Awakening

What will it take for people to awaken from their sleep and realize that they are being oppressed?

Well, if you are one of them, then you are still asleep, just roll over and fall back asleep for a little while longer, or get up and look around.

Take a look at your life and really assess what you have and compare it to what you really want to do. Not things per say but goals or dreams. Like spending more time with your children or spouse, or taking a trip to a place you have always wanted to go or perhaps learn how to draw, paint, write, sing, play music or just read.

Do you have time for all that? Probably not.

Do you own your own home? Or do you pay mortgage, rent or worse perhaps have an impending lien? Is there enough room there for you and your family? Do you even have a place to live?

Are you secure enough at work to pay for all that in the near future or any hope to live in your own home with no debts? Probably not.

Do you work? Do you have a job or a career? Are you comfortable where you are or are you concerned with losing your job during the next round of layoffs? Are you satisfied with what you are doing, does your work have meaning to you, do you care that you are doing a good job and if you are doing a good job are you comfortable with your compensation? Can you pay all your bills and have enough food to eat every day, your family can eat every day?

Is work fulfilling and sustaining enough to be comfortable with no concerns? Probably not.

Do you have a feeling of lack of ambition, low self-esteem, self-pity, fear, self-doubt, perhaps even a loathing for what you do that you know is wrong but do it anyway so you can try to sustain your current level of lifestyle or trying to attain a better one? Do you worry about anything that you shouldn't have to worry about like your health, food, sanity, well-being, home, or any of these for your family?

Are you confident in who you are what you want and how to get everything that you want and need to satisfy who you are? Probably not.

If anything in those questions rings true, then perhaps you are starting to awaken. I know I have recently.

I know I am not everything I can be because of lack of time and self-doubt and worry about money and paying back all my debts and bills. But I am comfortable, which is a start. I am comfortable in knowing that I can withstand almost anything life can throw at me, but the problem is, not everything will go my way and to be honest, feeling comfortable does not mean you are.

I have been deluding myself into thinking that I can handle the way things are and sustain. But the problem is that the things that are causing distress in our lives are institutionalized in our society. If you haven't guessed already, this is a sort of continuation of my last entry.

The problem really is that we are forced to work for other people, rather than work for our own well being, and we allow others to gain benefit from our work. Sure we are free, well sorta. We are free to choose who we work for; we can choose which master to slave under. Unfortunately, we are forced to choose a life of squalor and homelessness and starvation OR we can choose the lesser of two evils and sell our work to someone who does not pay us the worth of our work, to their benefit. We sign contracts to work under duress. And I say, it is wrong.

And I hope, by perhaps opening the crust-filled, weary eyes of people, that they will realize what is really going on and I hope that people will start realizing it is time for a change.

And the one thing I want to leave with you for now is this: freedom is not given, it is taken.

You can only free yourself.