What is my life all about and who am I?

It is something we all ask ourselves at one time or another. It is only natural to want to understand what it is that makes us who we are. It is very important that we approach our life with dedication, sincerity, hope and wisdom.  I am not a doctor or a psychologist but I know we all have aspirations and dreams and sometimes we may lose sight of them from time to time. We all want to feel good about ourselves and make friends and enjoy our lives. It is not always so easily defined as to who we are and what we wish to become. Life is one of the greatest mysteries and we don't always understand what we are here for but we live our lives with the intention of being the best we can and we learn early on that we should always respect others and learn to get along and share a part of ourselves with the people we meet along the way. It is very important to be able to communicate and open up and find ways of relating with others. We all need to develop interests and have ideas and visions of things we enjoy doing and we need to integrate this into our lives so we can develop as individuals and blossom as we grow and mature.

Early in our lives we are introduced to learning in a structured setting where we are socialized, taught and encouraged to participate with other children our age. It is a time where we start to discover ourselves as individuals and start to make friends. We are still very dependent on our parents but we are also learning and growing as nature has mandated for us. We are each unique in how we see ourselves and how we see the world around us. We don't always know the answers but we should never get discouraged for growing is all about experiencing, exploring, learning and maturing. We all go through it and certainly can relate with one another. I know that our lives revolve around family, friends, teachers and all those who come into our lives and touch it in some way.

We will learn along the way and through the course of our schooling and our experiences that things are not perfect and although we may feel safe in our lives there are many who struggle each and every day and their chances for survival are very questionable. They are the victims of war, famine, natural disasters and man made disasters. We see it from the distance and are not directly affected by it but when you see the human toll and you realize that many children in the world have no food, no shelter, no safe place to sleep, no education and virtually no chance for survival due to the dangers they face each and every day due to these sad occurrences it makes you realize the harshness and brutal realities that some face in their lives.

I know from personal experience that we all have to learn to cope and accept the good with the bad. Life is not always going to be what we wish or hope for. We surely will have to adapt and find our inner strength to deal with all that life hands us as we live each day. I also have learned that there are so many who have so much less than what we have and we should always be grateful. We will learn in life that there will be those who are better than us too and will have far greater than we have. We should never let this bother us and we should always be inspired by those who go on to achieve true success and fortune in their lives and we should realize that we can have this same opportunity if we challenge ourselves and believe we can achieve all we hope to also.

When we decide to marry and raise a family we must really be secure in our lives and be willing to accept all the responsibilities that come with it. Once we bring a child into the world we will be fully responsible for them and will need to do all we can to help them to achieve and to feel good about themselves. Our children are our gift and we must always treat them as a gift from God. They may not be perfect but they deserve our full attention, our love and our nurturing throughout their lives. They give us a purpose in our lives and they make our lives more fulfilling and joyous. There is nothing as beautiful then that of a child's smile or a gentle hug or the tender words of "mommy and daddy, i love you!" This is the beauty of life and what is most important. Our time with our children are what will make us feel complete. If we had done all we could for our children and spent the time with them as often as we could we will feel a peace when we realize they are all grown up with families of their own as we look back.

Life spans a period of time for all of us. For some it can last almost 100 years with a richness and an abundance of experiences and family. For others it will be for an instant and for most it will cover many years with many experiences and hopefully very memorable and very happy ones despite the sad times. We all will have to face our mortality someday and that is why it is so important to actually live our lives and enjoy it because we will one day realize it does not last forever. It is only for an instant in the annals of time. We best get to live and enjoy our lives while we are here and we should also get to enjoy all the people who come into our lives. This is what our lives are all about and before we leave we will finally get to realize who we are. Hopefully it won't be too late before that happens.

In closing I just wish to say that my journey in life has taken me on a wonderful ride filled with many happy experiences. Although I have had pain in my life suffering from personal tragedies I have been blessed with wonderful parents who have showed me the way and stood behind me always. I salute my parents and I miss them very much. I am also the proud father of a teenage son who is the centerpiece of my writings. He is autistic and has many challenges but my wife and I love him very much and we encourage him always and want to see him happy and feeling confident in his abilities and filled with hope and joy always. He is our greatest gift and we want to see him live his life with a sense of purpose and a hope that he can achieve all that he wishes too. Our lives will be complete when we know he will be ok in his life and very happy. Our lives revolve around him and we will always be grateful for this.

Edward D. Iannielli III