Fate

Fate, destiny and all that jazz, has been a topic that I've avoided discussing for a while now because I felt like I hadn't done enough research on the matter, read enough theories etc. However what dawned on me was that I have enough experience pondering this earth and its inhabitants to draw my own conclusion about the mystery of fate and as of now I'm quite confident in my beliefs, so why not share them? As a warning, I'd like to let you all know that a good proportion of ye are not going to agree with what I say in this post. No one I've ever spoken to has and that's alright! I'd love to hear ye're opinions because this topic is such an interesting and baffling one! 

So I personally believe in Fate. I believe that every single thing happens for a reason, no matter how small. You see, I think what we've all observed about life is that a chain link of events can occur. One tiny thing can lead to something else which can lead to something else and so on. Fascinating, isn't it? And I don't think they're down to coincidence, quite frankly, I don't believe in coincidences whatsoever! You may be wondering what is the "reason" that everything happens for. In my opinion its to propel you onto the next thing or stage in life, so that a transition can occur and to add something to your life, to change you if only slightly. Life is sensitive. That is the basic message I'm trying to get across.

And you may be thinking that I hold no belief in "free will" or how we are completely in control of our own destiny. That's not entirely true. I think we are very much our own person. I believe in souls that have passed through many lives and that we've still retained that essence or spark that makes us, us. Therefore, I think that we possess control over our reactions to things as well as our attitudes to the whacky incidents  that occur in life. I also (though it sounds a bit strange) tend to not think about fate a lot, meaning that I don't stop myself from doing things and give in to fear because "its fate". I make sure to do what I want to and go for things with confidence when I can as if I didn't believe in fate because, while it may sound complicated, I wish the concept of Fate had never been created. I wish a term had never been given to this power I believe in so greatly and do you want to know why? Because I think we're meant to live life oblivious to the fact that fate exists. Maybe life in that way is meant to be a mystery, where we live with the principle of YOLO and live in the now, not holding back, but unbeknownst to us there is a force deciding every little thing that comes our way. The reason I say this is because I don't think anybody should not go for things or not attempt to live out their dreams just because of the notion that fate will do it all for us. Fate has planted the ideas and dreams in your head, you have them for a reason, if you chuck that reason away then it won't happen. I guess we need to work alongside fate!

All of the great, uplifting phrases of encouragement such as "What will be will be" need to be put into perspective by the reader. Do you take those few words and lose all enthusiasm for life, lie back and hand over all responsibility to "fate" or do you use them as words of comfort, consolation and to reinstall an eagerness to keep going and to keep working hard at what you want?

And now to contemplate what "Fate" actually is, where does it come from? How does it work? Well, personally I don't approach fate from a particularly religious view point. I think its a part of the mystery of life, a mystery we can try to but may never accurately figure out. All I have is a very strong feeling and belief that this thing I've heard of is real and true, that we need to think in a more abstract way of why things happen and why things don't. You may only use it as an antibiotic to negative thoughts after something going wrong or you may completely disagree with it, I don't know! All I want you to do after reading this blog is to think about it and let me know your thoughts!

                            What do you think?

                                                 Love,
                                                    Rachel! =)

Success

A successful man?

In many's eyes, through implications anyway, this a very popular picture of what success is in this world. Having a load of money, from a brilliantly paid job topped with power and even fame is probably the most widespread definition of what the term "success" means. I actually just looked it up in a dictionary and its true. The definition is "the attainment of wealth, positions, honors and the like" and another one is "the accomplishment of one's goals". These are the two types of success I want to speak about and then I want to give my own take on such a weighty, human- made- pressurising word.

Jay Z, an iconic rapper and regarded as an extremely successful businessman. He's married to another powerhouse, Beyonce Knowles, and is a good representation of the hip hop/ gangster/ swag chasing/ rap industry which he's referred to himself as being the king of. There are many others I could mention who frequently bring up in their tracks how successful they are because they have money, fame, power, women to have sex with and various other materialistic, flashy things (apart from the women, but that's how they see them). I think that's sad. I genuinely pity them and their view on success which is so dependent on external circumstances. The success itself is very outward based, proving to the world that you are successful instead of being so within. Drake (he's YOLO guy) released a song in 2006 entitled "Success" where the chorus is  "Yeah I want the money/Money and the cars/Cars and the clothes/The hoes/I suppose I just wanna be/I just wanna be successful" To summarise these desires as success is, underneath it all, what a lot of people would count as a fitting one. That to me is where the problem lies.

Moving away from that theory for a second, I want to move onto another one. Ladies and Gentlemen, have you ever heard of Eric Thomas? Hands down one of the best motivational speakers I've ever heard and truly is an inspiration. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/etthehiphoppreacher

This is a link to his YouTube channel and I highly recommend checking it out, you won't be disappointed. However I would like to focus on his mantra which is 

"When you wanna succeed as much as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful"

This is possibly a more extreme version of another hugely accepted formula for success. This theory contains the belief that with hard work and huge amounts of will power you can achieve anything you want to achieve. Eric Thomas uses the phrase constantly and basically says that you can't allow yourself to be distracted with other things apart from working towards what you want to be successful at. You need to want it desperately and sacrifice things for it, a huge example he gives is sleep. He even quotes 50 cent who said "Sleep is for broke people". So to get to the point, this theory of success is very broad, you are left to decide what you want to be successful at whether its academia, getting a promotion at work, losing weight whatever it is this formula will apply if a good work ethic is required. And I agree, we are lazy creatures most of us and motivation is a requirement to get things done however I raise an eyebrow at the extremity of losing sleep and not taking proper care of yourself just for success in these terms. I laugh every time I think of 50 cent's quote because to me sleep is not for broke but for healthy, happy people. If that means poor, then lets live in poverty. This definition for success troubles me in another way too. Once we accomplish a goal, we move onto the next one and the next one and so on. We aren't satisfied and don't deem ourselves successful because we could always be more successful, there will always be someone who is, always a higher position to fill. You're climbing an infinite ladder and if you can't feel it, then is it success?

In my opinion, neither of these mean success. I believe success is happiness. Success is waking up in the morning (after a good night's sleep) and having something to look forward to in the day ahead, to wake up with a smile, to wake up possibly with problems to deal with but no worries because they haven't affected you. Success is holding your patience intact and being able to love even those who act in a way that makes it impossible. Success is loving yourself, looking in the mirror and not cringing or frowning, loving the unhealthy parts of you so that you'll want to make them healthy, falling in love with the weird things you say and the awkward things you do. Success is confidence, when what you laugh at most are the looks of contempt on people's faces as you speak the truth, as you be who you are because they won't. Success is seeing the full pigment in the colours of every thing in the world, to never grow too old and wise to have breath taking moments on this ancient earth, to soak up learning like a sponge and to truly listen to people. Not to pick up when it might be a good time to start speaking yourself, but to actually absorb the words into you. Success is pushing past the gates of lies and being 100% honest with yourself and with everybody, to walk through life with your palms open and allowing yourself to be vulnerable and reveal the amazing thoughts within you. Success is having a calm soul, focused on the present moment and not possessing any bitterness or hate for another individual. Success is knowing with all the certainty you need that no matter what the world throws at you, there is something in you that can overcome any obstacle. Success is when you are grateful, when you have complete awareness of the treasures that exist in your life, that you are breathing being one of them. 

This is success to me. If you've succeeded in being happy internally and connecting with who you are then you are a success and you can never fail. Only with this foundation can you go on and achieve all of the dreams you may have and be able to put the work in to getting them. 

Love,

Rachel! =)

Fear

Isn't fear the weirdest thing ever? I came up with the idea of writing about this when I had the misfortune of stumbling upon a most undesirable picture from "The Exorcist" on the Internet and spent the whole night paranoid. It only hit me then how irrational fear is. I mean, where does fear even come from?

Coming from a-totally-non-qualified-definitely-not-an-expert-just-a-human-being-who-has-experienced-it-way-too-often's perspective I feel like fear is such a complex matter and the fear of seeing a scary film is very different to being afraid of saying what you believe. The reason I say that is because when I see a scary image I sort of go numb and freeze, then I have the natural instinct to try and get away from it. With fear of dealing with people, thinking about the future, you're not panicking, you're more kind of exaggerating everything in your head and thinking about what could happen. And I suppose that is what fear does. It blows everything up way out of proportion and it plays tricks with your mind. Your imagination is much more frightening than reality when fear has taken control of the reigns.

So I guess what we should address is the question of "What is fear?" Why do so many of us have the same reaction to scary pictures and why are so many people are afraid of spiders? I think it could be a reflection of what we see around us. Everyone's afraid of these things so the actions and feelings get instilled in us also. But that doesn't really sit with me. How can it feel so natural? Maybe its the fear we saw in their eyes that frightened us and whenever we see that thing by which they were frightened of again, we associate it with that time of fear. Also, touching on my belief in reincarnation I'm not going to dismiss that our fears don't come from past lives. It kind of makes sense doesn't it? We can't explain why we're afraid of something in this life because our memories from lives gone by have faded so much. All that remains are the feelings because feelings are infinite. 

Other than that I find it ridiculously difficult  to figure out why we have fears for no apparent reason.

If I were to speak about the other type of fear I mentioned, the fear of the future, the fear of failing. That to me is definitely due to external sources and once again society. Society has told us how to behave, what future is the best and we fear we can't live up to that. I don't know why we do, but we do. We're often afraid to give our opinions because we think people will reject them, stare at us or that it'll just go really badly. We don't rationalise it or more importantly forget about it, because even if they do all those terrifying things in your head, it doesn't even matter. And about the fear of failing in our future lives. I know I'm convinced I'm going to end up homeless because everything I'm interested in is so easy to fail in or just simply doesn't produce jobs.  In general though, people are afraid to chase their dreams for fear of failing and ending up as something you hate for the rest of your lives. All of these common fears are derived from Mothers, Fathers, Teachers, Aunts, Uncles, The Media and others telling us that your life is a success if  you become a doctor or a lawyer and make X amount of money each year. You have a nice house, attractive spouse of the opposite sex with whom you make 2 kids, a boy and a girl (at an appropriate age, mind you.) This is what's deemed stereo typically perfect in society and many of us have a fear of not achieving that.

Now I want to discuss the power  of fear. The utter grip it has over our thoughts, our actions, our feelings and our lives. After I saw that petrifying photo I was talking about, why couldn't I just forget about it? I lay in bed and I kept checking every inch of my room to make sure she hadn't just popped in to say hello. I deemed every unexpected object to be her and my heart would stop for a split second until I realised it was just a blouse. I don't even know why I wanted to keep looking, surely I'd want to delay seeing her for as long as possible??? I guess I wanted to try and regain some of the power that fear had taken from me.

You become so engrossed in fear. The people around you kind of dwindle away and you act towards them in a manner that's not like you. You might turn to anger or tears but in whatever way you do its negative so as we all can testify, fear affects our relationships with others.

Its so important to try and eliminate our fears, to add a dollop of logic to our lives, because only then can we live all our dreams to their fullest. Who doesn't want that? 

They say the best way to eliminate fear is to just face it. Then you'll be free from its clutch. I totally believe in this. I make sure I don't shelter my eyes when a ghost pops up in scary films because my imagination will be worse than whats in front of me and the motions of fear that I go through(squealing, clutching the blanket, tensing up and shaking) all lead to the initial fear building up and building up.

Making fun of scary things also helps enormously. Laughter is a curing and preventative medicine so if you laugh, you're not only tricking your body into thinking you're happy and releasing endorphins and all that jazz but you're simply seeing the bright side of life as well.

Also, I love the quote "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood"  and that's something I wholeheartedly believe in. Its my opinion that that is the reason for prejudice. Homophobia is the correct term because its not people being ass holes its people being afraid of the unknown among other things like insecurity etc. But if you sat down and truly investigated a spider you wouldn't be as afraid. You'd understand that they're generally harmless and just look creepy.

And my last piece of advice is that we must realise that our fear of people is ridiculous, When we look at people doing something really out there we think about it or a split second and then we move on to the next candidate in our queue of thoughts. We've all been awkward at some point in our lives and from this we possess a basic human compassion. We need to demolish the fear of displeasing society as well and determine our own definition of success. I know mine is very internal and emotionally based. What's yours?

They're the best things  I can come up with to eliminate our fears and I'm ashamed to report that I had intended to leave ye with some scary pictures to work on curing ye're selves with. The bad news? I saw 20 spiders in Google images and had a seizure......

I'll leave ye with one question, and one question only,

What would you do if you weren't afraid?

Love,

             Rachel=)