Rounding Corners...

If life wasn't continually changing, the planet would be a lot happier. Here's why: all the miserable people would give up hope and kill themselves, leaving only the happy people.

Well, that may be a little extreme. But think back to your own personal "dark night of the soul" when your life looked the very gloomiest. What if you had known at that moment that nothing would ever change? That things would never get better? That you were destined to suffer intensely for another 40 or 60 or 80 years with no hope for relief?

If you didn't contemplate suicide, you would probably at least give up hope on the dreams you were working toward, the ones that may have been causing a lot of your stress and misery in the first place. What were the grief-causers for you? A physical ailment or challenge? Adolescent self esteem? Graduate school or a demanding job? A failed or hopeless relationship? An elusive dream? Confusion over the way life was or was not rolling forward? An expectation for a more fulfilling life?

Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to give up. Once you do, you're free! It's like the semester ended and you're now on vacation! What will you do with all your free time and energy? All the effort you had been putting into work and worry can now be spent playing or relaxing.

"Giving up" need not be permanent. You can try it on for a brief hour or afternoon or week or month or summer or even take a sabbatical for a year out of your life. The surprising thing is that such a break can make you more productive and achieve more than you'd ever have accomplished had you never stopped to catch your breath in the first place.

Recent research suggests that a major reason we tend to grow happier as we grow older is that we become more reasonable about our lofty youthful ambitions. We learn to be content with less than we once dreamed. And as a result, we lead more satisfying and rewarding lives. Why not start now? Learn from your elders and lower your expectations a notch or two. You'll probably be happy you did.

Even as I write this, part of me resists the obvious lesson. Part of me still clings to my old motto of "Everything!!! Now!!!" I'm transitioning. I'm still learning to slow down and not try to do everything at once. Reality has forced me to admit that I can't, so I may as well go peacefully.

The fact that many of the brightest, most driven and selfless people take longer to learn this lesson is one reason I often observe that the best people suffer most.

Ironically, this is not the point I intended to write when I began this blog post. I intended to say that BIG CHANGES are right around the corner for me and so much of my hard work is about to pay off. In fact, I'm already rounding the bend. I can feel the changes happening and I have some idea of their implications. I won't yet disclose what these changes are because I hate to announce something and then be surprised to find a lot more time and effort is required before reality reflects them.

I began writing intending to point out that there's ALWAYS something new right around the next bend. Something unexpected. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but change it is a-coming. The more you live your life with courage and integrity, the more you can expect change to be good.

Also, the more you take the time to finish up your inner work and clean up your foundations, the less often really challenging trials come and the easier time we have facing them. Do you know that that's why the challenges come? It's God or the Universe or your own brain giving you the opportunity to learn your next lesson, or to relearn ones you didn't learn well enough, and to unlearn the ones you got wrong in the past. Once you have your foundational lessons out of the way, the lessons become more and more pleasant to learn.

In recent months, I've successfully narrowed down my list of major projects and commitments to four or five. One of them is dedicated to helping people learn those foundational lessons faster and easier than ever before possible. So far I'm finding tremendous success. "More than I dreamed possible," said one client after a 60 minute session. But before I change topics yet again, I'll end this post and tell about that project in a new one.