My Slate

We are all born completely and totally innocent. We are truly clean slates, untouched by any type of emotion or hardship. I have been thinking about what life does to us...how each thing we do from the moment we are born, or each thing that is done to us, shapes us into who we are. Some people blossom into beautiful, intelligent people and others don't . Is this because they inherently were born to not succeed in life? Are people born with a certain kind of temperament that is unchangeable? I do not have answers to these questions but it often seems this way. Scientologists believe that we choose our own parents even before conception. There is also a belief that through reincarnations we hold karmic relations with certain people(our parents) and choose to be born to them for one reason or another. I am not sure that these ideologies sit well with me. I do not think that anyone would choose to be born into some of the abusive, impoverished conditions that they are in if it was their choice. Karma is something which I do believe in however. I think we all attract certain things or people (good or bad) to ourselves through our thoughts and actions. We should live our lives in such a way that every action tells others what type of person we are and know that whether it is now or down the road, those actions will come back to us and therefore live our lives accordingly. I have been having very strong memories lately, they are not brought on by anything in particular but I seem to be reminiscing about my life in general. They could be memories from last year, memories from my time in Japan, or memories from when I was 4 years old but I have come to realize they have all shaped me into the person that I am right now at this very moment. Are people born depressed or shy or is that something that developed because of defining moments of their life that turned out negatively? Are people happy and successful because they were always told by their parents that they could achieve anything? Experiences we have throughout our lifetime change the structure of our personality for better or worse. I think that although our slates have been written on, and for me at 28 years old, there is A LOT of writing but I believe no matter what we can make a choice. We can choose to wallow in past mistakes or move forward with our lives and change our perception about ourselves and the world around us. I want to live a life of complete freedom and joy and try to have life experiences that will make me feel these things . My new creed is "Dance like no one is watching, love like you'll never be hurt,sing like no one is listening,and live like it's heaven on earth."
If the whole world could do that what a place it would be...