The most difficult thing, I have found, is defining you. Now there is a plethora of people who are ready to tell you who you are – or should be. This leaves very little room for you to negotiate your own reality. Who is in this discussion you may ask? I am not because I am not yet complete. What I am doing is slowly “waking up” and posing those necessary existential questions: Why am “I” here? Where am I going? What should I do with my life? But beware we must be: at this time authority figures, our parents, our friends, our siblings, literally wash over us with advice: all well intentioned, but misplaced. This fills us with yet more questions. It all seems too confusing and, in another way, so pointless. You begin to take special notice of the misanthropes: the broken souls with vacuous eyes. “There is no purpose to life” is an oft recited phrase. But, there is:
Life is a great adventure, a great journey and its ultimate goal is uncovering the gold mine hidden within you. Curiously, no one but you can guide you to its glittering shaft. “It is far. But there is no journey upon this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There is nothing, … that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross; save a mountain and a desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he holds his life in his hand counting it as nothing, ready to keep it or to lose it as Providence may order.
Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument, remains. His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he breathed still stirs the pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the words he spoke yet echoes on through space; the thoughts his brain gave birth to we have inherited to-day; his passions are our cause of life; the joys and sorrows that he knew are our familiar friends–the end from which he fled aghast will surely overtake us also!
Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard specters, but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once been, can never die, though they blend and change, and change again forever.” This passage comes from King Solomon’s Mines, (1) the bestselling novel of 1885. It is an allegorical tale of finding oneself through “trial and error.” (2) Through effort a person can find their true calling and life mission. So the riposte to the above referenced phrase is that you define your own purpose. You have total free will to choose the kind of life you would like to live.
This is where it gets “sticky.” Our capitalist system focuses on money. Few people, however, want to live life as Ebenezer Scrooge. (3) The acquisition of extreme wealth, nonetheless, requires commitment. Money is not free! Something must be sacrificed in its attainment: love, time, relationships. “‘But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?’
‘It is required of every man,’ the Ghost returned, ‘that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world–oh, woe is me!–and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!’
‘…I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never roved (travelled) beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole (tiny financial institution); and weary journeys lie before me!’”
If your life goal touches on the acquisition of wealth, it must have the concept of a duality: spiritual wealth and pecuniary wealth, as well.
Finally, though hard to believe: Life is fun and exciting because, simply that — it is life. As the great Stoic Lucretius (99-55 BC) reminds us: “Life is the absence of death and death the absence of life.” Simply put: without me there is no reality. With this premise of life, it would seem nonsensical to throw your life away on unhappiness, substance abuse or lack of a goal, wouldn’t it? Life is not easy: get down to the work of releasing your potentiality and create “your” reality. The great scholar and visionary, Confucius (551-479 BC) leaves us with a thought: The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential … these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.
A small joke: Mrs. Hay liked hats very much. She went into a hat shop and tried on tens of hats. Finally she said to the exasperated clerk. “I like this hat: I’ll take it.” “But,” replied the saleswoman, “that is the hat you wore into the shop!”
This week, please reflect on your potential and your excellence.
Every day look for something magical and beautiful.
Quote: Ask yourself: “Where am I right now?” The answer, of course, is in the moment. This means that the only reality in now and you can control the “now” with practice through meditation: be happy and express gratitude.
Footnotes:
1) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042646/. Adventurer Allan Quartermain leads an expedition into uncharted African territory in an attempt to locate an explorer who has gone missing during his search for the fabled diamond mines of King Solomon.
2) The expression “trial and error” means to advance in any activity requires action which is not always successful, but gives the experience to eventually become successful.
3) Ebenezer Scrooge is the principal character of Charles Dickens‘ (1812-1870) 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol. The work “Scrooge” has come into the English language as a byword for miserliness and misanthropy. The tale of his redemption has become a defining tale of the Christmas holiday in the English-speaking world.