Sunday story...Whose God is it?

Sunday Story…Whose God is it?

Every week for the past 18 months (76 weeks) I have sat down at my keyboard and wrote a story for you to read. I guess they are not really stories in the traditional sense of “story”. I suppose they are more like philosophical musings, or some learning I have had from my 50+ years of roaming the earth, and sometimes (often) a particularly poignant point of view about something that has happened in my life recently.

Many of you have commented over the year and a half. Most of the comments have been laudatory and polite. Some of the comments have been thank yous for pointing out something or some point of view that maybe you hadn’t thought of before my writing. And some of the comments have been less than nice. And that is OK. I welcome any and all comments. Looking down the page I would expect a comment or two this week as well.

I don’t, however, usually respond to the comments. Good, bad, indifferent, it does not matter; I just don’t respond. Seems to me to be the only fair thing to do…if I respond to one I should respond to all, after all. Please do not take it personal if I didn’t respond, it was not meant as a personal affront.

As I sit here today I have no idea what is about to happen. This is often the case. I sit down and start typing and 1000 words or so later there is a story for you. Frequently I read the story a week or two later and wonder who wrote it. Or I get a comment and have to re-read the piece to see what it is you are talking about. Anyway, that is the process…it is kind of like a download from somewhere into my fingers and onto the screen. Pretty magical when it comes right down to it.

Lately I have been thinking about God. Mainly because a “man of god”, Pat Robertson, was on his CBN television show claiming that the earthquake in Haiti was a punishment from God. If you don’t believe me here is a link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5TE99sAbwM
Now, honestly I don’t know Pat Robertson. I have never met the man and I don’t listen to what he says. But his comments really set me to thinking (and that is what these stories are really about).

Would God really punish an entire nation in this way almost 200 years after the alleged pact with the devil was made? Would God allow babies, and elderly people and pregnant mothers and more to die under the crushing weight of mortar and timber just to punish them for something they did not do? Really? And if God is really all knowing and all seeing wouldn’t he see the suffering and the struggle the Haitians live with every day and let that be punishment enough? What kind of being would do such a thing?

In the annals of human culture and existence the stories of Gods and Goddesses doing frightful things to humans are all over the place. Greek mythology is full of nasty and naughty little games the deities played with humans. Almost every society, every culture, every religion has these stories in some way shape or form. It appears that Pat Robertson’s God is a very big meanie who holds grudges for a very, very long time. I thought maybe we were getting past all these phantasmagorical tales of vengeful beings raining fire, frogs, and floods down on the human race. I guess I was wrong.

The people of Haiti need our help. Frankly, they needed our help last month and the month before and last year as well. The earthquake just served to put their suffering back on the front page of our awareness. Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. Consider some of the other candidates…El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Cuba and others. Yet Haiti is the poorest. This is the first black-led nation to break free of colonialism in the world and the only one to win its freedom through a slave revolt. That is correct…the slaves overthrew their masters in armed revolt to win their freedom in 1805 (unless you believe Pat R. that is).

And today they are enslaved by poverty, lack of resources, and government greed. We will all send money and food and help for some little while until the next disaster strikes and then we will all send money and food and help there as well. Folks we have got to do better than that. Had the Haitians had proper buildings and building codes the death toll would have been so much less. But they don’t have those things. Actually, they don’t have even the basic infrastructures that you and I take for granted every day…clean running water, well maintained roads, free public schools, hospitals, and more. Every day I hear someone complain about the water that comes out of the tap…it’s bad, you shouldn’t drink it, blah, blah, blah. Hey…it’s clean, it works and it won’t give you parasites or kill you.

And Haiti is just the one example. There is country after country in the world almost as bad, as bad, or even worse (look at Somalia). And until there is a disaster we don’t do much about it. And what can we do? Throw money at it? Honestly I am stumped. I suspect this is going to require a paradigm shift. A shift in how each of us views the world. When we start realizing that a starving child in Somalia or Haiti or Appalachia is a starving child in our own back yard maybe something will shift. Then again, maybe not. I hope so. I hope we figure out how to eliminate poverty and hunger in my lifetime around the world. That would be a world any God would be proud of.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...The Year is 2010

Sunday Story…The Year is 2010
The year is 2010 and I have neighbors who don’t have enough to eat.
The year is 2010 and I have friends with no place to live.
The year is 2010 and I am aware that some people make a choice everyday between food and health care.
The year is 2010 and I know people who have no job because there is no longer a job for them here.
The year is 2010 and I live in the most prosperous country on the planet during the most prosperous time in history. We produce enough food to feed everyone in the world if we knew how to get it to them. We have lots of places for people to live. We could provide health care for the poor, indigenous and less fortunate. We could create jobs.
The year is 2010 and I live in a place abundant and verdant yet the people in it seem to operate from a mindset of scarcity and lack. Instead of being generous and giving, all of a sudden we seem to be worrying about making sure our piece of the pie doesn’t get any smaller, even though the slice I have is plenty big enough for me and a few others.
The year is 2010 and we are all more closely connected than ever before. Yet there is a profound disconnect between us that prevents me from truly connecting with the soul in you. I see your tweets, you status updates, all your friends and the various doings in your life. But do I really get to see YOU? The You that wakes at 3:12AM and wonders if tomorrow will be the day the company lays you off, or if the bank will repossess the house, or if your kids will need another prescription you can’t afford. Do I really know the YOU that dies a little when you see the line getting bigger every week at the food pantry. Do YOU let me know how your heart breaks when you see people living in tents in 0 degree weather?
The year is 2010; 10 years into a new century and our problems seem to have shifted into overdrive. We are all waiting for something…the economy, 2012, the second coming, global warming, something.
The year is 2010 and we sit upon the edge, the cusp of something truly amazing. We are at a tipping point in history. A time not unlike the 1770s when a new idea for governance was created and implemented among the blood, sweat and tears of a new nation.
The year is 2010 and we can continue doing what we have always done. We can try to go back to the economy we enjoyed before. We can try to re-do and correct the mistakes using the same tired technology that we have been using the past years.
The year is 2010 and the time has come for each of us to begin anew. To take a fresh look at our priorities and the things we really want in our lives. Do I want a giant house? Do I want to not see my neighbors in the food line. And yes, you could have both. But what is your priority? Where do you want to place your focus? The time is here when we should start valuing people over things, relationships before monetary wealth, and smiles over savings accounts, and a child’s well being before my own.
The year is 2010 and I am responsible for the way my world looks today and it is time to change it. I want a different result. I want a different world. I want a world where I am connected to people not separate from them. I want a world where no one goes hungry, lives in a box under a bridge, or dies from lack of basic sanitation and health care.
The year is 2010 and it is time for US to take care of each other. We have abdicated responsibility for each other to faceless governments, nameless corporations and uncaring institutions. There is no US and THEM, there is only WE.
The year is 2010 and things have changed if we allow them to be changed. Or we can return to the way things were before. But this is going to happen again and again until we change. Just like in our own lives the universe will keep giving us signals, opportunities and signs that our course is wrong. We ignore these things at our own peril. Our society, our culture, our world, is getting the signs that it is time to shift, to change, to transform into the next thing. Just like not paying attention to that stop sign, failure to pay attention now will result in long term pain and suffering.
The year is 2010 and all is not well. Yet. We can make it better but we must move forward, facing our fear and jumping anyway. After all we can always go back to the way we were, right?
The year is 2010 and I am hopeful. I believe in the power of individual effort and vision. I believe our birthright is to be connected and happy. I believe there is enough for everyone in the world to have what they want…if they know what it is, believe they deserve it, know why they want it and what it takes to get it.
The year is 2010 and …

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Death Be Not Proud

Sunday Story…Death Be Not Proud

“For death begins with life's first breath, and life begins at touch of death.” --- John Oxenham

Each and every one of us is going to pass from this earthly existence. It has been our fate since our first breath; a guarantee that some day we will take our last. In between our first and our last breath is the life we will live. We can’t always determine when our last breath will be but we can determine how well we live in between those breaths.

Recently a friend of mine took her last breath. It was an unexpected event as most deaths are. This one even more so since the age and the health of my friend would not warrant any one to predict or expect this, the ultimate complication to occur. She was kind, loving and generous. Her husband and children and grandchildren will miss her terribly. The world is less for her no longer being a part of this earthly plane.

Fortunately she was a very organized person and she left her affairs in order. Things were easy enough to find, wishes were carried out and the tedious day to day tiny things were more easeful because she was organized. Me…not so organized. If I were to draw my last breath today things would be a mess. Actually that is an understatement; they would be a disaster. I have stuff in 4 different places, no last will and testament, no durable power of attorney, no advance directive. And since my daughter is reading this…and since she will be the one to deal with it…I will make it a priority to get those things done, I promise, before the month is out. Not doing these simple things is dis-respectful of the people left to deal with the detritus of a life. You can join me in getting these little things done.

The other part of not doing them is, in fact, an unreasonable fear of death…a denial of the obvious and the inevitable. We all know, intellectually, that we are going to pass. But maybe if we just ignore it, death will go away; just neglect our door step until….when? I mean even if you got to pick the time and day of your passing…when will you finally get all those little details done? So why not just do them now and get it out of the way?

You could even plan your memorial service…pick the music, the inspiring readings, the pictures you want the world to see, how you want to be remembered. You could write your own obituary…of course you would want to update this fairly often but you could write what you want to be written. As a matter of fact writing your obituary is a very good exercise…you get to write about your life like your passing is 10 years in the future. What will you accomplish in the next 10 years? What will you have completed, started, or released? How will the next 10 years differ from the last 10? Other than you being 10 years older than you are today?

This leads us right into the goal setting part of the exercise…if I write my obituary 10 years in the future I am creating my life for the next 10 years. And when you and I look back on New Year’s Day 2020 what will you have done? What legacy will you have created? What life will you have led? Who will you have influenced? Who will you have let influence you? Will you have spent the time or will you have just let it slip through the hourglass? We create budgets for our money…we should also budget our time. And time is more precious than any dollar…since I cannot create more time. Once that moment is gone it is gone for good, never to return or be recreated.

Every one of us is going to die. Our earthly body will crumble and fail at some point. The question to contemplate right now is twofold…one, are your affairs ready right now? Can someone come in and find all the paperwork, the bank accounts, the requests, the legal mumbo-jumbo that needs to be around after we are not? And # 2...is your legacy ready? Have you planned what you want the rest of us to remember? And if you have planned it, are you working that plan? Are you doing something right now to that will move your legacy forward?

Death be not proud…you are coming for each of us. There is no pride in solving the inevitable. Life affords us the occasional window to see what is coming. We can pull up the blinds and look out and decide to deal with the inevitable or we can keep the blinds down, sit in the dark and hope death passes us over. It won’t but you can always participate in self delusion. Those of us left won’t be very happy with you but we will get through it. You, on the other hand, missed your shot at creating the life you could have had, the life you always wanted, the life you richly deserve. So what do you say? Look up and create something or stuff your head in the sand and hope everything turns out OK?

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” --- Anonymous

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Stranger in a Strange Land

Sunday Story…Stranger in a Strange Land

OK…I live in a bubble…I don’t watch commercial TV…I don’t listen to commercial radio…I don’t read popular magazines or newspapers…I have no idea about popular culture unless it shows up on Facebook, twitter, or on yahoo.com news headlines…Until yesterday. Yesterday I spent a large portion of the day in front of commercial television.

I am afraid. Afraid of where we are going as a culture. Afraid for the people for whom television is their main companion in their day. And I am not talking about the programming; I am talking about the commercials.

Let’s face it...I live pretty simply. I am not interested in the latest and greatest thing. I don’t take handfuls of pills for real or imagined illnesses. I am not going to watch the next reality TV show where a bunch of people get real mean, real stupid, and real nasty to each other. I am not the audience these things were created for.

I am an alien, a stranger in a strange land. As I sat, mesmerized, by the myriad of products offered for my benefit(?), I wondered if I had stumbled upon the twilight zone, where, although seemingly normal on the surface, the world has gone silently insane and I am the lone sane person left. And about to be arrested and locked up for not being “normal” like the rest of the inmates.

When I happened to mention my slightly skewed vision of the happenings on the big screen in front of me my companions just looked at me and smiled knowingly. Almost like I would get it and become more interested and interesting when I did. Until that point I was almost leprous in my visage.

I saw drug commercials for “disorders” that did not exist 5 years ago. Drugs for which the side effects were so much worse than the disorder they were supposed to be treating. When did it become OK to create new diseases for which there are new drugs to “cure?” It would appear that the pharmaceutical industry has taken it upon itself to cure everything in the world, even common things like emotions. Feeling sad? Talk to your Doctor about feel good pills? After all sadness just won’t do. Feeling angry? Try the even steven pill designed to stop even the angriest person and have them become even-tempered and mild mannered.

Folks, I want to feel. I want to be sad sometimes. I want to grieve and mourn and tear my hair out. Sometimes I want to be angry, stomp my feet, and maybe even throw something. And I want to be happy, and dance with joy, laughing and skipping like a small child. It is the emotion that creates things in the world. Passion is the fuel of life. Give me 10 passionate people over 100 dispassionate unfeeling drones every day.

The brave new world is upon us if television is any indication. Pills for everything that happens. Reality shows for every profession. Pretty soon we will all just be able to lie there hand have experiences piped into your cerebral cortex and call it life. You won’t have to leave the sofa…to go on safari, to make love for the first time, to taste the delectable pleasure of candied ginger chocolate, the caress of your beloved, or the scent of a new born baby. All of those things will just get downloaded into your experience bank through a pill or a drink or something.

There will always be people like me though. Out on the fringe…wanting to feel, to experience the flavors life has to give…both the good and the bad. Let’s face it…life is good and abundant but sometimes it stinks too. Sometimes your life just isn’t going the way you want it to go…you lover leaves you, your parents die, you get sick, maybe lose your job. And you are going to suck it up and feel the feelings and deal with whatever it is that is coming your way. Or maybe you are just going to disappear from reality and slap some salve on the feeling in the form of a pill or a bottle or a TV show or video game or the latest thing the tube said you should have. Your choice.

Life is about living. Life is about the experiences that you create. Life is what you do with what happens to you. If you disappear into a rabbit hole of escapism every time something happens how will you move forward? What will happen to your soul if you just take another trip without leaving the farm? I can see where life can show up a painful, and hard and not so easy. So what did you want…the life where nothing happens? Where everything is just, even, fair and equitable? Where there is no injustice, no pain, and no inhumanity? If you are still reading this I think not.

Turn off the TV. Permanently. There is a slime oozing out of your TV set (thanks Frank Z.) and it is rotting your brain, and your children’s brains. It is promoting the worst in values there is. You don’t need to be informed of the latest bad news. You don’t need the newest pill for the latest disorder. You don’t need to watch self indulgent children whine and cry in front of millions of people because they might get a couple of bucks or at least some attention from the world. Do you? Really? Do you?

I don’t. I will continue to roam, a stranger in a strange land. Wondering how I got here and where I am going. Want to come along?

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Angels andDevils

Sunday Story…Angels or Devils

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
Marianne Williamson, Return to Love, 1992


There is no shadow without light. Without evil good cannot be defined. The sky is met by the ground. We can’t have one without the other…masculine and feminine are two sides of the same coin. Life is often defined by death.


Yet when these things are in balance, there is no motion, only stasis and in stasis there is death. If we are not growing we are dying (which is a form of negative growth, I suppose). The key is not balance. Being even and “fair” can’t create anything new. Creation is a process of ripping and tearing apart of the status quo, the balance, the norm and the normal.


What I want to find is harmony; a harmony between my shadow and my light. We can think of this as an understanding, or an alliance, between two opposing forces that do not need to be at war with one another in order to move the mission forward.


Every one of us has our demons; those forces that seem to pop up and take over our lives at the most inopportune times. Drugs, alcohol, food, sex, work, and, yes, even exercise can be things that just seem to take over our lives. Sometimes it is like the creeping death that slowly pervades our existence until one day we look up and find our entire existence consumed by our demons. This is not harmonious because now I have to regain or wrest control back from the other side. Now the other side is in “control” and is not going to allow those other forces back out of the closet. Until one day, our guard is down and boom the demon is upon us and running the show with breakneck speed hurtling toward the inevitable crash and burn. Treating your demons in this way is like having a tiger for a pet. If you don’t watch out the tiger will eat you even though it will guarantee his demise. If you are going to keep a tiger as a pet you had better feed and care for him very well. This is the way of your demons…if you try to lock them up in a closet somewhere, you can bet they are trying to get out every second you ignore them.


Then there are the lesser demons…procrastination, tardiness, sloth, and the general malaise known as the excuses. In many ways these “lesser” demons are worse. You give them permission to run things. “Oh, I am always late.” “I have a hard time with names.” “I can’t miss the next episode of _______” “The game is on.” “It wasn’t my fault, really it wasn’t.” You empower them and allow them to be the ones in charge of things. Which really lets you off the hook. Sort of. Because you really can’t be off the hook when it comes to your own life.

You have to own all your demons and your angels. They belong to you and you alone. If you deny either the good or the bad you have lost a precious part of yourself and your life. Without winter the earth cannot rejuvenate itself. And if spring never came we would all die in hibernation. The sun has the power to destroy and create. It is in this harmony, this flow that we all must live. Fighting against this current is futile. Yet when things are in balance nothing can flow and move and create and begin or end.


Harmony between summer and winter creates the ebb and flow of life. Harmony between the forces creates the dynamic that moves us forward in our lives. Harmony makes the winter a time of renewal and summer the time of ease and enjoyment.


So how am I to harmonize the “negative forces” that seem to be able to ruin my life at a moment’s notice? How about we stop judging and labeling these forces as good or bad? Or even as angels or demons. After all a work ethic is good, yet we consider workaholism a bad thing. What if we try on that as a harmony…I sometimes need to burn the midnight oil to get things done. And that is a good thing. And I need to turn that oil off sometimes and just relax occasionally. I need to work out and train but my body cannot get stronger without rest. This is the paradox of life…there is no growth without both action and inaction. Neither one of them is good and neither one of them is bad. They just are. Just like light and dark…not good not bad just the harmony of the two of them creating the world we need to thrive in.


Maybe, just maybe if I stop looking as the light as good and the dark as bad I can move forward into a harmonious relationship with both of them, instead of constantly battling one or the other. Fighting the ebb and flow of the universe is like grasping water, almost impossible to do as a long term strategy but if I can channel the water in a direction, then I can harness the properties I so desire.


I may love the clay pot but it is the emptiness inside that is so useful. One without the other is nothing. Harmony.


Oh, and Happy Harmonious Holidays to you and yours.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Lie to Me

Sunday Story…Lie to Me

“Those that think it permissible to tell white lies soon grow color blind.”

Austin O'Malley

Integrity, truth, honesty…action words in a world that thinks they are concepts. There are have been many times in my life where I allowed someone to believe something that was not true. A lie of omission is still a lie. There have been other times where I acted knowing that I could not get permission before I acted, so I thought it would be OK to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. Another lie of another type but it is still a lie.

It is said that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission. I am not sure of the truth in that statement. I can imagine that it may actually be determined by which side of the fence you are sitting on.

But if you really think about it, asking for forgiveness after you have already done something that you knew you could not get permission for isn’t exactly standing in the light of integrity is it?

Then again there is the argument that legal is not always right and illegal is not always wrong. How and when do I get to set and follow my moral compass? Part of integrity is following the rules. It also includes both telling the truth and being honest. It is the being honest part that may be the most difficult. If I am going to follow my moral compass and that does include following the rules where and when do I break the rules? If I break the rules I must be prepared to deal with the consequences of not playing by those rules. I must stand up and say I did this thing even though it was against the rules. This is the why of it and where my moral compass was pointing at the time.

Being honest and in integrity starts with being honest with me first. How often do you finish a meeting, or a dinner, or a date and fell angry and upset with yourself because you didn’t hold true to yourself. You didn’t stand up for some position you believe in, or defend yourself or your loved ones from some snide nasty little digs that should have been sent back to the sender? If I can’t stand up for myself, how can I expect anyone else to do it for me?

Being honest means telling the truth before you are asked about it. So if I am being honest, I must ask permission before I need to ask for forgiveness. The problem is really going to settle on you internally. Because, if I ask permission, I must be ready to hear “no”, in other words, I must be ready to have my request denied. And if I am being honest I will make the request first before I act. And when the answer is “no” or the request is stamped “denied”, what will I do? Go ahead and do it anyway? Now I am actively pursuing a path of dishonesty. That is not good at all.

I must be willing to have my request denied. I must be willing to state and plead my case if need be and I must be willing to accept the denial if I am going to be truly honest. But what happens after that? What do we do after we accept the no?

We can lick our wounds and go home. We can find a new way to present our position. And maybe even better we can find a new idea in the ashes of the old one. Maybe we can find a way to maintain our integrity, get what we want, and have the other party get what they want. Sometimes we just have to find a way around that we are not currently aware of. And that denial may actually open the door of new thought and creativity.

Asking for forgiveness is easier than asking permission. It is also the coward’s way. If I go ahead and do it anyway, I have given the other party no choice but to forgive my actions. I never gave them the chance to say yes. And if I knew they would not say yes, and then my ego and pride says I am better, I know better, than you. And I did it anyway and you can like it or lump it. How prideful is that?

Asking permission is hard. You have to be ready to hear no. You have to be ready to support your request. You have to be ready to negotiate or compromise. You have to be willing to change your position. And you have to be willing to stand in your own power and integrity to get what you want.

If I just present you with the fait accompli (the thing done) you may accept it but will you ever trust me? How can you expect me to bring you the truth in the future? By being so presumptive I make the assumption that you are not capable of agreeing with me and take your ability to choose away from you. Not fair and not living in integrity either.

So don’t lie to me. Don’t assume I will say no. Do the right thing and ask permission. Be ready to hear no. Be ready to defend your position. Most of all don’t lie to you. Don’t tell yourself that you know what is best for me (you don’t). Don’t tell yourself that asking forgiveness is better than asking permission. It isn’t…but it is easier. Easy does not always equal right. When I look in the mirror tomorrow I want to know that I stood for what was the right thing. Even if doing the right thing was not the easy thing.
Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story…I Can See Clearly Now

I can see clearly now….actually I can’t. Truth be told, I can’t see a thing. And the more I look the less I see. It is like when you are underwater and you are trying to see something in the distance or just a flash of a thing. I remember scuba diving in Monterey Bay in Northern California. I was doing my certification dive. The visibility was not very good that day, maybe 6 to 10 feet. Which is plenty when you are just scuttling around on the bottom looking at things on the rocks and such. All of a sudden, something white whizzed right past me. I couldn’t see it clearly. I had no idea what it was but it scared the bejesus out of me. It was all I could do not jump up and run on the top of the water back to shore. I thought for sure a great white shark was out there waiting for me, about to chomp me into two pieces. I gutted the rest of the dive out, my heart racing and my spider senses on full alert. I am sure the oxygen tank was spent far faster than it should have been. When I got back on shore I looked around and, after talking with several other people, I realized that my evil nemesis was a white harbor seal. A creature that meant me no harm or ill will.

My mind created a great white shark, fully equipped with razor sharp teeth and evil intentions. I was in his world, his domain and at the mercy of what? My own mind, my own illusions led me into a fear based state. There was no shark. But I did not know that. I saw something and created something entirely different.

We do this all the time. We see one thing and create another. And this phenomena is not limited to just our sight. Try these on for size:
You walk up to 2 or 3 of your friends who are talking and you catch your name being spoken. They stop talking when you get close enough to participate in the conversation. You are sure they were talking about you in a negative way. In fact, they were planning a party for you.
The waitress at the café where you are having breakfast constantly forgets to refill your coffee, messes up your order, and is generally negligent in her service. You assume she doesn’t like you. In fact, her child was up all night with a high fever and she doesn’t have insurance or money to get him the care he needs.
Your boss drops a load of work on your desk on Friday and tells you it needs to be done by Monday. You are sure he is trying to mess up your weekend plans. In fact his boss told him to fire your entire division if the work didn’t get done.

You are constantly inventing meaning in your life. It is what we do. We create meaning. We create religion to give our lives purpose and meaning. We support athletic teams to give our town/cities meaning. We worry about the meaning of words and what did they really mean when they said… We look at art and wonder what the artist meant when he created the pieces. We read poetry and try to decipher what the poet is trying to make us feel and think. Books have been written about the meanings of other books. We like the world to mean something. We like people to be clear and concise when they talk to us and”mean what they say and say what they mean.”

When I create meaning, I want to create from a position of joy, gratitude and happiness. I assume of everyone the absolute best intentions. If I think people are talking about me I want to assume they are saying wonderful things about me because I am wonderful. When somebody is neglectful around me I assume they are having a hard time I try to give them some compassion and empathy. When something happens to mess up my plans I assume that it is happening because the perfect other thing needs to take place.

The perfect people are doing the perfect thing in the perfect place at the perfect time. What if that was case? What if everything that happened in the world happened because it was the perfection of the moment? How would your life look if you could accept this as truth? Everything that happens is happening because it is the exact right thing to happen at the exact right moment to the exact right people at the exact right place. AND if that is the case…how does your attitude change about what is happening? Won’t you start looking for the lesson in what has happened? Won’t you smile and nod, knowing everything is just as it should be?

And now you can make it mean something good and true and important, rather than something crude, and mean, and menial. Because everything that happens happens so you can move yourself, your soul forward, closer to fulfilling your purpose here on earth, here in this incarnation.

So, yes, I suppose I really can see clearly now…if I just let my thoughts move from a place of beauty, joy, and blessing. Go ahead, give it a try…after all you can always go back to the other way!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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