Even when it's not our intention to hurt others, sometimes we accidentally do. Just like in sports, even when two teams are playing a hard healthy game and being good sportsman, it is possible for any player to get injured. Imagine being responsible for ending Michael Jordan's professional basketball career because you accidentally low bridged him on a dunk. I've hurt my fair share of people, though it has never been my intention to do so. That feeling sucks even though potentially getting hurt is part of the game. I used to kill myself with guilt about these situations, but I recently learned a lesson on forgiveness that has allowed me to transcend my own guilt. Thankfully, instead of becoming a cautious player after situations like these, by forgiving myself I have learned to release my fears of hurting others and/or being hurt and can live life free of hesitation. This applies to professional, emotional, and spiritual relationships.

1. Forgive yourself first:
Forgiveness starts with you. Oftentimes we look to other people to forgive us. Don't wait too long; that may take awhile. Give the other person space and time to heal. In the meantime, release your guilt and forgive yourself. Eventually, unforgiveness by others disappears because there will come a time when they need to be forgiven by someone else and it would be hypocritical of them not to forgive you first...even if they never tell you that they forgive you.

2. Be sincere the first time:
Your words have power. It's not about how many times, how many ways, or how much you spend to say sorry. At the end of the day it comes down to whether of not you truly meant it to yourself and the other person. This requires understanding how our choices affected the other person and empathizing with them.

3. Don't present yourself as perfect:
We're all perfectly imperfect. Especially when it comes to dating, we try to put our best foot forward and present ourselves as flawless. When someone perceives you as perfect, there is no room for error. Be real about who you are from the gates or else life will create situations that speak on your behalf.

4. Don't make the same mistake twice:
Life is funny. It will continuously throw the same challenges at us over and over again in different ways until we face them head on. In order to truly learn from our mistakes and grow, we must examine where we could have made different choices that lead to more positive outcomes in the future.

Inspired by "What I've Done" by Linkin Park (Video | Lyrics)

This is a remix I did for fun to Sean Kingston's hit song, Beautiful Girl. I wanted this to come out when he was at the top of the billboard charts, but it's all good.

I think they call it "culture jamming" when you take popular culture and make it conscious.

The video starts around 45 seconds.

I hope it inspires you.

Peace,

NOTE: This is fake!

Today, Apple released the new iPodium. The goal is create an easy way for the camera shy YouTubers to share their life stories via audio. The device plugs into your iPod and allows you to record yourself, make freestyle music, conduct interviews, or digitize meetings and then upload them to iTunes for personal or worldwide distribution to anyone near you using WiFi. Think Napster in your pocket. Apple executives believe that while the success of the iPod has helped them beat other hardware and electronics companies like Microsoft and Sony to the pocket, they believe that their latest innovative creation, the iPodium, will cannibalize their iPod sales by 2010 as written content like blogs, newspapers, and books shift to audio only.

One Apple engineer quotes:
"Every time I put on my iPod in the CalTrain, I realized that I was non-verbally communicating to the people next to me that the musicians' stories and voices were more important to me than their stories. But when you think about phenomena like blogging, Wikipedia, and YouTube it's ultimately about allowing people to share their own stories, not just accessing others."

A Stanford Communications professors said:
"Oftentimes the reason we download a certain song is because it resonates with us, but we rarely consider how many people might resonate with our personal untold stories. Everyone's life story could be a New York Times best seller if we all felt free to be our authentic selves by creating space for one another to share. The person sitting next to me on the train or plane could potentially meet my needs at that moment in a way that the songs on my iPod can't because conversation is a two-way street and fresh, whereas most mass media is one-way and reproduced."

An avid iPod user said:
"Why do I want to connect with a musician that I'll never likely meet rather than the person sitting right next to me?" Wouldn't it be more powerful to give the person next to me a voice by opening my ear to them instead or recognize my own voice by sharing my own story with someone else?"

An Apple executive quotes:
"Just like our I-Pods, our I-Podium is always with us. It's our voice, it's our life, it's our story. Everyone has one. I-Pods allow us to hear other people's stories, but the I-Podium will allow us to share our own stories. As a world, we keep living the same story over and over because we keep listening to the same story over and over. Whatever your medium may be...music, video, writing, speech, painting, etc...make sure that you share as much with the world as you take from it. "

A hip hop artist said:
Hip hop gave me my voice. It was my outlet. It's my political stage...and podium. Everybody needs a way to tell their story to the world. Hip hop is mine. In this world, nobody's voice should be louder than someone else's and nobody should have a monopoly on the people's eyes and ears. It's like my man Nas said "All I need is one mic."

My spiritual partner and I recently ended our 7 month partnership. In most cases, relationships end on bad terms, but I was determined to maintain the friendship that existed before we began our spiritual partnership. When a relationship transitions, we have the tendency to try to allocate blame. Thoughts like "S/he did this to me" or "S/he did that to me" or "I can't stand wo/men" race through our minds, but I recently realized that:

1. There is nothing wrong with her
2. There is nothing wrong with me
3. There is nothing wrong with women
4. There is nothing wrong with men

With this in mind, there is no reason to place blame. Instead we should give thanks! Relationships can transition for reasons that don't suggest that there is something wrong with either individual or their gender. It could simply be the wrong two, wrong time, and/or wrong type.

Wrong Two:

All relationships are exploratory. A romantic relationship is simply two people engaging in frequent exchanges of love and energy for an extended period of time to see if they are right for each other and want to commit to a lifetime together. It's okay to find out after a while that the two of you aren't a match for each other.

Wrong Time:

People come in and out of our lives like seasons and some seasons are longer than others. Our partner may have been the perfect match for us during a particular period of our life, but times change and so do people. Every person serves a particular purpose in our lives for a different period of time. It's okay when seasons and people change because it means that you are growing and changing as well.

Wrong Type:

People's roles in our lives also change over time. It is likely that our partner began as acquaintance, then became a good friend, and ultimately became our partner. In and of itself, the process of creating a partnership involves three different types of relationships. Perhaps what you needed each other for when the relationship began has changed and that's okay.

Breakups don't have to be bad. The true challenge is being honest about our needs and changes in those needs with those we care about and those that care about us. Perhaps the new versions of the two people, at a new time , in a new type of way may fall in love again.

Before there was eBay there was (the attic and then) Public Storage. We used to buy things new and once we didn't want them anymore we would put them in Public Storage. We didn't throw anything away. What you bought was yours for life. That's how antiques get made; Antiques are things that we stop using, but end up valuable to us or someone else later.

We think of love in the same way. We get possessive. That's "my man" or "my woman". Even when we don't want them anymore we hold onto them and put them in Public Storage. They share our living space for a while and then it comes a point that they have to go..."to the left to, the left"!

With the eBay model, everything is always on the market. Goods have the freedom to find their way to whoever they add the most value to. In the same way, our partners and ourselves are always on the market. Do you really think that the same energy that attracted you to your partner just shuts off once the two of you start dating? No...As a matter of fact it probably gets stronger because now that you're "off the market" the market tends to value you more.

Relationships aren't meant to bind people. Unlike goods sold on Ebay, people should be free to explore other "buyers" who may be interested in them. The challenge that I face and most people face is being honest about when our interest in another person is stronger than our commitment to our current "owner". Through my own relationships, I've discovered that it is easier to trust and set free (like eBay) than it is to control and limit (like Public Storage).

I'm not sure how I'll know when I've found "the one". As a matter of fact, I don't think that there is just one; I think that the possibilities are infinite and we have the freedom to choose a partner from that infinite possibility in hopes that they will choose us back. That which we fear losing is the very thing that we ultimately lose. If you love something let it go; if it comes back to you then it is yours.

Once a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Off in the distance he could see a person going back and forth between the surf's edge and and the beach. Back and forth this person went. As the man approached he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand as the result of the natural action of the tide.

The man was stuck by the the apparent futility of the task. There were far too many starfish. Many of them were sure to perish. As he approached the person continued the task of picking up starfish one by one and throwing them into the surf.

As he came up to the person he said, "You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. You can't possibly make a difference." The person looked at the man. He then stooped down and pick up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned back to the man and said, "It sure made a difference to that one!"

I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept of writer’s block. You may have even experienced it before. Writer’s block is the inability to freely express yourself through writing. In life, many of have a disease called liver’s block. By liver, I don’t mean the body part, I mean you, the person living your life. There are 3 reasons why liver’s block persist in our society:

1. No space and time to create

Sometimes writers go live in a cabin for a couple of months so that they can have some peace and quiet without and within. When we’re in the chaotic world, there is no time for that. We spend almost 60% of our waking hours working for someone else, another 20% preparing to get there and back (ie dressing, driving, dining), leaving only 20% of our time to do what we want.

2. No ink

To be honest a lot of us are just out of ink. We live our lives getting to one day be instead of being to one day get. Passion is the liquid of life, but we have killed off the very thing that inspires us by silencing the small voice within. Every time we say no to our dreams, they get quieter and quieter. By the time we are ready to live them, they are mute and it's too late.

3. No blank paper

When I think of someone with writer’s block, I imagine a whole bunch of crumpled up pieces of paper in a nearby garbage can. That’s okay! A blank piece of paper means an opportunity for a fresh start. Oftentimes, the piece of paper we are looking at is filled with old stuff and red ink from the past. Ball it up. Let it go. And throw into the hoop of the past where it belongs.

I think we can all agree that change is constant. Therefore, the creation story never ends because creation always is. The real question is who is writing your chapter of our collective story? Each day is a blank sheet of paper that we can write/live what we want. If you’re not writing your own story, then who is?