As the sun shone down upon me, I found myself once more walking through the quiet and solitude of the local cemetery.  It has always been a place I have been drawn to and it’s continued solace from the covid 19 crowds offered me a personal haven.  The trees are bursting with pink blossoms and as the wind blows, their petals gently flutter down around me as I walk through the avenue of the dead. Whilst I wondered amongst the old and weather-worn tombstones belonging to people long since forgotten, I began to reflect on the odd mixture of feelings that had taken root within me during this time of change and isolation. Some of these thoughts struck me as very unexpected.

I had begun to feel a huge burden lifting off my shoulders and I must confess it has felt good. I couldn’t lie, I could only describe the feeling as a light-weight happiness, something I can’t remember feeling in a very long time.

Yes, the world is currently filled with the tragedy of lives lost (including ones I will lose directly and indirectly because of this virus) and a there is a massive restriction of freedom (Dang I miss nachos and the cinema!) and the fear of uncertainty of our future is terrifying (will any of my dreams and ambitions ever come true now?) Yet despite all this, on a very personal level and with eyes to my current wellbeing and state of mind, I can’t help but feel incredibly relieved.

I am an entrepreneur, I make a living through my own initiative, having created my own business which takes most of my time and energy to grow and succeed.  To those of you who also work for themselves, you understand the need to spend every second of your conscious life (no exaggeration) pushing the business forward in the hope that one day it will all pay off.  I do not lament the years I have spent working this way, nor am I shocked at the level of work required. However, I cannot help but feel that something inside me along the way got lost, something very special that once gone, may never be brought back.

And the only reason I became an entrepreneur is because working for someone else’s dream and profit felt soul-destroying and very limited on what I could achieve and how much I could earn. I am in a situation where most people of my generation can never own a house and are renting and living with parents well into their 30’s and 40’s and the value of most currencies have dropped considerably from even 20 years ago. Though much riskier, starting my own business seemed like the only way to commit my life to something I truly cared about and maybe just maybe, help me secure real stability in my life. After being forced out of my home every two years, I can tell you, the renting dream was over! (Though I never think it existed in the first place…)

Yet, with all my good intentions with starting my own business, it has felt lately like something alien to me, something that has taken a hold of my life with me somehow losing control; a captain thrown from her vessel.  Like a cancer, it has been consuming me, eating at my soul and robbing me of any perceived freedom to do anything at all beyond it’s restrictive grasp.  Consumed by guilt for taking any time off, pressured to succeed and secure an income, every moment was stalked by some looming dread as I felt time running out.  The hope that one day I would be able to finally sit back and focus on things like art, writing and developing my spirituality,( in essence the elements to finding deeper meaning and purpose in life,) seemed like splinters of a future that never got any closer to the present. Just like so many others, I was stuck back in the perpetual rat race of survival I had ironically tried to escape. I was coming to hate my own business that was once part of my most sacred dreams.

And also, there was this constant feeling having to hold back and water down who I truly was with my business.  As someone who got a fair bit of media attention, I felt strongly that I had to be someone that was marketable and digestible, always questioning everything I wrote, said and wore to assure it was acceptable to the public. Normally, my true self doesn’t care what other people think at all, being proud of the fact that I am bold, creative, eccentric and unique, proud I am not like everyone else. But if being more ‘digestible’  meant that my dreams could succeed so I could securely be my true self without worry, the temporary compromise was worth it for the long run.  But it came at a toll. Now, five years on, something inside of me was withered and desperate to come alive. Now, for the first time in five years, that part of me started to emerge and breathe again.

So in the middle of a pandemic and with the world on hold, I realized at this moment that ironically, the strongest feeling washing over me is relief.  Being forced to stop has granted me a single moment of perspective.  In this epiphany of introspection, I have realised that the way I am living is not the way I want to continue. No, I guess if I am being honest, there is a part of me that doesn’t want the covid 19 situation to end too soon.

Whaaaaaaaat? Who doesn’t want covid 19 to end as soon as possible and for everything to just get back to normal? That’s crazy talk. And also horrible, right? Covid 19 is killing thousands of people, so I must be a selfish jerk for not wanting everything to go back to normal ASAP! But wait. Is going back to ‘normal’ what we all truly want or need?

Think about it. I realized I was feeling relieved because the way we live in our modern civilisation isn’t healthy for the human soul. Our culture is built around making money to survive, not learning what makes our souls’ really come alive and then doing our passions to contribute positively to the world around us. In fact, many people are forced to do jobs they are ethically very against just to keep a roof over their heads and feed their children.

Though I tried to live what I believe by starting my own business, I was still struggling because I have so little resources to push my business forward. So I ended up working even longer hours than people in employment and compromising so much to survive that I ended up mostly not really doing what I wanted at all.  Don’t get me wrong, I am eternally grateful my business has changed hundreds of lives for the better and that is something I will always believe in.  But sadly the rewarding part is only a small aspect and most of doing business it is just soul-destroying (MARKETING, MARKETING, MARKETING!!!) I have also expanded the businesses in ways I don’t really enjoy to assure it can keep moving forward but this just takes more and more of me that I don’t have. The frustrating thing is that my passions, interests, skills, etc are just too niche to ever be truly profitable. To make real money, I have to be less of me… which makes me sad.

Some lucky people are able to manage to carve out a living doing the things they believe in, enjoy etc. But a great many of us are stuck in a broken system where we have very little choice if we were not born into money, made exactly the right decisions early on, given the right opportunities, etc.

The hours most are forced to travel to and do work are exhausting with very little time left over to even pursue passions, interests, etc as even a hobby.  Many arrive home weary and drained, too tired to do much else besides eating junk, watching some crap TV and then crashing. Making a proper nutritious meal seems like a momentous task, exercise, ha, are you kidding? And time to spend with friends and family will just have to wait. Weekends are spent catching up on desperately needed sleep, cleaning the house and getting the things done that there wasn’t time for after work. All aspects of what makes a human life healthy are out of balance and often completely missing in the economic and lifestyle structure that has evolved in the world today. (Well, there are exceptions. Let’s applaud the Swedish 6-hour working day, I think they are on to something!)

This is the everyday reality for hundreds and thousands of us all over the world with people in third world countries not even having basic luxuries to comfort them. This is not a good ‘normal’ to go back to.

Another ‘normal’ that I also do not want to return to is how human’s lifestyles are destroying the Earth. There have been several articles written about the positive effects of the covid 19 situation on the environment. Now with consumerism slowing down, less travel and people out and about, the Earth is taking a long-needed breath of fresh air, maybe giving us a slightly longer chance upon its surface. Most of us live incredibly wasteful and destructive lifestyles to the environment, using 1.9 Earth’s worth of resources.  We are heading towards our own destruction and bringing a lot of other innocent critters down with us.

I really appreciate and applaud the people who are dedicating their lives to stopping the destruction of our environment, but sadly this is a collective effort that needs all of us to do our part. We need structures around us that help us all change for the better, not enable us to live in a way that is damaging to the planet. This temporary pause is at least a way to stop and think about how we might go on from here in a more positive way, TOGETHER. So for the sake of every living thing on the planet, going back to ‘normal’ lifestyles we had before does not seem like a very wise thing to wish to return.

Lastly, the covid 19 situation has forced us to start caring about each other in a dynamic new way. The idea that we are all connected is now powerfully demonstrated with this deadly virus. Many of us lived in very self-hyper-focused worlds where we didn’t think too hard about the impact of how we lived affected others. Our society enabled us to put on blinders and not care. But now the virus forces us to be mindful of how we do every little thing because of how it might harm another vulnerable person. Self-care becomes the same thing as caring for others. We are motivated to love others as we love ourselves as the epiphany of the truth that they are one and the same becomes real.

This virus is a horrible nasty thing, but the fact that it brings a new consciousness and mindset is incredible.  The sooner the human race adopts this loving attitude for one another, the sooner we can live the way we were always meant to be and find true happiness and balance with the Earth around us. So, yeah, the old way of life and treating one another is also not a ‘normal’ I want to go back to as soon as possible, forgive me if that is wrong.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, save the world, society’s crap, we have heard it all before. BUT NOW WE ARE REALLY HEARING IT. This time we kind of have to stop and take notice because it’s affecting ALL OF OUR LIVES. Humans have this REALLY bad habit of not truly changing until they are forced (and often when it might be too late) and until their own personal lives are affected. Charging 5p for a plastic bag is a perfect example on a very small and not so painful scale. Most of us could afford that 5p but suddenly, we start to take notice that we shouldn’t use plastic bags when it demands a small sacrifice. Now covid 19 is like the £5,000,000,000 charge on all of our lives and freedom, demanding the biggest sacrifice of all. Suddenly, we HAVE to listen and take action.

And if we don’t listen now, what will it take? Something even worse than covid 19 to develop? Irreversible global environmental damage? World War III over limited resources??? It might sound crazy to some but not so long ago what we are experiencing now seemed like only the stuff of science fiction. Suddenly, it is all too real. And it can become even darker if we let it.

It’s time to change. We are so desperate for a change! I want this change for myself as well. I want to be in a society that is structured around enabling me to become a better human being. Yes, it’s heartbreaking that people are dying, but it’s even worse for their deaths to be pointless. I have very vulnerable people close to me that could die directly or indirectly because of this virus, I might even never get to see them again because of it, so the reality of it hits home very strongly for me.  But I still feel this an opportunity to let our consciousness to be stirred and really adjust life as we know it.

For me, going back to normal sounds like the worst thing possible, and this is not because I am momentarily enjoying a strange side effect of less pressure during the covid 19 pandemic. I know my money will run out eventually and then a whole new barrel of worries will come. Despite the struggles and pressures of my business before all this happened, I also had a lot of good things that were going to happen with it as well.

Literally, right before we were locked down, I was about to embark on possibly the most lucrative business venture of my entire career, finally, I might have made it and transitioned my business to become successfully more passive with a strong and steady income. Also, I would be doing more of it that I loved and less that I hated.  It also meant that I would have finally had more time to enjoy being creative and using my passions to also help others, my true dream.

But then covid 19 happened. I don’t know if that business deal will ever happen now. I don’t even know how I will even survive in the not so distance future. But still, I could find peace with it all if this can help us make the change and shift we need. I would even willingly be one of the sacrifices of lives if it was part of real change. Though in the past I have truly struggled with depression and the very will to live, ironically, now in my life, I have never wanted to live more. I don’t want to die and not proclaiming any such curse on my life. But I say that to illustrate the level that I am committed to this belief to the full extent.

I started crying as I reached a certain tombstone at the back of the graveyard I was drawn too. Pondering all these thoughts, my enjoyable feeling of relief turning into some sort of meaningful sadness. My housemates still have to work in London every day with contact with hundreds of potentially infected people so I do technically live in a high-risk situation of catching the virus. It was heartbreaking knowing I could actually die in this situation,  but not knowing if any real positive long-term change would actually happen for it and it would just be a pointless death. There are so many hopes and dreams that would never come true, my business finally helping both people and animals on a much larger scale, the places I wanted to see and travel, the people I wanted to spend more time with, the book I always wanted to write never happening… I would have lost my chance to redeem my life the way I wanted.

I feel like I have finally reached a time in my life where I have matured and healed most of the inner pain and damage I received earlier on and that now I can really live the fruition of my true purpose. I have lived life, I have been through some serious situations that most will thankfully never live through. I have taken from it, grown, healed, changed and reached a point where I feel strong, capable and proud of who I am. For me to lose my chance to do my life’s most important work would be such a personal tragedy… I would then become just ‘forgotten bones’ after all. Just matter in the Earth that no one would remember and my legacy could not continue to help others.

But I would still give that up… the most precious thing I have as a human being… if only real change could happen. No. I do not want things to go back to ‘normal.’ To me, that is the real tragedy.

I sat under the crumbling tombstone that had caught my eye in the older part of the cemetery, bringing a branch of freshly bloomed blossoms to lay down on top of it.  Underneath the deteriorating stonework was a reverend who died in 1918.  Only 29 years old.  Maybe even from the Spanish Flu, an earlier virus epidemic that ravaged the world after WW1 killing at least 50 million people worldwide.  He certainly lived through everything we are going through right now and must have felt some similar things. I don’t think anyone had brought his grave flowers in a very long time. I smiled, it was nice he was thought of at least once more.

I laid down and let the sun kiss my face and I slipped into a relaxed state again. Let’s see what the future brings. For now, I will create as if these next few months are all I have left in this world. Live well, live pure, live compassion and be 100% true to myself. That was all I could do.

So I am about to begin my daily ‘allotted’ exercise in our covid 19 pre-apocalypse world in the nearby nature reserve. It’s spring and the weather is perfect, not too cold or too hot and everything is bursting into bloom. I have been so excited to exert myself now that I have the time and I have finally recovered from IT band syndrome. This frustrating condition caused me great pain to run any longer than 20 minutes for almost 6 months. Finally, I had the freedom to run like the inner wild beast that my soul so desperately wanted to manifest, feeling myself sweat, feeling powerful, strong, capable… someone who can defy their own limitations.

Yet, the wonderful once private paradise of the nature reserve is now filled with families, runners, dogs, cyclist etc, all trying to also get their covid 19 allotted exercise. My secret special place is spoiled!  If I am not almost getting run over by children recklessly barrelling down pedestrian-only paths, I am dodging irresponsibly neglected dog turds or dogs themselves nearly tripping me over. No longer can I pretend I am thousands of miles away from any civilization, in my own magical forest world, ha, no… there is a human around every corner to painfully remind me I am still trapped in the middle of suburbia.  

My last few attempts to go running have all been like this. The scornful looks tossed my way when I haven’t ‘social distanced’ myself enough on the narrow walking trails when it is nearly impossible to not pass side by side is even more annoying.

So this morning I knew I had to do something different. I needed to go to my most secret and sacred spot. The one place I was sure that I could be outside somewhere green and lovely without the hoards invading. The cemetery. Ahhh, my gothic safe place.  I always found solace hanging out with the memories of souls long since past as opposed to the breathing ones.  As I reach the cemetery gates, I smile with relief. I was not disappointed.  I am the only weirdo who wanted to be there.

Most people find hanging out with dead people morbid. I just find it peaceful. And it is the place that illustrates most profoundly the subject that has obsessed my mind more than any other, the subject that has influenced every single action in my life; the idea of ‘being forgotten.’

When I am in cemeteries, I am surrounded by forgotten stories. I look at the crumbling headstones of people that don’t even have any living relatives left. No one tends their graves. No one remembers their passions, their hopes, their dreams, how they lived, their impact in the world around them… just ordinary people who never made a written record of their lives. Now, forgotten and left to crumble.

On this jog, I even found a memorial stone of a mass grave of over 200 people’s remains, essentially a big pit full of bones. The space was definitely not big enough for all of them to have been individually laid out, I can only assume they were piled on top of each other. The memorial said how they were removed from a local ancient church and then placed here. I did know the church it mentioned, the cemetery space is now taken up by a new building extension.

I know it’s important to make the church relevant and more useful to the living, but I couldn’t help feeling sad for those bones tossed in the ground. For without someone investing a memory of meaning, that was all they were; bones. Just forgotten bones.

I guess this brings me to my own life, and my own obsession to try to live this life as meaningful as possible so I will never end up being ‘forgotten bones.’ Most people do this by having children, but even children grow and generations pass so ultimately you still become forgotten.

I have these old photographs of my distant relatives from the early 1900’s. I don’t even know most of their names but I look at the album from time to time as I will be the last to ever remember them. It’s my nod of gratitude for their role in my own existence and my own continuing story.

My distant relative’s own nearly forgotten story reminds me of why I am so obsessed with history and the humans that made an everlasting impact and are not forgotten.  Their stories passed down even thousands of years from their deaths, reaching out to future generations. Their stories either give us a role model of how to live life or how not to live life, but either way, they still impact others far beyond their own lifetimes.

I suppose I want to be part of this cycle. Not in the ego way, as much as it feels good to be important and remembered, but more such that my life made an impact that can go beyond just my own lifetime.

I always feel sad yet incredibly fascinated about forgotten stories of different people throughout time and history. I feel sad about being forgotten about my own potential to be forgotten in time and history, though once I am dead, that sadness will mean nothing. But, perhaps its the sadness of that thought which shapes how I live now.

That is why I am so fascinated by this idea of forgotten stories. Being there, in the cemetery with all the different lives beneath my feet, brings this truth home to me in a powerful way. It’s poetic, beautifully sad, but it drives me on, to keep trying until I do become those bones… hopefully not the forgotten ones and hopefully remembered for the reasons that my life was meant to be fulfilled by.

This virus will bring new death into my life…. while I live and breathe, I want to also make their stories remembered and important. This is the world we live in now. Our stories become more important than ever. Death is not a new thing in my life, I am well trained for tragedy. I am the master of sculpting tragedy into beauty. I will use every sadness for good. This is my goal. I am committed to it because I am writing it now. Instead of just forgetting and making my thoughts forgotten bones while I am actually still alive.  That is the true tragedy. I am writing. And soon the images will come.

Every day I wake up…  it was only seconds that I was waking up yesterday… it is terrifying. I look in the mirror and my face is melting, becoming someone I do not know.  The once young beauty clings still but she is dying a slow and bitter death. I do not know how to relate to a face that is not mine? 

I am keenly aware of the limited time I have to make something beautiful happen. My life song, more than just a self-replication of my genes halfway in another… No, that is the simple solution for life’s truest purpose. There is something deeper, more complicated, and much further reaching than just my own little bubble of reality. Something that takes all of me, it can’t stop with the things that only make me happy.

So many others seem to not be tormented with this idea of living one’s highest purpose. 9 times out of 10, when asked, ‘What is the meaning of life.’ People will say ‘being happy.’  But my reply is always… ‘to live a meaningful life.’

What is a meaningful life? I see it like this: We all have a special way to contribute good in the world, in a way that we are best at. And through that, we fill a gap in the world that only we can fill with our own unique way of being good.

If we miss that opportunity, it’s like the butterfly effect. Though we are only one person, if we are too caught up with our own self-fulfillment, greed or refusal to change and progress from unhealthy ways, then the person we didn’t inspire or help because of this then can’t help the person they were supposed to inspire and help and so on. 

This is why the world is the way it is… too many people breaking the web of our connection because ‘happiness’ is the goal of life instead of simply meaningful purpose. Yes, meaningful purpose will also bring happiness but it also can bring huge sacrifice, hard work, and suffering. But, it’s a life you look back at and feel good about. It’s a life where your soul can shine.

This is my constant obsession… I am trying so hard to fulfill my meaningful purpose, my own unique way of contributing good. I worry so much that I have failed and that time is going too quickly for me to achieve it… but never once in my life have I purposely ignored my purpose, I have just been lost as where to find it at times. 

A book, a book, you need to write a book. That is what the voice in me head keeps saying… Before It’s Too Late…