Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. 2017

I watched the movie Collateral Beauty on the plane as I traveled to Costa Rica, and it touched me. It brought to surface, things I think about often – yet in a more abstract light: Love, time, and death. We all want love. We all need more time. We all fear, yet will experience death. In the movie, some characters became Love, Time and Death – to bring lessons to life. The lessons were triggered by loss, and the collateral beauty that comes with it. Loss changes us. Loss of a dear loved one, changes a person. I experienced that, and that loss introduced me to a new way of understanding life. The collateral beauty I choose to see is the spirit that outlives the flesh. Life is a short trip. Let’s think:

“We can’t go against time. Time should be upset with us if we take it for granted. Einstein calls time a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Time cannot be tracked, should not be tracked. We have all the time in the world! Time is a stubborn illusion!

“Love, is the fabric we are made of. We don’t get to choose who we love, and who loves us. We don’t get to say goodbye to love.” Accept love in all variations, and live abundantly. Love, it’s the only answer to the question “why?” Love, is the only reason to do all things. Don’t try to live without it. Love is the light and the darkness, the sun and the storm, in laughter and in pain. Love is all.

Do we pretend that time is unlimited? That death is unrealistic? We can make things up to be whatever we want, that’s the power of the mind, and it’s just that great. Death reveals things, it’s symbolic of change. It can also be an illusion. The body dies, and the spirit continues to live, louder.

In this moment, value all things present, and all things absent. In time, it will only be a memory, we will only be a memory. Let’s be fearless, and fully emerged in all things connected to love. Live out loud, have a dream, make it real, work hard, succeed, be grateful, see beauty in all things, and with that mindset, we are forever young.