Where we begin…
Energies, somewhere beyond, but it’s not called heaven, starting at level 1. At level 1, your energy signs a contract that you live a perfect life: no pain, no suffering, fed with a silver spoon. Like in a video game, it comes down and assumes the life given this contract. If you die an unnatural death, you have to relive the level. But when you die naturally, you go back up—now level 2. The terms and conditions get marginally harder. The cycle continues. As you can imagine, life at level 98234 will be more difficult than someone’s life at level 2762.
You can see how those contracts play out in the real world… At the McDonald Leadership Conference 2016, our group of university students was asked a question towards the end of the introductory plenary:
What cards do you think you were dealt?
We arranged ourselves on this scale of 1 to 10, physically in the room, from one side to the other. One student at 10 grew up with an inheritance, on a country club, no outward barriers. At 1, there was a student who grew up with seven siblings to an addict mother in Africa, eating lipstick tubes to stave off hunger. I ranked myself at a 5.
We didn’t expect the second question:
How do you think you did with the cards you were dealt?
So interesting to see the shift. The 1 moved to 10—a Rhodes Scholar now, attending top universities on full rides. Not many who start at a “1” could have maximized opportunities like she did. The 10 came down the scale—had he really maximized every opportunity provided to him, given his starting hand? I moved myself up to a 6/7 for how I’ve used my cards. I could’ve done more, but this is enough.
The contracts are specific. My contract lays out exactly what happens: a detailed timeline of my schooling, jobs, relationships, injuries, life events, conversations, etc. My laughs and my cries.
The itinerary of my whole life has been planned, and the energy that came down into this shell after signing this contract is well aware. I imagine a room with multiple screens linked to the eyes, the thoughts, the feelings. They can watch, they can witness, but they cannot intervene, cannot act through me. There is only one time I’ve heard a voice say STOP that I knew was apart from me. This energy is not God, nor is it a higher power.
Does it give you peace that there is indeed someone always watching? If you knew someone else was “along for the ride,” would you behave differently? Try to make it more fun for them? Is this what happens when we pull ourselves back to stabilization from an escalating situation?
When we have the opportunity right now to pretend nothing in the past had ever happened, why do we go on carrying these suitcases? Why bother with the baggage at all? Familiarity: we know what’s in the suitcase, even though we don’t like what’s inside. So why bother? Leave it behind, throw it out.
My psychiatrist said that all the medications do is arm me to become the person I want to be, that I do indeed have the choice of architecting my personality. Now that I am on medication, I have no excuse. If I want to be something, I can. I know how to put in the work, we all do. Once all excuses have been refuted, what more can we do? Face the music… shoulders back, smile on face, proceed. Nothing to lose, so why do we convince ourselves that there is?