Time to choose.....

Where are we not going today?  What does that mean; where are we NOT going today?

There are choices in this life especially when we have the right tools.  Tools these days that lead to spiritual awakening are books, conferences, TED talks, personal experience and the like.  The words we read or hear become alive and we choose to use them like we would a pair of great fitting shoes.  We put them on and then start down our path.  What resilience you have , I now believe, is the courage to face ANY issue with happiness, vulnerability and "love."  Maybe metta, the word for loving kindness, is the most appropriate term.
I have believed all along that our mental states are a choice as well as the concomitant emotional states.  Science, research, etc. have told us that we cannot have an emotional response without first having a cognitive event.  We need to think about something then depending on our erroneous definition, that we chose, we react. We have become victims of things and how we relate to them.  Money will make me happy.  A new dress will make me happy, my child recovering from a terminal illness will make me happy.  If only this were true.  We choose to be happy because we think we define those things that make us happy and then GIVE them the mystical power to do so.  We react instead of act.  We respond instead of acting from within.  How many allegories do we need to understand the authors when they say,

Invictus 

by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

We all pale in front of our own egos and make them the scared, demanding masters  they are in this life.  We put them on the pedestal because we are afraid to be vulnerable.  But with the works and books of Michael A. Singer, Brene' Brown and others we can learn to be open and vulnerable.  We can be happy and courageous because of the paradox that exists in this life.  In the Bible; The meek shall inherit the Earth.  Sun Tzu, The best way to strengthen a position is to attack a position.
What person knows the strength of Gandhi?  Buddha?  Jesus?  All great incarnations understand strength comes through vulnerability because it provides courage.  If there is no ego to protect the possibilities are endless.
Today is the day we choose to be happy.  We choose to be vulnerable. Because today when we choose these we are not ourselves and our egos; we are invincible.