AWARENESS

Without awareness, you are groping about in the dark, desperately trying to grasp on to something. You have no control over your life and leave everything to chance. Luck doesn’t usually smile on such a condition.

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Being fully aware is like opening your eyes after you have been cured of blindness. You might not like what you see, but it is best that you see it all the same.

“Ah, so this is what I am dealing with. Hmmm … Aha! So that was where that smell was coming from! I guess that if I want to get rid of it, I will have to clean it up.”

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If you are unaware, be aware that you are unaware, and in that moment you become aware. And, in that moment, you are more than a mere robot operating on automatic.

And, then, it’s gone. And you are, once more, unaware.

Until, once more, you become aware that you are unaware …

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While many people abhor war, there are those who thrive in it like nothing else. For perhaps the first time in their lives, they are fully present. And, hence, fully alive. They simply have no choice but to be, if they want to live.

And that is why some Vietnam veterans kept on coming back for more, as everyone around them shook their heads at the insanity of it all.

While it certainly isn’t necessary to go to such lengths to become aware, the principle stands. Treat each moment like everything depends on it.

© Phillip A. Klein March 2008