed on many ways.

I've learned that letting go is often the path to being stronger and wiser.

I've learned that waiting for things to pass can mean missing out on them forever. My grade school years were fraught with alienation, anxiety from being bullied, insecurities, and a total lack of passion and focus. As a result, I have no experience paying on teams, and all the challenges one faces with rising above. Most of my life, I just avoided pain and challenges. Now, I have to back-fill those lessons and I can see where i am weakened as a result.

In this world, there really isnt anything more important that a true spiritual compass, mastering fitness and nutrition, mastering financial matters, being a top expert in something that invokes your passions, befriending evolved and accomplished people in your life, seeing things for what they actually are (vs what you want them to be), understanding how to be "popular" and desired, and the importance of making a deep contribution wherever you go. Everything else is nonsense and bullshit.