Play

The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.
G K Chesterton

We think play is just for children. It is what children do before they have to start having grown-up responsibilities. Play is care-free. It is the case, however, that play is how children get ready for their grown-up responsibilities. This is obvious in the animal world where young animals play at catching prey animals and having mock battles. But even in our world, a child's play is practise for being an adult.

When a child is having emotional problems, it is helpful for their therapist to watch how they play house. Only in play can they toss the brother down the stairs without having to cope with disasterous results. Play allows them to experiment with possible consequences and how to deal with them. Play allows a child to safely do things they could never do in real life and see what the results of their actions might be.

The true object of all human life is play. There is more to life than just doing what you were told to all day long. There's no fun in doing tasks like that. And we were meant to have fun, just as we were meant to learn and grow. Actually the two are the same. I see fun as what happens when you discover you can do something you didn't know you could do. In play you can do anything; without waiting for someone else to tell you what you can and can't do. Play is how we learn and grow. It is how we try on different beleifs and see whether they fit who we are. Heaven is a playground.

Angels

In Heaven an angel is nobody in particular.
George Bernard Shaw

One of the first things we learn in life is to categorize and compare. It helps us make sense of an often confusing world. We notice what is similar and what is different. And why. And once we have identified the differences between two things, it is only a small and natural step to decide which one we prefer.

We can't help having preferences. Where we get into trouble is deciding that one thing is good and another is bad; or one thing is better and another is worse. We start judging the worth of things, as if everyone's preferences should be the same as ours. But who are we to judge the worth of God's creations? The truth is that all of God's creations are good, for someone or something, if not for us.

In Heaven an angel is nobody in particular. In other words, everyone is an angel so nobody is better than someone else. When everyone is of equal status then none of them stand out. Imagine a world where nobody is better or worse than everyone else. If we loved one person, even ourselves, then we would love everybody just as much. No exclusions. We wouldn't have to be exceptional to be loved. We wouldn't have to prove our worth to everyone. We would just have to be ourselves. This would be Heaven on Earth.

Excuses

Don't look for excuses to lose. Look for excuses to win.
Chi Chi Rodriguez

We are always looking for excuses. We see them as explanations as to why something has to be the way it is. I've come to understand that an excuse, the way most people see it, is simply an explanation that another person doesn't want to hear about because they think you should have got the result that they wanted anyway.

When was the last time that you didn't get the result you wanted because it was raining or because the other person wouldn't cooperate or because you couldn't afford what you thought you needed? We are experts at complaining and blaming. It is always someone else's or something else's fault. But this is just looking for an excuse to lose. It is looking for an explanation for why we didn't, or can't, succeed.

Look for excuses to win. We need to retrain our minds to notice all those things that are going right, and all those things that can help us get what we want. It's a matter of awareness, we need to be aware of all the useful things around us, instead of the problems. Maybe it is raining but that should never keep you inside and stuck. Maybe the other person won't cooperate but that might be because they don't see the benefit to them of cooperating. Maybe you can't afford something but you can trade something else for it. Notice all the ways you can take your present circumstances and turn them into an advantage for you.

Gratitude

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.
W. T. Purkiser

The first step of gratitude is to be aware of our blessings. Many of us don't even get that far. We are too busy worrying about what will happen tomorrow, or thinking about all the things in the world that we wish were better. We are complaining or blaming. We are rushing around trying to fulfill everyone's expectations of us. Anything but to just stop and smell the roses. And blessings can be that small and simple, they don't need to be fireworks.

The second step of gratitude is to talk about our blessings. To say thank you for them. This can be hard for some of us because we don't know what language to use, or who to say it to. Saying thank you to God, to something you can't see, is tricky. As a first step, we can simply tell those people close to us how wonderful something is. And why we enjoy it so much. Especially when it is something that they did for us. It sounds simple but the truth is that most of us are starved to hear a word of thank-you for our efforts.

The final step of gratitude is to use our blessings. How we use them, is the true measure of our thanks giving. Our actions show our true feelings and motivations. It is literally true that actions speak louder than words. How are you using your blessings? Do you actually do something with those things that have been given to you? Do you find a way for them to contribute to your personal growth and development? Or do you just say "That's nice. Thank you" and be on your way searching for something else? How grateful are you really?

Moral

I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
Ernest Hemingway

We tend to rely on other people to tell us what is right and what is wrong. And when we are small, we think that the grownups know everything. They surely know what we should be doing and what we shouldn't. And those grownups are only too happy to tell us what to do. We learn quickly that if we do something that they don't approve of, then we will get into trouble. We then start to beleive that what is moral is what other people want us to do (for them), and what is immoral is what other people don't want us to do (for them).

We learn very quickly to listen to what other people say we should do instead of relying on our own intuitions and feelings about what we want to do. We learn to not trust ourselves, to doubt what our own body and mind is telling us. But in fact, only we can really know the best thing for us to be doing. When other people tell us what to do, they are really telling us what we should do to please them, not what we need to do for ourselves.

What is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. The truth is that if everyone relyed on his or her own intuitions and feelings then it would not be some free-for-all but a much better world. We are designed in such a way that doing the right thing necessarily makes us feel better.

We only do immoral things because we cannot find a way to do moral ones; we don't know how to make someone else's life better. We often do immoral things in a desperate attempt to get other people to notice us, not knowing how to get them to approve of us. We still feel bad at the end of it because we have not acheived what we really want, which is the knowledge that we have somehow improved the world by making another person happier. This knowledge is the only thing that makes us feel good at the end of the day

Travel

Travel teaches tolerance.
Benjamin Disraeli

How far have you traveled? There is a lot to be said for staying your whole life in one community and getting to know it really well. For sending your children to the same teacher you had when you were little. For always having your family and freinds living nearby. For having continuity in your life. I used to be jealous of people who live like that; the way our ancestors used to live. But having your life totally predictable and surrounding yourself always with people and places you are very familiar and comfortable with is a recipe for staying stuck.

When you travel, you are constantly exposed to new things, often things that you didn't anticipate. Traveling to other countries is probably the most valuable education anyone could have because you learn that not everyone lives like you do. In some places people are fabulously wealthy and in others they have to live on the equivalent of one cup of rice a day. In some places people spend their days in high rise office buildings and in other places people are spend their days close to the land and to nature. Some cultures think it is rude to wipe your nose in public and others think it is rude not to.

When you travel, you quickly learn that your own culture and your own way of life is not the only way, or even the best way, for everyone to live. Everywhere, people find the way of life that works best for their particular situation. You discover that people everywhere have the same kinds of problems but have developed unique solutions for them. The same solution doesn't work for everyone. Travel teaches tolerance. It teaches you respect for other ways of life, other cultures, and other circumstances. Take a trip to somewhere different soon.

Give and Receive

Always give without remembering and always receive without forgetting.
Brian Tracy

When we give something to someone, our ego won't let us forget. We expect that the other person will give us back what we want just because we gave them something that they wanted. Our ego is counting on that, and demanding it. Some people even expect the other person to give them what they wanted even though they have never told that person what they need.

We tend to forget what we have received from people. If we remember it is often because we were disappointed that we didn't get more. Or we didn't get exactly what we want. Often we tend to remember what we got in comparison with what we gave other people and then are left feeling negative because one or the other seems unfair. We are in complaint mode. How often do you remember what a wonderful a gift you got from someone?

Always give without remembering and always receive without forgetting. Don't remember what you gave someone and feel that now they owe you for it. It is your privilege to give, they have done you a favor by allowing you to do that. It is not their responsibility to reciprocate, or even acknowledge you for it.

Don't forget all the wonderful gifts you receive from the people around you. Be aware of and grateful for all gifts, even those given unintentionally and those which didn't cost them any money. Appreciate other people for all the ways they help you get what you want. Know that you could never succeed without their help. You owe them your respect and gratitude for all that they do.

Security

Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
Benjamin Franklin

Which is more important to you: freedom or security? Many of us are afraid to take risks and try new things. We cling to what is comfortable, to what we already know, even if it is something that makes us feel bad. We are afraid of making mistakes, of losing what we have, of failing. We are content to hang around with the same people, and do the same things, that we have always done. We don't want to rock the boat. Our security seems more important than anything else.

Some of us value our freedom more than anything. We consistently are comparing the old with the new and choosing which of the two works best for us. We are always trying new things and are willing to take risks in order to do so, knowing that the greater the risk the greater the reward. We are constantly experimenting with what works best. Our freedom to choose what works best for us seems more important than anything else, including our security.

It is not healthy or wise to cling to what is comfortable and familiar, with what worked for us in the past. Because the world is always changing, and what worked for us in the past may not be the best option in the present, or even a viable option at all. When we give up our freedom in order to gain security, we are giving up the option of finding out what works best for us right now. And in a constantly changing world, sticking with the secure and comfortable may soon mean that you will have a hard time competing with those people who are free to choose, or maybe even surviving at all.

Labor

You must learn to translate wisdom and strong feelings into labor.
Jim Rohn

We all have flashes of wisdom. Most of the time we don't notice them because we are too busy dealing with all the stuff that life throws at us, that other people are talking about; most of all, the stuff that we feel that we "should" do in order to please other people. It takes quiet and solitude to really be "able to hear yourself think", to first of all discover who you really are, and secondly to notice your flashes of wisdom and learn how to understand what they mean.

We all have differing levels of feeling. Some things we don't really care about one way or another, and other things get us really excited, really happy, or really angry, really sad. Those strong feelings are clues to help clarify what it is that we really value in life and what is really important to us. Even knowing what we definately don't want is a useful clue to discovering what we do want. Our feelings, even the bad ones, are there to help us learn about who we are and what we want.

We must learn to translate wisdom and strong feelings into labor. It is not enough to know what you want, or even to know what you need to do in order to bring it into reality. We have to actually do what we need to do. Even when it is unpleasant and difficult and we can't see ourselves making any progress at all. Even when we can see all kinds of obstacles and problems that seem unsurmountable. It is essential to take action, and keep taking action until we reach our goal.

Most of us, even when we get started excitedly, fail to take action consistently long enough for it to actually produce results. We forget that even with exponential growth, there is a long period of time where nothing much seems to be happening. We get discouraged and we quit. Or maybe we think that there is no way to get around obstacles or solve the problems we see. We forget that obstacles are only something we see when we take our eyes off of what we want to acheive. When we don't have a burning desire to acheive our goal. We have to translate the wisdom of knowing what to do and the strong feelings that this is what we want to do into consistent labor, and most importantly the faith that victory must be acheived and it's only a matter of time.

Accomplish

"The truth of the matter is that there's nothing you can't accomplish if: (1) You clearly decide what it is that you're absolutely committed to achieving, (2) You're willing to take massive action, (3) You notice what's working or not, and (4) You continue to change your approach until you achieve what you want, using whatever life gives you along the way.”
Tony Robbins

The first step to reaching your goals is of course to establish what your goals are. This requires getting to know yourself; your strengths and weaknesses, and your values, and prioritizing what is really important to you. Few of us find the time to really think about these things because we are busy trying to cope with whatever is going on around us at the time. Decide clearly what it is that you most want to acheive, what is so important to you that you absolutely must accomplish it.

The next step is to be willing to take action. Talk is cheap. You can visualize what you want forever but until you do something about it nothing is going to happen. And you not only have to be willing to take action, you have to be willing to take action that is uncomfortable and risky. Most of all you have to be willing to keep taking action, even if it seems that nothing is happening, long enough to make it pay off for you. Even with exponential growth, there is a long period where you can see very little change happening.

Then you have to be able to take a step back and see what works and what doesn't. You do more of what works and don't do what doesn't work. And always try something new to see if that works too. Always experiment to see what works best. Even when an approach is working well, maybe something else will make things work better. Take what life throws at you, even if it seems a bad experience, and treat it as a challenge to make things better; find a way to use it to accomplish your goals.

You can accomplish anything. But it requires clarity, commitment, and the willingness to experiment. These are the things we really need to work on. Just like with planting seeds, there is a lot of preparation that must happen first in terms of clarity and commitment. And then actively looking after that seed, doing whatever we need to do, and persisting until it can show itself above the ground months later. Finally we will have been successful. We will have accomplished our goal.

Anxious

Being anxious, or in a painful rush of any kind, kills the possibility of meeting anyone with compassion.
Guy Finley

We all know the feeling of being anxious, of being in a painful rush. As our society grows more complex, and we all have more and more things we feel we have to do, there never seems to be enough time. How often have you wished for more time? We often feel like we are on a treadmill, the harder we work, the more there seems for us to do. There seems to be little hope of actually getting everything done that we feel is necessary.

When we are anxious, or in a painful rush, we are focused on the future, and we are afraid. We are afraid something very bad will happen in the future if we don't get our task done, preferably immediately. We are so busy thinking about what the future might hold that we completely forget about what is going on around us right now. And who is around us right now. The only relevance the present seems to have is as a tool to get whatever it is done as soon as possible.

But the people around us are not just a tool to satisfy our own needs. They have needs of their own. We tend to be oblivious to what other people want or need when we are anxious and in a painful rush because we are too busy thinking about our own needs and what we are going to do to satisfy them. Being anxious, or in a painful rush of any kind, kills the possibility of meeting anyone with compassion. And being anxious is by no means the best way to satisfy even our own personal needs. Slow down and relax. Not only will you get your own needs satisfied more efficiently, you'll have time and attention for other people's needs too. It would be a win-win situation for everyone.

Should

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
Chinese Proverb

Is there any word that creates more tension in us than "should" On the one hand, there is what we (our ego) thinks we should do. On the other hand there is what someone else thinks we should do (and every other person probably has a different idea of what that is). And neither of these might match what we want to do. So which one should we listen to? (there's that should word again) Who is right? Who is wrong? And how do you decide?

The word "should" signals giving advice, an opinion, or a recommendation. It implies that the other person (or even your ego) knows better than you do. It is only one step down from "must", from giving orders. And the more the other person thinks that they are right, the more it feels to us like a command. And the less that "command" agrees with what we want to do, the more resistance we feel. We feel tension because we feel we are being manipulated into doing something different from what we want to do.

Relaxation is who you are. Imagine how much better you would feel in a world without anyone telling you what you should do. Without your ego constantly giving you unwanted advice about what you should do. If you only felt it necessary to do what you wanted, you would be much better able to express yourself. So often, all other people express is just a mishmash of other people's "should"s. They have forgotten who they really are because they spend so much time trying to do what they think they should instead of what they want to. Don't make that mistake any more. Listen to your own intuition instead of other people's shoulds. Banish the world should from your vocabulary.

Fear

Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.
Michael Pritchard

Very often we have a hard time identifying what we are really feeling. Or connecting our feelings with our thoughts. Sometimes when we feel one emotion strongly we are able to identify it and what thoughts we have that are connected to it. But so often our emotion has shades of several different feelings; just like green has shades of blue and yellow. This is what makes our reactions to things in our environment so diverse. And so confusing. It is often as difficult to identify all the emotions you feel about something as it is to identify all the colors that make up brown.

They say there are only two real emotions; love and fear. Love is everything that makes you feel good and fear is everything that makes you feel bad. When you are angry, you are really afraid. When you are jealous or resentful, you are really afraid. When you are depressed, you are really afraid. It is your judgement of the situation, your thoughts, that give anger, jealousy and depression their unique character. Few people ever associate these feelings with fear but with some thought you can actually see what you are afraid of in each situation.

When you are angry, or resentful of someone, you are afraid that your needs will not be met. When you are jealous of someone, you are afraid that you will never be able to get all the things you really want. When you are depressed, you are afraid that the future will never get any better and may get a lot worse. Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed. Whenever you feel bad about yourself or your situation, you can be sure that fear is within you. And when fear is within you, it creates all kinds of disturbing negative thoughts. Don't allow fear to do that to you. Replace it with love and your world will get a whole lot better.

Respect

Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves.
Peter Mcarthur

Some of us have been taught especially fervently that we are to do as we are told to do, and keep quiet about it. We have been taught that our superiors (originally our family but later our teachers, bosses, doctors, policemen and the government) know everything and we know nothing. Our parents, and later on all these other people, wanted or needed to have full control over us so they told us that their word was the law. And we beleived that we had no choice but to do whatever they said.

Some of us have learned not to respect ourselves. We lack self esteem and think that everyone else is somehow better and wiser than we are. We relate to other people instead of to ourselves, waiting for them to tell us what to do instead of relying on our own wisdom. How often do we go to another person asking for help, and then later realize that we could have come up with a better solution on our own? We have so much respect for our superiors that we have none left for ourselves.

It is time to realize that we deserve at least as much respect from ourselves as our "superiors" do. There is really no such thing as superiors, except in our own minds. We are all human and we all make mistakes. We all forget things. We all screw up. Even the government does things that are easy to see as a mistake in hindsight. And it requires a person with the strength of their own personal convictions to lead a movement to put things right, if they can still be put right. Have some respect for yourself. You're just as good as they are, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Solitude

Solitude sharpens awareness of small pleasures otherwise lost.
Kevin Patterson

Many of us avoid solitude like the plague. We can't stand to be alone with ourselves. We crave the company of others to fill the hole that we can feel within ourself. We don't want to get to know ourselves intimately because we are afraid of what we will find there. Or of what we will not find there. We feel deep down that we are inadequate, and we secretly hope that having the company of other people all the time will make us adequate.

But although it is wonderful to have the company of other people and get to know them, it is also well worth the effort to set aside some time for solitude, to get to know yourself. After all you're just as fascinating and important as they are. You're the one person who you know will never leave you no matter how bad things get. And it is only when we are without the distractions of thinking about other people that we can really think about who we are, our strengths and weaknesses; and what the outside world means to us and what we really want in the world.

Solitude sharpens awareness of small pleasures otherwise lost. When we are concentrating on some other person, they take up all our awareness. We think about their needs instead of our own. But when we are by ourselves and our own needs come into focus, it is much easier to just stop and smell the roses because we become aware that this is what we need. There are all kinds of simple pleasures all around us that we can only become aware of when we are by ourselves. Spend some time by yourself today so you can get to know what a wonderful person you are and take advantage of the infinite blessings around you.

Arguing

I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
Edward Gibbon

How many times have you argued with someone because you thought his opinion was stupid. So often the real reason we argue with a person is because we want him to know that we are right, that we are more knowledgeable than he is and that he doesn't know what he is talking about. It's a superiority trip. Our ego wants to build itself up by pretending it is the best. But all this kind of arguing is essentially a waste of time and effort. It does little other than annoy others.

When you argue with someone who you feel is just as knowledgable as you are and whose opinion you respect, it feels quite different. In this situation, both people know that they could learn a lot from the ideas of the other person. It is not a case of proving to the other person that you are right any more but of working alongside the other person to learn and grow, to find the real truth. There is no real hostility or lack of respect.

Never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions you have no respect. If their opinions annoy you, just ignore them. There's no real need to pay attention to other people's opinions unless they have a some kind of power over you or over things that you care about. Save your time and attention for the people who you genuinely respect and whose opinions you value. Arguing should not be about who is right but about what is right. Egos have no place in a good argument. And an argument isn't good unless both of you feel better about what you beleive in the end.

Assets

If you count all your assets, you always show a profit.
Robert Quillen

I doubt if any of us really knows what all of our assets are. Most of us have a much easier time listing our faults than our strengths. We are much more aware of our weaknesses, of all the things we can't do, or at least can't do as well as we think other people can. We are typically in a big competition with other people; and if we can't do something better than they can than it becomes something that we devalue in ourselves. What's the use of having an ability if other people have it too, and do it better.

This is an unfortunate way of thinking. We are constantly putting ourselves down because we think that other people won't be impressed by our abilities. But the true worth of our abilities is not to be measured by other people, or compared to other people. It is something that is just between God and ourselves. Only we can really be aware of our own abilities. But that can only happen when we open ourselves up to God's guidance through our intuition, instead of relying on what other people say and do around us.

Instead of focusing on all the things that you wish were better about yourself, on all the self-improvement books out there, it may be wiser to concentrate on your strengths. On knowing that you are actually a wonderful person with many great assets which can always be developed into something even better. Don't let your weaknesses overshadow your strengths. Don't let your emotional bank account show a loss. What we all really need is the understanding that each of us has more strengths than weaknesses; that if we count all our assets, we will always show a profit.

Fashion

Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.
Quentin Crisp

Do you know who you are? You may be thinking that's a stupid question and of course you know who you are. But I think that most people really don't. From the time we're born, we are told who we are and who we should be by both our family and all the other adults in our lives. All of whom can't possibly know who we really are. The truth is that only we can ever really know that. But when we are small children, we think that the adults know everything so they must know everything there is to know about us too. They must know who we are. And who we should be. And once we have learned the ideas of a few key people, they often stay throughout our lives.

Once we have learned that our family thinks we are lazy or not too bright or whatever, we start to act that way because we, as small children, think that that must be who we are. Which confirms their expectations and leads to a downward spiral of increasing negativity. And often these messages are reinforced by marketing messages designed to get you to buy the latest thing that will cure all the problems you think you have and even new ones you never knew you had.

Because you don't know who you are, you continue to let other people define you. It takes a great deal of courage and self-awareness to break free of other people's opinions of you and how you should behave. It is much easier to just go along with the fashions that are the main indicator of society's expections of social acceptability. It takes courage for a man, for example, to go around with long hair when all the men around him are sporting crew cuts. And it takes the self-awareness to know that crew cuts are just not suitable for him. Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are. Do you know who you really are? Would you dare to express yourself in a way that runs counter to the fashions you see in everyone around you?

Books

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
Ray Bradbury

In order to have a culture you must have shared beleifs and shared knowledge. Long ago people shared their beleifs through stories and poems that they were constantly sharing and reciting, especially to the next generation. Then we learned how to read and write, which proved to be a much more efficient method of keeping everyone aware of the cultural history since a person didn't have to physically be around to impart information. So memorizing and reciting stories died out and we started writing books.

Apparently throughout written history civilizations have regularly risen and fallen. And it seems like it's when they're falling that they burn books. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this was when one of the later Roman emperors (whose mental facility was questionable at that point) decided to burn the great library at Alexandra so that the baths in Rome could be heated. I shudder to think of all the valuable cultural information that was lost then. But people are still doing things like that today, especially in wartime. We haven't learned.

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture however. All you need to do is to get people to stop reading them. If nobody reads them, the information will still be lost. Perhaps that's why Christian right-wing groups are always trying to get books banned that don't agree with their own philosophy. Reading books is really important, perhaps especially reading books about subjects you are unfamiliar with or controversial subjects. It is not just about finding practical information, although all of the most successful people read books all the time for that purpose. It's also about finding the shared knowledge of a culture; and discovering an important part of who you are as well as who the people around you are. Make sure you set aside some time today to read a good book.

Concentration

Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger.
Arnold Palmer

In order to concentrate on getting a specific result you have to first of all beleive that there is a possibility of getting that result. And not just that somebody can acheive it, but that you yourself can acheive it. You have to have self confidence. Without self confidence you will find yourself concentrating on all the possible obstacles and roadblocks, instead of on the result that you want. You will find yourself being distracted by infinite possibilities of all the things which might go wrong.

In order to concentrate on getting a specific result you have to second of all want it, the more intensely the better. You have to want it more than anything else, otherwise you will be distracted by the possibility, and the hope, of getting that other more desirable thing. Since the other thing is now more of a priority you will put more energy into getting it, and less energy into getting the original result. And unless you want something really badly you will be distracted by all the obstacles and the distasteful chores that you will have to do in order to acheive it.

Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger. You have to have both. And unless you can fully concentrate on getting a certain result, you will never succeed in getting it. So confidence and hunger are both essential for success. You have to want it badly but you also have to beleive that you have the ability to acheive it. The trick is in having equal amounts of desire and beleif in yourself. Without them, success will elude you.

Value

A cock, having found a pearl, said that a grain of corn would be of more value to him
Pierre Leroux

How often we forget that those things that we place great value on, another man might find completely useless. One man's treasure is another man's trash. I'm always intrigued by that episode of Antiques Roadshow when people have found things in the garbage that turn out to have an estimated worth of tens of thousands of dollars at retail or at auction. The truth is that we each value different things in different amounts.

This means that the monetary value of some thing is no reflection of it's worth to you. All the cost of something shows is the cost of producing it and society's general agreement on an estimate of it's worth. So what you find most valuable might be pretty cheap. It's not always about buying the most expensive thing. In the end, it is about buying whatever is going to be most useful to you in fulfilling your own individual goals.

No matter how beautiful and how difficult to produce a pearl is, a cock would have no use for it. He just needs something to eat. We need to be less judgmental of other people's taste in things. If a person works in some dirty factory, he has no use for fancy dress shirts, no matter how much better he looks in one. A cheap t-shirt might be much more valuable to him because he can wear it at work. We all have different needs and goals and so it stands to reason that we all need different things in order to fulfill those. Price is not the ultimate indicator of some thing's value to you as an individual.

Gift

Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more
Anthony Robbins

It is a privilege for us to keep learning and growing. I read a book recently that suggested that our life on earth is rather like a field trip that a student makes to extend his education. The purpose of life is not just to learn about ourselves but to improve ourselves by becoming more. To refine our character and become a stronger, better person. The Buddhist religion very much supports this idea too. Life offers us excellent opportunities to learn and grow. It is our privilege to take advantage of them

Life is full of great opportunities to learn and grow. These are tricky to spot sometimes though because they look like hard work, or like things that are really unpleasant or disturbing. Very often it is the disasters that happen in our lives that turn out to be the biggest growth experiences. That is why a kind and loving God sends us tragedies. If we experienced nothing but life going our way, exactly how we wanted it to, we would have no growth, no refinement of character.

It is our responsibility to become more. And the most effective way for us to grow and become more is to help other people grow and become more too. The thing that makes humans truly different from the animals is that we are so inclined to teach each other about our world. Animals will imitate some one but they will not actively try to teach other animals. We all have a responsibility to give back by making sure that our fellow human beings also are able to grow and develop. And the wonderful thing is that this ensures our own growth and development too. There is strength in numbers. The more we all help each other, the better each of us becomes.

Integrity

He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views.
William Congreve

How often is it that we refuse to even listen to people who have a different opinion of something than we do. Some of us even go so far as to refuse to listen to someone who has a different viewpoint than ours talk about any subject at all. We return mail, or hang up the phone, never giving the other person an opportunity to even compromise with us or admit he was wrong. It's an enormous tragedy when people who were close to each other suddenly refuse to have anything to do with each other just because of some difference of opinion on something.

Beleiving that the other person has nothing to offer is essentially beleiving that you know everything there is to know about the subject. That there is nothing else to learn. But there is always something else to learn because nobody knows everything there is to know about any particular subject. Even themselves. And every person has a valid opinion. We just have to remember that they are all opinions, including our own, and not unchangeable, unarguable facts. The wise person welcomes all possible viewpoints as a way to extend the reach of his own.

He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views. He is likely to afraid at some level that he will be easy to sway away from his own views. That he will find out that they are wrong. Which suggests that he doesn't really beleive in them anyway. A person who really beleives that his views are part of who he really is does not fear being led away from them. He knows that they can only improve with the addition of more information. He knows that there is not some ultimate right answer out there, but that the right answer is the one that works for him. And that is always growing and changing with the circumstances; and with new information about those circumstances.

Happy

There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you.
David Burns

We are born into a culture with a victim mentality. We are taught from birth that someone else has control over us and we must do as they say. As babys we are so dependant on our parents that the worst thing we could possibly imagine is for them to reject us, to not be willing and able to fulfill our needs. We will do almost anything to please our parents. And from then on we learn that we must satisfy the wants of our family, our babysitters, our teachers, and the police. We feel that if they disapproved of us, the consequencees would be too much to bear.

It stands to reason that if we depend on the approval of other people for the fulfillment of our needs, it is only a small step to depending on them to make us feel happy, or even good about ourselves. Everything rests on their approval. We have learned that we can't fulfill our own needs, including our own need to be happy. We can't be happy unless we get lucky and outside circumstances are such that everything is going well in our lives. But of course that kind of happiness is not sustainable because circumstances are inevitably going to change.

There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you. Only you can give yourself the kind of long-lasting happiness you really want. The kind of happiness that is not dependant on good outside circumstances or the approval of other people. It is after all impossible to have the approval of all people at all times.

If you depend on some other person to make you happy, it is first of all an enormous burden to place on them and secondly they are just naturally going to have days when they have other people to pay more attention to, or when they don't approve of you as much as you would like. Only you can approve of yourself and give yourself what you really need all the time. And this is the key to any long-lasting happiness.