A Moment of Clarity

A Moment of Clarity

Cliff Lengkono

Copyright © 2012 by Cliff Lengkono.

Smashwords Edition

Cover art by Aubrey Watt

Cover photo © Jinyoung Lee | Dreamstime.com

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For my grandmother,

Without whom this book could never happen and without whom it is missing something.

She is always and deeply missed.

Ignorance is bliss

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

PART ONE: SELF

Chapter 1 – Pilot

PART TWO: DATING

Chapter 2 – John Doe & Jane Doe

Chapter 3 – Reservation for Two

Chapter 4 – Fight or Flight

PART THREE: RELATIONSHIP

Chapter 5 – A Two-Way Street

Chapter 6 – Silence is Golden

Chapter 7 – Murphy’s Law

Chapter 8 – L

Chapter 9 – The Next Level

PART FOUR: MARRIAGE

Chapter 10 – Welcome

Chapter 11 – Life as We Know It

Chapter 12 – Sickness, Poorer, Worse

PART FIVE: PARENTHOOD

Chapter 13 – For the Love of Your Child

Chapter 14 – New Beginning

Chapter 15 – The Village

Chapter 16 – There Is More than One of Everything

PART SIX: FAREWELL

Chapter 17 – Again

Chapter 18 – A Pain in the Heart

Chapter 19 – The Hard Way

Chapter 20 – State of the Union

Chapter 21 – And Then There Were None

Chapter 22 – Everybody Dies

Preface

The hardest part about writing a book intended for everyone is seeking, determining, maintaining approaches, views, and solutions so general and basic that they can apply to as many people as possible. There were lots of considerations involved and adjustments made to achieve this particularly fundamental purpose. To my best and current judgment, the contents, tone, direction, and spirit of this book have all been able to demonstrate the point that I was trying to make, which is that there can be universally accepted ways for people to navigate their lives. After all, we share this one planet, we experience scores of similar events, and we essentially bear the same physical and mental characteristics. Each and every one of us is a human being.

This book is about life. It discusses parts of life that I observed many people go through. It talks about the things that have mostly forgotten, ignored, or abandoned. It introduces new and basic ideas on common topics and issues in life. It addresses numerous problems commonly encountered in the lives of the majority of people. It explores various subjects with simplicity, universality, practicality, and generality. The reason I chose not to write about a particular topic is because it is my hope that this book can be relevant to a very wide range of audience. Whether someone is a man or a woman, single or married, children or adults, young or old, gay or straight, with or without children, I want him or her to be able to find at least one chapter in this book that explores the part of life that they are currently dealing with. And to take it one step further, I strived to make this book transcend the differences of generation, age, background, culture, belief, and gender.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must make one important fact known, which is that I have never been on a date, in a real and serious relationship, married, or had children. I also do not have knowledge about, expertise in, or experience on, in

Self-help implies that you are the only one who can help yourself. Books and authors can merely offer insights, give advice, share knowledge, teach lesson, and explain matters. They all can be actually beneficial if you put the theories into practice. The most important element of self-help books is always you, the reader.

PART ONE: SELF

CHAPTER 1

Pilot

The Common Things

What every human is born with and born into is precisely the same throughout the history of humanity. People, body, mind, world, nature, time, needs, purpose and free will are the things that each and every one of us received when we came into this world. Someone gets a father and a mother as their birth parents that will protect, teach, and raise them. There may already be a sibling or several that share many similar characteristics with them. They also have uncles, aunts, and grandparents from both parents’ side that will act as second parents to them. In some cases, it may not be parents but instead guardian or caregiver that a child will grow up with. Over time, they will have encounters with many other people outside their own family and begin interacting with them. They form relationships, develop bonds, and become familiar with those people’s presence in their life. Others they just know briefly or observe from afar and by watching these people’s lives they start constructing their own views of life and of the world. Moreover, as they grow older, they come to a realization that they need at least someone else to give them happiness, to share their burdens and sorrows, to fight for or with, to learn life from, to love and to love them back, and to change their life.

Humans are also gifted with eyes to see, ears to hear, a nose to smell, a tongue to taste, skin to feel, hands to hold, arms to hug, legs to walk, a mouth to speak, lips to kiss, teeth to bite and chew, and sexual organ to procreate. Other components of the body such as blood, heart, lungs, kidney, and liver keep our body usable until they give up. Everyone also has minds to form thoughts, to remember, to think, to store memories, to imagine, to solve problems, and to process information collected by other elements of the body. The mind also has the capability of feeling various types of emotions such as fear, anger, doubt, hope, grief, shame, regret, love, hatred, despair, sympathy, empathy, guilt, disgust, worry, envy, disappointment, pride, curiosity, happiness, misery, and so forth. Mortals also have time to live, time to die, time to sleep, time to awake, past time to learn from, present time to live, and future time to prepare for.

All humans have basic needs that include food, shelter, clean water, clothes, health care, safety, warmth, companionship, and sleep. And for all of those things a vast, immense, rich world has been given to humans so a whole lot of them can live in it, see it, feel its magic and power, protect it, and take care of it. Meanwhile, nature provides human beings with water to quench their thirst and to wash their body, air to breathe in, fire to cook and to keep cold and predators at bay, wind to move the sails and to cool the weather a bit, and rain to water the crops. There is a sun to dry clothes and to grow plants, a moon to shine some light in the darkness of nights, day to do some work in order to survive, night to rest, and plants and animals to satisfy a hunger, to act as a means of transportation, and to take life lessons from.

Every person that ever lived, now lives, or will live has a purpose in this world and his or her existence alone has changed history. They are a product of countless and different choices and since their conception, they have been continuously altering the lives of other people, mainly their own parents. Then they will move on to changing the life of every person that they will have contact with and even the ones they will not because with their actions, they will set many things in motion. Simultaneously, the choices of others will also have impacts on their own life. Lastly but certainly not the least, a person also has free will to choose and decide what they wish to do with his or her life in this world. Some things are the same and remain the same because we are all the same.

The Unfairness of Life

It is likely that the oldest adage of all is the one that says that life is not fair. While people get many similar things in life, the disparities are even more apparent and pivotal in determining the sort of life that someone will lead and have. Predicaments, belongings, opportunities, and advantages are the things that distinguish one life from the other. A child might be combating hunger nearly every single day while half a world away another kid is crying over his or her broken plaything. Someone can own multiple houses but others’ homes can barely make it through the next rainstorm. There are people who have opportunities served on a platter and there are the ones who need to keep searching for one. Being born in a wealthy family also gives someone access to many benefits like reputable academic institutions while some people have to try much longer and harder if they want to succeed. Some people understand, accept, and are used to the fact that they cannot and will not ever have all or at least most of the things they want. And there are some who are still learning and refusing the reality that no one gets everything they desire.

People learn reality through different ways. Some might realize that terrible things do befall good people and good things happen to bad people. Others could be asking why there is so much pain and suffering in the world or wondering why not everyone can be equally happy or miserable. A few might be attempting to comprehend the reason why certain individuals have tons of money and such a cushy life without having to work hard. There are those who refuse to accept the fact that good people have to die so soon while there are clearly so many bad people who will continue inflicting pain and causing damage that deserve death more. It may be their finding that everyone is much nicer to beautiful people and everything is easier to get for gifted individuals. They may suddenly realize the harsh reality that some people are already luckier, happier, and wealthier than others have ever been or ever will be in their lifetime. Knowing that the world is not fair can easily cause people to feel indignant and sorry for themselves, it can diminish their will to live and to fight for happiness, or make them realize that the best way to win is to stop playing fair.

Everyone cannot be evenly and simultaneously happy because the rule and reality of life is that it is every man for himself. In order to get what you want, most of the time you have no choice except to sacrifice or defeat others. The world would and could be a much better place if everybody was willing to care, give, share, and help but unfortunately, humans are predisposed to take, contend, and ignore. And therein lies the underlying issue. Desire and survival are instincts, whereas aiding is a choice.

Black, White, and Grey

Everyone wants to be good. Everyone started good. However, when push comes to shove, the only choice is to be bad. It always started small. Ordinarily, people would go with lying. They all hesitated at first because they were afraid of the consequences of what they were going to do. Therefore, they tried to convince themselves that that was the only way, that it was just going to be that one time, and that no one would get hurt. Seeing that it is harmless, it would not take a long time and consideration before they finally did it. But then they had to deal with the aftermath. They felt guilty, ashamed, and scared. They tried to shake it off by telling themselves over and over that they had to do what they did. When that did not work, they tried to rationalize it by saying that the ends justify the means. Eventually, they were able to get past it because they continued to remain in the clear and nothing seemed to be going wrong.

Unfortunately, another situation later arose that forced them to do the same thing again as doing the right thing would get them in a jam. They, however, knew that lying could make all their problems go away. Assuming nothing bad happened in the first attempt, it would be much easier for them the second time. They said to themselves that another lie would not really matter and so they did it again. They felt the same way as before but now they knew that ultimately it would disappear. Lying began to look like a highly useful skill to possess. It did not end there, though. For students, the impulse to cheat can get as difficult to resist as the exams become. They need to pass the test or get a great score so badly but they just cannot understand or master the topic. Employees embezzle money because they can only scrape by on their regular wage. Contenders realize that they need to get their hands dirty if they want to get ahead. Difficulties compel people to take desperate measures in order to get out of them. Everyone who was ever in difficult positions and circumstances realized that life is easier when you do bad things. It goes without saying that that is an extremely dangerous philosophy to have.

Some people go through life with stronger willpower. They will not betray their principle just to make things less complicated or problems go away. They strive to follow their moral code and do the right thing every time for the reason that they want to be an honorable person and they want their conscience to be clear. Sadly, life remains cruel to everyone including the honest ones. The challenges of life will test and tempt them continuously and they will find that they cannot avoid changes forever. Being in desperate times for far too long can change even the strongest of people to consider turning to questionable measures. They will eventually come to a realization that they need to adapt if they are to survive. They are tired of playing by the rules because the rules have failed them and brought them nowhere and nothing but misery. They have seen hundreds of people commit many heinous acts and get away with it. They want to be good and stay good, but everybody wants to survive and nobody can always get what they want in life. That is how righteous people turn evil and the number of honest people in this world grows ever smaller.

Everyone knows that actions have repercussions, especially those who just perpetrated something wicked. They are aware of the punishments that they would get if their transgressions were uncovered. So, they have to make sure that no one can ever unearth their misdeeds and that is why cover-ups are part of any wrongdoing. Moreover, since concealing the truth implies and requires doing more bad things, the laundry list of the despicable acts that they have done just keeps getting longer. They have to lie some more, steal again to pay off someone, threaten and or harm someone who wants to blow the whistle on them, or frame someone to take the fall for their actions. They will stop at nothing and there is no limit to what they will resort to in order to extend and ensure their survival. When it comes to self-interest and self-preservation, all bets are off.

Nevertheless, these deplorable acts only serve to cause more trouble for them as they now have to hide more skeletons in their closet. Their problems keep snowballing and they cannot do anything except run. At this point, it has become all but impossible for them to live in peace. They attempt to find ways to get out of the mess, they have this constant fear of getting caught, and they have to evade their conscience and possibly the law. Many people in this position wish that they had not done what they did or at least forborne from performing more deeds that are vicious. The people who did not calculate the risk blame themselves for being so stupid and careless. The ones who did, on the other hand, did not predict that it could be as dire as it is now.

Every choice has consequences. You may not see the lives you have shattered, the future you have destroyed, the pain you have inflicted, the devastation you have caused, but evil deeds always and ultimately bring harm. As a rule, the wrong thing is something that benefits one or several parties but ruins many others. There may be a time in the future when you regret the things you have done, wish to undo everything, and seek forgiveness. You may have realized the error of your ways, seen the suffering you brought about, and understood that you are at fault for all of it. You look and hope for redemption by admitting your mistakes, apologizing, and making amends.

That is not enough, though. It should not be because you cannot take away all the sadness they have endured, you cannot give back everything or everyone they have lost, you cannot repair all the damage, and you cannot give them what they can never ever have. You cannot change what happened. You are doing this not out of the goodness of your heart but because you do not want to suffer. Well, others have because of you. So, why should you not? You do not get to be bad and pardoned. How is it that you hurt them to get what you desire and once you feel guilty you get an absolution and all is forgotten? Why should you always be the one getting what they want? It is not fair or right at all. You want to be bad, you had better have the stomach to live with it. If you do not wish to feel remorseful, then do the right thing, take the good path, and be an honest person.

It is complicated to determine whether someone is a good or a bad person because honest people still do wrong things and vicious people sometimes do good deeds. If someone causes you pain but loves their family, those people will not share your views of their beloved. When someone who has done thousands of good things does something evil, that does not make the act a good one and make the decision to do it right. Nor does it invalidate the good things that they have done or make them a bad person. And it works both ways. So, in reality and in essence, there is no good or bad person. Few are better than most and some are worse than others but there are only right and wrong actions.

Every human is capable of anything. Whether it is evil or good, compassion or cruelty, we all have the capacity for it. It is just a question of willingness, circumstances, and choices. None of us do only things that are evil or good. Everyone always has a choice, whether to do the right or the wrong thing. They can do either one, but only one can give them what they desire or require. Oftentimes it is easier to join the dark side for it offers better, quicker, more results. There are people who cannot afford to be idealist because of the plight they are dealing with. That still and certainly does not make the wrong actions right, because their decisions are highly likely to have detrimental ramifications to other people. But wrong thing can be right or less wrong in the eyes of people if they want to believe it or they need to do it.

We are capable of making our own choices because we have free will. We do not have to do things we do not wish to do and we can choose to do things that we like. Nothing and no one can force or stop us but ourselves. That is why nobody ever likes rules, law, and restrictions. People want to be free to do whatever they want to do and if they have to, they will break, bend, or ignore the rules. The punishments may be clear, severe, and scary, but they can only affect, not make, someone’s decision. Everybody has the abilities to do good and evil things, freedom to make any, right, difficult, and necessary choices, mind to deliberate the risks and consequences, and conscience to tell which is right and which is wrong.

We choose to do and justify bad things because we only think and care about ourselves. If it serves our agenda and interest, we will do what needs to be done. Rarely do we take moments to consider the people that we will hurt, the things that we can damage, and the lives that will be ruined by our actions. Admittedly, the choice to save and benefit ourselves is not by itself easy. Everyone does have the right and ability to make choices and decisions, especially to do the right thing. But it is not in anybody’s power to make the situation easy for doing the right thing all the time. If it were simple, anyone would be a good person. But then where are the struggle and the triumph in that?

We can make the choice and we do have a choice, always. But sometimes, often, too many times we do not want to make the impossible, hard, right choices. Putting others before us is even more difficult. But, if we can and try to think of other people and things beside ourselves instead of forgetting or ignoring them, if we try to put ourselves in the shoes of the people that may suffer the consequences of our actions, we will be less willing to do them harm and we can see the greater good.

The eyes see not only beauties but also ugliness. The ears hear laughter and cries. The tongue detects the tastes of sweetness and bitterness. The nose picks up fresh and rotten smell. Humans feel pain and caresses. These show that our faculties enable us to perceive and discern various information of the external world. To differentiate between right and wrong, we have moral compass for that. Not unlike the senses, it too can have difficulties in identifying something and can sustain damage. The difference lies in the fact that not everyone would feel sad if they had a faulty morality.

The Price of Happiness

Everybody needs money. Seeing that we are not hunters and gatherers anymore, we use money to purchase goods and pay for services that we require to sustain and prolong our existence as living beings. Nevertheless, no one just gets money for free in this world. They have to earn it, work for it, and make sacrifices for it. They look for jobs that will compensate their time and effort with a sum of money or they give things other people need in exchange for cash. But their requirements become more complex and their expectations grow higher, as are the prices of the things necessary for them to fulfill their needs and desires.

Money has long since become the reason people live. People have associated happiness with money for it is clear to them that without it they cannot obtain the things that can give them joy. They open their eyes in the morning and no more than two seconds later do they worry about their jobs. They let their work take up so much of their time, energy, and attention that they have only little left for themselves, their loved ones, and life. They have forgotten that what they have and are sacrificing is too important compared to what they are fighting for. They still do not realize that as long as they want money they can never be free. They continue wasting their time getting more money because they desire too many and too much. They cannot see that the one thing that they actually need is the one that they cannot buy, which is time. They spend an excessive number of hours obsessing with profit and in doing so, they are reducing their own time to be happy. It gives a whole new meaning to the expression ‘buy some time.’ It would also be ironic if they had to part with the money to deal with something that they could have prevented in the first place such as sickness or accidents or they were unable to use it because they did not have the chances and time.

Children can also be victims for it is likely that they are beginning to see and believe the importance, allure, and power of money from very early age. They see their parents working tirelessly and endlessly to earn every last buck for them, being stressed and depressed due to pressure from work and their inability to provide enough, arguing with each other over financial matters, or doing dishonest things to get more cash. Surely, children cannot find happiness in that sort of environment. They see less of their parents as well as spend time with them, they worry about their parents’ health, safety, and contentment, and they have to live with the guilt for causing their parents to be miserable. It defeats the whole purpose of making and seeing the kids happy that the parents have been fighting for. In the end, no one is truly or remotely happy. Furthermore, children will also grow up thinking that their first and foremost goal is having plenty of money. They want to get a better life, they do not want what happened to them happen to their children, they desire to own and enjoy the things they could not in their childhood, and they want to buy happiness because that is the only way they know how to get it and the only kind available.

People rationalize being miserable for money as a pursuit of happiness. I used to think that it is ironic how the search for happiness could cause so much unhappiness. But I realized that it is that way because it is called a quest and not an enjoyment. Then again, it occurred to me that maybe people have subconsciously let this pursuit get in their way of actually feeling and being happy. No sooner than they got what they want do people set their sights on the next thing. Granted, some spend more time being satisfied and grateful but eventually they will move on to something else. It is beginning to appear more like an escape from happiness. When you keep wanting more, you will be stressed by your inability to get those things or the time and effort it will take. And who is to say that that thing will make you happy and sane enough to not put yourself through the same ordeal all over again? You have to seriously and calmly consider the possibility that this pointless and endless exercise can cause you to slowly lose the ability to feel joy, not to mention the time.

It is true and it is good that to be happy we have to work for it, to make some sacrifices, and to endure tough times. It will make reaching our goals even more joyful, meaningful, and fulfilling. Without money to acquire needs as their incentive to work, people will just sit around and do nothing. It creates and presents challenge to everyone so life does not get boring. But when you keep jumping from satisfactions to sufferings, you ought to take a pause so you can think and see if you want to be happy; because maybe you have been looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps it is not only the external challenges that you need to face. It is possible that the true enemy has been hiding all this time. It could be somewhere or something you never thought of.

The majority of people reckon that happiness is not something that is within reach but one that they move towards until they can get it. Fortunately and quite strangely, that is not always the case. You can elect to be happy for being alive still or having people who adore you and care about you. You can find happiness in knowing that today and at least tomorrow you and your family will not go to sleep with empty bellies. Some things like time to live, time with people whom you love, and good health money just cannot buy because they are priceless and already there for you. Can you, though? Can you ignore and fight your impulses to get something more or better than what you already have now? Can you be content with life as it is? It is a common knowledge that our biggest foe is ourselves. You cannot get rid of your nature for it is inside you. It is you. You can merely overpower it, control it, and tame it. It cannot and will not succeed overnight, though. You have been living that way for quite a long time so you cannot honestly expect to change yourself instantly. Nevertheless, you have to begin sometime and somewhere.

Being happy is possible as long as you do not help make it impossible. There is always a reason not to be happy. Life is odd that way. It seems like your purpose is to seek happiness but for various and scores of reasons you are making it harder instead of easier. It is not always about money. There are things or people that can give you joy but you realize you can never have. The ones that you successfully got turned out to be disappointing once you had them. Shame, regret, guilt make you wish you could change the past and consequently forget your present life, which in turn jeopardize the future. Sometimes not only do you not get what you want but you actually have the ones you hold dear taken from you. You may want acknowledgment, admiration, praises, perfection, power, control or more of them and pursuing or longing for that has become the cause of your distress.

For all this talk, discussion, and debate about happiness, there is but a single fact that anyone should be aware of if they are not already. We always want what we do not have and we want to have it all. Our nature to desire is the one and main reason of our unhappiness. The worse thing is that we cannot stop it, switch it off, or alter it. What is in our power to do is elect to find reasons to be happy, decide to fight and ignore our impulses, and choose to learn to accept that we cannot and should not have everything we want. It is not easy to be humans, indeed. Our very nature drives us to seek happiness but it actually makes us more miserable. Yet we have the free will to make a choice to be content, grateful, and appreciative. This is also why sometimes it is better for us not to have something or someone we desire because then we will always want them instead of taking them for granted, being disappointed or bored by them, or throwing them away, which inevitably, naturally, and sadly are very possible outcomes.

Most people simply have no idea what they need to do or possess so that they can at last be happy. They wish to be powerful, understood, recognized, important, loved. They try anything but either it does not work or it does not for long. Nothing gives them the total, perennial joy they crave. People eat, drink, smoke, shop because they want distractions, so they need not think about and deal with their troubles. They run and hide in any way they can. They pretend to be happy but deep inside they are sad, angry, and lost. But you cannot live your life if you keep running away from it. You must needs face it, deal with it, and conquer it. If you do not start making significant changes, then nothing will ever change. You may also want to consider finding happiness in other paths. If coveting, longing, having, and getting all fail to give you joy, peace, or meaning that you wish, then giving, sharing, and caring you should try.

It is so very much difficult for you to reach happiness because there are as many as three formidable adversaries that you must defeat, often at the same time. The first one is your own nature, which continues to develop urges and has never been satisfied easily, quickly, and fully. You cannot prevent, control, and stop yourself from everlastingly desiring something, somebody, and somewhere that is new, different, and better. The second challenge is the people in your life. They might make it nearly impossible for you to be happy because they let you down, abandon you, take advantage of you, burden you, upset you, or disrespect you. The last, of course, is life. Each day it is going to