Nothing more then feelings

Our minds can be a safe harbor, a warm retreat- or a cage. They can make us feel happy or hopeless, angry, bitter, or overwhelmed. Anxiety can overtake us as our minds churn through the garbage and glitter, it's possible to get too far lost in thought and the imagination will find a way to create the worst of all possibilities. However, our thoughts can also give our life meaning and a much deeper purpose can be found within ourselves through them. Every person has the ability to be happy with nothing more then their basic needs for food and shelter being met and our own minds. Some people have achieved an inner peace so great that they don't even need that much (Jesus and Gandhi are a few of them that come to mind.) Thoughts become actions, and actions make up our life as we know it. 
More and more often lately I have been writing down my thoughts in a journal in an effort to better see and analyze my own thoughts, a habit that I have had since childhood. This has become a different experience lately, and I think it is because I am more self aware; the thoughts themselves become reality- instead of fleeting bubbles of smoke, jumbled together in a mass of gray nothingness, with nowhere to go they become something I can see with my eyes.
Sometimes I read what I wrote afterwards and think of how silly my feelings were that day, and other days I see something so right and profound that I am moved to make changes to my life.  Today, while writing some things down I discovered that my secret thoughts can be scarier inside my head then on paper. Writing them down helped me face my actual thoughts head on, instead of just being afraid of them and hence avoiding them.  Feelings that I need to face head on, or they are going to consume me. I felt a need to spring to some sort of action, and deal with the feelings head on.
Being self aware is a strange thing. I know why I make the choices that I do, because I try to live with a sense of purpose. But, I have also learned that just because I am consciously making the choices that I make concerning my own life, it never guarantees the outcome of what the feelings/events and situations around me are going to be as the actual events of life occur. We can all make the choices that we make, but nobody, but God, can see the event unfolding. We cannot see the future or even begin to guess what other humans beings around us are going to do. We can only act with our own intentions, and be in each moment as it comes.
I try to remind myself that life is an ever changing thing, and that is what makes it beautiful and exciting. When we stop seeking new experiences, making mistakes and learning we cease to really live, and are just existing. We can choose to view life and the experiences within it as trials or challenges. We can laugh at the absurd, delight in the magic-or wallow in the mire of our own creation.
Nothing within our spirits or the spirits of others is tangible.You cannot taste or touch laughter, but it is something that most people enjoy. Love, integrity and respect are not something that can be purchased.  New experiences and ways of living are an endless supply or free gifts if we are open to receiving them. Our lives are in a constantly changing flux of motions, and energies that constantly change as the events of our lives unfold and these things can be happening to us mysteriously and spontaneously or with us resisting everything and everyone all the time.We can be like a leaf, gently floating down a river, with ever changing scenery. Or a rock, stubbornly waiting, and holding on to our set ideas and notions as everything-beautiful and ugly passes us by.
Thankfully we can change our path or way of living at any moment as long as we are still in our physical body. Our attitude about things can be turned around at any time, simply by using the power of our minds and actions.
Today, and everyday I hope to exist in a state of absurd delight. I will embrace challenges, and open myself to new ideas.