poison

Seek Justice Strive to be better today than you were yesterday Dream beyond the possible to achieve the impossible Rise above the storms of today to see the blue skies ahead I may have had some bad mexican food today...my stomach is not feeling very nice at the moment. I realize that I like going to the same places to eat because I know what to expect there...I will even order the same thing once I find "the dish" that I like...over and over again. today kinda solidified the reasoning behind it for me...we went out to eat in santa barbara for lunch and dinner, spending somewhere close to $60 for the two meals. Nothing fancy but lunch was pretty bad and dinner was just ok. Seems like a huge waste of an opportunity to eat some great food. or maybe trying a new place is an opportunity to find a new favorite place. I guess I go with both lines of thought every now and again. today was not an awesome day to try new food. inspiring, right? but good food can inspire. if we have good food at each and every meal, that becomes our new mean...par...average and it takes something extraordinary to make a splash and actually hit our conscious radar. good food becomes the expectation. similar to our health. when we are doing fine, we take it for granted, dont even think about it...until we get food poisoning or the flu...then we just think/dream about those days when we werent sick. which brings me [mentally] back to life. when life is going well overall, we dont even bat an eye. we dont realize how good we have it...how much of a luxury it really is to walk out of our house (that we have equity in and are purchasing, in southern california, where we worry about which variety of palm makes the yard the most tropical), get into our newish hybrid (which connects automatically to our phone/mp3 player and continues playing our favorite music, gets great fuel efficiency and runs without fail 99.99% of the time) and roll down the hill (which boasts fantastic views of our town, the beach, the islands and surrounding mountains - all framed by palm trees) to a local cafe where we buy an over priced drink, sit in air conditioning and browse the web for more overpriced media on free wifi... then when we lose our job, or find out we have cancer, get in a car accident or something, we just want normal again. but that's not what you want. that's definitely not what i want. when we have "normal" we are bored. you simply arent built for normal. truthfully, we are physically built for something totally different than this life that we live...but I'm not going there right now. We are mentally built for something else. you see, we did not craft this idea of normal which we have completely bought into. someone else dreamed it up. the idea of the "american dream" is truly a construct and I think it's pretty darn self-absorbed and boring. I know there are people in the US who dont have many of the things that are outlined in the american dream manifesto...who struggle just to get by each and every day...but that's not the norm. lately people complain that "the 99%" have been ripped off...the media is telling is that there's this other 1% who control everything and use the rest of us to get what they want. there are definitely those out there who are doing just that...but the way it's pitched...it's messing with our minds. it's telling us that we have something coming...and that "they" stole it from us. it's just BS. the vast majority of americans have WAY more than they need. do you have a home? food on the table at night? dont have to worry about getting raped/mugged/robbed when you go to bed? worried more about which phone you're buying next than your retirement? yeah...i know the feeling. what i'm getting at is that the vast majority of US have plenty. dont buy the BS that you dont...because if you dont, it's probably your own fault. dont buy stuff on credit cards that you cant afford...it's just not a good habit to get in to. dont buy $5 caramel machiatos (which isnt even a real drink but whatev) every day then complain about how you can't afford your rent. scale your life to something less than your income and move forward. get over yourself and your entitlements...but it's actually not about you...this is about me. this whole thing is something I put together to help me work through my subconscious crap by putting it down on paper. ok... so we're not built to consume...especially if we're consuming more than we're producing. normal is someone else's construct so we need to consciously realize that and create our own definition of success. special note: king solomon had EVERYTHING...could do ANYTHING...and after trying out everything and exploring everything and all that with all the resources anyone could ever need, he realized that everything was for nothing...that nothing under the sun was new or would really last...it was all vanity. but whatever, he's dead (and you will be too, someday) we have dreams...or maybe we had dreams. i'm not talking about things that happen when you're sleeping...that's totally different. we have things we wanted to do with our life. we wanted to go on safari in africa or work at a national park...skydive naked or get frogs tattood on your feet...or maybe it was something bigger like building housing for the homeless or preventing disease in africa or maybe even working with prostitutes in the big city and helping them get an education so they can get out of a horrible line of work. whatever it was or is...that's your purpose. that's YOUR dream...embrace that...get it tattood on your forearm so you see it every day so you can remember it every day and overcome the BS of the world and this "american dream" that someone else dreamed up and sold you. so YOU can go out and live YOUR dream every day and get one step closer to becoming the person you were meant to you. believe it or not, you are the only version of you that this world gets to see...and I know that YOU (yes you) have something unique inside of you that you are probably terrified to embrace and bring into reality. dye your hair, shave it all off, move to istanbul, go to the gym...nobody else is going to do it for you so dust off your dreams open them up and get started. I'm counting on you to be the best you that you can be because you only get one shot at showing the world how amazing you are and I want to see it :)