Category: Words To Live By

Tuesday, September 11^th, 2001, a day most of us will probably never forget. Although it’s been 13 years now since those tragic events took place, I can still remember quite vividly everything I did on that day.

When I awoke in the morning on 9/11, I was still living in Falls Church, VA, mere miles from the Pentagon and Washington, D.C. After getting ready for work I headed out to Herndon, VA to the small company I was employed at there. I clearly remember looking up at the sky on my way there noticing how beautiful of a day it was going to be. Little did I know how the events to come would change all that?

It was 7:30am by the time I arrived at my job and sat down at my desk. I was a software tester back then at this company working on a biometrics based check-cashing program. I didn’t love this line of work too much, especially there, as I had frequent run-ins with the boss. But I can honestly say I was pretty good at what I did. After getting my morning to-do list out of the way I glanced at the time and saw it was getting close to 9:00am, which was when I usually walked next door to get a breakfast sandwich. I decided to check the news on the Internet before heading over there and noticed I couldn’t get on Washington Post’s site or USA Today’s. I quickly assumed it was a problem with the company’s Intranet/Internet connections and strolled over to the café feeling rather hungry.

After ordering my egg sandwich, one of the people there abruptly pointed at the television there and said, “Did you see the news???!!!” It was 8:50am and American Airlines Flight 11 had just crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Unbeknownst to me at the time, one of my brother-in-law’s family members had been sitting in the first class section of that plane having decided to take an earlier flight out to get home sooner to his wife.

As I watched the news with this stranger while waiting for my sandwich to be made, I silently thought to myself how a pilot could have been so far off course to have done something like that. I shrugged my shoulders and went back to my desk after being handed my bacon, egg, and cheese on a bagel. Sitting there at my desk while eating it, I tried again and again to get back on the Web solely to see more on this latest news headline, but to no avail. Suddenly one of my co-workers yelled out “Oh My God!” in horror causing me to swiftly race to her desk. Somehow she had gotten on the Internet only to discover at 9:03am that United Airlines Flight 175 had crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

My mind quickly raced from one thought to the next and it’s then I knew these crashes weren’t accidents. Most of us went back to the café after that to watch the news coverage of these disasters because we were told the Internet issues weren’t coming from within the company. There I would watch rather numbly, the live coverage of American Airlines Flight 77 after it too crashed but into the Pentagon at 9:37am.

I looked around at the empty stares and solemn looks on the people watching with me, as the Pentagon was not too far from all of us there. My only thought at that point in time was that World War 3 was beginning and all I wanted was to do then was call my partner to hear his voice. That’s when I, and everyone around me, started discovering the cell phone network was totally down.

When the South Tower collapsed at 9:59am, followed shortly thereafter at 10:03am with another plane crash of United Airlines Flight 93, I tried to pinch myself hoping it was all a dream. It wasn’t and that became more apparent when the North Tower collapsed at 10:28am. An image of me standing at the top of the observation deck of the World Trade Center a year earlier quickly flashed in my mind and I immediately realized I’d never be able to go to the top of it again.

The company would send us all home soon after this because none of us knew how much worse it was going to get. When I walked out of my building, I was half afraid of seeing some type of a missile fly through the air, but instead it was eerily silent in the sky. I continued to try calling my partner on my way home but couldn’t get any type of connectivity. It was sheer madness on the roads as well as it seemed everyone else was sent home at the same time. I watched driver after driver be reckless trying most likely to race to their own home just to see their loved ones like I was. When I finally reached my own my partner was already there, as he too had been allowed to leave for the day.

We embraced in silence and then turned on the television only to see the news highlight all the looks of horror in people’s faces near each disaster site. The buildings collapsing were then being replayed over and over and over again to the point where I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I went outside and cut the grass because it seemed like the most rational thing to do at the time. Looking back now it actually seems like it was a rather strange thing to do given the seriousness of what was taking place that day.

A few hours later my partner and I decided to drive down to the Pentagon because there was some part of us that still wanted to believe that none of what we were seeing on the news was real. The full impact and weight of the entire day’s tragic events solidified within me shortly thereafter when I saw Flight 77 sitting there on fire half in and out of the Pentagon with my very own eyes.

Things weren’t the same for quite awhile after that day in the Washington D.C. area. Each morning when I headed out to work, the skies remained empty except for an occasional fighter jet or helicopter. And each time I’d see one of them overhead I’d think another crash had happened. Thankfully there weren’t, but I knew then my life was forever changed.

My family would grieve the loss of Andrew Curry Green for a long time afterwards and because I was from New York, I would learn of others distantly connected to me who also perished from the terrible events that day. Making things even more difficult for my mental state, I’d infrequently get graphic updates from my cousin Brian, who was an NYPD officer at the time, as he was part of the initial cleanup process at the World Trade Center site.

For a almost a year after that, I continued to wish I could go back in time and make all of the horrors of that day go away. Ultimately the entire mental and emotional trauma I saw and heard from the events of 9/11 would catch up with me. I ended up having to go see a social worker for a bunch of therapy sessions just to work through it all. In time I did, much in part due to those sessions and the help of my Higher Power.

9/11/2001 is truly a day that I know I’ll never forget. It’s my only hope and prayer that all the souls lost that day are with their Higher Power now. Whether those terrorists believed their actions were achieving something for their God I really can’t say, but I know my Higher Power is one who would never advocate for any violence. Hopefully one day there won’t be any more acts of terrorism like this and we will all be living with a lot more peace, love, and harmony instead. Until then, 9/11 will always be a constant reminder for me of a spiritually sick world that still needs to get well. And my only prayer is that I may be one of the souls who help my Higher Power eventually get it there…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

My Mom told me again and again when I was a little kid that I should never use the word hate. She said always said that hate is such a hateful word. And while my mother might have had her shortcomings that stemmed mostly from her alcoholism, I can honestly say I don’t remember her ever muttering the word even once. Unfortunately the same wasn’t true of me and it took me a long time to figure out how unhealthy it was not only myself, but also the rest of the world, each time I said it.

Merriam-Webster defines the word “hate” as an intense hostility and aversion towards something, usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury. It also defines it as an extreme dislike, detest, or antipathy of something.

All of the words in these definitions are very ugly sounding to me today, but there was a time when I actually liked the toxic weight of them. There was a period when I really enjoyed projecting the ugliness of them onto others that I held some type of resentments towards. “ I HATE YOU!” was something I probably said far more than I wish to recollect these days and it was always towards people or things I felt hurt by in some way. During each the years I got drunk and high, I used the word hate even greater and that would continue far beyond the days after I became clean and sober as well. Why that was is quite simple. I hated myself and who I had become, but it was far easier to hate everyone else instead.

It took a lot of work for me to actually stop hating myself and to get there took forgiving everyone and everything I ever held any serious dislike towards, including me. But once I did for the majority of whom I had harbored that negativity towards for so long, I no longer had an attraction to using the word hate in any of my sentences. In fact, anytime I did after that point felt grossly wrong within me, as if I was stabbing my own heart and soul. I had a good reminder of this the other day when I had a weak moment with a pesky squirrel that’s been digging up my yard quite a bit lately. After discovering another patch of grass dug up, I yelled, “I hate you squirrel” and immediately felt pretty awful afterwards.

I believe I felt that way after shouting at this squirrel is solely because using the word hate towards anything only sends a wave of toxic energy into the world and back into myself. If you don’t believe me, try screaming “I HATE YOU!” as loud as you can the next time you are in a good space, but alone where no one else will be affected except yourself. See how you feel afterward in saying those words. I can emphatically say I always feel worse afterwards when I say them, and it’s my hope you might feel this way as well if you should ever speak them.

I truly feel that using the word hate in any language is not healthy for any of us in this world. It’s my belief that it only fills the planet and each of us up with a lot more darkness. To prevent this from happening and to reverse the trend altogether is going take all of us becoming free of every resentment we have towards anyone or anything, including ourselves. Once we do, I honestly believe that none of us will want to use the word hate in any of our day-to-day vocabulary.

So while my mother may have had her downfalls in life, I definitely think she was on to something when she said that hate is such a hateful word. Thank God I totally see that now and hopefully you do as well…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Many gifts can often come with some type of a price tag to those who receive them. In other cases, many gifts can often be given at the same time the action is self-serving the giver. In either case, both are extremely selfish in nature and are acts I once did with great frequency. Thankfully, my growing spirituality has clearly shown me this and led me more on a path to selfless gift giving.

Here are 10 examples of what my selfish gift giving once looked like:

1. Giving two tickets to a friend for some type of a show where one of them was actually meant for myself.
2. Buying tickets for a partner to some type of a show that I knew was really not the kind of thing they were into.
3. Taking someone out to dinner to a place that was really my favorite restaurant and not theirs.
4. Helping someone out with some type of a chore, only to store the action away for a future “You owe me”.
5. Giving any type of a gift to someone hoping it will lead to a sexual favor later.
6. Telling someone they can call anytime for support, solely because I have sexual interests in them.
7. Treating someone to a movie that is really in a movie genre I only like.
8. Buying any type of gift solely to defuse another selfish action.
9. Taking someone on a lavish vacation in the hopes that action will make them never want to leave me.
10. Giving money to someone in a financial crisis as a gift only to ask for it back sometime later, even when I don’t need the money.

These are just some of the many ways I once used gift giving so selfishly. In my own mind I always believed I was being quite virtuous with each of these type of gift giving actions. But in fact I was not. Deep down inside, the only thing I was essentially concerned about was what I was going to get out of it, whether at the time of me offering it, or sometime later.

Selfless gift giving is nothing like this. It’s something that strictly comes from the heart and soul and never has any hidden agenda attached to it. I wasn’t able to ever achieve that for a very long time because I lived more in my ego than in my heart and soul. Once I made the decision to turn my entire will and life over to the care of a Higher Power, I began feeling guilty every time I tried to do even a slight bit of selfish gift giving. Fortunately, I find myself offering more and more gifts today to others that are not self-serving me in any way. Nor are they containing any hidden price tag either. Instead, I’m just finding myself wanting to see people happy these days in receiving a gift that is solely about them and them alone.

Here are 10 examples of what that might look like:

1. Buying a pampered massage for someone to enjoy alone.
2. Taking a person out to a restaurant they particularly enjoy, even when it’s one you might not like.
3. Buying two tickets to a show for a friend where you have no intention of going whatsoever and insist that they take someone else.
4. Buying the entire purchase for a person in line behind you at a coffee shop.
5. Sending flowers to someone just because and not letting them know it’s from you.
6. Dropping whatever you’re doing to spend time with someone who reaches out for help.
7. Paying for someone else’s bill and not letting them know you did it.
8. Cooking a favorite meal for someone, even when it’s not one of your favorite dishes.
9. Watching a movie with someone that you know they’ll love, even when it’s one you know you won’t.
10. Donating money to someone’s cause that you have no connection to on any level.

There are plenty of other ways as well that selfless gift giving can occur in this world, but it’s important to remember that nowhere in any of them is there room for a “You owe me later” type of attitude. Selfless gift giving is truly unconditional in nature and feeds the soul too. I’m just glad that I’ve been taught this principle on my path to spiritual enlightenment.

So the bottom line is this. Selfish gift giving certainly is something that comes with a price tag or a self-serving reason. And while some might say that selfless gift giving still benefits the giver on some level as well, I can honestly say I never feel guilty anytime I do it. With that being said, I take that as a sign from my Higher Power which type of gift giving I’m really meant to keep right on doing…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson