The Author's Corner: Contents May Vary

Contents as I mean here is the way your life is. With everything in your life there is the physical like the items that are in your house; then there is the mental and finally the spiritual.

With the physical contents, they come and go over time. The one thing is if you are starting out in life, that first place you call home has very few things to make it a true home. After the first few months of being on your own, that place start to feel like your place.

There comes a time when you move on from your first place, sometimes it is to live with other people like friends or a girl/boyfriend. Other time it is to a different part of the country because of better employment or a place that you have always wanted to live. With moving comes downsizing if you are moving somewhere else outside of the community and if you are single, you have the freedom to go somewhere else. All the physical things, as I say come and go over time.

For the mental contents, it comes to the emotional baggage from your past or it stems from some type of mental health problem. The baggage that comes from life starts form the beginning of your life. The reason for this is because the influences you encounter in growing up starts at home. As they say, you are a product of your environment which means if you come from a positive home, you are most likely to be a positive person. The same is true with the negative side as well.

As we grow mentally, we find relationships with others who are much like us. We learn more about the aspects of life once we move out of our parents’ place. Life is difficult for a good number of people for the first few years; normally until they understand how the real-world works. Thus, it does not matter how good you were in school because life outside the classroom is the reality check.

When you start working, then there is the next lesson which is no matter how good the education, you start at the bottom of the ladder. So many young people think they will start at the top pay for their career. For them when they realize that is not the case, they get upset. For me, I started as a dishwasher prep cook when I started working in the kitchens at the age of fourteen. Even after I got my red seal in cooking, I was still making less that what the person ahead of me was making. One lesson that I was taught in that first job was everyone starts at the bottom.

With spiritual contents is where you stand with your religion. It does not matter which belief you have because no one religion is the right fit for everyone. The belief should be as a simple thing and that is do you believe in a God/Creator or not. The sad fact is that most religions think that they are the right way to the afterlife.

The sad truth is that because people will start wars over religion. There are a few eastern religions that do not teach that their path is the right one. They speak of acceptance of all people from all walks of life. For me, I follow one of those spiritual teachings. The reason is that when the religion that I was following turned me away when I went to ask for help back in 1997.

In the end, the contents of your life comes down to you because it is only you who is responsible for your happiness and you must live with yourself at the end of the day.

Stay safe.