Magnetic love

The pursuit of love remains the most challenging part of my life. Why can't I attain it? Why can't I find it? I'm working so hard toward it. Am I not doing enough? Am I a coward? Am I not open enough? Do I need to be braver? Do I need to get out more? I don't know where to go, and although I can go out and travel on my own, I am tired.

I was ecstatic to find her, to be open enough to receive her, but she wasn’t ready. She doesn't see the possibilities I see. She doesn't understand why she feels what she does. It makes me sad, but I can't stop. I can't give up hope. I can't close my heart. It needs to stay open more than ever. I am close. I feel her. She is near.

The question "What the fuck?" continues to enter my mind. It sits alongside hope in the passenger seat. Fortunately, hope is driving. It's frustrating, but what’s a man to do? I am myself, and I have so much love to give. I have done and continue to do the deep work. I feel that the deeper I go, the more challenging it is to find her at times. She is not your average woman. She is powerful, beautiful, and evolved beyond my imagination.

What should I do? Where should I go? Is there something I've done wrong? These are questions that sit behind hope. They roll around in the back seat. Thankfully, hope is driving.

I have a new theory I will test. I have so much love to give that I need to distribute it by channeling it into more creative projects. I need to put my love into dance again. I need to sing. I need to listen to music. I need to paint and continue to pour my heart out in my writing. I need to love the amazing family and friends in my life today. I need to share my heart, my love, because it is too much for one human to handle.

It's time for more laughter, more dance, and more play in my life. I love the dance between the internal and external as I cleanse the energy lines from the root to the top of the tree. I am learning to live with an open, broken heart. I have so much love to share with her when she arrives. I need to maintain the dance between persistence and patience, between bravery and humility. I need to settle for nothing less than that soulful connection.

We are nervous, we are scared, and most skate on the surface. But if we give deep discovery the time it requires, if we dig a little deeper and explore the seven lines of energetic points first within ourselves, then with the person across from us, we are bound to find that love. It feels like two of the most powerful magnets pulling together. It takes an abundance of energy to split apart. Deep down you know. When you find it, life will reach heights that are unimaginable from where you currently stand.

This is not the time to settle for anything less. This is the time to ask and stay open for what cannot be articulated with words. It can only be felt through emotions that reside within the soul and are communicated through the heart. The mind has no say. Logic is irrelevant. Keep rational thoughts out of this. There are no algorithms to measure this connection, this love.

Many of us are so closed, like robots walking aimlessly, attempting to connect through lists generated within our minds—either on our own or based on the expectations of our tribe and society. Put away those formulas; they are useless if real love, real connection, and genuine happiness are what you seek. Open your heart. Living with a closed heart is the same as being six feet under.

What's the point? Open up, baby. Let's play, let's dance, let's love.

I imagine her in my life. I imagine walking behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist, moving her hair to one side, kissing her cheek, and then softly kissing her neck. I turn her around, look into her eyes as our bodies exchange energies, spirits lifting each other. I softly kiss her beautiful lips. I am in search of love that cannot be articulated with words.

Woodbine beach. I see that which I yearn.

Finding myself through conformity

Compliments and praise... Receiving them is more difficult than criticism for me. In my twenties, if someone complimented me, my ego would be fed and there would be a temporary extra pop in my step. When someone complimented me in my thirties, it was so difficult to receive that it would result in mini throw-ups (this stems from not feeling good enough).

In my mid-twenties, I moved out on my own for the first time. Late for the Western world, unacceptable in the Eastern world. Eventually, I canceled cable, met my first girlfriend, and had my first real travel experience without family—one week which I spent on my own. My girlfriend gifted me "The Alchemist," which I still have with me today. Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, and Neale Donald Walsch helped me work on dissipating my ego and peeling off the layers of crap that others had draped over me.

My second girlfriend, first love, and first heartbreak took me to an entirely different level of feeling. She broke my world—and for the better. The relationship made me go inside and look deep within and ask the question: WHO AM I? WHO AM I? WHO AM I?

I have no degree; I am half-assed at everything. Heck, I don't even have a high school diploma. No connection with religion, not a criminal, not feeling fully Canadian, Muslim, or Indian. If I am none of these things, then WHO THE HELL AM I? I had so many social norms to look up to, but none of them fit. In every area of my life, I felt like a square peg in a round hole. I didn't identify with any of the worlds, and with utmost certainty, everyone had laid out as a matter of fact who I needed to be. Without it, I wouldn't succeed in life, I wouldn't reach the heavens, and I would probably end up as a bum in this life and in hellfire in the next. So much to look forward to. God was mad at me. Teachers were mad at me. My parents were mad at me. WHO THE HELL AM I?

Not fully fitting into my religious world, my Indian world, and the Western world resulted in not feeling good enough. So, what do you do when you don't feel good enough? Conform, conform, and conform to all three worlds around me. I was partially religious, not religious enough, partially Canadian, not Canadian enough, partially Indian, not Indian. I want to say I was partially academic, but I am three credits shy of a high school diploma. Those who knew I didn't have it continued encouraging me to return. From a societal sense, I understood the importance, but internally, I didn't want to go back because I didn't understand why I needed it to be successful.

I worked in my father's business, in retail, in warehouses, did a little bussing, sold flowers, and did some telemarketing too. I eventually did a $17,000 six-month IT course, which resulted in a $40,000 job at Citibank. The investment paid off for me. I thought, this is it! At 25 years old, I landed a $40,000 job at one of the largest banks in the world with no high school diploma. It felt like I hit the jackpot. I moved out, travelled, started dating, and had sex for the first time (I was a little late to the party).

Did I love my job? No. Did I love the people I worked with? Hell yeah. They were this new, awesome community that is still a part of my life today. I grew out of my job quickly. I pretended to love it because I didn't know who I was. I think many of us don't know who we are until later in our lives, and that's if we are lucky. If you don't know who you are, don't worry. Keep chipping away. The only thing you should not do is sit on your ass. Trust me. I tried it, and nothing good or bad came from it. Life isn't going to push you to start. You have to push yourself and explore the internal and external worlds. Experiment.

Working at Citibank helped me gain social acceptance. When I was asked the question "Where do you work?" I proudly responded with, "I am an Operations Analyst with Citibank!" Usually, the person asking the question would beam with approval. I would be lying if I said it didn't feel good. I was fitting in for the first time in my life and felt accepted. "Citibank is a great company. Good for you," they would say. My ego and external self enjoyed this approval. I made it. I was a part of the corporate world. I had successfully been accepted into the club of conformity.

Around the third or fourth year of being part of the club of conformity, my soul began to get restless and agitated to the point that it would no longer come into the building with me. It would stay outside the revolving door, waiting for me to finish my day (or come out for lunch) to reconnect. It was so hard to quit or get another job because I had zero clarity about my purpose in this world. It took a good friend and colleague to quit before I did. When this colleague of mine quit, I felt completely alone at this point. Not long after, I quit as well. I had no job lined up and had hefty debt and rent to pay among other expenses, but I was young. I mapped out my worst-case scenario, and it really wasn't that bad.

I thought to myself, am I ungrateful? So many people in this world would love to have my job. Am I being greedy by asking for more of myself? In the end, it became so unbearable to the point that staying was more uncomfortable than quitting. If I had stayed, I would have died a very slow death. I didn't have a plan, but it felt so good to quit that place!