“Our minds are habitual abusers of our souls, repeat offenders.”  -Dr. Steve Taubman

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We want a better life. We want a bigger house, a better car, a prettier girlfriend, a more successful husband, fame and fortune, and lots of other stuff. We hope that these things will make us happy. Yet we find that they don’t. We eventually come to realize the truth. Our source of happiness is within. Our striving for a better life does feed us and inspire us, but not for the reasons we think. We are inspired by the journey, not the destination. We are made more alive by the experience of co-creating our universe in conjunction with certain laws of nature. We find the laws of prosperity are the same as the laws of nature. 

All things come and go. They arise, remain a while, and dissolve. Everything is flowing. Everything is transient. We begin to embrace the idea that our happiness is tied directly to our ability to appreciate that flow. We stop holding onto things. We face the fear of letting go and experiment with the art of giving. We discover that when we give of ourselves, we always get filled back up. Nothing we have requires us to hold onto it so tightly that we squeeze out of it every last nugget of enjoyment.

We play with the idea of trust. We take baby-steps towards trusting the benevolence of the universe. We set goals and find that we are enlivened by them. We get what we want, become cocky and arrogant, then lose it and regain our humility. This happens again and again, and still we strive to improve ourselves. Sometimes, we get weary, and we become resigned. Surely it’s easier to stay stuck where we are than to risk yet another disappointment! But before long, the resignation feels like a death, and we become willing to take a chance on life yet again.

We stumble upon wisdom. Universal truths present themselves. We start to notice commonalities between various philosophies, sciences, and religions. We become curious about the things that everyone seems to be saying; those things upon which everyone agrees can’t be ignored. We take note of the fact that science and religion are coming together. We hear that we have the power to direct our consciousness, and that in doing so, we can create our lives.

The message is optimistic, but our experience frustrates us. In a world of infinite possibility, we ask, why do we continue to recreate the same limited reality again and again? So, in search of an answer to that question, we study ourselves. We find that our minds are habitual abusers of our souls, repeat offenders. We lament that if we were half as abusive to others as we are to ourselves, we’d be in jail. 

Our minds need training. We learn to use tools to bring about a shift in our consciousness, but we find that the mind is very clever. It uses our tools against us. We attempt to overcome anger and fear and find that we’re angry at our anger and afraid of our fear. We search for answers, and we gain and we lose and we gain again.

And here we are. All of us a bit wounded but resilient. A bit discouraged but hopeful. We’re ready to try something new, and although we have our doubts, we’ll take the leap, and we’ll rejoice at the end of the journey because… We are alive! 

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