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July 30, 2006
Life Isn't Just About Growing Old...
Have you ever wondered why life is the way it is? Why the days turn out like they do and why everything ends up happening the way it does in the manner it does to with and to whom it does?
Sometimes I wish there were a way to figure all this out and know what was happening and why it was happening so that the worry and the trepidation and the confusion were not a part of life, nor even part of the equation.
Life doesn't have to be hard to go through. Life doesn't have to be something that we struggle through until bedtime each night whereupon we can only see ourselves repeating the journey all over again the next day. Life is meant to be more than that.
Of this I'm sure.
We search and we look and we question and we wonder what's it all about? What is each day inherently all about and supposed to be for? What is the meaning of each day that we exist?
Sometimes it just doesn't make sense and I know that the vast majority of people truly don't know the answer yet want to seek solace in the belief that they do. That's fine. Let them continue to do that.
Personally, I've had it with that delusion.
I don't know why what happens to me happens to me. As I've written about in other articles, the old adage 'everything happens for a reason' sometimes is beyond questioning. And sometimes it's beyond bewilderment.
One works so hard to understand what existence is about and yet life keeps coming full bore and one is left holding up another Life wall that is about to come crashing in on them. Why does this happen?
Why do some people believe that it is their role in life to make others live's somehow conform to theirs so that their walls stay upright and they don't have to do any work to improve their world and keep it from crashing down on them?
That, to me, doesn't make sense. Why? Because it's a waste of a golden opportunity to learn about one's self.
Life is supposed to be joyful and full of wonder and wonderment. It's a blessing that we've been given every millisecond that we're still able to be vertical in this world. Life isn't something we earn and struggle through. It's something we are given to learn from.
One of my inner development teachers, Vernon Howard, stated a fair number of years ago that the point of life isn't to grow old, it's to grow up.
How better this planet would be if the majority of people held dear that attitude and worked on themselves like they should be doing so they could truly live the gift that Life is.
Life isn't about growing old, its about growing up.
Think about that. Think about what that entails.
It means to live each new day unlike the ones before it. Every day, not just tomorrow, but every tomorrow. Until they're throwing dirt on your face when you're in the ground.
Life is about shaking off the chains of the past that we all seem to have been born into by societal influences and we also voluntarily pick up and attach ourselves to so that we can go through life like Marley in A Christmas Carol. That is, going through life with the chains that we had the opportunity to have not be chained by and to, but instead we continued to make choices that attached but another link to our already lengthy Life chain.
We aren't here very long. Any of us. We aren't going to be here much longer. Oh sure, several decades sounds like a long time. But think about the last several that you lived. In retrospect, how quickly did they go by?
We can choose to live our lives like there is no tomorrow or we can continue to drag our past in front of us and walk into it.
Predictable.
Pain.
Safety.
Tip-toeing through life.
And throwing darkness onto ourselves and others.
It doesn't have to be that way. For any of us.
I know for myself that I have worked hard to rid myself of the dark influences in my life, both internally and through relationships with others. I don't want to be holding up others' walls so they don't come crashing down on them.
Life is too short to be spent worrying about a life that someone else doesn't want to live for themselves.
It's enough work to live our own life. A full-time job 'till Death do us part'.
Remember, life isn't about growing old, it's about growing up.
Think about that.
Grow up.
Even if you're 70 years old.
Grow up.
Even if you're a mother, a father, a grandparent.
Grow up.
A business executive for a Fortune 100 company.
Grow up.
A priest, a Buddhist monk.
Grow up.
A teenager. An addict.
Grow up.
A Mensa genius. A high school dropout.
Grow up.
Life is too short to be lived like there IS a tomorrow.
Life is too short to drag our past into the future so we know what to expect.
Life is too short to burden others with our responsibility to grow up for ourselves.
Grow up.
Yes...
YOU.
Don't avoid the truth.
We all need to grow up.
Growing old is taking care of itself with each of us and this carcass we each inhabit for a while.
But we, as the only conscious creatures on this planet, can do differently for what we can control.
We can grow up.
Will you?
Written by Andre Best
President, Ultimate Results, Inc.
http://www.andrebest.com
'Learn About Life From Another Perspective'
(Author's permission is granted to share this full article with others. Just leave the signature line intact, please.)
Posted by Andre Best at 9:18 PM | Comments (0)
July 15, 2006
The Purpose Driven Life
I had a recent insight regarding the purpose of life that we are all driven at some time in our existence to seek and find out about. Now, this purpose driven life insight is perhaps not one that is life changing for most, nor does it supply the answer to what our purpose here on this spinning ball might be.
Rather, the insight that I had about the purpose of life, personally speaking, is something that had never occurred to me before. So I thought that I would share it here with you so as to possibly impart some light into your quest, if you are on the path as such, towards finding out what your purpose in life and existence in general might be.
Let me start with a little personal background on why this is even a topic of consideration and worth writing about.
I know that for those of us who are more spiritually inclined and driven towards pursuing studies of higher interest that a topic like this is something that we find ourselves facing more than the masses do.
But at the same time, even though this is something that is the central focus of our studies and what keeps us moving in the direction of self improvement in general it can also be a hindrance towards moving beyond the simple searching for an answer.
You see, as humans, we like things to fit in nice and neat little packages. Especially things that happen to us during our days here and also within our mind and our thoughts in particular. We like nice beginning and conclusive endings to things. An example of this as proof of this concept can be seen by simply being aware of how Hollywood movies are structured in America.
They always have a neat little wrapping-things-up ending. The guy gets the girl. The girl gets the guy. And they both end up walking off into the sunset together. Neat. Closure.
But that's not how life is for us in the real world. At least more often then not it is a matter of having to accept that sometimes things don't end themselves in such a way that we are able to see the end of whatever it is and then move on.
And that brings us back to today's topic of this article.
One's purpose in life.
This is something that doesn't have a nice little neat ending for the vast majority of people. Including us seekers of higher knowledge. It is something that can't be explained individually in a book, nor provided via answers that we can take on for ourselves and run with.
Rather, it is something that we have to figure out ourselves on an individual basis and see what comes of this quest for the ultimate answer to one's search for their purpose in life.
But one particularly interesting thing that happened to me recently was that I realized, as I was ironing my work clothes one day a few weeks ago, that I had been on this focussed quest to find my purpose in life for many years now.
You know the focussed quest I'm referencing...
We all think that there is some grand scheme that we're all a part of and that we each have a dynamic role to play in how it all turns out. Yet, we're in turmoil because we can't figure out what it is we're to be doing on this spinning ball we're living on and so we don't know what our particular role in this grand scheme is. A true conundrum.
And a frustrating one to boot. At least that is how I found it to be after these many years of searching.
I found myself continuing to delve into activities, and teachings, and writings, and gurus, and specialists, and advice, and how-to's that would hopefully help me figure out what this all too elusive purpose to my life was.
It was almost as if some grand joke was being played on me to find the answer yet I was unable to find it and so all I was led towards was frustration and questioning endlessly what life is all about. And this was spiritually unsettling to say the least.
Think about it.
Don't we all at some time find ourselves asking, even if for only a few fleeting seconds, what 'this' is all about?
...or 'Why am I here?'
...or 'What's this all for'?'
...or 'Is this it?'
...or perhaps even, 'There's got to be more than just this, right?'
Well, you're not alone.
But what I found out during that insight I had a few weeks ago while ironing was that for most of us we continue to live our days thinking that there is a cosmic joke being played on us and that it's somehow our fault that we haven't figured out our own personal purpose of living. And so we stay frustrated.
But I realized that my resistance to letting go of my belief that there had to be some grand higher purpose to my life was what was keeping me in angst on a continuing basis.
It wasn't that there was some higher purpose that I hadn't discovered, it was that I was resisting letting go of the fact that I was unable to find it up until now and as long as I was hanging on to that fight it was natural that I wasn't going to be able to progress very far in any sense of my search.
My resistance to this disturbance was the disturbance. And this is a quote from a powerful inner life teacher I've followed for years...Vernon Howard.
Again, the late Mr. Howard taught 'resistance to the disturbance is the disturbance'. Or to paraphrase it, my resistance was what was disturbing me.
And so once I realized this, it became simply a matter of letting go of my resistance to accepting that up until now I hadn't found my higher purpose in life. And once I was able to let go of that and realize that everything is okay that way right now for me, then the disturbance gradually disappeared.
It's interesting that for years I had fought the idea that I had somehow missed the grand calling identifying what each of our purpose's are on Earth. And so I was enrolled in the resistance to that understanding.
That is, as long as I resisted letting go of the fact that I hadn't found the absolute higher purpose that my life is all about and I continued to allow angst into my life through struggling with that fact that I sure wasn't going to be able to allow space inside me for true consideration of what my higher purpose would be, should it decide to reveal itself to me.
Right now my purpose in life is to be the absolute best 'Dad' I can be for my boys. And that means that I continue on this path towards becoming the most perfect human being that I am able to allow myself to be. And since my boys are in my world, they will be able to hopefully glean certain aspects of this mindset from me and take it with them into their adulthood.
Is this why I, personally, was placed here on Earth? Don't know.
Do you know why you were placed here on Earth? Really, do you? Do any of us?
Of course on a societal basis it becomes more a matter of what we 'do' with our lives and our time here. And that is what the common world recognizes and remembers us by. But is that really why each of us is born and meant to live for several decades before passing on again to the other side?
Although one may struggle with attempting to understand and yet at the same time not be able to understand their purpose to being alive and for living, one has to make sure that they don't get all too caught up in that struggle while Life passes them by.
Yes, we generally don't know why each of us enters this world. But don't let the struggle cause you to lose sight of the present.
Perhaps that is your purpose. That is, to become as awake to your personal struggles that keep you from being here. Now.
Present to Life.
For me, it's daily work to realize this. And I guess in the meantime, until that grand vision of purpose enters my mind and shows me the real meaning behind it all for me I will simply continue to stay aware of the resistance inside.
And, also to continue to not contribute to my inner disturbance by resistance that results in only pushing against the door labelled 'Your Purpose in Life' that someone, some-thing, some-body might be trying to open or keep open for me to walk through.
And into.
Hmmm.....
Interesting picture, isn't it?
Written by Andre Best
President, Ultimate Results, Inc.
http://www.andrebest.com
'Learn About Life From Another Perspective'
(Author's permission is granted to share this full article with others. Just leave the signature line intact, please.)
Posted by Andre Best at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)