Mano y mano y mano

I have kids now and I'm as active as I'm allowed in their lives. Teaching them is on my reverse from the negative of me not being taught. It feels good to wear my cape. I plan to teach and show them things I wasn't given.

I don't blame my pops for being absent anymore. I don't blame my mom for being fertile. I don't blame either of my kid's mom ’ s for not doing the parenting thing my way. There's no blame on anyone, just love life and laugh here on out.

We often turn baggage into luggage when in all actuality, we are only on a quick trip called life and we don’t need either. There’s a Buddhist parable that has guided me through many perilous transitions. A man is standing on the bank of a treacherous, raging river.

It’s rainy season, and if he can’t get to the other side, he’s done. He quickly builds a raft and uses it to safely cross the river. In joyous relief, he high fives himself. Lifts the raft and heads toward the forest.

But as he attempts to make his way through the dense tree cover, the raft is banging and knocking against the tree and becoming entangled in the vines preventing him from moving forward, he only has one chance for survival.

He must leave the raft behind, the vessel that saved his life yesterday is the same one that will kill him today if he does not let go. So that raft represents our outdated ideas and old ways of thinking that no longer serve us.

For example, the same angry, aggressive persona you cultivated as a child, to protect yourself from bullies and predators, will now destroy every relationship you have if you ’ re unwilling to let it go. Things can be perfectly useful and absolutely necessary during a certain period of our lives. But a time will come when we must put them aside or die.