Month: October 2012

Goodbye Peter Jackson

I started smoking cigarettes when I was twelve, my first year of high school. It started out as something I would do on the weekend at my friend’s house… we thought we were so cool. A year later I was smoking daily. Sure, it was only one or two a day, but it was a regular occurrence before school. By the time I was fifteen I always had cigarettes with me as I was earning money and had the ability to do so. Twenty years ago the laws on tobacco sales weren’t as strict as they are now and there were always a few shops where an underage kid could buy some smokes. Continue reading “Goodbye Peter Jackson” →

Life Behind The Mask

by Rachel Hall, Brisbane, Australia

I was looking back at my life, reflecting on the person I used to be only a few years ago, when it struck me that I didn’t even recognise myself or know who that person was. It was as if that person living my life was someone impersonating me, putting up a very credible performance that would have even the most astute acting critic well and truly fooled. But why was that? How could it be? – that person obviously was me, but somehow was not the person I recognise as and relate to the me I am today.

I realised that I have hidden myself behind a series of different masks worn to suit each role, act, relationship and mood that I felt would protect me, make me liked, give me confidence and cover up the fact that I was anxious and insecure and out of my depth.

So no wonder when I looked back I couldn’t recognise myself if, for most of my life, I had been presenting a fraudulent version of myself so as to fit in and appear like I had my act together. Continue reading “Life Behind The Mask” →

Reincarnation: Does Everything Start and End?

by Lucy Dahill, Sydney, Australia

There is a belief I have found that I now see far more clearly, and that is that we are led to believe everything has a start and an end. Everything in existence is set and established according to my reaching a certain point. Let me give you an example: the day starts and ends, the year starts and ends. Within that, my life starts and I learn to do things, to crawl, to walk, to repeat the alphabet. I learn to do good, to please, to be happy, to do school, college and university. I start work, I start relationships and somewhere inside me I am waiting for them all to end, for my life to end.

My straight line is based on success and completion. What a shock to fail – to have to repeat. That would mean I was going backwards. If life goes in a straight line with birth on one end and death on the other, then if I am not going forward, if I am not improving, if I am not doing things, then surely I am going backwards. Hold on a second, that would mean I might die without being recognised for what I did. If no-one recognised me then what would be the point of life? I lived believing that I only have one life and I have to make it count. Continue reading “Reincarnation: Does Everything Start and End?” →