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Fearless Dreams of Personal Development Road Abundance and Possibility Bridge Island Dark Forest




World
How do you react when you hear that question?
Do you stop, look within, and think about who you want to be, and what you want out of life?

Or do you get defensive, expecting another self-proclaimed expert to tell you how to fix your life?

My life’s not perfect.

I’d like to find/strengthen, or develop new abilities, and do things that seem out of reach.
I want to experience new possibilities in myself, so the world remains new and fresh around me.

There are endless books and methods of personal development that tell us what to become, and how to move along a path from where we are to where we want to be.

A few books are focused on giving us a new vision of life.
These books show us that who we are, what we’re capable of, and the way that we and the world live, is only one possibility among many.

Such books inspire us to rethink what is possible for ourselves, and the world.

I received a copy of a book like this recently, called A Life Worth Living, by Bill Giruzzi.

Typical for me, I try to get an overview of the book before I sit down to read it.
I look at the covers, the introduction, and the table of contents:

  1. Work is a Cultural Phenomenon
  2. It’s All Made Up
  3. Building Blocks
  4. Paradigm of Business
  5. Is this It?
  6. Someday the sun will go out
  7. The Curtain, Please
  8. The New Paradigm
  9. Not of this World
  10. Meet Your Narrator
  11. The future
  12. A New Mind, A New World
  13. The Edge of Language
  14. A Life Worth Living

It’s a small book.
And it doesn’t take long to read it.
But the issues that Bill raises, and the questions he asks us at the end of each chapter will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

 
I Don’t Know How to Create
The world we face is a result of people not wanting enough

One of the topics that Bill focuses on is our belief that we don’t know how to shape our lives.
There’s this subtle conversation in the background of our minds humming along saying something like, “There must be something wrong with me. If there weren’t something wrong with me, I wouldn’t have this life. ”

We create our lives with the choices that we make.
But we’re often unhappy with the results, so we deny our ability to create.
Why do we deny our lives?

Sometimes it’s because we can’t predict the consequences of our choices, and we’re unhappy with the way we feel about the life we’ve chosen.

We can’t understand how we got to this point.
What’s wrong with us?
How do we fix it?

We often pretend that we live and choose, unbound by any of the influences around us.
But Bill explains that we live and choose within a paradigm.

Our time, our culture, our parents, our life experiences, and beliefs tell us what is possible and appropriate.
The paradigm tells us what the choices us, and forces us to choose between only them.

Whose thoughts do I think?
Whose feelings do I feel?
Are they truly mine, or have I just borrowed them from the world around me?

A paradigm is a structure that binds us and limits us as much as the shape and size of a room that we stand in.

 
Changing the Paradigm
We’ve settled for what the past tells us is possible and as a result, we continue to be stuck surviving in the world we’ve created.

Whenever you think that you are tired with life as it is, change from the viewpoint that “this is life” to “this is life within this design”

We pretend that there is only one way that the world can be.
We pretend that our beliefs are as solid as the ground beneath us, and the sun in the sky.
But nothing in our lives is permanent.

Bill encourages us to think about our own death, the death of our loved ones, and the end of the earth and sun.
We realize that we treat so many things as permanent and inevitable, even though they can change tomorrow.

We accept the rules and thoughts that everyone lives by, and we assume that we have to fix our problems within this paradigm.

But many of our problems are simply a consequence of the paradigm we live in.

There’s another way.
We can adopt a new paradigm, a new way of thinking, with different rules, different choices, and different results.

Bill says:
I wrote this book to instill in you a desire for discovery…It’s about regaining what has been lost to us – the experience of powerfully and fully participating in our lives.

But how do we find a new way, when we have so much negativity toward our current life?
Most people are dissatisfied with their jobs, letting their lives slip away in pain, always waiting for another time and place to find meaning and satisfaction.

Our pain gives rise to our negativity.
We deny and resist our life.

Our resistance is directed toward our current life and the paradigm that our life is built on.
But we can’t imagine anything outside of that paradigm, so any thoughts of a new life are faced with the same resistance.

 
Living in Two Worlds
When we want to change, we don’t deny our present life.
We don’t quit our jobs, or ignore the urgent demands of our current world.

But we begin to create another structure.
We build another paradigm which can allow us to live differently, and make different choices.

We want to develop a way of life where it’s natural to experience joy, and find meaning and satisfaction every day.

The great challenge is to be aware of both paradigms, and yet keep them separate.
We have to learn to think and feel in two worlds:

  • The world we are in, which derives from the past.
  • And the world we want to create, which will derive from our actions, derived from our thoughts.

We’re not talking of a purely intellectual awareness of the new world we want to build, and the new paradigm that structures it.
This new world has to be placed in our hearts, and shine with possibility and meaning.

Robert Fritz, in Creating, and other books, speaks of something similar.
When we want to create, we have to hold at once in our minds, both our current reality, as well as the future to be created.

Each must be clear and distinct.
And we must care deeply about what we’re trying to create.

The contrast between the two worlds gives birth to a powerful energy, a creative tension that drives us to find a way to bring that future to life.

Freedom to be Irrational?

Wealth Beyond Reason - Bob Doyle\'s course on The Law of Attraction

Indecision
 
Relative Freedom
(In Part 1 of this series, we explored Sway, by Ori and Rom Brafman, a powerful book that discusses several psychological forces that drive irrational behavior. Here, in Part 2, we continue by looking at Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely.)

How free are you?

Some people pretend that they are completely free to make their own decisions.
But it’s not true.
Everyone is influenced in an endless number of ways.

Don’t give up, though!
We can focus on maximizing our freedom.

Learn about the common forces that influence you, and you have a chance to neutralize those influences, or use them to your advantage!
[Continue reading: Freedom to be Irrational?]


 Series: Irrational Influence

Make Your Own Decisions!



Under the Influence
How do you make decisions?

Do you analyze the situation, and weigh all the pros and cons before taking action?
Or do you just go with your gut, without giving it much thought?

Whichever way you decide, you probably feel that you’re in charge of your decisions, and your life.

Sometimes our gut feelings are based on all kinds of subtle issues that our unconscious mind has digested to give us a quick answer.

Sometimes our feelings express what is truly important to us, even though we haven’t put it into words and thoughts.

There’s nothing wrong with going with your feelings.
Conscious thinking isn’t the only way to understand the world.

But our feelings are not always our own.
[Continue reading: Make Your Own Decisions!]


 Series: Irrational Influence

This is not what I typically write about, but I think it’s a great message of hope for anyone and would love to see all of my readers think about spreading it today.

My good friend, Ken McArthur is standing in a circus tent today
asking 2,000 people to spread a message of hope to teenagers who
don’t think that life is worth living.

(You may know Ken’s name from the world of internet marketing, but this is NOT about internet marketing.
Ken is a wonderful guy, but this post is not about Ken
)

Here’s Ken’s simple message for for giving hope (and maybe saving
someone’s life!):

G - Greet and meet: talk to others, smile, say hello, ask
someone how they are doing

I - Involve yourself and others: find a cause you can support,
volunteer, pledge resources. Get the people around you
involved, especially if you see someone beginning to
withdraw. Invite them to participate in some activity, to
“get out” of their comfort zone

V - Validate others: tell others that they matter - especially
family members and friends that you tend to see daily but
may take for granted, give genuine complements

E - Empathize: be a listening ear, take time to be fully
present, don’t try to solve - just acknowledge someone’s
feeling/hurt

You can find out more about Ken’s wonderful project with his
Impact Action Team at:

Speak up, Save Lives

Spread this message today!

And if you send it on let me know how many you sent it to!

Thanks,

Joel

Do You Love to Complain?


Frustrated!
 
You won’t Believe what Happened to Me Today…

Are you the victim of bad drivers, rude salespeople, annoying co-workers, or bosses that never give you credit for anything?

How many times does it take you to get a problem resolved with a bill, purchase, etc?

My wife and I have a standing joke that we always have to ask at least 2 different people at a company or agency what to do about a problem, since we’re not likely to get the right answer the first time.

Sometimes it seems like the whole world is conspiring to give you grief.

No wonder that you feel like complaining to anyone who will listen!

It’s so easy to slip into negativity, even when that accomplishes nothing.
And negativity is one of the most powerful ways to sabotage your own personal growth.
[Continue reading: Do You Love to Complain?]


Perfection
 
Nothing is Perfect

Do you get suspicious when someone offers you the perfect investment, opportunity, solution, etc.?

Everything has a limitation or flaw of some kind.

Things don’t have to be perfect, but we need to understand where the flaws are.

When someone offers you the latest personal development method, don’t expect perfection.

And don’t be cynical, and assume that the method is worthless.

Seek to understand where the technique works, and what the limitations are.

There has been a lot of attention given to The Secret (which is all about the Law of Attraction).
Its discussed and promoted as though it’s the perfect answer to everything.

Is it perfect?

The Law of Attraction tells us that we will bring into our lives what we focus on.
Our personal growth is in our own hands.

That means that you and I have to search our hearts, find out what’s important to us, and find the right way to focus on our great desires.

And bring our dreams to life.

Sorry, though, this is not a wishing well, a lottery ticket, or a slot machine.
[Continue reading: Is there a Fatal Flaw in the Law of Attraction?]

Are You Afraid to Laugh?


Clowns

Cheap Laughs

Laughter and jokes and play are undervalued in our serious adult world.

We think of all of these as entertainment, just a way to escape the stress and burdens of a threatening world which weighs us down.

Do you ever feel like you’re carrying more than you can bear?
Laughter picks up those burdens, and takes them away from us, if only for a moment.

A break from our worries is great.
But laughter is much more than an escape.

Laughter can heal. [Continue reading: Are You Afraid to Laugh?]


 Series: Paths of Abundance

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