Life is a Gift

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.”
-Mary Ellen Chase

I got a Secret to tell. It’s a Christmas gift from me to you. It is arriving late, but delivering it took few days more than planned.

It doesn’t come in a packet, nor in a chocolate box or inside of a new television. It comes from all of my heart. It is called Love. Why I give my gift to you is not because I think I have to do it. I know there is nothing I really HAVE TO do or NEED TO do or have to have in life, but everything I LOVE to do. And all things done out of love are much more valuable than a thousand things done out of HAVES TO. It brings me happiness to share the Secret with all of you, happiness that I share with you in these words.

Prisoners in a morning bus

Have you ever been on a morning bus going to work feeling ungrateful and bad about the fact that you think you need to go to work? I have, many times; until I understood the Secret of life, the Secret of happiness. Yesterday I entered to that morning bus with a smile on my face and looked at all the people sitting in there like prisoners in a prison. They seemed so sad in their thoughts staring at somewhere in the future or in the past instead of looking up and realizing the only prison they have is their own mind. While observing around me I felt love, happiness; and miserable. All I could do was just to keep on smiling from all of my heart. Maybe one morning there will be another pair of eyes smiling back at me and the smile I have would grow double. We are not victims of the life around us, but we might be victims of our own thoughts. So, if you are to think, think of what makes you happy and smile! A genuine smile comes out of happiness, out of love. It shines from your eyes. And if sometimes it is hard to find that smile within yourself, then it should be found at least in a thousand smiles around you every day.

No more HAVES TO

And why do I say that we actually do NOT HAVE TO do anything? The fact is I am not living to be alive. I am living out of love. I am not afraid of not having the things that I think are necessary to be alive. I have survived without money and even without food for several days; most of the time with a smile on my face. I am not afraid of dying either. In fact, I could even die now; with a smile on my face. Because the only thing that would die would be my body. The energy would pass on in another form, a form that a scientist calls Atoms and a man of the church may call God. Being not afraid of lacking the things that I need to survive makes me STRONG. Things like money, food, shelter; and most of all love! I choose life instead of death; because it is the greatest Gift! I choose to feel happiness, to feel love in this moment, whether it is in a wet tent in a parking lot of a gas station or on a sunny beach in India… And I actually have been in that wet tent feeling grateful that I can actually feel the rain. Even if it means I am going to be sick the next morning, but at least I was alive! I accept that I am still not on that sunny beach either. That beach for me means peace and harmony; it means joy to be able to spend some time with fewer things on my mind, less material possession with people who look at the World with same eyes. Maybe I will be there, one day. But it doesn’t really matter because I can actually find my peace right where I am now, I can be happy and in harmony, right now. AND I can help others to be happy, too. That’s great! I simply just choose not to be a victim of a moment and instead surrender to the moment. I may be blessed to be able to choose so freely where I am and what am I doing in the World around me. But like I said, it doesn’t really matter as long as I enjoy life. And if I do what I do, it means hard work sometimes, but instead of the word HAVE TO I use the word CHOOSE TO because that’s the road meant to be taken and I stick with it until I feel the road has come to an end. And I do not complain. Sometimes a tired body and a tired mind are proving that we are alive! Just surrender to the moment! Every moment! Completely! Without thoughts that you didn’t even notice existed.
I’d like to name a big addiction here, which is called WANT. Life is full of want, of expectations, of doing things for the wrong reasons. But you are true to yourself when you realize that the only reason is to do it without any need, without any wanting. Then you also stop doing it out of HAVES TO. The word WANT and HAVE goes hand in hand. When you only do it out of pure love you feel true happiness.
Of course it is healthy to want something more to happen, but it shouldn’t be the purpose of the action. The purpose of every action should be to enjoy the action itself.


Where is happiness?

Yesterday night at 2am I was dancing uphill to a place called home with a dear friend. Though, home is wherever my mind is I choose to rest my body in a certain place. While dancing and singing Jingle Bells along the road on an unusually warm night I felt joy instead of feeling tired of the thought that I have to reach home to rest. I chose to be thankful that it was a warm night. On that night I could have sang Christmas songs until the morning. While looking up with a smile my friend and I saw a plastic bag dancing in the air next to a pile of garbage that seemed so beautiful in all its ugliness. We saw a blue, shooting meteorite reaching the atmosphere while a black beetle, my favorite car, was passing us by.
Can you believe all the beautiful things you see when you look up? Would you believe if somebody said you actually don’t need to sleep? I was told a human being needs regular eight hours of sleep every night. Well, I am here to witness that the only measure of what you really need is your feelings. Of course my body needs a rest and my mind needs to relax in other ways at times. Not every moment can be thoughtless, sometimes you need to think to be able to plan, but you can do it consciously. Feel yourself even when planning. When I go to rest I tend to start thinking while lying down and feeling my body. And because thinking makes our mind tired, I do fall asleep eventually. And in the next morning I sometimes tend to rush to the toilet. And while sitting in there I realize I do not remember did I turn of the alarm clock… Is it still ringing? Do I have any lemons for my morning tea after my morning yoga …Hey, look at that toilet paper, it has bunnies instead of hearts! Who the heck would want to wipe their ass on bunnies? …People are so funny. At least we have hearts in our pink toilet carpet. Oh, we have a new toilet carpet. It has hearts, too. People really love toilets... Yep, the alarm clock is still on. And I am I am still sitting here and thinking. Bunnies on the paper… Nuts! I should take the trash out when I go. Ok, let’s do some yoga even I don’t feel like it. Why do I have to do it? Oh yes, I don’t, but I do it…

I do it every morning, because I know that when I do it, it makes my body alive, it brings me the feeling of happiness, just as going to my work every day. And while working I realize I enjoy it. Sometimes I get tired. But I do not complain. I feel it, I accept it, and I may even say it out loud. I stopped thinking I don’t want to do things, but instead I do them! I do them out of love and respect for others, out of respect for Life. I try not to think negative things. That brings me happiness.
We are all looking for one thing: happiness! Just don’t reach it too far from the past or from the future. Even from the other people or the life around you. It starts from your body! Life is too beautiful to be wasted on being asleep, whether it is in the night or on a morning bus being lost on your thoughts. Even if all the things I enjoy doing, would be taken away, I would try not to miss them, but to appreciate what I had and what I have now. Whether it is feeling your body still in the moment or watching the cars go by while hitch-hiking. Because I know there is nothing to be afraid of. Just be strong.
We don’t need to go anywhere or do anything to relax and find our peace of mind, to find love for the moment. We can simply just stop doing for one moment, whether the action is in the outside world or in our own thoughts. Take a deep breath.


Rules for thinkers

You don’t even need a guide to a better life, you don’t need rules that say do not kill, don’t steel. Thinkers make rules for life, need police officers to keep order. For me those rules are feelings that come from within me. They should be so obvious I do not need to think about them. I do for others what I would do for myself; and the other way around. I try to remember to love each and every person and item on my way. But of course it is very hard some days.
In the end we are all the same energy in the Universe, in the eyes of God. I do not want to waste moments in negativity like hate, because the hate I have for others is actually hate I have for myself. I don’t live counting all the things that are wrong in my life, whether they are wrong in the outside world or inside of my own head.
I don’t care what other people think or say. Don’t wait for their acceptance. Like I said; it doesn’t matter, because we are all the same. Just start by being true to yourself. Respect yourself and you can respect others.


Always have time to be happy, always have time to love

What keeps me on the surface is to try to love everything around me, each moment. To love like it would be the last moment I can love, the last day of my life. It makes me feel good instead of thinking and worrying about yesterday or tomorrow; because in the Universe the time doesn’t actually exist. Would you believe that? And because I know there’s no time I always I have time to fix a problem with love rather than forcing something to work, I have time to appreciate that piece of soap I use to wash my tired face, I always have time to stand in a queue in my favorite restaurant greeting the owner whose eyes I can see real love for the job he is doing, I always have time to take a deep breath, look up, smile and expect nothing as a return. And I remember: it is not the amount of breaths, but the love I put into them. It is not about the amount of time you put into doing something, it is the feeling, the love you put into them!


Healing from addictions

When you take a deep breath you realize there is really nothing to worry about. Why do you think people are usually addicted to something? They are addicted to doing. Whether it is their work, alcohol or food. They are afraid to face lack of doing, because there the thinking starts. And thinking creates layers between the mind and the feeling of being complete when the action stops. People are overweight, because after eating with their body they start eating with their mind. They think, see or smell the food and they eat it. They start to want it instead of just feeling what the body really needs. So if you happen to be one of those people, just get up from the dinner table and breath. There you go! You are healed!

Take a break once in a while from the things you do, but instead taking a break to think, take a break to breath. Trust me; you really don’t need a break from your life when you live out of enjoyment.

 
Losing the weight of my mind

Thinking about fears
I know past is past, but let’s give it a word, because it brought me from an unbalanced place, where I was afraid of people and their thoughts, to where I am now. I didn’t know that in the end, it doesn’t matter if you just are strong. You don’t need to hide behind your thoughts. You don’t need to be afraid of thoughts, to be afraid to be weak. But be careful not to be proud to be strong.
I was afraid of the darkness, of dogs. I saw an insect on my hand and I wanted to get rid of it. I didn’t realize that there is nothing to get rid of. We are all same in the eyes of God. I was afraid of unorganized homes. I wanted to organize my home because my mind was so occupied with all the layers of bars I had built to my windows, between me and my mind. I didn’t see that the only thing I needed to organize was my mind… In the end I was even afraid to breath. I thought I liked being alone so I was alone a lot watching a lot of television and thinking too much. I developed sicknesses; I developed asthma, because I was afraid to stand strongly with my whole body. I didn’t want to disturb other people. I didn’t see that the whole Universe was already in me. I needed real love and acceptance to start accepting myself.



And when I started to get that acceptance from the world outside I also slowly started to break the bars I built. I wanted to change my life. And I ended up taking a huge leap and left the life I had to explore world, to maybe even find my happiness. And while doing so people were thinking how admirable my life was. In fact, it is. So is the so called ordinary life many people live. And they know it. Because life is great everywhere! You can do anything because there are no impossible things in life. Just put your ass into it. I did. I had to. While travelling I collected a lot of knowledge, a lot of options. But only by controlling my mind, by being strong I was able to follow MY bliss.

Healing my body

But I was still very weak physically. My immune system was not strong enough. I was thinking why in all the people around me I was the one who got sick so often even if I lived like the people around me. Eating what they ate, doing what they did. Doctors gave me medicines, but it only gave a brief relieve for my body, just like alcohol gives a brief relief for a mind. Then I met a nutritionist and discovered alternative medicine. He gave me an advice for my diet and guided me to chance my life habits. He taught me how to start listening to my body. And instead of worrying of the things that were wrong I started to accept them as they were. As I accepted them, I realized I can chance them. I started swimming and I realized I only need to let all the fears go; fears of not being able to breathe. I just had to feel oneness with the moment, with the water; without negative thoughts.
And while my body started to feel better my mind woke up to see it was the one that needed to be healed first to be able to be complete. Somehow the Universe leaded me to the right sources, or maybe it was me who choose to seize the moment. I went to a place where the only thing I could concentrate in was my body.
 

Healing my mind

It took time, but I changed my whole life starting from listening to my body on what does it need to surrendering my mind to the moment. I found my peace in a meditation center somewhere in the forest of Lebanon, where the only thing I could do was to sleep a short night, eat couple times a day, and have a shower and a small walk between the long meditation hours. I did not even have music to keep me on the surface; only silence, SILENCE for eleven long days that after eleven days seemed too short. It took me some days to give up thinking while sitting in that meditation room. But I found myself. Well, at least a part of it that occasionally gets lost in this World full of distractions. I found that the definition of who I was, is not who I am today.

I’m still collecting my pieces. Teaching ten heads in a classroom at once gets you easily out of balance, it gets you tired. I sometimes realize I am aiming so much for the next moment while trying to teach the whole subject of the lesson, even my handwriting in the blackboard turns into the handwriting of a doctor. I gaze aimlessly around trying to see all the students at once. Sometimes my head is full of ideas like my table is full of copies dropping down to the floor. Then I take myself a moment to breath deep to relax, collect my thoughts, which I didn’t even notice existed and admit that the first things to concentrate are the students, not the subject, even if it means a slow start for the lesson while feeling and looking at each other. After that no matter how many times I have taught the same subject that day I still usually manage to get the feeling it is the first time; because it is. Every day I seem to find more missing puzzles of me while I simply am learning to be present and in harmony with each moment. I choose to be slow and quiet on my free days. In those moments the definition of our ego loses its meaning.

In one of those moments I realized the huge energy we have inside of us.
I saw energy in my eyes and in the eyes of my friend that came to read this Gift at my presence.
I saw pain he had on his neck, the black spot of pain I used to have on my chest; the burden of the past. I felt the energy in my palms and as I looked at them I realized how disconnected we can be from our bodies. We have so much energy in us! It just takes a lot of time to concentrate and surrender to the moment to feel it, to be able to realize the energy. It is what separates us from other animals. We are aware of Life, we can feel compassion, and we feel Love. Love for Life.

Drama and more distractions

The egos in us tend to create more drama and suffering, whether it is at our work or home, in a television or a café while talking to our friends. Talking is a great way to get distracted. So choose your topic carefully. Many times I choose to be silent and observe, because usually we use talking to define things, to understand each other instead of just observing. I used to create drama to have a stronger feeling, a feeling that brings me more alive. By all means, create drama, talk about it, gossip! Do it to laugh for life, just like telling a joke. Just don’t be distracted by it! Don’t take it seriously.

It’s like drinking too much and having a hangover the next day. You do not enjoy it but it makes you feel alive. While, in the other hand, being drunk makes you feel instead of thinking. But we don’t really need drama or alcohol to feel, do we?

Less is more

For me Christmas in not the amount of presents you give or get, it is the quality that you put into them. Why do you think people in poor countries usually smile more than the wealthiest people in the world? They learn to appreciate the small things in life, small things like a piece of soap.

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
-Mother Theresa

We need less to have more love and happiness. It is as simple as that. It helps us to feel what it is that we truly need. It helps us feel oneness with all the things around us.
We need to find ourselves and within that the connection between the life around us. We need to find that peace inside of us after all outside action is gone. I saw the first climbs of the Universe in me during those long meditation hours. A climbs that even a life time full of therapist visits couldn’t have helped me to find. Believe me, I tried it.

Listen to your heart

What I see around me is people waiting or thinking too much. And I see love in their actions when they are doing what they enjoy, weather it is on a toilet paper filled with hearts or on the bars of the many windows. Or in the eyes of a child drawing hearts on the corner of a print sheet! We should be children again, just for a moment, and draw a pink heart to your check or even in a corner of a bill to be paid! Draw it with all your heart!
Life is never too serious to not be wasted on drawing a red heart!

I know I can love and enjoy all the moments in life, no matter how big or small or how much passion we feel at the moment. Life is like the Sea. Sometimes it is wavy, but underneath the surface it is still steady and calm. Just take life as it is; with a huge smile on your face in that morning bus or resting alone in your room, because every BODY needs a rest, needs a holiday, a Holy Day. Choose not to get bored of life by thinking, waiting or wanting. Instead FEEL! If you got the feeling, do not second guess! Choose the Moment, because Life happens now.

That is the Secret of Life. If it still is somewhat a mystery to you after these many words, listen to your heart!

Life happens, don’t define it

I try not to define things. I try to look at things like I would see them the first or the last time in my life, whether they are other people, the places I visit or the place I live. Same goes with other senses, like tasting a bar of chocolate or hearing my favorite band. Of course it is nice to have a change of scenery occasionally, but I still love going to my favorite cafe and looking at the same people sitting there doing the same things they did yesterday and never expecting them to do it tomorrow. There are always something more to learn in that cafe, details I didn’t notice yesterday. It’s like dancing tango. You can learn the moves to be better, but if you don’t have the feeling the most important thing is missing. Sometimes it might take time to get the feeling, sometimes it comes before the action. But you should never start expecting the next move instead of feeling your body, the music and your partner carrying you in the dance floor.

Life changes so suddenly. It involves and the only stable is change. So I try to love and respect each moment of it!

It may seem childish, but we are all children in the end. We are innocent under those eyes filled with thoughts. But unlike children we are aware of the dangers of the world. So draw a heart into YOUR life and be strong! Strip those expectations, those layers of roles, whether they are a role of a teacher, a student, a mother or an artist and become what you truly are. What you are is all of them combined. You are the mother or the father and the child of the whole World playing, smiling and enjoying in your BODY. Your body is The Gift!

Don’t worry, be happy'

Don’t try to look for your happiness. That never works. You might end up getting even more lost. Start asking yourself DO YOUR ACTIONS BRING YOU REAL HAPPINESS. Start asking yourself WHY you do the things you do. Step outside from that box you might be living in. Open your mind to a new World. Maybe it will help. It helped me. Just don’t worry about life. Surrender to the moment and then, stand for your rights, for the things most important to you. Help others. Start healing the wounds of the world one at a time. Whether it is in your office or at a battle court. Just do not be afraid, be happy whatever it is that you do. Feel love.

If you cannot find joy in anything you do, look inside you. If it’s too hard, look into the mirror, put on some lipstick and smile. And if you are a guy, you should laugh! Put on some relaxing Christmas music or maybe some heavy metal and start dancing. Open the door and go out to see children playing, see their joy! Start by doing something and you’ll find the feeling of joy in it. Just don’t worry.
Start by doing something different every day, even if it’s just taking a different route to work, to be able to think differently.

What is in you is the whole Universe. You are an important part of a puzzle, but if you are missing, the puzzle will never be completed. Do not worry to get lost sometimes. We are not perfect. And that’s what makes us so Great, so funny, so lovable, so perfect! Learn to accept the person looking in the mirror, laugh to that person! You are great!

Relax

Remember the things you do to relax in the moment? It can be while cooking and eating, while listening to music or watching a movie. Though watching a movie might get you distracted instead of connected with you true self. Now, transfer the feeling of relaxing in each moment of your life. It needs a lot of focus, but you can do it. Remember: less is more! You just need to be present in every step of your way. You need to surrender to the moment! Christmas is the best time to do so, to let everything flow!

Dance for Your God

No matter if you believe in God and Jesus Christ and sing an ode from the Bible. Maybe you pray for Allah and read the Koran. You may even believe in Buddha, and repeat Om to be in peace. But one thing in common in all the religions is Love. Just sing and dance for your God, for your soul, for life!
The dance I dance in the dance floor, may it be salsa, tango, hip-hop or all of them mixed, reaches me in the kitchen next morning while preparing my breakfast. For me, life is a dance. It is a song to sing or a beautifully played instrument. Because those moments we are present in each action, we are in harmony with your body and mind. Without thoughts, just feelings.

Even if sometimes I might lose my rhythm just like I lose my words into too many thoughts while writing this, I learned to laugh to my mistakes, I learned to love them, I learned to love life and the whole Universe. Today I found my smile in the mirror.

What is Christmas?

Christmas is peace and love. It is leaving all the worries behind and being in peace with your loved ones. It is happiness that shines within your eyes, within your real smile. In this Christmas smile to yourself in the mirror! Smile to your enemies! See the love in your eyes and feel it all around! In this Christmas: love each other no matter how incomplete you may be! Because Because Christmas, my loved ones, is not a date, it is a state of mind.
 
A gift

This Christmas share your gift with people close to you, whether they stand next to you or a thousand miles away. Share your smile with the people that you think least deserve it. They might need it the most. Hug them! Hug the people around you! Hug more! Because all that we really need is to give and receive love. Love without expectations. Love because you love to love, hug because you love to hug!

I am so very thankful to all of you who brought that smile on my face and even to those who made it so hard to find sometimes. Because of all of you I am now where I am; not as in a place, but as in a state of mind.

As I smile out of love while writing this I realize that my eyes and my cheek need a rest while my mind could work until everything I got to say would be written.
These words might all be very obvious to some of you or a very strange concept to many of you. But at least it brought me happiness to write them down. For me it’s been a several hours meditation session, a journey to a human mind writing and letting everything flow. The only thing left is my smile, that I give in these words and I give it a rest. I’ll put on one last time a peaceful Christmas song from a movie The Snowman that I used to watch every Christmas morning. And within that song I remember each and every one of you with love during these Christmas Days that seems to turn into New Year while writing.
I send you all my love and I send it to all those people lost in their thoughts in the morning bus.

“Happiness is when your thoughts, actions and words are all one.”
-Mahatma Gandhi



I see love in you when you play for your heart, when you sing a song so beautiful it would make walls around you cry.
I see the strength of life in you; I hear it in your voice. The voice that changes into a role of an innocent boy, a sad boy after the song has been played; after the moment of feeling has gone.
So this Holy Night, play from your heart and see no ending. Do not let the thoughts come between your mind and the body. Give your whole soul;
in this Holy night.

Are you a prisoner of your own thoughts?

Are you a prisoner of your own thoughts?

Just as a prisoner in a jail, committed from murder, you are committed of being who you were until you let go of that thought. You become what you are NOW. And you begin to realize that all that has happen in the past is not who you are.

Imagine of an insane person with hallucinations. That person is living in his thoughts. Luckily, there is a cure for any mental problems in the power of NOW.
Imagine the scariest movie you have seen. Why is it so scary? Is there a ghost or an ax murderer? And didn’t the people around you teach to be scared of those? Now, if you imagine yourself watching the movie, but alert of your own existence, your own feelings, you begin to realize how the movie affects you and loses its hold on you. There is no need for fear. If you see news of a bomb attract, how does it make you feel? Horrible, is it? Oh my god, what has happen to the world? I am lucky I wasn’t there. Oh well, I am not responsible of the thing what happen… Now, begin to be alert of your thoughts. Be present while listening to the news. What do you feel now? You are strong. You might realize there is so much love in you, and so much people who just simply doesn’t yet understand what life is all about. Maybe it is not your mission in this life to save the world. It is certainly nobody’s job to start a war against a war; but to love your enemies, to understand that they are the ones in a need of your help. They yet don’t know the message of the enjoyment of life you are realizing and putting it out there in the world.

You are not a victim of your surroundings or yourself. If you truly live in the moment, live to your calling, you realize there is so much more in life than to hate and be angry. You realize that if you are angry it is actually you you are angry to, not to the world around you. Be strong. Take responsibility of the moment now. Don’t wait until tomorrow the present to be better. It is NOW. The power of now.

Every time you notice you are caught up in your thoughts, smile, laugh a little. You begin to be present and in control your own thoughts. Just be strong. Keep on growing; begin to live up to your calling. The universe is giving you all the answers, all the time, all the power you need to enjoy life today.

Strong and present throughout the day

You don’t need to be a MacGyver to open a door that you thought was impossible to unlock. You just need to focus, listen a little. Don’t give up or use force. Imagine if MacGyver would want to use force opening the door. He would, instead of breaking the key into the lock, use dynamite. I assume you wouldn’t want to blow your door away. You will need it in one rainy day. So just focus in all your presence. You have chosen to fix the problem. Don’t blame the door if it is stubborn to open. Maybe it is old. Or one of those rare a little bit dysfunctional ones. Instead, choose to be as stubborn to unlock it. Be strong. And with a little bit of presence and capacity to listen you realize how the door can be unlocked with so little effort.

How about dancing a tango with a stranger? You learn to listen. Learning to dance is not a matter of learning the right steps. Do you think the first people dancing were thinking of that? I can imagine they were just enjoying the movement fully alert of their bodies and the music: the voices surrounding them. Steps came along to teach the same dance to others. If you just listen to your partner dancing, surrender to the present, you will learn even without the image of the steps in mind. Just enjoy!

With presence you notice how easy it is to open that jar of nuts which is always stuck, when you put your whole existence into opening it. It is so easy to enjoy hanging laundry outside in the balcony on a sunny day. And while the wind catches one piece of your clothing flying it down from the balcony while trying to put the peg on it notice your feelings: are you angry to the wind? Or to yourself? Why? You can choose to enjoy fetching the piece of clothing back.

When the stove is not working while your stomach is yelling for boiled oats and cooked apples for breakfast you can choose to put your mind into fixing the problem or eating your breakfast uncooked. There is no need to blame the stove for not working the way you’d like or your stomach of being so hungry. And if you choose to solve the problem your hungry is twice as big but you will cook and eat with more pleasure.

Just like that it is so easy to not think anything while you do what you do. Focus your whole energy into it and don’t try to do something else at the time. Give importance to each action!

You notice how easy it is to stop eating for graving because there is no craving; or how easy it is to stop smoking, because there are no thoughts of having that cigar between your hands to make you relax. If you just stop thinking you will notice what it is that you really need. There is no bigger need in the universe than you to BE. That is who you are.

Your love for the moment is a love you have for yourself and as you notice that, your love for others is starting to exist in a form that is more real than ever before.

There is no more I HAVE TO or I SHOULD. You just do what you do because you start to enjoy life. And all the people around you will accept whatever it is that you are if they really love you like you love them. They will understand your choices.

The art of hitch hiking

A world of a hitch-hiker. A world of a nomad. A world of a no man.
It is a hard road, a shared road. A lonely road, a road that you encounter the same questions, the same conversations, the same philosophical issues, over and over again.

But still, the main reason you do what you do, keeps you on the road.

Hear yourself

Life is a gift. I can choose to go almost anywhere I can which is something many people can’t afford. But the possibility to do that also sometimes leaves you in a huge crossroad and if you are not keeping your head clear, your mind strong, you might feel confused, because you know the world of a hitch hiker is small and full of huge and tiny little roads. There are times you are lost. But then, you stop, you listen. And you will keep going where you were designed to go. And the reason remains.

In Milan, many people say it is impossible to hitch a ride. I hear you. But when I want to test my thumb just for the enjoyment of a small journey to the center of the city, the only person who can define whether it is hard or not, is me.

While walking next to a tram way leading to the center of Milan and keeping my thumb up I got a ride from a really nice guy, who, not only took me to the center, but also to a really nice cup of tea with his friends in a local bar.

Enjoyment of the moment

Sometimes it is nice to meet an honest person along the way, and then let it go. But no matter how honest the person is, there might still be a hidden thought behind the tea cup, a thought that appears when he asks a phone number at the end of the journey. We have so many friends in facebook and on our phone contacts we sometimes just might forget the only thing that matters is the enjoyment of the moment as it is without adding a name into our contacts.











The art of taking a ride from a guy
As a beautiful woman I get a lot of questions about the safety of the life I have chosen.
It is, in fact, true that mostly guys stop beside the road to pick up a beautiful girl instead of guy with as long beard as he has years behind him. And it is a fact in a world of a hitch hiker that mostly middle age men pick up hitchers, no matter that thumb has a beard or blond hair and boobs. But as a girl you are defined to be less dangerous, less sweaty and innocent. Might be true unless you haven’t hitched few days in a row and smell like your leaking rubber tent after being on the rain many days and then pressed into that tiny bag with all the odors of the roads, of the gas stations you have been sleeping in.

And what to say when people ask if I am scared of getting raped or even rape-killed? I might have come across that feeling of fear once or twice. But then, it will pass, because I am not innocent, but a person with a strong mind, aware of the dangers just as I am aware that a car can run over me on a green traffic light. I live in the stage of surrender. And if something happens to my body against to my will is secondary. My body is an extension of the beauty of life. And I can only hope the other person will one day see the world in the same eyes and realize the beauty of it. That is a gift.

In the world that sex is a taboo and so many people uses it, not as an expression of pure love, an art of creating beauty in the universe, but as a tool for their own purposes, it is hard to be blessed in a beautiful body of a woman who wishes nothing more but to share something precious and unique, something that is a bit unpredictable in the modern world: an art of two strangers sharing a part of the journey out of the joy of sharing, not out of the expectation or a wish to get a new name on your facebook or a partner on your bed.

Why I raise my thumb


So, the reason I hitch is not a question of money. It will come and go. Like countries between my rides, like moods between the two human beings sharing the rides. Like an interesting conversation changes to an enjoyment of looking at the scenery when there’s nothing to say. I am there only to share what I can. And when I feel tired, when it is time to rest, I decide to use the public transportation and have a quiet moment just for myself; a moment that I just need to be, alone. Like a mother would say to her child in a candy shop: everything in moderation.

To get that one great lift out of five, to be able to welcome a stranger into a short period of your life without expecting anything in return is what makes the journey. To be able to stand in a crossroad sometimes without knowing where you will end up is a part of the game. To pick up a road, to get up on a car and just go. It is a present.

The purpose in all purity in hitch hiking as well as in life: to share, to help. How you share your life journey and how you manifest the beauty and love you have to the world is in the hands of the universe.

The art of fitting Smurffins and Eckhard Tolle on the same couch

If you'd told I'd be in Helsingborg four hours after I’d left from Stockholm I'd ask you did you buy me a flight? But even with a plane you have to reserve time to check in and out unlike car where you can just jump in and out without queues.
So when the Volvo speed of from the gas station reaching 220km/h you know you raised up that thumb again with Lady Gaga singing in the background weather your mother likes it or not and your thoughts about not doing the winter hitching ever again are left far behind. But what ever you promised yesterday you no longer remember when you sit in a cozy back seat while the views change faster than your thoughts.

I admit; I'm a junkie. But it's precisely these rides that make me addicted. There has to be some of those bad rides to know when the good ones hit you. And you are still brave enough to admit that if the bad ones follow you, you can always give it up and take the easy way out of the cold. That gives you comfort on the rainy road. That is what drives you.

I have had some luck with my ride this time, I admit. I spend a few moments beside the road with a Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk and trying to lift my hitch spirit up which desperately was still in the past on that cozy couch of a great friend in the center of Stockholm where I could feel relaxed right where I wanted to be. But no matter how much it gives comfort that I could have returned to that cozy place if a long ride towards Denmark wouldn’t have shown up in an half an hour I knew I had to try, seriously try. I made my choice when I hopped on that metro that took me to the outskirts of Stockholm. I had to leave when I felt the best.
The danger of overstaying crossed my mind when I heard Smurffins singing one time too much while reading Eckhard Tolle under a blanket on that cozy couch. No more of those blue creatures.

After that speedy ride all the way to Helsingborg I was again hiding the rain and wandering around in a boat terminal finding when to get over the Sea to Helsingor.
The boat terminal of Helsingborg was some sort of a club zone for teenagers from across the Sea. I observed the crowd, heard the mixture of Danish and Swedish language with a hint of a drunk accent and smelled the drunken Saturday early morning (read: vomit) next to the seat I put down my bags. And while waiting the 20 kroner’s boat ride to Denmark I finished the McDonald’s tortilla feeling quilt of not being able to resist my hunger, but wasting my last Swedish kroner’s in junk food, because that’s more or less all you can get during the early hours of the day in Scandinavia.
After a twenty minutes ride on the boat I finally was forced to rest in the harbor of Denmark. I walked a bit, found an open toll office, put my bags down and sat in a chair and fell asleep five times in three hours before the day light that hide itself behind the rainy clouds.

After some rainy rides towards Ulfborg the sun finally peeked behind the grey curtains and I stripped of my winter jacket for one last time and sat to wait a ride with Eckhard and his advices about The New World with me. But every once in a while the sitting, no matter how great company I was in, got my feet cold, so I turned on my mp3 for salsa and danced backwards with the whole Cuban army on my side.

One of the rides I got in Denmark gave me a little hint of the future roads in Turkey when the Turkish truck driver tried to gave me a kiss for goodbye to the mouth.
But you got to learn how to relax in those situations. Not by giving in, but by giving a clear no sign. After reading a book about a girl hitching in Albania where the drivers always ask for sex, but in a very polite way. And when you politely, but firmly say no, they give it up and drive you. In a way it’s safer and more honest than when you get a lift from a man who tries to hint you something in a western way.

While having that last quiet ride to the school in Ulfborg I thought about the last nights speed ride with some beat lifting music and imagined myself on top of a motorcycle speeding off in autobahn somewhere in Germany.

Sometimes all you need is a quiet moment on the couch alone or a moment with music that’ll take you to Ireland, India and Cuba to give you a climbs of another world and lift up your spirit. Some moments if your feet are getting cold and the coming Monday depression overwhelming, you want turn up that Thriller to lift you up over and over again.
Life with music is like garam masala in an Indian dish: it taste’s so much better with some real spice mix!

For the little junkie in you.

Up's, down's and a windshield washer closet

The second day of hitching on to the new life brought again that old feeling of not belonging, being alone. It's like a roller coaster: one day you feel like on top of the world, the next like you'd just like to return to home to the routine where you feel comfortable. All of it because you are going towards something you have no idea and further away from things you know. Besides that, you have no home base, no person alike to share your whole journey, you feel like you haven’t been in a shower in a month even if you had one yesterday, every muscles of your body is in pain because you forgot to stretch after exercise you did before heading the road with your way too heavy back bag and over all your body is everything else but in balance. There's nothing you want except a place to rest, and you ask yourself why you are in the middle of a cold snow pile your feet freezing and your thumb up with a sign that nobody even looks at when you could be of anywhere else that is way warmer and relaxing?

Yesterday my pal Dave and I had great luck hitching. In between of the rides in Umeå towards Oslo I felt extremely tired but energetic when I saw a sign of a gas station at the beginning of the high way. I sprinted there to warm up and encountered a dude who worked in there, while poor Dave wanted to stand in a bus stop wishing that somebody’s going towards South after mid night.
So, there I was drinking tea in the gas station with the dude in the other side of the counter who welcomed me and told me I looked like a well prepared hitch-hiker for the cold night. All I needed was a pair of those socks with a battery on them and a new mental health. Other than that, I was too much prepared with my heavy bag which had lost some kilos after me adding a fifth layer of clothes.

The gas station dude told how he'd been thinking to quit his job and hitch like he did back in the old days, an that I was like a sign to make the thought come true. The only reason he didn’t do so because he wasn’t sure what he actually wanted, but least it was something else than working in a gas station on a night shift. He didn’t know whether to believe his inner voice that kept saying he wasn’t in peace now. So if I was his sign, my sign was the arrow that had Gas Station on it.
I told him to be honest to himself while at the same time I thought who an earth would take a mentally unbalanced hitcher in the night as a sign for a better life. Never the less I told him to listen to that inner voice, that could have as well been a sign that he had some kind of double personality. No matter how crazy that voice was it was awake for a reason and not satisfied on the present life. He should ask why and change the life, even if it’s by changing the route he takes to the work.
By doing different things a person starts to think differently and realize what it is that drives him if the life lived is not what the little weird voice in the head wants.

After sharing a rather great hour talking and smiling in front of a cup of hot tea I felt like I should put Dave out of his misery and at least bring him some tea. But as I was about to head to the toilet first Dave rushed in to tell he hitched a ride from a taxi that would leave us few miles ahead. The dude from the gas station send me off with a pile of out of date salad boxes and some more tea. (Like I wasn’t in a need of a toilet already.) Few chocolates (which I shouldn’t have eaten, because my body is already confused) and a short taxi ride after we ended up in the middle of a dark highway where the wind was catching up. Looking at Dave one could tell it wasn’t what he had in mind. But then, life is making choices and going for them.
By looking back you can always be wise and say we should have done it differently. But it will not take you ahead. It keeps you in the past, feeling sorry for yourself.
So as we realized how pointless it was to bounder What If's we walked ahead in the empty and spooky highway playing a game called What If with a smile on our face. We ended up in a gas station hoping for a ride or place to warm up and sleep, but since the only interior warm place was the air-conditioned windshield-washer equipment closet, we quickly wrapped our bags in plastic bags to put into the wet floor and ate a salad after squeezing in between the shelf and the roof at 3am. I put my hat over my eyes since the closet had lights like in a shopping window and wished some sleep. Million positions later Dave woke me up saying sun was up and we should move on. I felt like I'd slept only less than an hour but he kept telling me I was fully asleep more than three hours. And if the sun wouldn’t have been up I'd call him a liar. He also told me that a dude had stopped to take our picture while I was snoozing away. I just hope it wasn’t because they were thinking of putting a lock on the closet in case for the future homeless travelers, who are looking of a shelter to warm up. If not, then i don't mind finding my picture in the Most Weirdest Places To Sleep web page.
As soon as I got up from the tiny little closet I was happily asleep again, this time in a Finnish truck. It had stopped to sleep overnight in that same gas station. Three dreamless hours later we ended up in a gas station near Gävla and few hours and some aimless walking later we go dropped off in the city of jävlar Gävla with farewell word’s that it would be a better place to hitch to Oslo than the gas station we were. I wonder, because after few hours my hitching spirit was in a real test. Also there was this little point that Dave had a schedule. He had to be in Oslo by next day afternoon. So he wanted to take a train to Oslo and I decided hitching in the winter with my feet cold in a bad hitching stop was not the way I wanted to do it. I've done it before. And I always told to myself never again I want to return to the cold especially to hitch. (That before was a time when my mission was to reach Finland without public transportation as fast as possible. Oh, and there were the times I’ve hitched inside in Finland, but smaller distances… Oh yes, and the time I left Krakow in Poland to get to a meeting in Tallinn, Estonia… Yes and that one inside Germany... Well, that proves my point: never again.) Now was the time to bounder what I'd like the most. And it sounded awfully nice to take a ride in the train to Stockholm to visit my old couchsurfing pal for couple days before heading towards Denmark to visit a school I was planning to go to (that was also my point B, where I’d head to C).
People set limits to themselves, so does the weird travelers. They think some things are not possible. But the limits are only guidelines that can be broken in mind of your goal. They are there to challenge you. But if you realize after three hours of hitching for a lift, that you don’t enjoy it anymore and would rather enjoy a train ride, you should go for it. If that crazy double personality in your head is not in peace anymore, you should give up and try something else. Giving up is not loosing. It is realizing your limits.
For me more important than keeping my limit was the next goal: Denmark, after which I’d hitch down in the South. Now I also wanted some rest to my tired body.
I've seen Scandinavia, I've seen Europe. I’ve hitch hiked around.

A life of a nomad is unexpected, lonesome, full of ups and downs, schedules lost if you ever had ones and many wise lessons you learn on the way. But it can be more secure, more constant. It can me a life with a routine just like the one back home if you set your mind into thinking it is something permanent like it is. You need things like, jobs, places to rest in between of wandering, a morning tea, a morning shit, a movie on the couch with a friend. And it is those things you learn to appreciate on the road, those things that you need in between of A and B on your way to C.

As I finally said good bye for the time being to Dave who went on till Oslo as I reached my couch in Stockholm after short but nice ride in the Swedish train, I felt relaxed. I was enjoying the company of a old friend again, joking about a job as a windshield-cleaner-automate with my friend being my pimp. I knew I needed these few days to rest.

Speed hitching is awesome, but then, it is not constant and in the cold Scandinavia where people are born to be scared of unexpected things is not the best place to do it in the winter time. Even if I still like to believe I'm like Alice in the Wonderland where everything is possible, even hitching 500km to Oslo sooner than with a ride on the bus. Because when you end up hitching in a place you don’t know, you have no expectations on how to get from there. You just go, because you are crazy enough to be believed.

With these thoughts I fell asleep with every inch of my body dreaming a life as a windshield-washer-closet-machine automate… Which is actually not a bad idea for a traveler wishing to have some work with accommodation included.

Oulu-Sweden, here I come!

Life is taking risks, it is going beyond of what you see, and it is all about doing something incredible today, what you could postpone for tomorrow. If this would be the last day of your life, what would you do? I'd raise my thumb and go on! I'd share my journey with someone who lets me in their life with an open heart. Somebody said do me three years ago I am an observer. And that is still true. I observe and learn to share what I know, I pass it away.

Today I left Finland where I got used into old customs for more than a month. I met a friend from couchsurfing, Dave we shall call him. He found his way up to the north to meet me and made me see again what my hometown, Oulu is like. That is something I constantly keep losing when I get there: they eye of the newbie. The eye that has no expectations for a place or a situation it stumbles in the journey.
It was then when I realized the traveler awaking in me again. It was time to leave again, since I actually didn’t plan to return in the first place. And even when my grandmother told me to come back soon, because her heart felt out of place when I was gone, I knew it's only because she loves me. And she’d let me go to do what was meant because that’s the only way for me to grow and to love her even more. I couldn’t stay and she didn’t expect me to even if she said so. A person who is living his or her dream shouldn’t feel quilt even when people expect to let the dream slip through your hands to be just a dream, because they are worried, jealous, possessive or just don’t understand. You can’t be worried of everything when you go to where you have never been. You can’t expect the worst, because life should truly be lived like a dream where everything is possible. That's how Alice did it in the Wonderland, and that's why she filled her real destiny, that's how she did all the things some only dream of doing, but at the end of the day they won’t because they are scared for their lives, for the result of making the dream come true. What if you suddenly win that million you always dreamed of?
Would you be happy then? I doubt it. People intend to dream on until they learn to enjoy and appreciate the present.

So, If my destiny is to return, then my grandmother with rest of the family will appreciate it more than if I would have physically stayed to pretend to be there without my heart into it. Soon they wouldn’t have cherished the time I am there thinking I'll always be there.
Every day should be special, like the last day of your life. Enjoying every breath you take.
What it comes to my fellow traveler, my fellow hitcher, your paths will go in different directions soon. But we are smiling as we go, where ever. We share the journey. We speed through Scandinavia on a mission. And at the end of the road we split to meet again. (Because we do have a mutual mission called a cookbook, a hitch hikers guide to the kitchen, that we work on as we surf in other peoples kitchen) Dave, in one day thought me a lesson I might have learned much later while staying in the cube that's called comfort of a hometown. With him we talked about culture, different reasons of living, different fucked up ways of controlling lives without harmony and love. We spoke about human relationships, where you grew up expecting things instead of letting it go because you love yourself and the other, because you are free like your worst enemy to do what you wish, because life is being honest and true for yourself. That's why if something doesn’t feel good you wonder.

As the journey continues, but the ride where I am writing this is about to end I’ll end it with the thought of today by couraging a troubled soul to start living with the heart open, without quilt about leaving, about filling expectations that you or somebody else have set to you. Just be and enjoy the moment without lies in your heart. Because at the end of the day you'd start saying to yourself you'll do it tomorrow. Today you just had some other things to do, things that are expected. Don’t be scared. Go for what drives you today!

A thought of today

Leaving is sometimes so hard. For me it seems to be overwhelming in many cases.
Especially when you have got used to the life you created around you, when you realize you are enjoying it like it was yours... until the time you open the door to the sunny winter day to have a quiet walk and realize it’s -25 degrees.

In the other hand, staying put is even more difficult sometimes. These cold breezes from the North Pole remind me of those days. You keep on moving just to be warm.

My feet are getting cold as my thoughts are growing restless, but I'm still almost forgetting the reason I packed my bag. I'm now looking at it without really knowing where we will end up when we walk out from the comfortably place called mom's home where there are no cold breezes to remind me of the road I've chose to ride.
But I know my bag's backed for a reason; and once I open the door, whether it's cold or warm, summer or winter, I'll remember where I was heading to.

It has been opening, exhausting, interesting and at the same time a little bit boring here in the north of Europe in a little city called Oulu. I am going to miss this place; after all, it's the place where I grew up, but also grew out of.
The things I'm going to miss are those, which made me feel like home again. Like salsa with the other salseros. It's been a warm breeze from Cuba in the middle of the coldest winter. I'm also going to miss swimming with my mom, experimenting in my grandma’s kitchen, meeting old friends and making new ones. Though, making new ones in the road has never been a problem. However, the problem seems to be keeping the new friends.
Well, those who will forget will be gone. Those, who are close to your heart, will be remembered. Life will go on, just like thoughts will change in time; like view will change from a window of a moving car, like the snow will melt to give space for the new grass.

A new day, a new thought, the same interests that keeps you going. I'll end this one with the best quote I came up so far: Life is.

Little something about life

Though, for only the past half a year I have taken this huge leap into finding out who I am and how I am to be me.
And the answer were all in these books, all in these wise words I heard while searching, but they didn’t reach my heart until I understood it. I still am not quite sure how that happened, but here, right where I left, my home, might be the answer. And it might be the old book that I found at my new rental rooms shelf just by accident and decided to open only one page and read that the answer was a bit clearer. There might have been a dozen times in the past I have heard the same quote that I wasn’t quite ready to accept, but now, suddenly it makes all the sense in the world.

Funny that when I came back from living 4 months abroad I began to understand even more clear how much the past had affected me...
And now it's just so clear. I realize just by being me, simply, accepting me, being honest to me, being naked in front of the mirror and thinking I love that person, or just by being silent in the crowd room of friends and strangers just because, just because I don’t have to talk, I can just BE. BE me.
You can always advice people to love them self but it might take a year or even 45 years to that listener to understand what do you really mean with those words.
For me from the time I was 19 (that's when I started to open myself a bit, open my field of experience, my vision so to speak) to the present it has been a revealing journey to realize just how much my family relations and surroundings have affected me. And now that I returned to take care of those relations I have been blessed to see it with different eyes. I don’t enjoy the things I used to, like clubbing or watching telly, but it is nice to still watch the old episodes of Frazier that they show here or laugh at the stupid commercials which promise you a healthy life in a yogurt can.
But now that I know the solution is not found on those things or even at my grandmother’s kitchen, I can be more free here that I was before. I can ask myself what do I want from the rest of my life, and I can aim for it.
After WHAT, I used to ask WHY, because before I might have done it for wrong reason, which had something to do with my ego. But now I can even talk calmly and listen, even in the family table where the emotions are exploded finally, when, after 45 years, the truth is spoken out loud.

I also think the less you have the more clear your path comes. I currently have very little money, but I know what I NEED to be able to do what I WANT instead of having all the money I dreamed but losing my goal while spending too much time in the grocery store. And I have enough money to make my dreams come true.
And when I tell to my friends, that while I had to live 2 weeks with 10 Euros in a busy city I was actually happier than when I had 1000 Euros, they don’t get me. Maybe it's because they are strong. But at that time I wasn’t, and I had to experience it, I had to experience even few days without eating to see, that I actually don’t need to focus on eating. I just need to focus on being in a moment FULLY. Thus I can see more clearly.

Here I am again, putting my thought out there. I think I'm mainly writing to put my thoughts into a paper, but if they can help somebody else, then why not putting them out here =)

Good night everybody! Frazier has left the building ;)