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The best stories are those of perseverance

I often hear people saying they would do everything “exactly the same” if they had the chance to start their life over again. I understand if that is simply a reference to how they have learned from their own mistakes, and how these mistakes helped them get where they are, I can understand. Yes, oftentimes the mistakes are important teachers that give us valuable lessons, even though there are other guides in life, such as perception and love, that allow shortcuts and pave the road. They provide the same lessons the mistakes do, but in a softer, smoother way; after all, one learns from imposition or enjoyment. The choice is always ours. However, most cases I know are of friends who say they would take again the course of their lives due to shame, denial or pride. That is a shame, as the non-acceptance of the course taken in life prevents the understanding of who we really are, and therefore makes us unable to realize the transformations we should undergo, thus delaying the journey of evolution and the peace of fulfillment we long to achieve.

When I look back, I realize that, thanks to the tough lessons the errors gave me, I could have done things differently. People I have hurt, running in circles due to stubbornness, time and energy wasted with matters of no importance, and so forth. The list is huge. It is true that that was my level of awareness at the time, and I did not realize I could have done differently. Yes, it is always better to do it differently, and better.

Even though I am still far from where I must go, I am not the same one as when I left. The way I see things and the way I live have changed. Isn’t it like that with all of us?

What have I done with my past? Particularly those chapters that, deep inside, I came to fully realize I could have done differently? I have decided to embrace it and be thankful for the history of my life. Instead of being paralyzed by fear, I took responsibility, corrected what I could and moved on, with a new attitude towards everything and everyone. No one should be ashamed; everything in the universe is eternally evolving, and we are all part of it.

To reinvent oneself every day is a requirement of the Path.

Be amazed with the transformation that comes on the wake of wisdom and with the beauty of love that will infect you whenever you try your best. The most incredible stories are those of perseverance.

Imagine a film in which a child is born in a home filled with love, and with all the conditions for a healthy life. Early on, his parents, evolved souls, taught him wise lessons about love, tolerance, compassion, according to a beautiful code of existential ethics and noble moral values. This child, wont to goodness and light, is a quick learner, and has always spread seeds of joy wherever he goes. Becoming an adult, he embraces medicine as a tool to take healing and comfort to everyone, disseminating the joy and contentment he has in him. No question this is a beautiful life story that would make a film I would love to watch.

Now imagine a different film, one in which the child is raised in a household where discord and impatience reined, moral indicators lacked, and there were no reasonable conditions for subsistence. He grows up on the wild streets of major cities, under a reversed code of ethics, perverted or inexistent moral values, where the instinct for survival overcomes the most noble and subtle feelings. Petty theft, acts of violence that he practices or suffers are common place in his teen years, together with hunger and, principally, a lack of love. Little by little, at first with the smallest actions, he realizes that when he acts differently, and lets the best in him blossom, a feeling of love for everyone and everything lightens the environment around, and seems to lift him from the floor. He feels life is reacting in the precise measure of his actions. He feels different, everything changes. Little by little, he starts practicing such actions that were dormant in the highest drawer of his heart, until he took the decision to reinvent himself. The person he once was does not fit in him anymore. Even though he is still himself, he needs to be different. Then, the transmutation medieval alchemists talked about occurs, and metaphorically transforms lead into gold. When he changes his way of being, the world also transforms itself. Little by little, people and situations that populated his life give room to different ones. He then decides to go back to school, works hard and starts to realize that learning gives him a broader perspective. After a number of attempts and overcoming hardships, he is accepted to a Law School. After some years of relentless struggle, he becomes a merciful judge, with the power to heal all those that cross his path with the tools of truth and justice, and joyfully spreads the seed of hope in him and in every one. That would be another beautiful film I would love to watch.

If you could, ludicrously, watch only one of these films, which one would you choose? These are two beautiful stories about love, but I would choose the latter. Stories of perseverance have always dazzled humankind, as they prove our evolution. In fact, the History of the World is told through short stories of ordinary people, like you and me. The major characters we know from the books are just the visible reflection of the changes to a new level of consciousness already ingrained in everybody’s mind.

Therefore, there is no ugly path. The curves and hardships of the road that design the beauty of the journey for each one of us, coloring the landscape as we change our way of being as a result of the choices we make. It is enough to be willing to see with different eyes and have the courage, wisdom and love to act differently. As an angel who was recently incarnated among us said, “it is impossible to rewrite the past, but we can build a different future”.

Embrace your story without shame or feeling self-pity; take the opportunity to know yourself better; take the errors as lessons; open yourself to the teachings of the love that is numb in your heart; allow the courage of your warrior soul to make in you the essential transmutations, day by day, every day. Understanding that everything, absolutely everything can be different and better is the ticket for the next station.

Kindly translated by Carlos André Oighenstein

 

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