Hope is a sin, best to stop sinning now

It was raining.

I wanted to go home.

And so did everyone else.

I - along with everybody else - managed to get inside a jeep.

Unlike most everyone though, they managed to get seats.

Fortunately, there was a vacant sliver of space available and I managed to push myself within it but was deliberately pushed out by a female uniformed- college student.

"Naka-reserve na `to." she says.

CheezMiss: "Reserve?! Ano `to sine?"

"May naka-reserve na dito!" she insists.

And lo and behold, the man of her dreams enters the jeep and conveniently sits his happy ass on the vacant space.

A kind passenger offered a sliver of a sliver of a vacant space which I sat on but could not. The sliver of a sliver of vacant space won't let me and my knees and legs are letting me know that how ever hard I try to sit, it is humanly not possible to do so.

The jeep drove on, the jeep moved on. I also tried to.

"May bababa naman jan pagtawid sa highway." The kind passenger offered to say. It was the least anyone could do.

The least I could do was hope that someone would go down anytime now, anytime. My knees and legs were hoping too.

And then I heard myself say

"Fuck it," and

saw myself sat my happy ass on the legs of female uniformed-college student.

She yelped.

"Sorry, walang maupuan eh." I yelped too.

Now I have moved on, along with the jeep.

And no one went down when the jeep crossed the highway.

No one went down until I was more than halfway home.

When a few passengers did, I placed my ass on the now vacant space and thanked the female college-uniformed student.

She didn't look at me.

And she probably never in her life hoped she'd be sat on by someone else other than the man of her dreams - and a girl to boot.

And my happy ass is probably the universe's way of telling her: Put your self first girl, not a dude, even if it's the man of your dreams - because the authentic man of your dreams won't let you put him first & he allows you the freedom to put you as the priority, not him.

And his happy ass is probably the universe's way of telling me, if I had hoped, if I had given to the tug of hope that someone would go down the jeep in 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes,

I'd probably miss the point of the moment.

Hope keeps you clinging, hope keeps you attached to the outcome, hope keeps you alive but in suffering, hope keeps you happily miserable.

Hope keeps you distracted and away from the richness of the now and the spontaniety, awareness of the moment.

"Every MOMENT...is composed of a series of discrete moving parts, and every one of those parts offers an opportunity for intervention, for reform, and for correction." (Gladwell, BLINK, p.246)

Hope keeps you in the my-day-will-soon-come attitude.

If I had clung to hope, I would have been able to sit but not until my knees and legs throbbed in discomfort. Then, I would have festered in anger at the uniformed-college student's and her boyfriend's attitude. I would have went home with my anger still festering and probably would have slept with my anger turning into a nightmare, and none of us would have learned anything from the experience.

I feel, there is wisdom in the now.

Being in the moment leaves you no choice.

Being in the moment allows you to be authentic.

Being in the moment gives you the freedom to experience the now and not expect anything from the future or think and live off the past.

Note the difference between a moment / the now, and the call or impulse of giving in to immediate gratification.

The latter desires, wants, and expects fulfillment.

The moment just does.

It acts.

The moment comes from awareness. Awareness dissolves choice. There is no conscious decision, just a flourish of an act which awareness has made possible to come, to arrive. It is just there. You see yourself going there, you see and hear yourself there. And you are. It happens not in a minute but just a split second. And the moment has arrived. And then it goes. Best to just allow it.

And hope represses this allowing of the moment to rise of its own accord.

With awareness, hope dissolves. Hope becomes unnecessary. What is left is trust and the deep knowing that the moment alone will take care of itself as long as you let it.