Our Addiction To Judgments And Problems

It’s been a week since I moved to a little gem of a town called Eugene, Oregon. The whole experience was, in a sense, more fundamentally moving than coming to the U.S. I’m in cultural shock. I’m humbled. I’m amazed. . . (Photo credit)

World migrant gets a surprise

Just to give you an idea, this is where I have lived in my life so far:

• Japan
• Sydney, Australia (1 year as a high school exchange student)
• Columbus, Ohio (10 years)
• Nashville, Tennessee (3 years)
• Portland, Oregon (2 years)

The last three are all in the United States, but crossing the Mason-Dixon Line was like crossing an invisible cultural border between the North and the South (it is still referred to as the Union and the Confederate in the South.) And west of the Rockies is quite another, too — I’m pretty sure the west coast states don’t consider themselves as part of the continental America. . . or as part of America at all.

So you would think, for a world migrant like Akemi, moving 100 miles to Eugene is a breeze. Some physical work to do, but emotionally, it’s no big deal, right?

Boy, no way.

The first shock came when I first visited this apartment complex. The leasing manager showed me a few open units. I noticed she just simply open the door without the key, and when we were done, she just closed the door. So I asked if she locked the open units at night and her answer was no.

You know, I’ve been working since I was six years old, and locking up the office and the storage unit was part of my responsibility. Coming to the US, I was told to be even more watchful against potential crimes. And here you are, meeting a middle-aged manager who seems to be quite conventional otherwise, never thinking twice of not locking the apartments. She swears nothing ever happened, even when she had leased furniture inside for corporate relocation.

. . . well, I signed up and now live in one of her townhouse. I still lock my door. . .

I asked for a quiet and peaceful place to live, and I got it

A little background of my moving. I liked where I was, but it was so noisy with the neighbors on both sides and downstairs. (I had an apartment on the top floor.) My intent was to live in a quiet peaceful place where I can rest and work well.

Gee, did I get that.

I now live in a townhouse. No one is above me or below me. It seems to have been built well that I hardly hear my next door neighbors, either.

But it’s not just the lack of someone else’s music and loud conversation. The quality of peacefulness here is beyond expectation.

I’m on a mid-hill on the southwest edge of Eugene. From my living room, I can see the mountains across the valley above the roofs of other houses. There are also some trees, and looking at their leaves quietly moving in the gentle breeze is so calming. Behind all these, the sky is big and close. I can spend the whole morning just looking at the trees, the mountains, and the sky.

Really, I can spend hours just being there. I don’t know how to describe it. I am left speechless. I feel as if I am blending into the whole environment. It’s better than bliss or happiness. In bliss, there is still me.

Driving around the new town

Eugene is such a small town that I can get anywhere in 15 minutes or so (although I live at the edge of town). No heavy traffic. And the directions are so simple. There are only a few roads I need to remember. This is such a relief for me because I’m not very good at finding directions. (By the way, the speed limit is 25 to 35 mph even on major roads. Around schools, it’s 20 mph all day, from 7 am to 5 pm. Why make haste, you know?)

Despite the small size, I find it easier to eat vegetarian (mostly vegan and raw) here. Well, not just vegetarian, how about organic, locally-grown vegetarian? There are some excellent grocery stores that carry stuffs I never saw in Portland. And there are quite a few vegetarian-friendly restaurants. I plan to go to the farmers’ market this weekend.

People are friendly here. I went to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicle) this morning. Usually, people at government agencies like this have bad attitude. Not here. The guy at the information desk is more friendly than any customer service person you met.

Honestly I get nervous a bit when I go to this kind of place. Not that I did something wrong, but because of past experiences, I sort of expect unpleasant encounter at these places. I was wrong. I was treated well, and it took less than half an hour. . .

So? Is there a problem?

Kind of. Did you notice what I said in the previous paragraph?

I was expecting problems. In reality, I didn’t get it. And I found myself seeking something else.

What something? Well, pretty much anything. Something I can be concerned about, to be mentally prepared for, something I can bounce in my head and “work” on.

This surprised me. I thought I’ve worked out my addiction to judgments and problems. I know many of us actually like having problems regardless of what we may say, and that is the very reason why we never run out of problems. We have a deep-rooted love and hate relationship with problems. We are addicted to judgments and we keep creating problems by our judgments.

But me? Am I still craving for problems? I am in a beautiful, peaceful new place and enjoying it, right? Or do I still have a tiny bit of discomfort with this level of peace?

This peace is almost numbing. It’s like losing myself. I know losing myself (my ego) is a good thing. But it’s just . . . different. Suddenly, there is hardly any problems out there, so now it’s either I completely accept this peace or I have to seek problems within me. Aaaaaaagh!

Creating our life and the world

We create our own life and the world. Some people describe this “The world is our own mirror.” Then I guess I must have done something good to create such a peaceful place to live for myself. The remaining drama-loving ego gotta go.

I’ll see how this works. And I really wonder why the rest of the world cannot be like this . . . there is no reason it cannot be. When we all wake up and be done with our own addiction to judgements and problems, this world will be transformed to a “heaven on earth.”

Soul’s Purpose For Incarnation

“If our essence is the soul, or the spirit, why did we bother to incarnate in the physical body?” As spirit, there was no pain, no fear, no suffering, and certainly no death, right? Didn’t we know we were better off staying in the spirit world rather than coming to this world?

In other words: What is the purpose and meaning of life?

I’ve written a detailed post on life purpose, and that post is still good, but let me reiterate the issue from a new angle because this is a big, important issue. (photo credit)

Soul’s purpose to enjoy

Yep, this is the main thing. We wanted to enjoy this physical world. We wanted to feel the love and abundance, our power to create and manifest, in this tangible world.

Are you disappointed? Does “enjoyment” sound unimportant or petty? Were you expecting something holier?

Then let me ask you, what is more holier than enjoying, which is synonymous to praising and appreciating the creation (whether you see the creator as God or yourself)? If you think enjoyment is something worthless, you may be caught up with the “Value must come from sacrifice” and “We are no good and we must suppress ourselves” myth.

But, you may say, this world is full of horrible things. We don’t get to enjoy much.

Well, I’m writing another post to show you that perception is misled.   (It’s published now here.)  All the things in this world are good. But even if we accept there are bad things in life, does that decrease your enjoyment? If you believe in bad things, you enjoy the good things even more, don’t you?

If not, it’s probably you not allowing yourself to enjoy — it’s not the bad things preventing you from enjoyment.

And by saying “Our soul’s purpose is to enjoy this life,” I don’t mean we should all spend the rest of our lives lying on the beach. Lying on the beach is enjoyable some of the time, or all the time for some of the people, but not all the time for all of us. I, for one, will be completely bored after a week or so. (Yes, I actually prefer the cool Oregon weather, and most of the time, I like typing up my articles rather than doing nothing.)

Okay, so enjoyment. How do we really enjoy living then?

Soul’s purpose to express itself

By fully expressing our unique gifts and strengths. You enjoy yourself and your life most when you are fully yourself.

If you try to become someone that you are not, your effort is wasted and you feel bad about yourself. Even if you get money or people’s attention this way, you just feel like a fake and you don’t get to enjoy them really. This is the mistaken way to enjoy “love and abundance.”

To really enjoy love and abundance, we first need to love ourselves completely and unconditionally, and to see the abundant and supportive nature of the universe.

We, each one of us, have unique gifts, and the gifts get even better as we go through our unique life experiences. Recognizing our gifts and figuring out how to express them is one of the most important work you do in your life.

So we can say our soul’s purpose is to express ourselves in an authentic way. Which brings true enjoyment.

Soul’s purpose to learn and to help others learn

When we incarnate, we receive the “veil” that make it difficult to know ourselves. It’s a way to enjoy this life game more. It adds the fun of discovery.

So, to get to the place we fully express ourselves and enjoy this life, there are learnings to do. This is often called learning the “life lessons”. Learning the life lessons is part of the soul’s purpose.

I don’t see this learning process goes on indefinitely, however. With Ascension, many souls are completing the “this is the life lessons, here is a plan to learn them in this world, let’s work on this program” style learning.

Sometimes, we volunteer to help others learn. Our souls are so generous! I’ve seen these souls in my Akashic Record Reading — they’ve been relaxing in the spirit world for eons of time, and then decide to come over. Apparently, there is no big reason they “need to” incarnate, but they volunteer to be here.

How specific your soul’s purpose can be

Some people want to be told something like, “Your purpose is to go to Africa to save the starving children.” And they are afraid they’d “fail” in life if they don’t do it. Well, in order to do it, they need to know what their specific purpose is, so they go to psychics for readings.

This is a very poor way to use a psychic. Because, if the psychic (and their spirit guides) is a good one who respects free will, they see the problem of telling clients their specific purpose. We are not order takers and we define our specific path of life. There are many ways you can express yourself and therefore contribute to the world. Choosing which way you want to take is up to your free will.

For instance, if you are told that your purpose is indeed to go to Africa to save the starving children, would you do it? Well, you’d better, right? And if you fail to do so, you live feeling bad, fearing the judgment? Do you really think the loving God, who is the very one who gave you free will, would do something like this?

So let go of the idea that there is a life purpose statement hidden somewhere in the sky. Also let go of the idea God is a mean superintendent tracking your progress against the life purpose plan. And while you are at it, let go of your friends in the spiritual circle who make you feel bad because you are not contributing enough money, time, etc for greater causes.

Instead open up and enjoy your life. Be yourself. Praise the miracle of life and create more miracles yourself.

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