Stargate to Self-Actualization

"Tim, I just woke you up 15 minutes ago, come on, you're gonna be late for your flight!" Whoa, this is too reminiscent of my middle school days where I would groan, close my eyes and chant, "I am invisible, I am invisible" in hopes that in fact, I could dupe my parents into thinking I teleported on the Magic School Bus to class. But wait! This isn't school anymore Timmy, I am off to embark on my Latin American romp of the century!

D-Day has finally arrived and I suddenly "reappear" with the quickness and fly to the shower to gather myself. "Ahh, this will probably be the last time I can pull the ol' lazy-boy-maneuver on the shower floor! I do some last minute parcel-stuffing into my bag, Momma runs through her maternal duty of making sure my backpack has zippers and ties some "flare" to it to make sure no other travel satchel at the terminal confuses theirs with mine. Watery eyes ensue along with the warmest miss-you-much kiss I have felt in a long time as Mother is sad but proud as her wide-eyed idealistic wanderlust of a son shuffles out of the door.

On que, "Rambling Man" pops up on the radio as if my Dad put together a "taking Tim to the airport mix" and we nervously peek at each other out of our peripherals and laugh. We exchange top 40 jokes, both of our minds in La-La land and watch as the signs for Reagan Airport seem to get bigger and brighter in the morning 5AM DC rush hour traffic. Guatemala is calling and with ticket in hand, I'm as ready as I will ever be to answer that call and chat for a month.

Cowboy hats, plaid shirts, sun-beaten brown faces, and i-pod touch toting gringos gather around the terminal gate to Guatemala City. I am engulfed in Spanish conversations, picking up the beginning and end end of sentences and laughing at the two toddlers anxiously attempting to deflate the perm that I'm sure their Latina mother spent some serious time on to show off to la familia when she lands.

Wow, talk about transition time. I am taking the first step out of my world and into theirs. In one hour, the Spanish subheadings I read on the Ft. Lauderdale airport's signs will magically change font to the more dominant and bold position as THE only form of public communication.

I take a deep breathe, exhale, click on the shuffle mode and whimsically walk through the Stargate to Self-Actualization. See you on the other side friends!

Helping the Self-Helpless

Society has gotten lazy. We are bombarded with quick-fixes and short-cuts that have made it too easy for us to not take responsibility of our own lives. Too often do we point a finger at the government for not "giving" us health care or being in $10,000 or more of debt from the decisions we have made. Too often are doctors prescribing happy pills to the downtrodden individual who feels as though their Xanax cocktail to start the day off will bring eternal happiness while Timone and Pumba's "Hakuna-matata" is vibing through thier veins . Too often are parents feeding their young children adderal because they "have trouble focusing on homework" when in reality, do not want to take the extra time to work with their child or be an influence in their EVERY DAY lives. Too often do we fail to take a look at ourselves, slow down, take a breath, and attempt to uncover the roots of our problem.

Take for example my last visit to Border's Bookstore. I am cruising through the Travel - South American section of the store, butterflies beating against my ribcage in excitement for my pending Central/S. American romp. I begin to envision my spirit soaring over Machu Picchu, ingesting the ethereal essence of mystical mountaintops I will become one with, when suddenly I am blasted out of my daydream and brought back to the worn out wooden bookcases of Borders and a high-pitched piercing, "EEEEHHH Ahem, excuuuse me...heeelllooooo exCUUUUSE MEEEE!."

What the hell was that? Instantly I swing my head around to see a large, grumpy, middle-aged woman (picture Chris Farley playing the lady in Lunch Lady Land skit...without the hair net) with a stroller, violently flapping a piece of paper in front of the spaghetti-framed, black nail polish toting, Dariaesque looking girl behind the customer service desk . I am taken aback by the Lunch Lady's indiscrete bitch-slap worthy of an attitude, and continue to listen to see what must be so vitally important. Frightened Daria is on the phone, stuttered to the angry lady she has two people on hold, would love to help when she is finished, but if it is urgent, lunch lady can feel free to use the three open computers that read "Easy Finder: Need help finding a book, start here!"

Ms. Farley continues to yell, "I need you to help me find this book now, I am in a rush...it's called Self-Help, ahh something something." Wait, are you fucking kidding me? I begin to laugh and am waiting for Ashton Kutcher to run out to the customer service lady and tell her she got punked, but no, this helpless nagger was truly demanding that the employee drop everything she is doing to help Lunch Lady find a Self-Help book.

Wow, talk about starting on the wrong foot eh? This made me think, does this lady even want help? If she really wanted to start making a life-change, you would think that she could at least take the first step in maybe looking for the book herself, or at least go about it in a more polite way. This incident is just a trailer to the broader blockbuster smash I seem to buy a ticket to every day, called "America: Can You Just Do It For Me?"

There is such a saturation and craze in Self-Help ever since Opera blew up "The Secret" and Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth" and started a trendy movement towards individuals starting to realize they are the only person who is truly in control of their lives and in essence, the only person who can make themselves happy. This is a nice warm and fuzzy message that actually does hold absolute truth, but seems to get muddled in the mass marketing of books, radio, and TV shows. The problem with the commercialization of these books is that the vital core competency of changing one's life around is overlooked. This relates to the quick fix/easy-way-out scoliosis effect that has begun to bend our society's backbone out of allignment. Balancing your life and discovering true happiness takes years of analyzing one's behavior every day, not just reading a book called "Self-Help" and after the last page magically become cured of helplessness (Let alone forcing someone to help you find the Self-Help Savior).

I am not saying that anti-depressants, the government, or family parenting tools are detrimental to the well-being of an individual, on the contrary, they are able to help an individual ween some of the side-effects of a core problem. In all of these instances however, the main focus should be set on splicing together the short circuit in the mainframe of Self, not to just refurbish the outer shell of our human mechanism. Let's start taking some more initiative in changing ourselves, stop pointing fingers, don't keep looking for the easy way out, and we can learn to bask in our communal future of Self-Helpfullness!