We Are What We Choose to Be

 1000 times YES! As someone who has taken many risks to embrace who she is, All of it, I so very much agree! Here's to pursuing dreams no matter how crazy others may say we are. In 2005, I left my fulltime job to become a fulltime Cause Focused Storyteller. One month later, I sold my small home & most of my possessions to create/facilitate a volunteer literacy project in Belize. I had NO idea what I was doing, but I had enthusiasm and I listened A LOT to the locals. 7 years later I had donated programs for 33,000 students and trained 800 teachers how to use their own indigenous stories in their schools. A few years later, on a whim I auditioned for TED Talks Talent Search and somehow, I was chosen to represent the US region in their finals. Then I auditioned for a Storytelling Festival in Kenya and was chosen. Then a festival in Iran and I was the first American chosen to present. I am living proof that dreams come true. I am living proof that even with a tough childhood (my father tried to kill himself 5 times, my brother was alcoholic by age 14) one can persevere and make a different path. I have had my own challenges; bouts of Depression, recovered anorexic, but I have never given up on hope or on dreams. And if I can do it, YOU can do it! Here's to being FREE!

 Many times we have read, heard and talked about  wisdom sayings like, " Know thy self"," An unexamined life is not worth living", "The essence of living truly lies in the heart of our cave". These are great words of wisdom for contemplation and reflection. We all know that to be truth is to live the truth freely and fearlessly.When we make it a goal to achieve it, have it, we are adding one more on the doing and having list. Being is like the sun rising giving its
light, the flower blooming giving its fragrance, the wind touching and the mother loving. Having has a beginning and ending bound by  space and time.In the having world-both internal and external, there is no wholeness and fullness. There is always that dear-like, chasing the mirage, there is always that striving, needing and wanting more and more. We are too familiar with this world of doing and having.

I have faced this question many times: What is my purpose for being here in this world? To be happy? My happiness was contingent on having someone to love me.Does it have that forever ingredient? Di I always feel loved and happy? To me the freedom is the freedom of being and not having. Having is more like having clothes but not the wearer. As I am getting older, my  "having world"  is shrinking effortlessly and my "'being world" is effortlessly expanding. In that "being world" there is I without being bound by my ego.When I step out of this being zone, I quickly become mindful of it and move into the being zone.

May we be awakened to be in the being zone! Namaste.

Jagdish P Dave

Having and being are two different ways of living.  Having involves being goal directed, striving, holding on, possessing, accumulating.  Being is goal-less, non striving, letting go, allowing, not grasping.  I have things that are external to me, even if they are under my skin, like to have bigger muscles or to have more knowledge.  Being is me, the essence that is me.  It is said that freedom is another word for nothing left to lose which triggers for me that freedom is nothing left to have.  Being is not having, having is not being.  I have the freedom to both have and be.  I am a human being and a human having.  In my life, I've done a lot of having, and I find that being results in more satisfaction than having.  I feel I can choose being at any time including right now, and I am enjoying that freedom to be right now.  There are many aspects to me, fear being one of them, and I know the whole me is bigger than any of the aspects.  The many times I have given in to my fear and not been me result in sadness and regret that motivate me to override my fear and be me.  Listening less to the fear and going ahead with being me in spite of the fear helps me to realize that I am more than my fear.