Live Life

When asked "What thing about humanity surprises you the most?", Dalai Lama answered: "Man, because he sacrifices his health in order to make money; then sacrifices his money to recuperate his health. Then he is so anxious about the future that he doesn't enjoy the present, and as a result, he doesn't live in the present or the future. And he lives as if he's never going to die and then dies having never really lived

People do the strangest things. We will do almost anything to get money, including sacrificing our health. And then spend that money on sorting ourselves out again, both mentally and physically. We treat getting money as if it is the most important thing for us to do. But we finally get it, we find out the true cost of it. We find out that when we neglect our health, we will have to pay for that. And the cost may be greater than the money we have received.

We so often get anxious about the future. We save for a rainy day. We insure all our belongings just in case something happens in the future. We lock our doors. But while we are doing that we are forgetting about all the good things that are happening right now. We can't enjoy the present when we aren't even aware of what is around us because we are thinking about what might happen in the future. And we can't live in the future because we don't know what will happen. We don't live in the present and can't live in the future, so we don't really live at all.

We live as though we are never going to die. We are so afraid of death that we don't even think about it. We don't plan for it. We don't appreciate the life we have yet we don't want it to ever end. We don't want to take any risks we feel we don't have to; just in case we do end our lives. So we die having never really lived. It is only by realizing that we could die any minute, which is the case after all, that we can really appreciate our life for what it is. A beautiful but short time what we should really make the most of while we are here.

There is a better way to live. We can put money in it's proper place in our priorities. Nothing is more important than our health. If we aren't healthy, we'll never enjoy our money anyhow. We can be fully aware of the present, of what is happening inside and outside of us right now, so that we can enjoy all it has to offer. We can live fully in the present. And finally we can realize just how precious and short our life really is and resolve to get as much out of it as we can while we are still here. Only then can we really live our life.

What is

Be here now! Give up the small ego definition of "what should be" and just experience and celebrate what is.
James Arthur Ray

How often do we really experience and celebrate what is. Even if we like what is, we are judging it and comparing it with something else. And often wishing it could be better. "The weather is great today; why can't it be like this all the time. I wish it was like this for the picnic last week. It would be nice if it were even warmer, with less wind. It's too good to last for long so it will probably rain tomorrow." This is the kind of thoughts that constantly go through our minds.

Our ego is always thinking about what "should be" in order to make you the kind of person you see yourself as, and to make you happy in that image. We have aquired an idea that sunshine makes you happy and rain makes you miserable. But there is really no objective reason for this beleif, any more than there is for the beleif that you will never be happy unless you have a lot of money. Nothing is inherently good or bad. It is only so because of comparisons and judgments that we have learned over the years, which don't support our growth. It is much healthier to just take sunshine, rain, wealth, and poverty as they are; neither good or bad, should or shouldn't.

Be here now! Give up the small ego definition of "what should be" and just experience and celebrate what is. Where are you now? You may be remembering what was, or thinking about what you think the future will be like. But you can't change the past, or control the future, so those activities are pointless. The only thing you have control over is this moment. Seize the day. Appreciate what you like about this moment and change what you don't, or if you can't change it physically, at least change your thoughts and feelings about it. But you can't do any of that unless you stop worrying about what "should be" and focus on what "is"

Let Go

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." - Lao Tsu

It is very difficult to let go of who you are. You have a history that is very hard for you to ignore. You have a self-image which has been burnt into your brain from countless repetitions, either by someone else or by yourself. You assume you must be the person your parents, teachers, and other important people in your life have said you were when you still beleived they knew everything about you. You continue to look for people, ideas, and conditions that support that self-image. And you find them.

But when you cling to a certain self-image, it blocks the possibility of other and quite possibly more useful ones. Who else might you be? More importantly, who else would you want to be? And most importantly, why not? We have the capacity to be just about anyone we want, if we will only clear the way by giving up our idea of who we are and allowing other options to develop.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. Have you ever thought about all the things and ideas you need to carry around with you in order to be the person you think you are. Wouldn't it be nice to just drop all that; to abandon the pretense. When you clear the clutter, you give the space for something new to develop and grow. Something better. Something that supports the person you were really meant to be.

Limited Perception

"It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive."
C.W. Leadbeater

We rely on our perceptions very much, particularly our sight and hearing. They are the only way that our brain has of determining what is going on around us. We react very quickly to our perceptions. If we touch a stove and feel great heat, we withdraw our hand very quickly. If we see a car coming, we get out of the way fast. This kind of quick reaction is necessary to our survival.

But our perceptions can be very deceiving. They can be altered by our previous experience or by what others have told us. If we find ourselves walking down a dark alley in the middle of the night and hear footsteps following us, we perceive a murderous criminal (because we expect dark alleys to be where murderous criminals hang out) and start running. But those footsteps could well belong to someone who isn't any more murderous than you are and only wants to talk to you, perhaps to ask for help.

Often we rely on our previous experience, or more accurately our perceptions of that experience, to tell us what do do in a similar experience. But that isn't always accurate either. Maybe the last time you were in a situation like this was unusual circumstances or was very situation dependant. We tend to generalize from one situation to another and that often gets us into trouble.

"It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive." Our perceptions do have limits. They are not the full picture of everything that is possible. So even if you perceive that there is no hope, no way out of a particular situation, you can have faith that there are more possibilities and more choices than you can see right now; and if you expect them and look out for them, they will eventually be revealed to you. Don't make the mistake of assuming that the world consists only of what you can perceive right now.

Today is the day

"Today is the day to begin anew the great adventure...This is the day in which to serve our highest dream. If we wait for circumstances to align in the way we desire, we may wait forever. Tomorrow is an illusion. Today is the day to breathe in the mysterious possibility that life now offers. Regardless of what surrounds us, this is the day to begin."
- Ann Mortifee

The new year has just begun. It is full of possibilities waiting to be discovered. What do you want to accomplish this year? Where do you want to be by the end of the year? Today is the day to begin. You may be seriously in debt, in an abusive relationship, have seemingly unmanageable kids, no friends, or a job you hate. Or all of the above. Your life will not change by itself; circumstances may never align in the way you want. But you can change it once you accept the fact that you got yourself in this mess and you will get yourself out of it. Gather the faith and courage that you actually can get what you want, which is really the most difficult part of the whole exercise, and get started.

Regardless of how miserable your life is, today is the day to begin. Why wait? We only have so much time on earth in this life. Seize the day. Today is the day to breathe in the mysterious possibility that life now offers. What do you really want and how can you work towards that? It doesn't have to be some spectacular happening; you just need to be pointed in the right direction, towards your highest dreams, even if it is one baby step at a time. Even if it feels you are going one step forwards and two steps backwards. The most important thing is to keep moving.

Tomorrow is an illusion. We can't do anything about tomorrow, no matter how much we may worry about it, or hope for it. But we can do something about today, about what surrounds us at this very moment. Even if it is just changing our attitude about it or perceptions of it, that is a good start. Today is the day to breathe in the mysterious possibility that life now offers. A new year has just started. Begin anew the great adventure. Take charge and make this year the best one ever.

Unhappy

If you are not happy there are only 2 choices.Change your experiences or change your expectations. Change your life or change your beliefs.
Anthony Robbins

What do you do when you are not happy. Most of us focus on what is making us unhappy and ruminate on all the things that are wrong with it, and even all the things that are wrong with us for having a problem with it. We complain to our friends and family, and discuss what is wrong in some detail. This never quite solves the problem however. Not only are we still unhappy but now our friends and family are unhappy too.

There are really only two effective solutions. The first is to change your experiences. To change your life. We need to find more effective ways of living so that we don't even run into all those problems. In other words, we need to find effective ways to avoid having problems. If we are in a relationship we don't like, we would find a way of finding a new relationship, either with that person or with someone new, that is not problematical. If we are in debt we would find a way of making sure we don't get into (more) debt in the future. If we go on doing what we have always done, we will always get the same results. If at all possible, we must change our actions to change our experiences which will change our life.

The second solution is to change your expectations. To change your beliefs. This is often the more difficult solution, depending on how deeply your beliefs are entrenched. If we are in a relationship we don't like, we would not expect so much from that relationship, or alter our beliefs about what a relationship should look like. If we are in debt, we would change our expectations and beliefs about either how much money we can make or how much money we need to spend on different things given our income level. We must examine our beliefs and weed out the unrealistic ones; the ones that have been handed to us by our parents, other influential people, and society that are not useful for us now

If you are not happy there are only 2 choices.Change your experiences or change your expectations. Change your life or change your beliefs. To ruminate on your problems is to invite more problems into your future; because you are focusing on the problem and what is wrong instead of on the solution and what will be right. Complaining to others makes things even worse because you, and they, are seeing yourself as a victim who has no control over your circumstances. The only effective thing to do is to find a way to either change your experience of life or to change your actual circumstances.

Let Go

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." - Lao Tsu

It is very difficult to let go of who you are. You have a history that is very hard for you to ignore. You have a self-image which has been burnt into your brain from countless repetitions, either by someone else or by yourself. You assume you must be the person your parents, teachers, and other important people in your life have said you were when you still beleived they knew everything about you. You continue to look for people, ideas, and conditions that support that self-image. And you find them.

But when you cling to a certain self-image, it blocks the possibility of other and quite possibly more useful ones. Who else might you be? More importantly, who else would you want to be? And most importantly, why not? We have the capacity to be just about anyone we want, if we will only clear the way by giving up our idea of who we are and allowing other options to develop.


When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. Have you ever thought about all the things and ideas you need to carry around with you in order to be the person you think you are. Wouldn't it be nice to just drop all that; to abandon the pretense. When you clear the clutter, you give the space for something new to develop and grow. Something better. Something that supports the person you were really meant to be.

Wings

Anything that ruffles your feathers is just a reminder that you've got wings. -- Stuart Rosen

What ruffles your feathers? We get angry all the time because things aren't the way we want. A certain person or group ignores us, or worse yet treats us in ways that hurt us either emotionally or physically. Injustices happen; one person or group gets more than what we think should be their fair share of resources, and so the other gets less than what we think they should get. One person or group is cruel to another. When we get angry it is either because we, or other people that we identify with, are not getting what we want.

Once we know what we don't want, we have a better understanding of what we do want. There is no time we want something more than when we are clearly reminded that we don't have it. There is no time we are not motivated to do something to get what we want. If everything is going well, there is no need for change. There is no motivation to do anything different. We are happy to be in our comfort zone. But we are not learning, growing or acheiving.

It is only when we get very upset about something that we are seriously motivated to fix it. This is when we start to find out our true powers. This is when we learn how to solve problems and get what we want. It is when we start to find out we do indeed have wings. We are focused on what we want, on the solution, so that the solution begins to present itself. We learn and grow. We taste success. We learn to fly. And that is what really makes life enjoyable. We have fun discovering we can do things we never thought we could do.

Action

Organized thought leads to spiritual and mental growth provided it is expressed through action. One does not grow spiritually or mentally by thought alone. Growth is the result of thought expressed through voluntary and definitely controlled habits of actions. ..... Napoleon Hill

It is tempting to think that our life will improve if we just think more positive thoughts; although for many of us, that is difficult enough all by itself. We've all heard of "the power of positive thinking". It would be great if we could just sit and meditate and visualize the things we are wanting, and have everything we want just drop into our lap. But that is not the way life works.

Thought that is not expressed through action is soon forgotten. It is not taken seriously, either by ourselves or by the Universe. We all know that if some idea is important enough to us, we will do something about it. We are active physical beings after all. We will physically try to make it happen. If we sit and visualize our shiny new car but don't even go to the dealership to find out about getting it, then we are just wishing. There is no intention on our part to actually have this car, or serious belief that it will happen.

Our thought must be focused through visualization of what we want, and then expressed through action. Action serves to further focus our thought, and be more aware of our progress towards what we want. It may be stumbling and inefficient at first, but it does get more productive over time, while your intuition is helping you. Both parts of the equation, thought and action, must be present if we are to get what we want. We have to do our part through organized thought as well as voluntary and definately controlled habits of action, if we want to grow into success. Think, then act.

Dreams

God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow in them. -- Author Unknown

What are your dreams? When we were young we were full of dreams. We were going to change the world. I know when I was a pre-teen I was going to stop all the pollution by shutting down the factories. Then slowly our parents and teachers and other important people in our lives convinced us those dreams were unrealistic and we forgot about them because we were focusing on what seemed practical.

But deep inside us we still have our dreams. We still want to make a big difference in the world somehow. We want to be rich and famous, but most of all when it comes down to it we want to significantly improve at least certain people's lives. We want to help, to be useful to people. We want to be able to put our talents to good use making our community, and our world, a better place to live in. Unfortunately many of us need to first of all find out what our talents are before we can figure out how to use them in the way that will benefit the most people the best way.

When we bring our dreams out into the open and acknowledge them, they typically seem unrealistic, too much for one person to manage. This is because we are not yet able to acheive them. But we can always learn and grow into the person who can acheive them. It is the truth that only challenges and obstacles cause us to grow and improve. If our dreams were easy to acheive we would become lazy and stagnant. We are meant to grow into our dreams. We are meant to be continually improving, to become good enough people to actually make our dreams come true. We are meant to overcome our challenges and succeed in fulfillng our dreams. That struggling and then the joy of succeeding is the purpose of our lives

Pain

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pa...in is self-chosen. --Kahlil Gibran

It is so easy to miss the daily miracles of your life, as you hurry to complete the goals you set for yourself, or those that someone else set for you. We seldom stop and smell the roses in our rush to get to our appointments. We rush to deal with what seems most urgent, forgetting about what is most important. Even watching TV in the evening often seems more important than listening to your family, or doing anything that requires thought (My opinion is that watching TV is the most significant and most prevalent time-waster there is for most people).

We spend most of our time wishing that we were more happy. Perhaps if the appointment goes well, or when I get my vacation, or when I find a new lover. We can't stand being sad or frustrated or disappointed, and we avoid it like the plague. We don't appreciate that without the bad times, we would never appreciate the good ones. Nor do we appreciate that because we are human, there will always be both good times and bad times, just as surely as winter is always followed by spring and fall is always followed by winter. We miss the lessons that the bad times are intended to teach us. All we think about is how to avoid them.

Much of our pain is self-chosen. For one thing, it is we who choose to see it as pain, instead of a lesson which is intended to benefit us and an opportunity to learn and grow into a better person. For another thing, we choose to see it as something that can and should be eradicated, instead of as a necessary part of our lives and one that makes us appreciate the good times so much more. Finally, we are so focused on the pain we have labeled as such and want to get rid of, that we fail to notice how wonderful life really is, and how everything that happens to us is actually good for us. If we see "bad" events as useful and necessary lessons for us and focus on all the wonderful things there still are in our lives, we will feel a lot less pain and a lot more happiness.

Happy

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life." — John Lennon

What really is the meaning of life? When you were asked as a child what you wanted to be when you grew up. what did you say? Perhaps a firefighter, or an Olympic champion, or a pirate, or a superhero. Probably not the same thing you would say if you were asked now, and probably nothing like what you actually are today. At some point, we learn that our childhood ambitions are not realistic and we settle for some career that we think we can manage.

I could never understand why people ask me where I wanted to be in five years, or have a ready answer. Never mind planning twenty years or so ahead. It only takes a few minutes to radically change your life situation, and life is so unpredictable. You never know what opportunities are going to present themselves for you, or what obstacles are going to appear to seriously restrict your options. You could die tomorrow. So why is it so important who you think you will be when you grow up?

It would seem more important to consider what you want to be right now, that could continue into the future no matter what life threw at you. Whatever we want in life, we want it for one reason only. Because it will make us happy to whatever degree. Happy is what we really all want to be when we grow up, whether we are happy being a superhero or an accountant. John Lennon understood life where his teacher did not.
His mother was right when she said that happiness was the key to be life. Go out there and be happy. That's what life is all about.

Planned

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." --Joseph Campbell

Many of us cling for dear life to the life we've planned, the life we've always known. We plan our lives according to what we've known already, perhaps what our parents lived or what our friends or the people around us are living. It is what we are familiar and comfortable with. Even if our parents, friends, or loved ones are not doing particularly well with their lives, we still assume it must be the right one for us. We identify with our loved ones and even our neighbors and think we are supposed to be like them.

But we are not like them. We are unique individuals with our own unique destiny. We all have different strengths and weaknesses, and even desires, and must find our own unique direction in life. If we continue to do the same things as the people around us, we will never rise above them, or live the life that we were meant to. We will not be able to utilize our strengths most effectively or be truly happy in what we do. We will only acheive what other people want, not what we truly desire.

In order to be truly successful, we must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. We are more than just the some of our past experience. We are whole and perfect beings whose pathway to learning and growing was charted before we were born; and now we need to be looking for clues as to how to proceed along that path. Always look towards the future, towards emerging opportunities to live the life you were meant to live. And never compare yourself with other people and the lives they are living. There is a unique pathway to success waiting for you if you will just keep an eye out for it.

Complete

"It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself." - Betty Friedan

it is amazing how much time we spend searching for a person to make us whole. If we are a quiet person we are attracted to someone who is a social butterfly. If we are a couch potato we are attracted to someone athletic. Typically when we fall in love with someone we are attracted by some trait they have that we don't have but highly value. We think that if we hang around someone with that trait, it will somehow rub off on us. It will fill the hole inside and make us complete. Yet apparently when people divorce, it is very often the trait that attracted the person in the first place that has been turned around into a negative and caused them to want to leave.

Magazines that tell us every little detail about the lives of celebrities are huge sellers. It is as though our own lives are so dull that we would rather read about Brad and Angelina and how they raise their kids, among other things. We want to hear about their lives because their lives seem so much more interesting than ours do. We want to live like them. We want to live through them. So we don't spend enough time thinking about our own lives and how to improve them.

It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself. Just as it is easier to blame someone else than to own up to your own mistakes. We resist taking responsibility for the quality of our lives. We have been taught that outside people and circumstances are what controls us. We have been taught to look outside ourselves for both problems and their solutions. We have been taught to do what we are told. But that is not how we become complete. Becoming complete requires a focus on ourselves and what we can do with our own lives to learn and grow and enjoy our world. It is a process; there are no quick fixes.

Success

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become." - Jim Rohn

We think that success is a prize that we get by working hard and doing all the right things. We strive for success. We do what we are told to do by society in the hopes that one day we will be rewarded. We do our duty. We greatly admire people who work hard and finally make it in the world. But so many of us work hard all our lives and then retire poor. And so many of us are examplary citizens but retire poor. Clearly it is neither hard work or doing the "right thing" that makes one successful.

The more we chase after success, the more it eludes us. When we are focused on what we can get, all the material things that show us we have succeeded, we forget about who we are and whether we are worthy of what we want. We forget about the growing that we have to do in order to enjoy and benefit from the success we want. It is useless to earn lots of money if you don't know how to utilize it in a manner that benefits not only you but the people around you as well.

Success is to be attracted by the person you become. When you cast off the "dirt" of all your limiting beleifs, fearfullness, and bad habits, then you shine. Then you attract the success you want. Success doesn't like all that "dirt", that negative energy, that surrounds most of us, even those who are hardworking and do "what's right" by society's definition. Success is attracted to those who are capable of dealing with it properly, benefiting themselves, the people around them and the planet. Grow into your success by getting rid of those fears and limiting beleiefs and learning to be the best person you can be.

Begin

Begin from anywhere but begin. The door is somewhere and you may stumble upon it. -- Osho

So often we are afraid to begin a project because we feel we are missing the information necessary for successfully completing it. What if something goes wrong? How will we handle it? The trouble is it would take us a lifetime to think of everything that could possibly go wrong, let along how we will handle all those things. And most, maybe all, of these things will never happen anyway. If something does happen, it will probably be something we never thought about. So many times we never get started on a project because we think we need more information about it. And then the window of opportunity closes.

I think the reason we operate this way is that we really don't trust ourselves. We think we are inadequate to the task. We don't see ourselves as adequate problem solvers; as people who can solve any problem as it comes up. We don't trust our intuition, and many of us simply aren't even aware of it. But the truth is that if we can learn to listen to and trust our intuition, we have all the resources of the Universe available to us. We are much more capable of solving problems than we realize, when we utilize our intuition, and deal with things as they come along.

Begin from anywhere but begin. The door is somewhere and you may stumble upon it. The most important thing is to just get started. Beleive in yourself. It doesn't matter where you are starting from or how many problems you anticipate having along the way. Learn to listen to your intuition (and tell the difference between it and what your ego is telling you to do). Not only will it help you solve all those problems, but it will show you the best way to get to that door to what you want.

Don't wait till you can walk confidently directly to the door because that will probably never happen. If you allow yourself to stumble around and make mistakes, which you then learn from, you will discover that you'll find that door faster than you thought possible. Just begin, and begin now. Tune into and listen to your intuition and learn from your mistakes. That is the route to success.

Competitor

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time. Henry Ford

This is not just true about business but about everyday life. In a way, we are all competitors. We are always competing for the time, attention, energy and resources of the people around us. We see ourselves as competitors because we can see that time, attention, energy, and resources seem to have a limited supply. Sometimes we openly compete; and the competition frequently gets ugly when "the winner takes it all". Then we begin to feel like losers, who are never good enough to get what we want.

We walk around constantly worried about how other people see us. We worry about whether they will think us worthy of their time, attention, energy, and resources. We are focused on ourselves and whether we are good enough. But our attention is on the wrong people. Our most successful competitors don't even notice us. They are not going to give us their time, attention, energy, or resources because they choose to keep it for themselves. We are not considered important enough to even be on their radar screeen.

The competitor to be really feared, in business and in life, is the one who goes on making his business, or life, better all the time. He isn't even trying to compete, because he knows he is, or will be, the best at what he does. He is focused only on his own improvement, so it doesn't matter what any particular other person is doing. There is a lesson to be learned here. The path to success is not one of open competition. We will get much further much more quickly if we stop comparing ourselves to everyone else and just focus on how we can improve our lives and our work.

Solitude

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
Albert Einstein


Most of us have very busy lives. We even pride ourselves on how busy our lives are because it makes us feel that we are getting a lot of things done. But none of these things bring us any real satisfaction. Some of us feel like we spend our whole lives putting out fires and never have time for what we'd really like to do. There is always some emergency to take care of. There is always something someone else needs; which seems more important than our own needs. We never seem to have enough time for ourselves.

We live in a world where taking action is highly prized. People who sit around are considered lazy unproductive couch potatos. We seem to have forgotten that in order for our actions to produce satisfactory results, we need to take the time to sit and think about what we want to acheive and how best to acheive those results. Instead we run around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Since we haven't thought out what we want, we spend our time dealing with other people's emergencies that don't help us get anywhere we want to go.

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. We need time to ourselves to think about what we want to create in our lives. We need time to determine how things can be different and better in our lives and what needs to happen in order to make it so. Time spent daydreaming by yourself is much more productive than taking aimless action that deals with everyone else's needs except your own. The creative mind needs peace and quiet. It needs no distractions. It needs to be left to its own devices. When you give it this, for even short periods if consistently , it will reward you handsomely.

Given to Me

So much has been given to me--I have no time to ponder over that which has been denied." -Helen Keller

Most of us don't have nearly as much denied to us as Helen Keller did. We just take our ability to see for granted, and don't even think about what a wondrous gift that really is. We expect our minds and bodies to function well and don't have any idea of what a miracle that really is. We don't know how lucky we are until we live with someone whose mind and/or body is handicapped. There is so much in our lives that we just take for granted because we expect it to be that way, either because it's always been that way for us or because it appears to be that way for everyone around us.

Most of us are not satisfied with what we have. We dwell on problems, wondering how we can fix them. We dwell on what could be better, wondering how to make it so. We dwell on what we don't have that other people do. "If I could only have this, my life would be so much better". All of this takes us away from appreciating those things that we already do have. All of us, without exception, have a great deal to be thankful for, if we will just focus on finding it. We would probably feel much better even if we would just direct our comparisons to those who don't have what we have instead of those who seem to have more, and realize just how lucky we are.

There is no time for us to ponder what we don't have. There is a world full of riches that each of us has to explore and enjoy right now, just where we are. "It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got". The more we appreciate what we have right now, the more that will be given to us. You only have so much time on earth; spend it enjoying what is already here for you to enjoy. Be happy right here, right now.

Rich

"If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it." - John D. Rockefeller

Money is probably the most stressful word we have. We all want money, yet we are terrified of not having enough of it. We want a large and growing bank account. But we usually can't put our finger on exactly how much money we want or even why we want it. If we had a million dollars, most of us wouldn't really know what to do with it. All we know, all we have thought about, is that we want to have the money.

But money isn't real. At most, it is just a peice of paper. It is a symbol of a promise between 2 people that if I give you something that is valuable to you, you will give me something that is of equivalent value to me. It is just a sophisticated form of bartering. What we really want when we want money is the knowledge that we are valuable to other people, and the security of being able to always have everything we think we need.

We often use money as a means of competition; keeping up with the Jones's because the person with the most "toys" is seen as the most successful. But having more of the things money can buy is not an indication of true riches. Money-grubbing people are not looked upon kindly. Our true richness comes from the quality of our relationships with those people who matter most to us. If your only goal is to become rich by getting a lot of money, you will never achieve it. Because competing for money takes your attention off of the richness what really matters; and hinders or destroys the relationships that matter most to you. And because you have failed to give to them the love they wanted, they fail to give us the riches you wanted.