What are you a slave to?
From the wounds you received when you were little? From your childhood traumas? From what someone else decided you were? From a relationship that doesn’t satisfy you? From a job you don’t enjoy? of the routine of your life?
Free yourself now! Throw away that sack you carry on your back in which you keep resentment, rancor and guilt. Stop blaming others and your past for what is not going well in your life. Every day you have the opportunity to start again. Every morning, when you open your eyes, you are born again, given another opportunity to change what you don’t like and to improve your life. Responsability is all yours. Your happiness does not depend on your parents, your partner, your friends, your past, it depends only on you.
What is it that has you paralyzed? The fear of rejection? Of success? Of failure? Who will they say? To criticism? To make mistakes? To be alone?
Break the chains that you have imposed on yourself! The only thing you should be afraid of is not being yourself, letting your life go by without doing what you want, missing this opportunity to show yourself to others, to say what you think, to share what you have. You are part of life and like everyone else, you can walk with your head held high. The mistakes of the past have already been forgotten and the mistakes of the future will be forgiven. Realize that no one keeps track of your faults, only yourself. That judge who reproaches you, that executioner who punishes you, that bad friend who always criticizes you, is yourself! Leave yourself alone now, forgive yourself now, only you can do it. When are you going to show your love to your loved ones? When do you have a few minutes to live? When do they have a few minutes left to live?
The love you don’t show today will be lost forever. Remember that life is so short and so fragile that we have no time to waste on grudges and stupid arguments. Today is the day to forgive past offenses and settle old grudges. Give yourself to those you love without expecting to change them, accept them as they are and respect the most valuable gift they have received: their freedom.
Enjoy your relationships without doing dramas. If you pretend that everyone does what you want or that they are as you have decided, if you try to control those around you, you will fill your life with conflict. Allow others to make their own decisions as you have to make yours, always trying to achieve what is best for everyone. So you can fill your life with harmony.
And finally, what are you waiting for to start enjoying your life? Get all your problems fixed? That all your traumas be removed? That someone finally recognizes your worth? May the love of your life arrive? Come back he left? That everything turns out the way you want? That the economic crisis is over? May a miracle happen to you? That by magic everything is beautiful and perfect?
Wake up brother! Wake up sister! This is life!
Life is not what happens when all your plans are fulfilled, nor what will happen when you have what you want so much. Life is what is happening right now. Your life right now is reading this paragraph, wherever you are doing it and with the circumstances that surround you now. At this time, your heart carries blood to all the cells in your body and your lungs carry oxygen to where it is needed. At this moment something that we cannot understand, keeps you alive and allows you to see, think, express yourself, move, laugh, even cry if you want!
Don’t get used to life, don’t get used to waking up every day and being bored, or moody, or worried. Open your eyes and appreciate all the blessings you can see, appreciate your ability to hear the birds singing, your favorite music, the laughter of your little children. Put your hands on your chest and feel your heart pounding telling you, “You’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive.”
I know that life is not perfect, that it is full of difficult situations. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. Perhaps that is why you have been given all the tools you need to face it: A great strength that allows you to endure losses, the freedom to choose how to react to what happens, the love and support of your loved ones.
I also know that you are not perfect, nobody is. And yet millions of circumstances have come together for you to exist. You were formed from a wonderful design and you share with all humanity its strengths and weaknesses. This is how it is written in your genes, in the genes of all the human beings that have existed and in all those that will exist.
Your passions, your fears, your wounds, your weaknesses, your secrets and your aggression, you share with all your brothers. Welcome to the human race! Those so-called flaws are part of your freedom, part of your humanity.
If you ask yourself who am I to tell you all this? I will answer that I am nobody, I am simply a different version of what you are. Another human being among billions, but one who has decided to be free and take back all the power of life from him…
I hope you decide to do it too.
Taken from the book: The Slave
Author: Francisco J. Angel Real
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