Sometimes, people do come in our lives because they are called into it by Destiny, but not always the way we think.People sometimes come to teach us deep and profound lessons about ourselves and the people & things around us so that we can understand our world better and how we fit in it. It is not the person that is our Destiny but the experiences and lessons they bring to our life that we were bound to meet with through them.

It is the window through which we choose to see people and circumstances around us. Sometimes, we need to change our window before our view changes, and only then can a new vision be revealed that could not have been seen before.

You will assign roles and labels to people based on your perspective of them and threat them accordingly as you would circumstances.

One of the best views is seen through the window of time. It is amazing how much we see things differently when they are reflected through time.

Then it happens. Destiny brings you the perfect love. They say and do everything so perfectly at first that you can’t believe it is even happening, this is the ‘one’ you have been waiting for all your life.

So now you’re a little bit hesitant, because it all seem so unreal, too good to be true. Hesitance builds into various fears such as insecurity and hurt from past experiences. Fear eventually is confronted by a the inevitable choice of deciding whether or not we will take the risks of falling in love. And if you’re a hopeless romantic, you’ll make that choice for all the reasons and lines on the Hallmark cards and the love poems. You take a chance, you fall in love. Then, you’re left on a random November Sunday to pick up the pieces & make sense of everything that happened because it all happened so quickly.

You start to do out of character things, develop a new routine, things around you seem boring, your thoughts are consumed by that person only and your next mood is determined by their next text or call, you get depressed & frustrated at times, you start to question their genuineness and sincerity, you attempt suicide because you become haunted by your own thoughts, the things that you usually do bore you cause the drama consumes you more than your current realities : work, tv, music, people, and even when you make an effort to do those things it all somehow goes back to the person you’re trying not to think about. Love, madness or mental breakdown ?

It has taken me a while, but with time, comes perspective. Alot of those things really go back right back to us. Thats right, you. Who sets the criteria for Perfect ? You. You define mentally in detail what you will like to have in a person in order for you to appoint them that label. Whether its wealth, smartness, looks, package, age or whatever it is we all have these things figured out in our heads, and when we ‘perceive’ someone to fit that description, we assign them the deep emotions that accompany that label – the label of perfect love, Prince Charming, Cinderella, the ‘One’ who comes on the white horse and sweeps you off your feet and into the sunset to live happily ever after. You treat that person as the one you love because in your head they fit a description for which you have assigned a label. . That person usually says all the right things because they are saying exactly what you want them to – that is why what they are saying is labeled ‘right’.  Again, you have designed a criteria in your head of what you expect such a person to say and even how they say it and when they do, you assign the label of perfect rewarded for matching the criteria in your head. In actuality, you are the one who communicate to that person, consciously or sub-consciously exactly what you want them to say and even how without you probably even realising it half the time.

Of course the other person is not completely blameless, people can screw up your life & mess with your head for no apparent reason at all and don’t even feel sorry about it because someone at some time had done the same to them and they believe that’s how the world works – big deal.

Perspective is the window through which we view the world, including the people in our life. You treat people based on the role you perceive them to play in your life. This perception is informed by pre-determined descriptions in our head. When we believe that person matches your pre-determined description, we assign them a role and a label in our life. As time brings perspective, we start to realise that Prince Charming/ Sleeping Beauty exist in our head only. What we labelled Destiny was us wanting something so bad that we manipulate ourself into believing it is all worth it, even the intense and deep hurt.

People sometimes give an ideal first impression of perfect when the relationship starts. Says & does everything that you want them to. Then just when you fall in love with perfect, the true person is gradually revealed, problem is, you already fell for perfect so you hold on to it with everything you’ve got, hoping relentlessly to bring it back to life. You start to make excuses for them and you start to lie to yourself on their behalf. You start to think that the hurt they cause you is the price you have to pay for them.

Love, experienced in flesh & blood brings us everything I have written about above. Perfect love has a single source – the same one who created you out of it – God.  Whenever we feel perfectly loved by someone, it is because the perfect love of God is flowing through them, from him. That is when we know that he approves of them in our lives,when love starts to feel wonderful, not hurtful, if it hurts, its surely something else.Perfect love does not hurt, it feels wonderful. There is more than a emotional or physical connection, they compliment  you for who you already are without wanting to change anything about you inside or out, help you to seek and serve your Purpose and draws you closer to your creator. Perfect love comes with no price of hurt or conditionality of the flesh (beauty, wealth, age, gender, race etc).

If you had to summarise your entire life in one word, what would it be ?

In a single word, who or what defines you ?

Does one person, thing or circumstance define you ?

If you were to drop dead on a random Tuesday of a week that you can’t even remember, who would remember you for the longest time and for what.

If you had a choice, what would you like to be remembered for after you are gone ?

If you can’t be a highway just be a trail
If you can’t be the sun be a star;;
It isn’t by the size that you win or fail—
Be the best of whatever you are.”

Big and final is probaly an understatement if you’ve been following the media attention and public interest over Michael’s death. He’s been called everything from “Biggest pop star ever” to “most recognised international superstar”.

Born black and relativly poor in the US Midwest, Jackson rose to international prominence and fame to become the biggest name in pop ever – thats not a label, its a fact. He’s also been called an ‘accidental civil rights activist’ – paving the way for people like Oprah, Tiger Woods and Obama.

He often sang about peace, love and forgiveness,leaving a legacy and those close to him often testified that he felt great pain whenever he felt hated and judged by that world. But ever since they called Jesus the anti-christ the world has never really ceased to label us and that will not change anytime soon – its the world being it’s natural self.

Despite how you saw him or whether or not you liked him Michael Jackson will always be remembered not for the labels he was given but for music, legacy and Spirit – and those can never be replaced by any label. Love wins.

Rest in peace, MJ, your Spirit lives on.

With this label, we live a lieftime fulfilling the roles that come with it : teenage boy, son, man, father, husband. Then sometimes without even recognising it, these roles define who we are and how we see ourself. We start to identify ourself through these roles. Someone asks “who are you?” and you reply be saying “I’m Jane’s husband or John’s father“.

People are born human, grow into boys and girls (through socilisation) and become men and women (through gender roles). Its not hard knowing how to act as a man or woman – the world : your family (having born into a male and female household where gender relations between parents are learnt by children), soceity (the community you live in, American popular culture, media, Tv, music),peers (especially as a teenager, when your friends teach you how to relate to sexually relate to the ‘opposite sex’), school, church are all there to let you know how to fulfill your gender role. We live and see our gender role everyday and through almost everyone. Since the average human seems himself through the eyes of others most of us simply mirror the image reflected to us.

Then one day (and beleive me, time and life experiences always has a way of presenting these days), we start to question who we really are. We realise that the role we play in the life of others is not the sum of our existence. We struggle for identify and question things we’ve done before and decisions we made. We question whether or not it is really our life and ask if that life even resembles us anymore.

That is why I truly beleive that being gay is makes you very special. Not special in the sense that you have a false sense of superiority from everyone else but because being gay challenges you at a very early age to question your label.You are not bounded by the borders created for everyone else, your mind is open to wide possibilities that you would have never seen if you had never questioned that label. It introduces you to a journey of finding yourself  and by doing so finding your purpose and your destiny. Unfortunately, many of us die without ever finding who we were meant to be because we are so busy spending our limited time fulfilling labels given to us by a world that imprisons our mind into thinking it’s the correct and right thing to do because thats the way it has always been done and everyone else is doing it .  For example,the parents of intersexed children(those born with neither male or female reproductive organs but with ambiguous genitals) are given the option to choose what they want their child to be in terms of their gender. Its called “gender assginment“.Corrective surgery is then done to realign the organ of that child to the parent’s desired gender preference. Imagine, that child being assigned a ‘label’ that he or she has to live up to for the rest of their life on earth without even being asked if that is what he or she wants. Despite what reproductive organ we were born with, we are all given a ‘gender assignment’ from birth. And surely, we spend our lifetime taking it for granted that it should never be questioned.

I heard a pastor on Oprah saying that Gay people are special and I understood it but could not rationalise it. It triggered me to find out what he means and more so what it means to me.

I have found my answer. And its a  powerful one that I felt obligated to share. Passing it on is my responsibility. Power to you.

It is because we see time as money that we spend a lifetime of our time acquiring physical things after physical things, only to realise one bright Saturday morning when we’re old and time is no more, the real value of time. We also realise that all the things we spent our time acquiring cannot buy us back the precious time lost. The remainder of the time left is spent on analyzing what we did with the bulk of our time and making peace with the fact that we cannot change it. Some even get closer to God through this process that some might call “old age” or if experienced earlier in our life a “mid-life crisis”.

Most of us get married and have children only to make an impression on the sands of time without even realising it,we want to know that even after we die  we will continue to be remembered through the people we leave behind. This emotional investment may outlive our physical existence but is just as temporary and is eventually washed away by the ocean of infinite time. What is this ‘infinite time’ ? Forever.Will you be remembered forever after you die ? Of course not. Your children will continue to re-produce their human kind and eventually in generations far away you will simply be referred to as ‘ancestary’ without any name, picture, personality or accomplishment being attached to your memory. The same applies for the people we invest time in on earth. What happens after ever single person you ever knew on earth dies ? And the thing is, every single one of them will, in time. Then even the people that preserve your memory and legacy are gone and so is your memory. There is nothing or no one to indicate that you ever existed. But this should not scare us, for the reason for our existence is greather than our existence itself and the people & things in it. This is why after your time and death knocks at your door despite how many people love you or how successful or perfect your life is, you will die.

When we’re young we take time for granted. We have so much of it that we assume that it will never run out. As we get older and time  draws  closer (to death) we start to appreciate and value time so much more because of how little of it we have left.
I’ve learnt this past week through a series of emotionally painful experiences that time is a form of energy.This was something I heard before but was given a personal meaning after living it myself.

What and who you give your time to becomes your time, and comes back in time.

It’s a situation or circumstance that leads you to stop in your tracks and ask the fundamental questions of  your life :

Where did I come from ?

What does all this mean ?

Why am I here ?

Where am I going after this ?

Once you’ve discovered the answers to these questions the core of you existence changes. You start to examine everything and everyone in your life in relation to your answer. This leads to an higher understanding of your life and the people and things in it. The way you see yourself changes entirely and things start to make perfect sense. You begin to see things that you would not have seen before. It opens your mind to truths of the universe that only such a life changing experience can reveal. People might often not understand you or the way you think but that’s because you’re in a place where they are not and therefore cannot understand.

Once you’ve had this transformational experience you’re never the same again. Count yourslef lucky. Most people live out a set of circumstances that appear random and then drop dead, never seeing their life for more than its physical manifestations. A life is a terrible thing to waste.