There is something perverse about wanting more than enough. When we have more, it is never enough. It is always somewhere out there, just out of reach. The more we acquire, the more elusive enough becomes. – Author: Unknown

Why Don’t You Live a Little?

This topic seems to arise in my on-line conversations with clients a lot recently. The psychological sciences behind it are probably too complicated to discuss now, but just to put it simply, when are you going to learn how to ‘live a little?

Think about it for a minute. From the day you’re born you’re given objectives, tasks, things you have to go and get done in order to be able to have that life you’ve always wanted. In fact, there’s always one more thing to do, one more step that needs to be taken until everything falls in its place and you’ll be free to live the life you imagined. I know this is not the case with everyone, but for the average person this is exactly the kind of life we are currently living.

You start school, you always have some test or exam coming up and you need to ace it in order to get to the best secondary school, college or university. Then you will be ‘free’. Not!
Once university starts; you party and have a few laughs for a few years but you still realize the importance of being there. So once again you try to ace your exams, to get your degree. After all that’s what you’re there for, a degree. Why? Because without that degree you won’t be able to get that job you wish for, so that you can make enough money to live the life you’ve always wanted. You study hard, thinking that after your degree you’ll get that perfect job and the life you’ve been waiting for.

You get that degree, and now you need a job, you look for the job. Your thought process remains the same. ‘Let me nail this position’! ‘Please, then I can live happily ever after with my family, once I actually get the job’.

What’s important to understand at this stage in your life is this obsessive pattern that has been developing and reinforcing itself for years. Human nature (Or behaviour? Could it be possible that this ‘disease’ is forced upon us by society?) has reached a critical stage in the world today and believes that we never have enough of anything. How could a farmer live a happy life with a simple plot of land a few life stock and lives in a one room home, yet someone with a luxurious home, car, boat and trophy wife and kids never gains fulfilment.

Now that you have ‘that’ job, your life should be in order, or so it seems. Next up, you’re striving for that promotion, to make that extra money, to get that better car, the bigger house, the cooler furniture and in the meantime life continues to pass you by.

What people fail to see is that happiness cannot be achieved by these means, since real happiness relies on the acceptance of where you are and what you have. Ultimately more possessions become your main and only goal. You seek to make your life better by filling it with more expensive cars, clothes, jewellery, all in honour of your vain attempt to satisfy your ego, so that you can ‘start living that life’, that life you’re always wanted.

The rest speaks for itself, until you’re six feet under. I have tried to use my website as a vehicle to continue to raise awareness about the important things in life. However, you must try to open your eyes and see just how valuable this knowledge that I choose to share with you is. Since most of us never really live our moments consciously, we never really experience and appreciate the happiness that they bring. Therefore, this absence of happiness we are blind to see creates a huge empty hole within us which pushes us to need and seek bigger, better and more beautiful things in order to try to fill that void. This ill-fated mission to gain happiness pushes us into the realm of sub-conscious living; the type of living which never gives us pleasure with life’s simple gifts and forces us to seek something we will never find.

So for one last time, I ask all you readers, when are you going to start living your lives? When you graduate? When you get that promotion or start your new business? When you acquire that new BMW? When you own your own boat or win that lottery?

Why don’t you do our world and yourself a very big favour? Stop whatever you’re doing right now, go outside, take a deep breath and reflect a little on what it’s going to take to stop you from running yourself into the ground. Will there be a better time than this to start living? Tomorrow morning, take the day off and go take a walk at the beach or in the countryside. Give a random person a hug, a compliment or a simple smile. Give some quality time to a loved one. Go right ahead, do something extraordinary for a change. Go sky diving, learn to scuba, paint, cook, sing or play a musical instrument. Take the time to enrich your lives with more laughter, joy, love and compassion.

So for one more time let me ask you, when are you going to start living your life? When you win that lottery, or when you’re finished reading this newsletter.

It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, which prevents us from living freely and nobly. - Author: Thoreau

Turning Problems into Potential

How do you respond to the problems that continually surface in your life? If you’re like most people, you feel victimized. You will probably start feeling sorry for yourself; get angry, impatient, blocked and depressed. Why do we resolve to limiting addictions in order to avoid the pain these problems bring us? Why do we consistently choose to believe that problems spoil our life?
For those of us on a self-development path, problems and hurdles are precious gifts that open the door to deeper self-knowledge. Through them, we can identify and release the unconscious fears and negative beliefs that hold us back from higher consciousness.

So what are problems or blocks? From my perspective, they block the natural flow of energy through our being, creating stress and pain. Operating in the mental, emotional and physical realms, they indicate that something within us is out of alignment with the true nature of who we really are - our spiritual nature. Problems involve two different aspects of our human make-up:

• Much of our behaviour is governed by our subconscious mind according to our beliefs and habitual patterns and reactions. Unfortunately, we are generally unconscious of the beliefs that sabotage the best intentions of our conscious mind.
• We also have both a personality governed by our ego and a higher mind or more appropriately called – our soul. I see the soul as a unique expression of a life that bridges our individual physical being with a higher intelligence, whatever you understand that to be. As human beings, we all have some understanding of our personalities. Unfortunately most of us, though, have a limited awareness of our souls.

From the spiritual perspective, blocks offer our best and perhaps our only path to growth. Paradoxically, we can only get to the positive through the negative. Like it or not, pain gets our attention. Pain also challenges the ego’s perception that it is in complete control of life. If we want to be rid of the pain, we must do the work that leads us to greater consciousness.

So please learn to understand that there are great blessings in problems. Our troubles come to us for good reasons — to invite us to connect with our souls and to learn more about who we really are. You will be wise to accept the invitation. Should you choose to continue to deny the pain and strive to avoid, or numb it, the problems will keep on coming; they will also grow in strength and become even more painful. Our lives change when we become conscious that every experience of resistance and fear has meaning and purpose. Working purposefully through our problems helps us become whole, healthy and ultimately happy. Through them, we awaken to and can genuinely express new and more powerful aspects of ourselves.

"In school you get the lesson and then take the test … In life you take the test and then get the lesson." - Author: unknown

"The things which hurt, instruct." – Author: Benjamin Franklin

For other resources on learning how to grow through your challenges or living a more fulfilled life please log on to our award winning website at inspireyourmind.com. You are also welcome to continue to send in your comments, questions and/or suggestions. I am genuinely interested in what you have to say and would appreciate it if you could continue to pass this knowledge forward and help expand our “Inspiring Minds” network by recommending this newsletter to friends and loved ones. Simply log on to inspireyourmind.com and fill in their details.