I BELIEVE IN...

“Are you religious Paulo?” asked Yaqui, whilst driving from Antigua to Guatemala City.

“Err, not religious per se”, I replied, “Well, you see, I was born into a catholic home as every other Portuguese that I know. Then when I was about 16 I joined the Mormon faith, it sounded cool to be part of a different religion. Then I decided not to be part of any religious movement and stayed like that for many years. Nowadays, I have what I call my ‘Bag of Believes’.”

“Bag of Believes, huh?”

“Yeah. It’s filled with stuff that I’ve been sort of collecting throughout the years. If I had a good feeling about it, I would chuck it in the bag. Then after a while some stuff would find its way into a bin, a trash can, it just wasn’t for me, whilst other stuff remained in the bag. The things that I’ve kept are:

• I believe in a Higher Energy. There’s something up there and around us, I don’t have a name for it, but I can feel its power, its energy.
• I believe in being Grateful. It doesn’t mean that I do a by-the-book prayer before each meal, no. It means that I, via daily meditation, thank the Universe for everything, my health, my sense of humour, my friends, my appetite, my intellect and my foolishness, my teachers, my intuition, my experiences, the things that I’ve learned so far and the things that I’m yet to learn, the opportunities, the little money that keeps me going, etc.
• Power of Love. Unconditional Love. I’ve seen Love for others accomplish amazing things. I’ve seen Love cure terminal diseases. I’ve also seen Love destroy it all. History has taught us that Love has been the culprit of wars between nations.
• I believe in some of the principles/ideas of The Secret like ‘Positive & Wishful Thinking’ although you can’t just sit down and wish for something to happen. You actually have to get your lazy arse off that sofa and get the things in motion. Once the ball starts rolling, then it will come true. As the author Paulo Coelho once said ‘...when you want something, all the universe conspires to helping you to achieve it...’
• Finally, I believe that nothing happens my mere chance, there are no meaningless coincidences.

That’s about it really, what made you ask that Yaqui?”

“Hmm, I suppose it’s because you haven’t mentioned any orientation in your blog. You talk about a lot of different stuff but you’ve never mentioned religion. I guess I was curious.”

Ciao 4 now

~ Paulo ~