Money, Beauty, Fame...Too Much...Too Soon?

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Responding to Today's Headlines!
Today, I read a headline piece that still has me shaking my head.

A 20-year-old model from the Republic of Kazakhstan* took a “dive” yesterday from her ninth-floor New York City apartment to her death below. The death has been ruled a suicide. We’ll see if any evidence surfaces to dispute the suicide ruling.

The model had risen to fame in a relatively short time, since being discovered in her homeland and being described as looking “like something out of a fairytale.” The model represented such top designers as DKNY, Marc Jacobs, Nina Ricci, and made the cover of Vogue in 2005, which hailed her as “the face to be excited about.”

The question is then: What did she want? What made her so lacking that she would choose such a sure death as “diving” from her high rise?

At 20 years old, this model seemed to have the world at her feet: money, beauty, fame...were those not enough? Or did they come too soon?

We can only speculate that perhaps she was suffering from some type of depression, or it could have been the simple issue of a breakup with a boyfriend or possibly feeling isolation and homesickness in Manhattan for her homeland.* Even with any of these scenarios, the choice of such a final end seems to be without logic.

Then again...

When life loses its meaning, when life seems to be without purpose, when life seems to offer little more than getting up and doing the same thing again and again tomorrow and then the next day...life would seem to be without purpose...and yes...without hope.

Think of this scenario:

We strive to arrive to a place of comfort in the world, only to find that the destination is a tired old store front, offering little shelter or security from the ways of the world. There seems to be no real purpose for us being here!

We feel desolate as we look around the station and see few people had arrived at that same station in life, yet we know that on the road on which we’d traveled, there are many still waiting to even be able to get on the train.

So, we stand at the station, suitcase in hand. We look down the road from that old store front and barrenness and wilderness are all we can see.

Do we keep walking? Or do we jump off?

Jumping off...

...is life without hope.

...is life without being able to see beyond our immediate vision and view.

...is a life lived without believing in a purpose for our “being.”

At age 20 to have achieved a certain pinnacle of success without wisdom of the journey, yes, life would seem to offer little.

Often, we hear wise people tell us, “Life is a journey!”

Truly life is a journey of the soul.

Along that long road to getting where we think we want to get, we sometimes make U-turns, have to jump over roadblocks, put up barriers to keep the rain from seeping into our “shelter,” leave a few comforts behind. But we keep moving in the direction that we believe our life should travel and ultimately towards a meaningful goal.

Some other wise souls may tell us: “Don’t hurry too much. Take your time. Smell the flowers.”

Those wise people know that it is in the stops and starts along the road that we build strength, courage, wisdom and true knowledge of the stuff of which we’re made.

We discover that along the stops and starts in life...along the road that seems to offer more pain than gain...that we are building a life...a life that is about our “being.”

So, we stop. We smell the flowers. We hear some music. We play some music. We dance to some music. We share laughter with friends. We share laughter with strangers. We grow. We stretch. We move. We journey.

Finally, we get on the train.

We are on the home stretch to our destination.

We get there.

We arrive and look around.

We take a deep breath.

We give a sigh of deep contentment.

We are at peace.

We are home.

We have arrived.

Don’t hurry along the journey of life.

Stop. Stretch. Grow!

When you get to the final destination, you’ll be so happy you took the time.

You’ll be so happy that you can look back and see the long road you’ve traveled.

You’ll be so happy that you built spiritual muscle.

You’ll be so happy that you know the truth about YOU and your “beingness!"

Namaste’,

Che’

Facts about Kazakhstan: It lies in the north of the central Asian republics and is bounded by Russia in the north, China in the east, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in the south, and the Caspian Sea and part of Turkmenistan in the west. It has almost 1,177 mi (1,894 km) of coastline on the Caspian Sea. Kazakhstan is about four times the size of Texas. The territory is mostly steppe land with hilly plains and plateaus.