The Burden of Burden

Tonight I am - simply stated - feeling scattered. I have a lot on my mind and the lot is varied. My previous belief feelings continue to pervade my thoughts (I want to note that those things are not the only beliefs that I have of course, just ones that I am feeling strongly about right now). But they are interspursed with excitement for the future, guilt from the past, anger at certain current realities and awe regarding the power of coincidence.

I am consumed by the power of intention and the power of belief and the power of the universe to affect my life and "harnessing the infinte power of coincidence." I have no doubt that every moment is signifcant and that every action, reaction and input to my life is necessary in order for me to fully realize my potential and experience life completely. The quote is the sub-title to Deepak Chopra's book "The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire." It is my current path and the vibration with which I am very in tune to right now.

I've been feeling a lot of guilt lately for something that happened when I was younger. I've spoken about this topic before but never in this way. I guess I am feeling the need to confess to my universe.

When I was younger, I lived in Heidelberg, Germany for about 7 years - from mid-4th grade until early in my Junior year in high school (and let me take a moment to say that it is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever visited - and I have been all over Europe). In 7th grade I was playing soccer and our team took a trip to Berlin - at that time it was still West Berlin - to play in a tournament. We had to take a non-stop train overnight through East Germany.

At the time I had started getting myself into smoking, drinking and drugs. One of my drugs of choice was an inhalant that was essentially compressed air plus something else that you attached a blow horn to for sports events and the like. I am not proud of this but understand that it was what it was for me at that time and that no matter how wrong it may seem, it was my reality.

My friend Ryan and I were in the top bunk of the sleeper car (because of course, we were the cool kids) and we were partaking in a bit of that destructive behavior. We decided that one of our team mates could join us. He was younger but we thought he was "pretty cool." He wanted to participate in our destructiveness.

I remember the moment like it was yesterday. I handed him the can and he participated. We smiled and laughed because that's what it does to you and that was that. A few weeks later, that kid was dead from an overdose of that destructive behavior.

I will never forget watching his father on the one American station that we had, pleading to parents and kids to stay away from drugs.

So going back to my beliefs, I believe that this has been a burden for me for all these years. It's been a weight that I've never really grown strong enough to lift. I simply drag it along with me. I drag this weight (and other weights) and it makes me tired in ways I don't even realize most of the time.

And then I find myself angry over nothing.

And I wonder why.

I think I knew that some day I would have to deal with this. I don't know why it's now. I know that just the other day, Marcia said "why do you get so angry sometimes?" Maybe that's why it's now. Maybe her words were the catalyst.

And please don't get wrong here, I don't beat my wife or my kids or anything even remotely close to that kind of behaviour, I just get really, really mad at life every once in a while. I think it's just a symptom of this weight that I have carried for much too long.

I am just tired.

Another thing I've talked about in the past is fear and how I've personally overcome fear in many ways. I don't fear my own expression of this. I don't fear who might be reading this and what they may judge about me because of this. I don't fear my universe. After all, I am successful by my own definition (which is all that matters), I have the most beautiful and unbelieveable wife and daughters on this planet and I am happy.

Fear is my pawn.

Yet what I DO fear right now is the additional weight that I know I carry. Because I know it's there. This is where the wall and weight metaphors break down because the weight is FROM my walls. I am not standing in front of my walls trying to break them down. I am the foundation to all the walls I have created in my life. And the weight of those walls only gets better when I face the foundation of each. Once I understand the foundation, I understand how I can deconstruct the wall. And once I deconstruct my walls, I believe that anything will be possible.

My walls only serve to hold back my potential.

And one thing I've learned as I've torn down my walls is to ask "why not me?" If not me, then someone else, right? If I am present then I am deserving. We all have the potential, we all have the capability and we all have the right to a life of fulfillment.