A night in the life

All day I was in a Real Estate training class. Sick. From 9-5 I was blowing my nose, excusing myself to go to the bathroom regularly all the while learning about taxation and appraisal and law and contracts. I come home, completely exhausted and immediately crash in my bed for a few hours. I don’t know if I dreamt about it, but I was definitely jarred from my sleep with an intense craving for KFC. But it was weird, I wasn’t really hungry, and I could have just went back to sleep. But I really couldn’t, because something was telling me to get out of my warm bed and sleepy state, put clothes on, and drive to KFC. However, before I decided to drive to KFC, the time is 8:00 pm, I decide I really want to read more of The Alchemist, which I had read half of last night. I read for one hour, but I decided I really needed to go to KFC for this meal that I just can’t get off my mind.

I drive to KFC, which is very close by me, and all the while I am thinking ‘this meal is going to be so good, I have no idea what God is intending for me at this place’. Is something wonderful going to happen? Will I come across a revelation or an epiphany as I’m savoring the delicious mix of herbs and spices smothered in ketchup and grease? (Yes, this is how I think). I was livid with excitement.

But I arrive to notice that KFC closes at 9:00pm. It was 9:05 PM. What the fuck? What was going on? God…don’t do this shit to me. Why would you wake me and even make me linger in my room to read more of the Alchemist, only increasing my appetite causing stomach acid to churn my belly? There was no other substitute. It had to be KF fucking C. Is there another one nearby? There isn’t. I look across to the Jack in the Box. You’ve got to be kidding.

Somehow, I felt that a huge injustice was done and immediately I sat down on the concrete bench they have in front of their store and I contemplated what happened. How am I supposed to trust my relationship with God, my trusting of my feelings, if I get so gravely mislead? This isn’t even about KFC. God did the same to me with my denied Fullbright application. With my dropping out of Grad school. I had dreams that these are my goals and I must follow them. So why would God make me fail?

Everyone tries to figure out their purpose in this world right? And when you figure out who you are, and you are in love with yourself and the world around you, you try to better yourself. Because who would make themselves worse when they are in love? And also because you love the thing, you try to figure out more about it, so you can love it better. Understand its needs. What it takes to care it. On a side note I never understood why my parents kept a garden until I asked my mother about it one day and she said that it teaches her how to care for things. Someone’s love can actually be measured by their actions. If they truly love their surroundings, they will want to see them flourish. So everything gets better around the person.

Now to continue on with my plant metaphor, sometimes a gardener needs to trim the plant, to take it’s fruit off and leave it bare. And the gardener does this because they love the plant, and don’t want it to die too soon. They want to see it produce perennial fruits and flowers, which means the branches have to be cut off every season. It’s interesting that this is necessary for the pants to grow to new heights.

So this is what a failed reliance on a trust in a gut feeling to go to KFC produced.: a serious contemplation on the reason for frustration, disappointment, and unsatisfaction. Maybe that’s because satisfaction is point B. It’s the finish line. There is nowhere else to go. But being denied, the feeling of unsatisfaction, the sense of injustice, is the true motivator. They are the wheels of change. I would say they are perhaps the most important human emotions behind love. So Zach de la Rocha was right, our anger is a gift. For it ultimately helps us know what is just and good.

Learn to embrace frustration, for in it lies contemplation, and messages, and wonders of the world. Pain; pleasure. They are merely different sides of the same coin. Misfortune and pain are truly blessings. For they are capable of invoking the same intensity, and consciousness heightening, as pleasure and satisfaction. With one added benefit: giving the failed a dream. And a mission. And to be on a mission is to be realizing and living your true purpose in life. And every moment is sacred, and God channels through you. And you get placed at the center of the universe and everything conspires for you to achieve your goal. Because it’s what you picked for yourself before you were born, and God favors those who want to create and achieve their personal story. Because courage shows spirit, and merely possessing it, especially during moments of defeat, makes the universe bend to you.

No I did not get KFC to open, there still are limitations. But I did have my mind fed, which may not have happened had I fed my body. So the moral of the story is: even though I may think I know what I want, like getting a Fulbright scholarship, or going to grad school, or even KFC, they may not be the true treasures that my soul is seeking. It is only necessary to embark on the mission, to follow your dream. Achieving it is only the secondary purpose, and subordinate to the path itself.

And here I thought I wanted chicken…