What Messages Are You Receiving?

We look for meaning in experiences to make sense of our lives. Why did this happen? Why did I do this, or that?

If we look closely, we can see all the synchronistic events that got us to where we are. Through these, we should learn to stop trying to force things in life to happen and allow the rhythm of life to guide us to our destiny.

It is possible to get a clearer understanding of your purpose in life by looking at the experiences that shaped it.

Often when these experiences are happening they seem at times insignificant. But for some reason they stick with us. Then at some point along our journey they become the piece that makes the picture in the puzzle understandable. This is the magic of life.

False Identification and Self-Judgment

Often the most insignificant seeming experiences turn out to have the biggest impact in life. The problem is that we are usually too closed off to our environment to notice; we are not present.

We are trying to force our way through things. Or the false identification and self-judgment we have don’t allow us to recognize the events and opportunities that are right in front of us. Every opportunity you can possibly want is in front of you at this very moment.

However, the false idea of who you think you are prevents you from realizing these opportunities.

The following is an experience, in retrospect, that planted the seed for my life’s work. I have had many experiences like this in life that helped guide me down my path.

I would like to share this one message as a tribute to my father who just passed and also to inspire others to learn from this and the messages they receive, and to use it to examine how the special people in your life were God’s messenger.

My Father’s Gift to Me

I think I was about eleven years old and my father and I were sitting at the counter of a pizzeria enjoying a couple of slices.

It was here, in between bites of pizza, that I received the gift that my father imparted to me. The gift that eventually I would use as the focus of my life’s work.

My father turned to me and casually, but purposefully said,

There’s one thing that is beautiful in every person, you just have to look for it.~Fredrick James Carreo

Even at eleven years old I knew my father well enough to know that there had to be some motivation behind this comment. So, as most of the cheese came off my slice of pizza in one bite, I looked around, but couldn’t find a beautiful girl in sight like I had expected.

I took a moment to reflect as I tried to chew all the cheese without burning the roof of my mouth. It seemed logical. Why wouldn’t everyone be born with one gift, one purpose in life to fulfill? And why couldn’t some people see it? If some people can see ghosts – why couldn’t others see living people’s gift, or life-purpose?

After years of research, I learned that it’s true…

Every person has something beautiful and special about them.

 

Some let it shine, making it easy to notice. While others, still haven’t discovered the gem inside them to give it a good polishing for the world to see.

Beautiful and special don’t mean physical looks, but if you train your eye you can see the physical manifestation of this inner beauty, or special gift that my father was talking about.

Nearly forty-years later it is as tangible as a watch, ring, or necklace that my father could have passed down to me. Searching for a person’s life-purpose, or inner-beauty is second nature for me. It is my gift, my life’s purpose, and what makes my inner beauty shine.

What a gift to see this! What a beautiful gift that I will never forget.

The Greatest Gift I Have Ever Received

This gift has turned into my life’s work. I give it to everyone because it can’t be possessed — it can only be used. If I knew what a big gift I was receiving at the time, I may have pulled some of the cheese out of my mouth so I could digest both things easier.

This has been the greatest gift I have ever received. It has moved everywhere with me. I never had to pack it in a box marked fragile, never had to insure it or even lock it up, and it has always been with me.

I’ve never scratched, cracked, chipped, scuffed, marked, dented, or blemished this gift. I’ve had it in the worst parts of town…at all night parties, dance clubs, Mardi Gras, and even have been surfing in the ocean with it. And it has only shined brighter over time.

Another great thing about this gift is it is adjustable; it adjusts to fit you! It’s like a ring that changes size as your finger grows; a frame that adjust to the picture.

As I was consuming this idea and my pizza, my father irritatingly, said with a mouth full of half-chewed pizza, “I can’t eat next to this smelly guy grab your slice and we’ll eat outside.” Like I said, this kind of gift you can adjust the frame to center the part of the picture you like.

So I grabbed what was left of my slice and my gift, and we left. Thank you to my father! Akaal!

Fredrick James Carreo

30 December 1939 – 17 September 2015