Take the Beam From Your Eye First

How many bones must a dog bury before it has enough? How many songs must we listen to in order to understand suffering? How many tears must fall before we forgive?

When we look at life as if it is disposable, replaceable, or a rehearsal we short change ourselves the opportunity to live up to our true potential. When we are flung upon the sharp tongues of others, why are we disenchanted by the mouths that scar us? A life can be given in 15 seconds and destroyed in 3. A career that took a lifetime to build can crumble in a blink of an eye. Are we truly that blind? Isn’t it in this moment that we should remove the beam from our own eye before we can pluck the speck from our neighbor’s?

If our eyes were really the true window to the soul why are we so blind to the hypocrisy in the world? We see what we want to and ignore that which makes us uncomfortable. We are taught to attack the flaws of others, because compassion would make us look weak. And yet, even as we speak love from one side of our mouths, we whisper words of hate through the other. We exploit the misfortunes of others and become empowered by the spineless that stand behind us. We are fed by jealously and bound by insecurity.

We claim we are passive and yet we aggressively push for people’s sympathy. Are we truly the ones who need sympathy? Or could our misfortunes and successes be measured by the choices we make? Anyone can ask for sympathy, live in fear, and be ruled by judgment, but it takes strength, courage, and higher thinking to rise above the static that fills the empty space. 

We are constantly praised and coddled by the masses for embracing the fractured bones that weaken us. Have we fallen so deep that we grapple and cling to the bones of trail-blazers that came before us? At what cost will our egos be rewarded? At what point will the pain be enough to keep us motivated? When will the dried, splintered remains of teachers before us become the legacies of what was instead of what could be?


We will always be imprisoned by thoughts of yesterday if we don’t replace them with thoughts of what we want for tomorrow. Right now we are the most powerful thing in our lives. From the moment we open our eyes to the moment our heads sink into our pillows every word we utter, every thought we think and every action we take sets up the cause and effect of our lives. We can choose to flick the domino of life and embrace the outcome or we can stand on the sidelines afraid of what will happen. The choice has always been ours. 

Our life is meant to be lived, active, expanding, and fluidic. We are meant to shine, be brilliant, and yes, even falter sometimes. We are wired to live life the best way we can. Why would we long for Peace if we weren’t meant to have it? Why do we ache for love if we were never destined to experience it? Why would we be given freedom of choice if we were never fated to use it? We are created to experience the best life we know how to live, and in doing so we sometimes lose our way. We become caught up in the lives of others, we become defined by who we allow others to label us as. We give our power to those outside of our inner dwelling. Just because we are who we are today, doesn’t mean we can’t be who we decide we want to be tomorrow. 

Every second of everyday we are changing, growing, and expanding our life experiences. When we allow others to pipe in, we are giving our power away. We know who we are and what we need to do. When did we lose our way? When did the words of strangers or others become who or what we are? Perhaps it happened when we were down, scared, ruled by fear, maybe it occurred when we got lost in the world. Maybe we allowed others to run with our power when we stopped listening to our intuition. Either way, today is the day we take baby steps to reclaiming our power! Right now, at this moment, we will reclaim our inner spark that has always burned brightly in the core of our being. 

What once was will never empower what will be. We can’t take what we want and bottle it in the old used containers of yesterday. We must take a new, clear, beautiful bottle of today and fill it with what we want for tomorrow. 

I will not fill you with falsehood and tell you it is easy. It is not! But what I will say is this … when you decide to love instead of hate, celebrate instead of denigrate, embrace instead of push away, embody peace instead of dysfunction, pleasure instead of pain, you will begin to feel your world change, and then you will see it transform. You will stop embodying what is so wrong with the world and start personifying what is so right. You will give up the judgments, the pain and anger and you will begin to embrace the beauty around you, feel the pleasure life will bring you and start to love the world for what it is, because you and everyone around you deserve to live in LOVE, PEACE, HARMONY, ABUNDANCE, and JOY.

Start today by making a conscious choice to think better thoughts. That’s all it takes is a conscious act of changing your thinking. May today be the start of you following your bliss, taking the bull by the horns, and making the world a better place because you are in it!

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings!

Yosemite Trip taken by Jared de la O 2012. Power At Its Purest!