It was … yes, I think it might have been the hardest thing I have done, so far.

It took years.

First I left everything. The country I grew up in, the family I grew up with, the people I knew, the language I spoke, the position in society my education afforded me. My boyfriend.

I left and traveled to the other side of the world.

There I sat on a couch for a year, wondering. I did not know the answer to this question and it seemed the most bizarre thing, that I wouldn’t know. It is me after all, myself, my life. Who would know, if not me?

Shouldn’t it be the most normal, the most natural thing — to know?

But I didn’t.

The wizard said he would help me to find out and we worked together. For many, many years we worked until,

a decade later,

when I had a different name, different home, different place in society, different language I spoke in, different friends and a different family,

then at last I begin to discover, to uncover and to know

what it is that I want in life.

It was warm today, blessedly warm after days and days of gloomy chilliness, and we stretched our faces towards the sun. Ah, and the birds sung too, we haven’t heard from them for a while, their ringing tones weaved into the background of murmured conversations.

We sat at the terrace of Cafe Pablo sipping tea and the world was perfect, and life was too.

“We deserved this” Chris said.

“Oh? And what have we done to deserve it?” I asked.

“Well, we endured the cold, the chilly gloom. This is our reward”.

“Ah, here, see how this happens” I said, raising my finger to spin a web in the air: “it is warm and we say: this is why, this is its purpose, this is it’s meaning. It is warm and we say: this is why, this is for me, this is my right.”

It is warm, and we spin a story about it and around it.

It is warm, and we say it’s our right and our reward given us, granted us.

Yet all that there is, is … warmth and us in it, with it.

There is warmth – and we are.

“If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself”

The quote said,

“If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself” the quote continued.

“No” I thought. “No. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate the suffering in yourself.”

Is it semantics?

Or is it a distinction between a statement that still leaves some leeway for sadness, some space for grief, a place for longing and some room for suffering provided it is well explained and properly justified. Some admiration for suffering that is an expression of moral superiority, of sensitivity, of a caring heart, and — and a statement that says: eliminate suffering.

Eliminate suffering, for suffering is not what you are.

Eliminate suffering in yourself in a world where to suffer is to be human.

Eliminate suffering in yourself in a world where suffering brings sainthood.

Eliminate suffering in yourself in a world where everyone else suffers.

Will you dare?

Will you have the audacity?

Will you have the courage…

To be happy?

I know this feeling very well, it is a burning pain in my chest that is nearly unbearable, coupled with a compulsion to act, to correct the wrong, to make it right. The compulsion is overwhelming and the pain is tremendous and it pushes me to act.

I must act. I must prove my right. I must fix the mistake – your mistake, anyone’s mistake, everyone’s mistake.

But…

But when I feel the pain, feel it without reacting to it, and when I feel the compulsion — then it hurts, it hurts tremendously and then … it stops. The pain … it stops.

It goes away.

See, I have learned that this pain is nothing. It is nothing. When it fails to push me, to compel me, to pull me into action it simply … dissipates.

It is the same with fear. Fear is nothing. When I don’t act on it is simply … stops.