Paying the Price

I love the way insights are sneaking up on me and whalloping me over my head. The universe is making sure that it gets my attention. Todays ah-ha comes from Christopher Westra at www.lightisreal.com. He has been discussing the 10 laws of goal accomplishment. Here is number 9:

Remember the two laws of goal achievement. The first law is
that you must always pay full price for achieving what you want.

The second law is that you must always pay in advance. Stop
looking for shortcuts and go to work - mentally and physically.

This is not new information. I have written about the concept of "bread of shame" before. There are unfavorable consequences to getting something for nothing.

I know I can have whatever I want if I am willing to pay the price. The price may be learning something new, changing my self concept, or postponing gratification. But I have to admit that I am always looking for shortcuts. I call it working smarter. Yes, there are better ways to do something, sometimes cheaper ways. But it is the underlying attitude I have of seeking to avoid possible rejection and for that matter
possible success that motivates my wanting to be rescued.

The price I don't want to take is that of asking for what I want, of developing human connections. Ironically it has also been the very point of great advance during power month. The greatest shortcut also turns out to be the biggest price for me. You have to love how meticulous the universe is at stacking the cards just right for each individul. It boggles my mind. Under every rock or in every article I find another answer to my question, "Why do I love my life so much".

I stand in awe.

For all the Love

I couldn't sleep and finally got up and went to the bathroom. I picked up the nearby Reader's Digest and opened it randomly. The article was Steve Martin writing his memoir's concerning his father's death. I skimmed the text, unprepared for the way my heartstings would be tugged.


His dad: “I wish I could cry, I wish I could cry.”

At first, I took this as a comment on his condition but am forever
thankful that I pushed on. “What do you want to cry about?” I finally said.

“For all the love I received and couldn’t return.”

My heart opened. My eyes teared and flowed over. I started sobbing. I don't know if I was relating these feelings to my dad or to myself.

Most of my life I would have projected the sentiment onto my dad. In recent years I realized I didn't interpret his extensions of love and caring as that. Now I think I was closed to receiving. I preferred to feel alone and unloved. In that sense I didn't receive the loved given and therefore I didn't return it either.

This isn't about beating myself up. I am simply noticing how far I have traveled in my personal journey. It is no longer true about me. I do now let the love in. I do return that love. I even initiate the flow of love.

This realization was the result of that flood of tears. I feel cleansed and refreshed. I am grateful to have grown in this way before the end of my life so I have time to feel loved and give love all the more. Yes, why do I love my life so much?

My sleep was deep and peaceful.

I Spy

While I was stuck in my Internet ventures I began playing a computer game seeking for a lost tomb. It consisted of 21 archaeological sites that contained 80-99 objects hidden in plain sight. In each round I had to find 10 identified objects in as short a time as I could. Asking for a hint resulted in a substantial penalty.

Some of the most difficult items were the most obvious. At a certain level of the game, I could choose to play the whole site. The name of a new item came up as soon as I identified one on the list until all 90+ objects were found.

This was interesting to me as an exercise in manifestation. I get what I focus on.
There are thousands of bits of information coming into my systems at any given moment but I am only aware of handful of data bytes. Similarly, each site had 90 objects competing for my attention but I had to find 10 specific objects. In this instance I was given the items to locate. In daily life, what I see is determined by what I expect to see or what I believe.

It was great fun to encourage my brain to search for things outside my normal patterns. And I had to think. A "Queen" might be a historical queen, the queen from a deck of cards or a chess queen. It was a test of eye-hand coordination, problem solving, figure ground discrimination and memory.

I am now paying greater attention to my environment. More detail is available to my conscious awareness. I can choose to highlight different aspects of my experience by shifting my focus or question. It was a fun way to expand and manipulate my consciousness. If I don't like what I am currently seeing, I can focus on something else. There is always something that reminds me why I love my life so much if I look for it.

Losing the "Tude"

I admit I have milked the "I don't know what I am doing" attitude for some time now. I am referring specifically to my Internet attempts but as I write I realize it is one of my standby cop outs. "Don't ask me I am a newbie". "I haven't made more progress because I didn't know what to do next".

I have been playing that game with myself concerning my classwork for my blog i360. In fact I believed my own story and developed a dread of trying. Sad but true. Why do you think I have not been posting here? Each new post would simply read, "I'm stuck". Here is my best imitation of a two year old, "I don't CARE to do that".

Today I was on a conference call with someone who took the same class from Bob the teacher on Blog i 360 as I did. In one weeks time his site has climbed from ranking 14,000 something to less than 500. He has moved 13,500 slots up while I have been nursing my attitude.

I was reminded of one our family's heritage stories. My brother turned 1 year old in early December. He was slow to walk and evidently even slow to even want to walk.
Come Christmas eve he was still on all fours. We had a clan gathering Christmas day and he was the only one on the floor. I can only imagine what went on if his little baby brain. But the next day he was......WALKING.

Now that I feel like the infant around all the walkers I too am calling myself on my "'tude." It is time for me to walk. I will report on my progress tomorrow!
Learning that overcoming challenges are one way to love my life.