Whatever your box of chocolate is, that’s your box.
As usual, I’m so excited to be with you today, and I know there’s a lot going on in the world. There’s so much swirling around, but despite all of that, it always comes right back around to us.
And so I wanted to take a minute. One of my philosophies about life is kind of taking it like that famous Forrest Gump movie line. And if you guys remember, he says, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.
And so for me, with all the things that I’ve been through, that line rings very, very true. Because it’s like we come, let’s say, to planet Earth, and we get here and we don’t know what this life is going to be. We don’t know what parents we’re going to get. We don’t know what family we’re going to get. We just kind of land here. And then we have a series of experiences. So it’s like a box of chocolate. Everything is a surprise.
And if you go to my website — which, by the way, it’s a new website — there’s a page there where I list what I consider to be some of the greatest challenges of my life. And for those of you that haven’t been here before, my name is Olivia S. Benson, and I’m the author of a couple of books. The first one is For the Love of My Father, which is available on Amazon. And the second one is Answers from Within.
And in For the Love of My Father, I talk about the challenges that I faced growing up as a fatherless girl, growing up without daddy, so to speak. And so in my life, I come to the planet. And one of my surprise chocolate prizes was that I was going to be this little girl who would have the experience of growing up without a father, and have the challenge of figuring out how to overcome that challenge.
Everybody is getting a box of chocolate
Now, the interesting thing about this box of chocolate is that, despite whatever anybody might say, everybody is getting a box of chocolate, and everybody’s getting a surprise. Now, for some of us, the question always is why. Why did this happen to me this way? And did this happen to the other person? Some people get a delicious box of chocolate, and other people get some what we would consider to be terrible boxes of chocolate. Nobody knows why. People, stop asking why, because it’s not helpful.
Whatever your box of chocolate is, that’s your box. And your job is to figure out how to make the best of your circumstances, how to overcome it.
Why am I here?
Now, the interesting thing — and by the way, Answers from Within is about one of my other challenges. And the other challenge was figuring out what my life work was going to be. And that was a whole process to me. As much as I went to college, and I went to law school, and what have you, I still had a question about what my life purpose, my life mission was going to be. What I was here on planet Earth to do.
So many different things, because life is, if you look at it at this moment, sometimes you have to wonder, why am I here? And those are the questions that I ask often. Why am I here? Where am I going? Who is going with me? What is the reason for my existence? And it has to be, for me anyway, more than about making money.
Happy Women’s History Month
By the way, I know that you all know that this month is Women’s History Month. And there are a lot of different things going on, a lot of different things that I’m going to be doing for this month. But I want to recognize that that’s what this month is about.
And as I proceed, I’d like to say this. It’s Women’s History Month. That doesn’t mean that it’s against men. It’s simply celebrating women. And in many of the things that I speak about, whether it was in For the Love of My Father, with regards to being a woman and overcoming certain issues, or in Answers from Within and the relationship between men and women — the whole thing is not about better than. Men are not better than women. Women are not better than men. It’s all about coming into balance. That’s what we’re working for.
So I am very happy to be alive at a time in our human existence where we actually celebrate women and celebrate their contributions. Because women have been working behind the scenes, but working very, very hard, to make this world what it is. So happy Women’s History Month.
And I know for my male friends that there are many of you who celebrate the occasion happily as well. And you know, I have so many male friends who are great dads. And I know many who have prepared their daughters to be the next owner of their business. And that is a special time in history. Because at one time, women were not even considered. A father could have a business, and if he didn’t have a son, there would be no one to leave it to. But now we’ve arrived at a time where a man can decide, I am running a business and I’m preparing my daughter to take over.
And just to make a little deviation, one of the big issues for women in, let’s say, the 1900s or in the 1800s was that if you married — which for many people that was the only option, survival, being married was part of the plan for survival. Thank God we’re way past that. But what happened if your husband left? If you were unprepared, if you could not make a living, when your husband died and you were a widow, that was practically a recipe for disaster.
And fortunately for women, not only are they able to get an education and to get a career and to make a life for themselves, but they now have fathers who realize that it’s important for my daughter, regardless of what happens, regardless of whether she marries or not, regardless of whether she has a companion or not, I want my daughter to be whole and I want her to be prepared for her own life. And that’s a significant stride, and it’s very, very important.
Your job is still the same
So as we continue back to the box of chocolate, the main issue people usually have is, why is my life the way it is? And the answer to that question — and it’s not the first time that I’ve spoken about this — the answer to the question of why is, nobody knows why it is. And I always say that if somebody tells you that they know why, you should run, because nobody knows why, and they’re making it up, or they’re crazy.
So the thing about what’s going on right now and why this is important is because there’s so many things going on at the same time. And if you, for example, are somebody who’s dealing with, let’s say, daddy issues, or you’re dealing with issues at work, it can be very, very confusing to figure out where you put your energy, where you put your attention. But I want to encourage you to focus on your box of chocolates. No matter what’s swirling around you, your life can only get better when you get better.
So if you know, for example, that you have issues with your father — there’s a whole list of issues, right? It could be issues with your father, it could be issues with your mother, it could be issues at work. The list is unending. However, as you know, I’m always talking about my relationship with my father and how it impacted me. And in the case of Answers from Within, I talk about how serious my quest to find what I’m here to do on the planet was.
So if you know that these are your issues, what’s happening in the world is very secondary. Because even if the world was perfect, and you didn’t address your issues, your life will be the same. So while all the different dramas are swirling in the world, your job is still the same. Your job is to figure out what was in your box of chocolates, and how you’re going to figure it out. You are to stay focused on what your issues are, so that you can become a more complete, a more whole, a greater contributor to the progress on the planet.
What holes we need to fill in order to be whole
My job is always — and the reason that I’m here, the reason that I’m sitting here, and the reason that I do everything that I do — is because I think that it’s wonderful that I had an opportunity to come to the planet, to have as many dramas and challenges as I did, to be able to heal those dramas. I was talking to a friend of mine not too long ago, and I said, our job is to figure out what holes we need to fill in order to be whole.
Because in my view, we come into the world, and we have these experiences that create holes in our souls. And so we are to figure out what damages we’ve suffered, and then figure out how we’re going to fix that, so that we can be whole. And as women, the important thing is, what are my issues? Am I willing to do the work? Am I willing to do the work to be whole? And once I figure that out, then I can be a contributing part of society.
And one of the things that we don’t realize, and I talk about that in For the Love of My Father — this one also available on Amazon — but the thing about it is that sometimes we wonder why things don’t go our way. And what happens is that we’re walking around with an invisible bag of issues. And those issues create a certain kind of energy. And even though people might not understand exactly what it is, those energies can either attract certain things to you, or push certain things away.
So the ultimate decision — and all of us have a choice. In fact, you can do anything you want on the planet. Nobody can make you decide that you want to work on an issue, or not work on the issue.
If you want to be a fatherless girl — and there’s a chapter in For the Love of My Father where I asked this person, this woman, she was much older than I was, and I asked her, and I said, would you ever forgive your father? And she said, absolutely not. In the worst way possible. When I say in the worst way possible, I mean, she was like, Adam, I am never going to forgive him. And I was surprised to hear that reaction from her. Because first of all, she’s entitled to do anything she wants. But if you’re going to live in a place where you choose to hold on to something that is going to be a weight for you, then you’re choosing to live with the consequences of that behavior. Because as you guys know, and I say it all the time, your issues, your burdens, your unforgiveness are all weights. And those weights and that kind of energy can either, again, attract or repel certain things to you.
There’s no point in complaining
So regardless of what’s going on in the bigger picture, our job remains the same. We are to, if we choose to decide or figure out, what are the issues of our life? What are the things that came in our box of chocolates when we came to Planet Earth University? When we got here to Planet Earth University, what was in your box of chocolates?
And I’m smiling, right? But none of this is easy. And none of it is necessarily pleasant. But you’re going to get here. Nobody’s exempt, no matter what people try to have you believe, because people put on all kinds of different faces. But ultimately you’re going to get here and you’re going to have challenges. That’s what happens when you come to Planet Earth University.
And your decision, by the way — no point in complaining. There’s no point in complaining. The only thing to be done is to decide that you’re willing to do the work. This is not scripted, by the way. It’s just falling into place. That you’re willing to do the work, to fill in the holes that were created in your soul, so that you can be whole. And this is whether you’re a man or whether you’re a woman.
It just so happens that it’s Women’s History Month, and my position is that it’s a great time for women. I know it’s a hard thing for you to hear. It’s a great time for women because we’re moving forward. More women than ever are becoming educated. More women than ever are advancing. I know we’re not where we’re supposed to be, but guess what? We’re way ahead of where we were.
This is not the worst that it has been
And I want to tell you one final story. When I was in high school, and I went to a Catholic high school — if you read my story you’ll know that I was a churchified little girl. I was in Catholic school, I was a Jehovah’s Witness, I was going to Baptist church, you name it, whatever. But anyway, I went to speak to one of the brothers, and I was very involved in the end time, let’s say, theology, right? It’s going to be the end of the world.
So I went to one of the brothers and I said, brother such and such, the world is coming to an end and it’s a terrible time and humans — and the whole biblical kind of stuff that I would say at that time. And brother so and so, and he’s alive till this day, he said to me — he must have looked at me with my youthful enthusiasm. And he literally said, now this is a priest, a high level educator, high up in the order that he was involved in. And he said to me, this is not the worst that it has been. Humans have been horrible. You could live and die in a village and nobody would have ever known that your village was looted and plundered and everybody was killed.
And he said — and this was several years ago — we are, despite whatever you might see, we are better than we have ever been. Better than we were in the Middle Ages, better than we were in prehistory. Humans have been horrible to each other. And despite what we see today, it’s better than it’s been.
And now that’s a hard thing to hear. And I was about 17 years old, but he told me that. And I kind of walked out of his office kind of thinking, you know what, there’s some truth to that. And over the years, I always remembered that he said that.
And things are difficult for many people right now. There’s a lot going on. There’s a lot to sift through. But I want to tell you that what my experience is, is that we have to stay focused on what we have to work on. There are lots of things that are outside of our control, but the things that are within our control, we need to stay focused on. We need to know what our issues are. We need to know what our box of chocolates is about when we arrive on the planet. And then we need to make the decision that we’re going to work on it.
As you guys know, my name is Olivia S. Benson, and I am the author of this lovely book, this lovely pink book, For the Love of My Father, which is about the process of how I overcame my daddy issues. And the other book is Answers from Within, which is about my journey to finding answers to all the questions that I had about my life purpose.
And at the back of the book and in the book, I talk about the four questions. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? And who’s going with me? And those to me were the essential questions of my life. I write to share with you how I found my way, and I’m always hopeful that you will find yours.
My website is OliviaSBenson.com. And I’m hoping that gives you some insight about what to do in what many consider to be a very turbulent time. Stay focused, work on what you need to work on. And remember that life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.