The Ultimate Illusion

"We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion, if we want to be happy" - Cyril Connolly

Once a friend talked to me about a problem she had in her life. She started talking about all the negative things, every single negative thing; she let it all out. She seemed so down, so depressed, and she was asking me for advice. Now, I didn’t know what else I could’ve told her to make her feel better; I couldn’t have possibly just grabbed all the negative things from her life and throw it far away, out into space, in order for it to disappear. I was losing hope and thought to myself, I may not be able to help her after all…until I saw a piece of paper and a black pen.

I took the black pen and drew a small dot on the blank piece of paper. I asked my friend, “What do you see?” She looked at me as if I was nuts but she answered my question anyway: “A black dot” she says. I just stared at her for a couple of moments wondering if she knew where I was getting at. “Do you want to know what I see?” I asked her. She just continued staring at me, eyes filled with questions and questions yearning for answers. She probably thought this was totally irrelevant to her problem, but she gave in anyway. “What do you see Yvanne?” I took the piece of paper in my hands, held it up as if it were a priceless treasure and told her “I see white. I see all the beautiful white that overpowers the colour black on this paper. In my eyes, black is just a distant dot, something I shouldn’t even worry about and it’s just there to add some colour to that piece of paper, you know: a bit of adventure.”

It’s funny you know, for some reason it’s every human beings instinct to look at the negative things in their lives first. “My life is not good because _____________!” etc. This is why many people tend to be depressed and sad because they choose to look at the “black dots” on their piece of paper, they never bother looking at the beautiful white surrounding those black dots. I told my friend that there are so many things in her life that she should be thankful about, so many blessings and positive things that cannot just be put aside. There was no doubt that those great things in her life outnumber the negative things she told me about. Then she asked me what happens when she reaches that point in her life where the black dots may outnumber the white, “What if all I see then are a whole bunch of black dots?” I took the pen again and practically filled that sheet with black dots and told her “It’s all a matter of choice.” The beauty of life is in the eyes of the beholder. We may not have realized this yet, but we, as an individual, choose to believe things: we believe the things that we choose. And it’s those simple choices that slowly creates the story of your life. We can choose to see the black dots, or we can choose to see the white space, no matter how little there may be: We can choose to believe we’re not living a good life or we can choose to believe in the beauty of our lives. The beauty of life is in the eyes of the beholder.

My friend was starting to get it, she was starting to understand and see the beauty in her life and was slowly disregarding the negative things. Just when I thought I was done talking, I saw a glass of water.

I filled it up to its half point and asked my friend the same question I asked her about the black dot. “What do you see?” She told me that she saw a cup that’s half empty. I told her, "I see a cup that’s half full." Remember, it’s all a matter of choice. We can choose to believe the negative things; that the cup is already half empty, or the positive things; that the cup is still half full. We believe what we choose to believe, and if we choose the good things in life, we believe we have a good life.

Life is a big illusion; just like the glass of water and the black dot. At first, you don’t know what you should be seeing, you don’t know what to believe in; you just don’t understand. However, the beauty of illusions is that you’re given the power to choose and the power to see only what you want to see; putting aside the things you don’t want to see. It’s hard, I know, our vision can easily be clouded by the negative things in our lives. However, when you reach that line where all you see when you look at that piece of paper is a beautiful white and all you think of when you see that glass of water is how grateful you are that it’s still half full, you feel this certain happiness and satisfaction about your life that you probably never have before because you were too distracted with the black dots and the cup being half empty. Life is a big illusion and it’s all a matter of choice. Remember, the b e a u t y of life is in the e y e s of the b e h o l d e r.

What do YOU see?

Yvanne Dandan

F2XPRESS

You've Got Today

"Tomorrow Is Never Promised"

-Jeremy (Passion) Manongdo

On Saturday February 8, 2008 I watched a concert called “Rockin’ it with Passion and Gabe.” Passion is one of my ultimate inspirations not only musically, but personality wise as well. Behind all of his songs is a message, and with that message, a lesson is learned. Obviously there were songs that taught lessons about love, but above all that, there was one life lesson that struck me that night; “Tomorrow is never promised.” Let’s face it; we are all mortal human beings. Sometimes we take life for granted and we are convinced that we have so much time in our hands.

Sometimes we get too caught up with our teenage lives. Obviously, this section of our life is where we make the biggest adjustment from childhood to adulthood; immaturities to maturity. One of my favorite songs from Passion is a song called “Well Done.” He wrote this for his grandma when she had passed away. He basically didn’t spend enough time with her and when he lost her, he regretted not being there for her as much as he could have and wanted to. He was, just like all of us, caught up with his life; it’s normal.

I read a book by Mitch Albom entitled “For One More Day.” This basically has the same story as the song Well Done by Passion. The main character was the type that looked at his mother like she was just there to ruin his life (typical teenager), but later on in life he loses her. He regrets not spending enough time with his mom and not loving her enough. In this book however, he was given the opportunity to have one more day with his mother. A day where he can give her the love he wasn’t able to show to her before. However the message behind this novel is that: in reality, you are not given another chance, or one more day, what you have now … is what you get. We are all given one life to live and we are never certain as to how many days and moments we could have with the people we love.

Sometimes I get into arguments, whether it be with my friends, my siblings, or my parents and I think to myself, will I be able to say sorry to them tomorrow? Will I be able to regain their trust again? Sometimes I just pray to god and make him promise me that he can give me tomorrow, another day to make it up to those I’ve hurt. But really, no one can make a promise like that. My mind suddenly opened up to another life lesson: “Do it now, or forever wish you had.” Don’t wait another day to say sorry and express your love, because remember “Tomorrow is never promised.”

After hearing Passions’ song and reading Mitch Alboms’ novel, I felt their pain and sadness. I don’t really know how it feels because I was never put into that situation before. I don’t know how I can really relate to them because I never experienced losing someone I love. All I do know is that, I don’t want to have regrets later on in life. I know I’m a teenager, and I know that this is the time of my life where I can easily get caught up. But I also know that just because I am teenager doesn’t mean that I have to have a distant relationship with the people I love. This is the part of my life where, instead, I should learn to appreciate everything about them.

After all of this, my mind opened up to a concluding life lesson: “Live each day and love those around you, as if there isn’t a tomorrow.” If we all did that, can you imagine how much more love would spread around this whole world? Remember, regret is something none of us want to feel. Make sure we live life to the fullest, love and appreciate love with our friends and family, and be happy every morning because we are given another day to show and express love to those around us. Remember: “Tomorrow is never promised…”

Love Like There's No Tomorrow,

Yvanne Dandan

F2XPRESS