Ah, romance, that wonderful and exciting feeling, that most glorious intertwining of two hearts. So intense, such a high, but so fleeting, and so often for so many once gone never to return. But does it have to be that way? Can we intentionally create and sustain more romance in our lives?

Most folks profess to want more romance in their lives. Indeed, for some, romance is a goal unto itself, or at least high on the list of goals for their love relationships.

But if having romance in our committed love relationships is a highly prized goal, and if so many people want more of it in their lives, how can we create, cultivate, and encourage it? What concrete steps can we take to make sure that romance takes seed and flourishes?

The purpose of this article is to explore the idea that romance begins in your heart-center and grows outward, and is, to some significant degree, a reflection of how you feel about yourself. In other words, by romancing yourself first you can create the conditions that allow you to experience and express romance with another more easily.

Listen: your capacity to love and accept yourself is the measure of your capacity to love and accept others. The same can be said for romance: your ability and willingness to create romance within is the measure of the romance you can help create in a committed loving relationship.

True romance isn’t just about flowers and poems. Flowers and poems are great, of course, but are really just an extension of a feeling that comes from within, something that starts in, and flows from, the heart. Without that heart-felt feeling, flowers and poems are but an attempt be to romantic, not an expression of true romance.

So how do you create more romance in your life? Begin by romancing yourself. Love, accept, and forgive yourself on a deep level. Treat yourself with respect and understanding. Buy yourself flowers. Write yourself a poem. Treat yourself with respect and dignity. And remember: if you don’t love yourself first, you can’t truly love another.

And remember that it is far more important to be the right person than to find the right person. Our relationships are a reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves. Romance, too, is a reflection of that inner state. By first creating romance within, you’ll be well on your way to creating more romance in your life.

For several years now, I’ve been busy running the roads selling products to people I’ll never see again. The two products I sold were walk-in bathtubs which sold for close to $13,000.00 to elderly people who had a hard time getting in and out of a bathtub and then commercial-grade windows which sold for close to $1,000/each window. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is the money I made has been here and gone. What happened while I was on the road driving over 1500 miles/week? There are few places a woman without a college education can earn over $1000/week except in direct sales or finding a niche over the internet. But how do you know where to start or what to do first? Well, I read an interesting article which motivated me to do something about it. This article was telling me to JUST DO IT. I remember hearing that statement many years ago in an A.L. Williams meeting. I even heard it last night when listening to a teleseminar with Les Brown, famed motivator when he was talking about how faith without works means nothing. So why do I have such a hard time “just doing it.” Well, maybe it’s just that I’m afraid I won’t be successful.

My son, Brian, graduated from college five years ago. He majored in Art Education, but didn’t like teaching like he thought he would. So, he went back to school and got Microsoft certified. Now, he drives a Mercedes and earns over $100,000 a year as a systems administrator. You know, that didn’t come easy. After his Microsoft certification, he took a low-paying job with a computer firm which lead to computer programming jobs with the school system (his art education helped him land that job). Anyway, at 29 he just did it.

While I was on the road, my partner, Rod, pursued his passion of working over the Internet. He learned it little by little. It didn’t come easy. He now designs websites. His previous experience in the printing business and his artistic flare helped him. How could he accomplish that? He just did it. He can now design a website with links, connect a merchant account, place adwords with servers, etc. And me–my money has been here and gone. I was too busy making a living to learn, too tired and soon too burnt out.
When you find your true passion (whatever it is), just pursue it–just do it.

The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step–so just do it. A single step rings you closer to your desired goal, so just do it. On the internet, you will find a whole world at your fingertips.

There are people out there who can become your mentors. You may never meet them face to face. They may never hear you speak, but they will still be your mentor. I have just given you a billion dollar concept.

It is worth nothing, however, unless you take action. –Just Do it–So, what am I saying–you might be like me, you have very little to show for your past work except paid bills and the fact that you made yourself a living. But, I plan on making changes in my life. I plan on learning how to market on the internet this year. I plan on “just doing it.” You’ll never know unless you try. This one concept can make you a fortune and on the internet, your possibilities are endless.

Your future is limited only to your acquired knowledge and your imagination and action. You may have the desire but feel overwhelmed by the Internet, but DO NOT FEAR. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Thank you so much for your time. I hope I encouraged you to pursue your passion.

This concept may well be worth a billion dollars
http://www.internetwealthmethod.com
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We’ve all heard the clich

If you aren’t happy, why aren’t you?

Chances are it is because you want something which you do not have, objects or conditions. This is probably not a good enough reason and a review of your situation and perceptions may be in order.

You may have seen video of children in very poor countries laughing and playing, unconcerned that they should have more to be happy about. They are happy because they are playing, because they have their friends and family, and some food to eat that day. Everyone has the right to be happy, and if they can be in their situation, shouldn’t you?

“Happiness consists more in small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.” – Ben Franklin (1706-1790)

Happiness is inside us, in our minds, in our thinking. It is not external material things or experiences, but the enjoyment of our thoughts and feelings. This is good because our thoughts, and therefore our happiness, are up to us.

Start by reviewing the things that you have to be happy about and dwell on these. Don’t overlook the little or basic things that you take for granted.

Make a habit of substituting unhappy thoughts with happy thoughts. Whenever an unfavorable picture enters your mind, eject it and replace it with a pleasant one. We all have some nice experiences to recollect and there are usually little pleasures around us most of the time. You can even imagine enjoyable experiences, and it will have a similar positive effect.

“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

Establish good principles and conduct yourself according to these principles. Love, or at least be tolerant of, your fellow humans. Don’t strive too hard for that which, in the end, will not make you happier.

Many of us wish for more happiness. We want to lead happier, more fulfilling, lives, but the sad truth is that so many of us that wish for more happiness spend much more time tending the happiness of others than we do tending to our own happiness.

Happiness does not simply happen. A person does not suddenly stumble across happiness. Happiness is the result of careful tending and a person who wishes to be happy must tend to their own happiness.

Tending to your happiness does not need to be difficult, complex, or time-consuming. It can be as simple as this four-step formula:

1. Trash your unhappy thoughts and trends
2. Envision yourself happy
3. Needs fulfilled
4. Desires fulfilled

Making yourself a happier person really can be that simple.

Step one is an important one because unhappiness is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many people are unhappy because they don’t believe they deserve to be happy and they lock themselves into patterns of behavior that make them unhappy. You must trash your unhappy thoughts and trends.

Look inside yourself and find out what (and when) you think about things that make you unhappy. Is there a specific time of day that you tend to be more unhappy? Is there a specific task or routine that seems to feed your unhappiness? Is there something that you do or think that contributes to your own unhappiness?

Once you identify the areas of your life that cause you unhappiness you can find ways to confront it and combat it. Sometimes you can make a change to avoid the trouble spot altogether, but when that’s not possible find ways to make it less difficult on yourself. Adjust your schedule or your expectations if that will make things better. Recruit help when you can. Just easing off one task or freeing up a few hours can make a huge difference in your attitude. When all else fails and you can’t change or share something unpleasant than don’t hesitate to give yourself a reward for accomplishing it. Knowing you will be rewarded can sometimes make difficult tasks more palatable.

Step two is key. Some people have been unhappy for so long they have forgotten what happiness looks like and feels like. Envisioning yourself happy can help create the happiness habit. Thinking about your own happiness will also help counterbalance times when you are unhappy or working through unpleasant tasks. Think about difficult times as simply stepping stones to happy times.

Step three cannot be overlooked. If your basic needs for food and sleep are not met then you will not be able to focus on happiness. Obviously it is not impossible for hungry, sleep-deprived people to be happy, but most humans are a lot less likely to be happy in that state. Food and sleep provide fuel for both body and mind and the healthier your body and mind then the better chance you have to achieve happiness.

Step four is the final step to achieving happiness. What do you desire? What do you wish for? What do you dream about? Allow yourself to dream big but don’t overlook small wishes and desires. While a two-week cruise might be great just having a weekend at a local resort might really give the rest, relaxation and escape you might need. Or perhaps you’d really like to lose 30 or 50 pounds but finding a way to work in some exercise a few times a week might give you more immediate gratification while eventually accomplishing your long-term goal.

Make a list of your desires, wishes, and dreams — big and small — and keep that list some place handy. What can you do this week to achieve a small goal? What can you do this month to take a step toward a big goal? Sometimes you don’t even need to accomplish your goals to achieve happiness. Sometimes it is simply enough to know that you are working toward your dreams. Often happiness is found on the path to our dreams. Often happiness is created while we strive to make our wishes come true.

You can make yourself a happier person but you must tend to your happiness. So often we spend more time tending to our outer possessions than we do tending to our inner ones. You can make a few changes to your life to find a better balance and that will help create more personal happiness for you.

I have had many confidence issues in my life, all of which I have either dealt with or overcome. I have written about some of these issues below.

1. The Bald Patch

2. My height

3. My weight

4. The stutter

5. My lack of belief in myself

6. My career

THE BALD PATCH

Even though to some people it may seem trivial, I was born with a bald patch the size of a ten pence piece. As I went through childhood and especially the teenage years I became more and more self-conscious and paranoid about it.

It was especially noticeable when it rained or when I went swimming as my hair would become wet. People at school would ridicule me and I was forever trying to hide and cover the bald patch even though most people knew about it.

It hurt when people laughed at me and eventually I stopped going swimming altogether.

MY HEIGHT

Out of all of my close male family and friends, I am the shortest at 5ft 4. This probably should not influence my confidence however with people continually looking down on me it did. I have been called many names, the nicest being “Shorty”.

I was always jealous of other people taller than I was. I hoped that one day I might have a late spurt. This never came.

My height affected me with sport. I wanted to be a striker at football however the coaches only wanted people over 6ft tall. At snooker I am constantly have to use the rest which makes it difficult to play up to the best standard and at tennis I was constantly being lobbed. It also meant that I only felt comfortable dating women 5ft 3 and under which reduces the available market considerably.

MY WEIGHT

During senior school I was very thin. This may have been the result of my parents turning vegetarian when I was twelve. At the time there were very few replacement foods and it seemed as though we went from having meat and two veg to just two veg.

As my parents cooked the food I had little option but to also turn vegetarian. After a few weeks I approached them and told them that I missed and wanted to eat meat. They were understanding to a degree and said:

“If you want it, you cook it”

At this age I could only really be bothered to cook properly a few days of the week and that gradually became less and less.

People at school would call me names like skin and bone and my weight became another area of paranoia for me.

THE STUTTER

At the age of four I developed a stutter. This became gradually worse as I became older even though my parents were told that I would grow out of it.

For what fluent people would class as simple tasks like reading from a book at school, answering questions, saying my name and address, ordering items at the bar or in a restaurant, and speaking on the telephone became a constant battle.

It was a very frustrating impediment, as I seemed to be able to talk quite fluently to people I knew well and whom I felt comfortable with, but at other times especially under any form of pressure could not say a word.

At the age of twenty two after about eleven months of sheer hard work and practice I managed to overcome the stutter and I now help other people who stutter to achieve fluency as well as helping people with confidence problems.

MY LACK OF BELIEF

I always had a lack of belief in certain areas.

I would notice a female in a bar for example and would want to go over and talk to her but would have the negative attitude of I’m not good enough, why would she be interested in me? I stutter, I have a bald patch, I have a menial job and I am very thin.

Even if I approach her and am successful, I would then be expected to buy her a drink, possibly phone her, possibly meet her parents, and maybe even get married! The thought of attempting these things with a stutter and with a lack of social confidence was far too daunting for me.

I left school at sixteen mainly due to a lack of confidence and the stutter, but then had the problem of finding a job. Again my lack of belief came shining through. Who would want to employ somebody with a stutter, who has a lack of confidence and who is shy around people?

MY CAREER

After leaving school at the age of sixteen I now had to find employment. Suffering with a stutter and a general lack of confidence meant that work involving the phone or regular interaction with other people were not really an option.

I decided that I could probably cope with filing duties in an office and eventually gained a position at an insurance company.

I started at the lowest grade, a grade two and the work was routine and mundane. The average time to stay at this level before being promoted was six months. The grade three post involved sharing a phone and this is something I found very difficult to use.

To become upgraded you had to apply in writing to the personal officer and then if you passed the interview were then promoted. My attitude was that if I don’t apply I would stay as a grade two, which is what I wanted. I was probably the only person in the country who did not want to be promoted.

My boss would ask me at regular intervals why I was not applying and I would make up an excuse. To keep him happy I took the insurance exams. After three years I had completed the first qualification which was a set of five exams. To my horror my boss congratulated me by stating that he was upgrading me to a grade three starting Monday without the need of an interview.

This promotion should in effect have given me a confidence boost however with my stutter out of control under the pressure and some of my colleagues mocking me I became more and more withdrawn and depressed.

I would be invited to social events and would make up excuses of why I could not go as I had a lack of belief that I could cope with the occasion and all the socialising involved.

If a challenging situation happens in an individual’s life when he or she begins to develop negative thoughts. When this happens, the person often starts to blame self or others, which the self-denial could result to an emotionally disturbance.

Into the bargain, energy, strength and dynamism are all arrivals from the conscious mind, yet when disturbances develop, these dynamic energies start to flop. Today, the charts are overriding the count of people that deal with emotional problems that causes unbalance.

A range of medical and non-medical rehabilitation solutions have been recently introduced to make the processes of self-healing more effective.

Meditation is one of the most unbeaten treatments, which has reaped popularity. The advantages of meditation are unmatchable to many other strategies used in the past to encourage healing the hidden self.

Meditation can help with generating power of the mind. Mediation contributes in curing any illness and in the process, energy is produced, which aids in keeping the therapeutic processes of the body and mind working smoothly.

Of course, we have other natural options that can assist us with healing the hidden self. Some of the top picks are the Ayurveda, or the latest naturopathy. Acupressure is very popular and diverse other natural treatments have contributed a great deal in self-healing. This includes the healing of the inner or hidden self. In fact, these therapies have motivated people’s thinking both spiritually and mentally. The hidden self when motivated can assist with curing the mind and body devoid of any side effects.

Other natural healing solutions have proved some worth as well. Some of the oldest, yet new solutions include biofeedback. Biofeedback works with monitoring systems to regulate body functions, such as the heart rate, blood pressure, et cetera. According to experts if we have the power to regulate our body functions, thus it can assist us with self-healing the hidden self.

Neurofeedback is another alternative that has proven to assist with healing the hidden self. Neurofeedback programs have encouraged motivation, inspiration, relaxation, and much more. In fact, we are encouraged to relax often to give the body and mind room to heal.

Despite that all of these natural products, programs and solutions has proven to assist with healing the hidden self, it is in fact proven that meditation is ultimately the better choice. Of course, some people find it difficult to meditate, so they will use other solutions, such as the Neurofeedback to encourage relaxation and meditation.

Another natural source is the aromatherapy solutions for healing. Aromatherapy has several types of aromas, which are intended for particular purposes. You can go online to discover the fragrances. Moreover, which aromas can assist you with healing self?

Moreover, you may benefit from subliminal learning. By learning how to explore your subliminal mind you can accomplish any goal you set for yourself.

We all go through challenges each day. Some of us go through more problems than others do, but each of us has the power within to manage the volume of stress we face.

If you are overwhelmed with stress, your best bet is to set up a stress management solution, and then start practicing natural healing techniques, such as mediation daily to take back control of your life.

If your stress is coming from pain, perhaps you can benefit from pain management. Perhaps a combination of biofeedback, Neurofeedback, massage therapy, meditation, aromatherapy, et cetera can do you some good. Don’t rely on unnatural remedies to relax pain, rather practice pain healing the natural way.

Go online to learn more solutions for dealing with common problems.

I used to work for the Independent National Newspaper in Canary Wharf, London. I can remember in the build up to Christmas, my department was having a large and expensive new computer system installed because the newspaper was being relaunched, it was when Andrew Marr and Rosie Boycott were becoming joint editors, I digress…. The system was being put in just before Christmas, but it was a massive task, with numerous issues & overruns. As Christmas approached, there were still a number of teething problems, which led to stretched relations between the system supplier and the newspaper staff.

At one meeting about the integration of the system, my director had been trying to get more time investment from the installation company, only to be told that their people weren’t going to be available on Christmas day. My director was frustrated and furious, asking “What are you doing that’s more important than sorting out our system!?” Without hesitating, the guy from the installation company said “Delivering Christmas hampers to the elderly.” The impact was immediate; everyone in the room started laughing & my director joined them, realising that he’d perhaps been a bit unreasonable. Everyone knew that the story about the elderly wasn’t true, but that didn’t matter the statement had changed his perception of the situation, instantly, & he started behaving more reasonably.

Changing the contextual frame:

There was an advertisement for the Guardian newspaper, which showed a set of still photographs arranged in a particular action sequence. The photographs showed a large framed man with very little hair on his head, wearing jeans and boots, running along a pathway with a real purpose.

In the first frame he is running towards an elderly lady; in the second frame, you see him knock her violently into the street; in the third frame you see him make his escape, obviously and seemingly this is another thug terrorising the elderly.

Then, when you turn the page, you are presented with some wider angle shots. In the wide-angle shots, you see the elderly lady casually walking beside a building that has building works being carried out upon it and where a cement mixer is about to topple from a scaffold. An alert pedestrian notices the situation and heroically runs towards the lady, pushing her clear of the building area. A moment later, the cement mixer falls to the ground in the spot where the lady was standing. The initially perceived ‘thug’ has in fact saved her life.

By changing the frame, the creators of the advertisement had changed the context of the man’s actions. Suddenly, what was perceived as typically criminal then became valiant and altruistic. His actions were transformed in a moment as they were reframed. I am sure you know of many other examples of this.

One of the presuppositions of NLP and something that fascinates and tests me, is that every behaviour is useful or valuable in some context. Upon learning and reading about this in the embryonic days of my learning, I did do my best to do the opposite! I wracked my brains for things that I just could not reframe. Of course, I could not do so for long. It’s just a matter of stretching your brain and finding a context that makes it useful; I have not always found this easy. This process is referred to as context reframing.

Every behaviour is useful in the right context:

Now here is a challenge for you. For any behaviour, no matter how frustrating or apparently without use or value, see if you can find a context where it’s useful. Once you find such a context, a subsequent act of presenting the behaviour in the new context is reframing it. If it was originally a behaviour that was treated very seriously or was problematic, you may then also want to think about adding humour or a playfulness in the way it is re-presented;

Firstly, identify a complaint, either about yourself or someone else, a simple structured to begin with, for example; “I’m too [x].” or “She’s too [y].” (Eg. “I’m too impatient”, “He’s too selfish.”, “She’s too messy.”)

Next up, ask yourself “In what contexts would the characteristic being complained about have value and/or usefulness?”

Thirdly, create several answers to this question, and then craft it into a ‘reframe’.

For example:

“I’m too impatient”

Example answer: “I bet you’re quick-thinking in an emergency.”

“She’s too messy”

Example answer “She’d be good to have around if we were trying to make our home look like it had been burgled.” (I don’t like to be too serious!)

“He’s too selfish”

Example answer: “We’ve had so many problems with people not taking care of themselves, it’s often good to make sure you look after yourself to be in a better position to help others .”

Now, I know these are a bit lame with some of my own tongue in cheek-iness added, but they don’t have to be that useful at this stage; it’s more important that you give yourself the freedom to be creative so your brain gets the pattern of what you’re doing. What’s more, when you have to do that and develop better reframes for yourself, your learning is far more comprehensive than if I were to spoon feed you responses to regurgitate.

The next step is to come up with reframes for any complaints that you (or others) have about yourself. This can be a lot of fun if you do it with someone else. (ie. you say “I’m too [x]” then they generate reframes.)

By the way, the example of “I’m too sexy” as in the 90s Pop Band “Right Said Fred” chart topping hit is not really appropriate 😉

When reframing something someone says, rapport is important (otherwise reframing can seem like a very focused & deliberate attempt to annoy someone.) If you present someone with a reframe, ensure that you have a good level of rapport with them, best start with friends and/or family (assuming that you have rapport with them!)

Fifth, once you get the hang of it, start looking for opportunities to use context reframing each day, starting with the less challenging ones.

In a business context for example, one of the most powerful ways to use reframing is when people have objections (whether you’re selling a product, a service, an idea, or yourself.) reframing is a gentle method of working with someone as opposed to having to sell which many people are uncomfortable with. When you reframe someone’s objection, you can remove or alter its power. I once read the objection “I’m worried What if I train my staff and then they leave.” The response: “Even worse, what if you don’t train your people and they stay.”

When you discover and create a way to change the context of someone’s objection, it alters the way they perceive it. This has been know to be an extremely effective way to overcome objections entirely.

Finally, for these initial steps of reframing, write a list the objections you get most frequently in business or complaints made in your life and generate a number of context reframes for each one. Then, look forward with a sense of anticipation to the next time someone offers that objection. Please bear in mind that you are opening up options here, not covering things up, if a particular problematic issue is occurring, sometimes it may not be appropriate to just reframe.

Both my Grandparents on my fathers side were 80 two years ago and we had celebratory family gatherings. As I walked into one of the celebrations I asked the standard question “So, what’s it like waking up on your 80th birthday, Grandad?” To which he replied “Better than not waking up on your 80’th birthday”.

Now, I’d like to start playing with ‘content reframing.’ If a footballer kicks the ball into his team’s net, it’s called an “own goal”, but if a soldier accidentally shoots one of his fellow soldiers, it’s called “friendly fire” (Sounds kind of cuddly, doesn’t it? But you would not want any coming your way.) George Orwell’s 1984 had plenty of examples of content reframing (eg. the ministries of peace & truth) that live on today in many forms (a peacekeeper missile, anyone?)

So, content reframing involves changing the meaning of something.

Right, to develop this further, follow this procedure; identify a complaint a complaint or issue with the structure “I feel [X] when [Y] happens.” (Eg. “I feel angry when he does not help” or “I feel frustrated when I make mistakes”)

Next, ask yourself “What else could this (Y) mean?”, “What else could this (X) mean?” or “What else could this situation mean?”, or ask “How can this (X) or (Y) be interpreted?

Then, you can come up with several answers to these, and then create a ‘reframe’.

For example:
“I feel upset when I see the mess these kids have made”

Example answer: “It’s good that they can be ‘in the moment’ without worrying about a few things being out of place.”
Alternate example answer: “A little untidiness is a small price to pay for happy children.”
Another example answer: “The fact that it’s messy means they’re expressing their creativity.”

Obviously, if you were to offer these reframes to someone who is annoyed or frustrated, I would suggest that it would be a good idea to get in rapport with them first and of course to select your words carefully.

As with my previous examples, these aren’t the most amazing reframes in the world, but they don’t have to be that useful at this stage; it’s more important that you give yourself the freedom to be creative so your brain gets the pattern of what you’re doing.

Now, you can come up with reframes for any complaints or issues that you can identify for yourself or others. This can be a lot of fun (honestly!) if you take turns doing it with someone else. (ie. you say “I feel [X] when [Y] happens” then they generate reframes.)

Then, once you get the hang of it, start looking for opportunities to use content reframing each day. For spreading good feelings around and helping people to lessen the easy natural way that they can sometimes get “bogged down” in the trivial. Depends on what you consider trivial though, be careful and thoughtful.

Once again, in a business sense, content reframing is also very powerful for dealing with objections of all sorts. For example, a reframe I sometimes use when someone objects to the price of consulting with me (I am sooooo expensive!) is to respond with something along the lines of:

“If you are after a cheap consultant or therapist, then you are right, I am not for you. If however, you want to invest in your future then maybe I am. If your child needed a serious operation, would you look for the cheapest surgeon? Then why look for the cheapest way to make changes in your life that are important enough to seek help with?”

Again, I do have my tongue planted in my cheek as I write that riposte, however, I am sure you see where I am coming from here.

Then finally, list the objections you get most frequently & generate a number of content reframes for each one. Then, look forward with a sense of anticipation to the next time someone offers that objection. Remember to keep rapport with people when doing this! Or in jargon-free speak, relate, empathise, connect, get on with.

Good luck with your reframing and creating more harmony.

To give happiness is considered a virtue. Please try and make others happy, say the thinkers. I don’t know what precisely they mean by that. So unless I meet one of them and find out the true meaning of the statement, let me put my ideas here and think.

If accidentally, I step on someone’s foot on a busy street, and the other person is not ready to accept my apologies, but thinks that he will be happy only by beating me to pulp, shall I let him do that? Should I reason with him, or make him feel happy. All right, I lie down here without offering any resistance and you please be happy by kicking me as much as you want. After getting so badly beaten, I try to reach a hospital and find out that the doctors and nurses will only feel happy by making me wait for endless hours. If I request them to look at me sooner, they will get angry because many other patients have to be attended to and the medical staff is over-burdened, or so one thinks. So I make them happy, by remaining in pain for long and then get operated wrongly. It was my liver that was injured, but the surgeon wrongly operated on my kidney. Shall I make him/her unhappy by complaining of this blunder? The poor surgeon is already burdened with work and home-related problems. How can I add to them? So? I keep quiet. What of my family? They want me to get healthy again and begin taking their care as soon as possible. But I am in no state of doing that. What shall I do now? How can I make my family unhappy? Some of them have planned vacations; some have to buy other expensive gadgets. If I stay in the hospital, who will pay for all those expenses? So I try going back to work and make money.

But I am so weak and hurt, that I cannot work. My boss feels that he will be very happy by removing me from the job. I accept that without protest. Protesting may make him unhappy. I walk out on the road and am very happy to be killed by a drunk driver on the road. In the whole sequence, if I take a new birth, and go back to every character of this story, I will be surprised to find that they are all are very unhappy with me. My family thinks that I cheated on them by not getting treated properly. My surgeon will think that I should have given him one more chance of operating upon me and making me sicker. My boss thinks that I left an important position that is now difficult to fill. The drunk driver thinks that I intentionally came across the car and got hit.

Life is very difficult, whichever the way you live. Should someone happily surrender to a rapist to make him happy? Strange thinking always produces strange and painful results. Before we start getting beaten by others, we must think about it and decide to find out if they have that right. Otherwise they will always remain unhappy, and we shall always get hit. Does this make us think?

Many people try to hold a raging fire within themselves, but it restlessly and relentlessly gnaws at their core. Some have tried to cover it up with alcohol, numb it with drugs, hide it with shopping, kids, work, or religion, or fuel it with sex. The Baby Boomers looked for eternal youth and to change the world. They thought they would never grow up, but they did. They thought they would change the world and they did.

The previous generation looked for the American Dream. Some found it. Many did not. The present generation seems to be seeking success. Yet, the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” widens. Each generation and each individual, in turn, searches for something, but it often slips from their grasp.
The fire carries both energy and discomfort. The key is to use the discomfort as a motivator and the energy as fuel.

Redfield in the “Celestine Prophecy” talks of the need for a historical perspective. The first man or woman met his/her physical needs. Then he or she explored and conquered the world and put it to their collective service. Now we seek something and we don’t seem to know what it is.

When we are connected to our roots and our souls, passion rises quickly and pushes us the next level of life or learning or love. It does not have to be love of a mate. It could be creative passion, fueling what we do for ourselves, work, community, or family. Anything where the totality of who you are is absorbed in the doing, requires passion. To loose it, is soul death, or at least deep sleep. It will cry to be heard when it sleeps.

I’ve sometimes been afraid of my passion. It seems so fierce at times. I guess I fear it will consume me and nothing else will matter. I know that can happen. I’ve had a small taste of it when I work for hours into the night, so absorbed by my work that I forget time, sleeping, and eating. But, I also know that I must have time in my life to live the every day life of doing the mundane things that must be done. Balance is probably still the key, but you must not loose your passion all together. Your life will be too dry and dull without it.

Remember your first love? Nothing else mattered. You felt as if you would walk to the ends of the earth for that love. Remember that? While that first passionate, all consuming love does not last, it gives us a taste of a force within ourselves that carries tremendous energy. Look for your passion and it will find you.