We each come into this life with gifts, and as we grow and are exposed to more choices, those gifts grow and adapt. When we figure out how we can share our gift with others, we often say we’ve found our calling. And when we are doing what we love, and leading a happy, joyful life, the money energy will follow.
So the goal isn’t to choose a career we think will pay off well. The goal is to do what makes us happy and trust that our happiness will align us with whatever abundance we seek.
Now, some might not believe we don’t have to “work” to make money. Many probably have the belief, shared by most of our society, that long hours of hard work and money go hand in hand, and that you can’t have one without the other. And many probably also believe that you can only earn so much given the time you are able to put in. These ones have placed an artificial cap on their potential income by believing X hours equals X dollars.
But we can find evidence to the contrary if we look for it. There are plenty of people who play for a living: piano or basketball or roles in films or on stage. There are people who create art for a living: storytellers, sculptors, painters. There are people who win lotteries and inherit fortunes. There are people who make millions and millions of dollars but work only a couple of hours a day.
Everywhere we look, we can find evidence that not everyone has to slave away at a job they hate to make a mediocre living. That’s a start toward changing our financially limiting beliefs. But we must go farther than this. We must find a way to believe that we don’t have to slave away at a job we hate, either.
Most of us think we’re different from everyone else. But by and large, we’re all the same.
Some who were raised very poor, as I was, fall into the trap of believing that’s all life has in store for them. Their biggest dream might be to have a little more than their parents did. For me, that meant indoor plumbing and a car that would run more often than not. Fortunately, I had some bad things happen in my childhood that made me rebel against everything my family stood for, and perpetual poverty was one of those things. I was lucky. I was launched out of there like a rocket at the tender age of 15, and I am grateful for the events that lit my fuse. They were not fun to experience. But I don’t think I’d be where I am if I’d had a happy, idyllic childhood.
Don’t interpret that to mean no one with a happy childhood can be successful. That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is that we all have experiences that will push us where we need to go. Our Higher Self knows our best, fastest path. And everything in our lives has a hand in helping us find it. I was a kid who would never have thought living in a nice home, making good money doing something I love to do, was a possibility for me. But I was pushed out into the world early, and exposed to examples of people doing just that. People like me.
I think it’s important to expose our kids to bigger possibilities than those they see at home and in their neighborhoods. We need to show them what’s out there, and emphasize to them that anyone can have it. That no human being is more worthy than they are, and that the same potential is out there for all of us. We need to encourage them to dream as big as their imaginations can reach, while expanding their minds so they can dream even bigger.
And not just kids, either. It’s never too late to begin launching those big dreams.
Finding Your Gift
Sometimes people think they don’t have a gift, or that they don’t know what their gift is. So a little self-exploration is called for here. Why not take a little self-exploration quiz to find your true calling?
Use your journal for this exercise.
If money was not involved, what would you spend your days doing?
What are your hobbies?
What are your favorite places to visit?
What is the most fun thing you ever do?
What would your closest friends say you do best?
Are you happier alone or with others?
Are you a talker or a listener?
Do you prefer numbers or words?
What are your favorite kinds of TV shows?
What was your favorite subject in high school?
When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Try to answer all or most and see if something becomes clearer. If it doesn’t, try writing all your answers together in a word cloud of sorts, and see if a pattern emerges. If you can find a way to make a living doing something you would do for free (and I swear to you, every single one of us can), then life takes a huge leap into bliss.
What if I Have a Job, Hate it, But Need the Money?
Should I quit?
Well, let’s think about this carefully. We have to remember that our current situation is a mirror, showing us the state of our vibration, or at least a very recent state of it. Our present life shows us which station we’ve been tuned into most often.
If I am in a job I hate, then I’m attuned to a job I hate. I’m thinking about how much I hate it. I’m complaining about it. I’m wishing I could quit. I’m dreading going in to work each day.
If I quit today, while I’m tuned in this way, then whatever new job I find will also be a job I hate, because that’s the only thing that can come to me until and unless I change my vibration. I need to change the channel first, and then change jobs second.
So how do I do that? I start by looking for something about my current job that I don’t hate. I begin heading out to work every morning expecting at least one good thing to happen there. I find something to like, anything to like about this current job. Maybe my office has one of the nicest restrooms I’ve ever been in. Maybe there’s one co-worker I really enjoy running into every day. Maybe work has a faster internet connection than home and I get a chance to use it for fun when no one’s looking. Maybe I just start paying attention to the good my paycheck brings into my life, the bills it pays. Maybe I work on feeling grateful to have a job that pays my bills at all. Maybe I go look at what it would cost me to buy my own health insurance, which will truly give me something to love about my job if health insurance is provided.
Even better, maybe I start to get into what this company is doing. Maybe it’s something really worthwhile. Maybe I decide to become the best file clerk or phone answerer or assembly line worker that anyone in this building has ever seen, and take pride in that and feel good about it.
As I find peace with where I am, things will begin to shift. My job will become less hateful. I will become happier and more content there. I might get a promotion. I might get a raise. The people and things that irritate me will fade out of my experience because I’ve stopped focusing on being irritated. Things will change all around me as I make my own subtle changes within myself. I might get so satisfied with my job that I start to wonder if I really need a different job after all. And that’s the time to start looking. I might not even have to look. It’s likely that, under these new conditions, offers will come pouring in and I’ll be able to take my pick.
Get happy where you are. Then make changes. Never make a change from a place of discontent.
It’s opposite of what most of us do. We stay where we are when we’re happy, make changes when we’re not. But the best practice is to get happy first, then take action.
Indulge Your Muse, Whoever She Is
Those things you love doing—do them. Do them in your spare time. Do them with passion. Make them a priority even if they don’t pay (yet). They’re more valuable than money. They are expressions of your soul. There’s a very good reason why you’re compelled to write, or to paint, or to decorate houses or landscape gardens, or take pictures. There’s a part of our Higher Selves, the part I call The Muse, who whispers inspiration to us all. She’s the most creative part, and she manifests differently in each of us. Those desires, those feelings of joy we have when we indulge her, those are the biggest clues we have to finding our calling.
Our calling is the thing that brings us the most joy!
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Assignment 10
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br /> Finding Your Bliss
* * *
Make a list of the things you love to do most in your journal. Pick one, and then, spend some time doing it.
The Goddess Speaks
If you go into the new position, as janitor or judge, go into it because you are aligned with it, and because you know you will thrive and be well rewarded. Go into it because it fulfills your desires. If you go into the new position, go into it aligned with your Source and you will be the best janitor or judge this world has ever seen. The job thrives, and all the people your job touches thrive, and you thrive.
Too many accept the new position, be it parking lot attendant or president, from a place of sacrifice. They will valiantly suffer the job for the greater good. For the good of the family. For the good of the country. These ones do not expect to thrive in the job, but to endure it, as if it’s a prison sentence. These ones will indeed suffer in the job. And the job will suffer, and everyone it touches will suffer. They’ll be the worst parking lot attendants or presidents the world has ever seen. And only because of their state of mind, attitude and expectations.
Remember the words of the Goddess:
“Nor do I demand sacrifice, for I am the mother of all living.” [7]
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Chapter Nine
Politics and World Events
* * *
I’m a politics junkie. I used to be a news junkie, too, but I’m in recovery. I still watch too much of my favorite news channels. They have a clear bias, but then so do I. I watch too much. I have too many strong opinions about too many things.
But I also believe in my heart of hearts that it doesn’t matter. In the grand scheme of things, it really matters not at all who is president, or who wins what other race, or whether the Soviet Union begins to reassemble. I imagine that’s making some of you gasp. It’s okay, you get to believe what you want. But let me make my case.
A Moment in the Deep End
Humanity can only evolve in one direction. Forward, although that’s a misnomer. We’re not bouncing from point to point on a vertical number line. We are more like spheres, emitting bigger spheres, that emit still bigger spheres, like nesting dolls growing from smallest to biggest. Except there will never be a biggest, and there has never been a smallest.
To put it simply, everything humanity lives through adds another layer to what we’ve already lived. So humanity gets bigger, deeper, healthier, wiser, smarter, more advanced, more understanding, more enlightened. And no matter who gets elected to what office, or who wins what war, humanity as a whole continues its evolution of continual improvement. We can’t change that.
We can, however, speed it up or slow it down. And we can participate in the contrast that brings about the change if we choose to.
What About Really Bad World Leaders?
Humanity evolves in the same direction, forward not back, outward not in, upward not down, bigger not smaller. That’s ongoing. What’s not constant is the pace of this ever-positive change.
Sometimes things are so good for so long, and we are having such a great time basking in the moment, that our progress slows down. We need these times. They feed our soul, and heal our wounds. This is the kind of living we most desire and are always reaching for. Times of peace and prosperity. We love them!
But they aren’t the only reason we’re here. We’re here to experience the widest range of possibilities each physical lifetime has to offer. And so from time to time, we expose ourselves to stuff that’s not so fun. I call the worst of those times our Dark Nights of the Soul. These are the times of trouble and conflict, times of challenge and lack, times of heartbreak and pain.
When these times come, the desire for their opposite becomes more vividly clear to us than ever. We crave joy and love and peace during times of their opposites, and therefore when we get those things, the joy is more joyful, the love more loving, the peace more serene than it has ever been before.
Dark nights, troubled times, are the power-source of our evolution. Just as diseases create cures (by spurring us to invent them) so do troubled times create joyful ones in our lives. Necessity breeds invention. If there’s no need for the new, then there’s no new. And if there’s no new, there’s no life. That’s because we humans fear change. Change is scary. Change means stepping out of the known and into the unknown. That fear makes us refuse to change until the status quo becomes unbearable. If we’d take the hints sooner, we could avoid some of the worst experiences. But if we don’t, no matter, the troubles will get bigger until we do.
This is important to understand. We live in an eternal cycle of dark, and then spark, and then growth. This is the very stuff of life. It’s life itself.
Expand This Understanding to the Global Scale
A bad leader inspires his people to a powerful desire for a great leader, a truly benevolent leader. And the desire for that leader will bring that leader into our experience. Desire is what creates reality, after all.
Everything unpleasant inspires the desire for its opposite. Hate and intolerance inspire us to wish for love and acceptance. War and violence inspire us to wish for peace and kindness. Pollution inspires us to wish for pure, fresh air and sweet, clean water. A government with a heart full of fear—fear of lack, fear of what it perceives as other, fear of someone’s gonna take my stuff and then I won ’t have any—inspires the desire for its opposite. And desire is what creates reality.
When things look bad to us in the world, we must remind ourselves that the Darkest Night of a nation is what will inspire it to its finest days. A fear-based leadership will itself, by its very existence, give birth to a leadership that works from a heart full of love for all, and an awareness of our oneness, our connection, and a secure knowing that there is plenty for all, and no need for competition.
That better world is conceptualized, fertilized, and begins to grow, during those darkest hours.
And as we shift our focus to growing the solution instead of fighting the problem, it will come into being. It will be better than it’s ever been before. And then it’ll be great for a while. And then we’ll discover some other flaw we’d like to overcome, and shine a spotlight on it, and if we don’t address it right away, it’ll get bigger. It’ll seem horrible for a little while, until we grow past it and solve it, and then things will be even greater for a while. On and on, without end.
There will never be a time when there is no room for improvement. And yet each improvement takes us to a higher level than we’ve been before.
Activism
When things happen globally that make us desire change, there are some who gather together to demand that change. The protest marchers. The cause-funders. The knowledge-spreaders. Many interpret the Law of Attraction as if it makes any of this unnecessary. And it’s true that the desired change will come as soon as enough of us want it. The scale will tip, and society will evolve. It will happen naturally in response to the dark time that inspired it. But does that mean we shouldn’t bother getting involved in causes we care about?
I grew up in the sixties and seventies, a hippy child. I’ve taken a deeper look at this, and talked to lots of activist pals about it. They fall into two very different categories and I want to talk about those here.
One group are the ones I call the “Antis.” They protest against things. They are angry about what is. The signs they carry criticize and condemn what they don’t want. They work tirelessly to end the thing they’re against, and I often hear them say things like, “I’m killing myself for this cause! But it’s important. I won’t stop until it’s done, no matter what it takes.”
The other group are those I call the “Pros.” They advocate for things. They march for the solution to the problem that the Antis are protesting against. The signs they carry talk about what they do want. They don’t have to work tirelessly because their work isn’t work to them. It’s invigorating. It’s exciting. It’s uplifting. I often hear them talk about the energy of their gatherings, the t
hrill of so many like-minded people coming together to help build a better world.
When we focus on something, we create more of it. Protesting against something is focusing on the thing we don’t want. Arguing about it online is creating more of it. Burning it in effigy is creating more of it. Looking up statistics about it to support our argument about how bad it is, is creating more of it. I have to remind myself of this every single day, because again, child of the sixties.
So the best, most powerful, and most effective kind of activism is activism in which we focus on the change we want. We will be more potent when we march and chant and make signs and memes that are FOR the solutions, rather than AGAINST the problem. The path to change begins with a single step, and that first step is always the same—let go of the problem, shift focus to the solution.
Watching Politics on TV
Once I’d come to understand all of the above, I was able to watch politics in the same way I can watch any other reality TV show. (Within reason. I’ve recently discovered I can still get sucked in.) The drama is fun, and I’m eager to see who wins this season. I’m rooting for my favorites and boo-hissing my villains.
But I know that in the long run, it matters not at all. We’re going to evolve and improve either way, and the leader I disagree with most is bringing about the changes I’ll love best.
With a flawed leader, those changes will come faster, and they’ll be sped up by the activists who are inspired by what they don’t like to create what they like better. And as soon as enough of those change seekers are focused on the solution, it will come, far faster than it would have without their activism. And, we might add, far faster than it would’ve come without the flawed leader that inspired the desire for change. But the progress will come, either way. Only the pace changes.
The Bliss Book Page 9
