"What If" versus "So This..."

(Place movie trailer voice here) In a world where destination no longer determines the length of quality...lives an information addicted morally starving generation that grows wide with propaganda. Barely a soul is capable of cooking the scent of reality into dreams settling instead for manmade agendas salt and peppered with accusations of failure, deceit and defeat. (Place Will Smith picture here) Only one man. One sliver of untouched time... The stroke of a pen placed upon an old fashioned sheet of paper. He signs not his name but the identity of every passerby aimlessly seeking without knowing. Seeking what? Exactly... (Fade into a city skyline toward a window covered by what looks like extremely expensive drapes but it ends up being old newspapers) What? You thought I'd forget about the fifth and final "Mindfulness" lesson? Quick! Double click! Head to the next webpage blessed with bright teeth, eyes the size of Rhode Island and sales so incredibly unheard of that every Radio commercial will brag of it being one of a kind, never again will prices be this low and by the way...did you know we've been in business for 52 years? I'm trying to give you a reason to tune out! Mindfulness is awareness. For the past week it's been my attempt to not preach but share separate rivers of escape without having to elude to a need. Inside a poetic breath I give you the first four: 1. Cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect other living things. 2. Being aware of how we steal from others. 3. Learning ways to protect the safety, integrity and happiness of you and others. 4. Being aware of the suffering caused by the way we speak while developing better habits of listening. Do you happen to know the person that might be able to relate with this verbal junk? I mean come on...with video games, IPad's and Pod's...who gives a rats butt about what is and isn't? We live only once right? Max out the credit card! Find me some spicy ass Spanish food and lets wash it down with Marsh Mellow flavored Vodka chased with a Red Bull! The sentence I want to write will now be invisibly put here because it will earn so much judgment of my character that no matter what I've done as an artist, there's never going to be enough canvas' displayed that'll help me ignore criticism. When you sit and "Listen" to one or two hundred travelers locked in hospital rooms, their final focus isn't lifted by the presence of "What if" but rather stimulated by "So this..." Break it down. "What if" versus "So this..." It's two completely different people! So much time and energy was wasted on chasing "What if" that in the end..."So this" becomes the best we had to offer. 5. Being aware of unmindful consumption. Not just food but how you handle stress. Not just the best flat screen and sofa on earth but how you digest "I can't" The fifth lesson gets totally tortured by what we label consumption; alcohol, too much internet, never forgiving the boss, sister, coworker or innocent bank teller just doing their job. GM Andrew once shouted out to his struggling Radio staff, "I need you to put God first! Then family! Then your job! There's no better way to succeed in helping me locate listeners." Instantly I jerked! It shot across the conference room table faster than a California quake. A thumb tack had just been shoved into the corners of my eyelids. I'm a very shy person! Yet this day forever fuels the depth of our perception. Leaders that scold you for not putting the important stuff ahead of your job only to threaten you with termination when overtime pay becomes part of the game. "How is this possible?" I interrupted Andrew. "I'm expected to give you 12 to 16 hours a day in this place infested with mushrooms and peeling paint. Signs hang over the water fountain ordering us to not drink from it. The control rooms have no air conditioning. And for some reason you think I've got time for God and family?" 5. Being aware of "Unmindful" consumption. Fear, anger and confusion do more damage to your day than Monster drinks and Snickers bars. Nobody practices a daily diet of digesting positive energy and or working on becoming aware of what rapes you of the one thing you truly own: Identity, Integrity, Independence and Individualism. (Place Will Smith back into the frame) When was the last time someone looked at who and what you are and took note of the identity you never display unless you're home alone and nobody's watching? A lot has been written about your weaknesses. Presidential elections depend on the undecided. The moment you sign Will Smith's sheet of white paper the painting becomes complete: just another name of someone that so easily gave their life away. You are the only person that can hear yourself screaming. Why? Because everybody else is screaming and rarely does another person's scream out scream what's being screamed. No matter what...... "What if" is going to lead to "So This..." The least you can do is be proud of who you became before the rules of life took your name off that page. I will always believe you first....