The Unsettling Truth About Life

A note from peter@thewealthyattitude.com for Friday August 14, 2009

One of the greatest philosopher's of my time was Alan Watts. For more than forty years, Alan Watts earned a reputation as a foremost interpreter of Eastern philosophies for the West. Beginning at age sixteen, when he wrote essay for the journal of the Buddhist Lodge in London, he developed an audience of millions who were enriched through his books, tape recordings, radio, television, and public lectures.

In all, Watts wrote more than twenty-five books and recorded hundreds of lectures and seminars, all building toward a personal philosophy that he shared in complete candor and joy with his readers and listeners throughout the world. His overall works have presented a model of individuality and self-expression that can be matched by few philosophers.

This short piece based on Alan's observations will undoubtedly cause you to consider where you are in life. Enjoy and share it around.

Changing Direction in Life

A note from peter@thewealthyattitude.com for Thursday August 13, 2009

Good day all and welcome to Thursday.

We've been having some really fun conversations here about "social entrepreneurism" and the increasing number of brave souls who are making a huge impact on our combined world.

I've placed a few really interesting links at the bottom of the front page of The Wealthy Attitude website where you can discern for yourself if this is a conversation you would be interested in taking further. You can let me know your thoughts by just dropping me an e-mail.

I bring this to your attention as I'm meeting some wonderful folks who are committed to...

Changing Direction in Life
by Dr. Sheri Rosenthal

Years ago, before embarking on my spiritual path, I believed that I would and should have a career that would last until my retirement. But since then, and after many years questioning such beliefs and programming, I have come to realize that it is not in the nature of fluid beings of light to be doing anything for an extended period of time. Yes, I do agree that there are some folks who find something they adore and stick with it for their lifetime--but they are not in the majority. Perhaps we can say that they are blessed with an unending passion for what they do.

However, for the rest of us, we often choose a career that is seemingly steadfast and fiscally sound until we find ourselves terribly bored and without passion. Or maybe we never felt any passion in the first place for our career or maybe we never knew what we wanted to do in life at the time we made those choices. If you are one of those people who are not enthralled with your career--read on.

There’s always a moment when we realize our life is not going in the direction that we always dreamed it would go – it’s kind of like getting hit with the cosmic two-by-four and asking: How did I get here? Sometimes we call that a mid-life crisis, spiritual breakdown or a come-to-Jesus moment. No matter what we call it--the best aspect of this realization is that it brings with it unending possibilities and opportunities--if we are willing to be open to the miracle of life.

Once this realization comes into our consciousness--normally the next occurrence is not a vision of us running off, excited to find our next calling. Instead what happens is an onslaught of every possible reason for not letting go of our comfortable but mundane lives. The amount of fear-based reasons for not getting out there and taking a chance at something new are formidable. Perhaps you are familiar with some of these objections:

* I can’t leave where I am until I have something new in line.
* I don’t know what I want and until I do I should stay with this.
* I’m too old to start something new at this time.
* I don’t have the resources to make what I would like happen.
* I don’t know how to create what I would like.
* I don’t know anyone in that business and have no connections.

If any of these objections have passed through your mind--please see them for what they are--lies. You are capable of creating anything – especially with help. There are so many people out there willing to assist us in creating our dream--but we must be willing to start talking about what we would like and asking for assistance. Believe me, you are never too old to create something new and allow your spirit to soar. There are no excuses for mediocrity and you pay a very high price for a little safety in life.

If you haven’t thought about any of this before--perhaps now is the time to meditate on your happiness before the cosmic two-by-four gets you! Spread your wings, open your heart and fly.

Sheri Rosenthal DPM is a master Toltec teacher and author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Toltec Wisdom and Banish Mind Spam!. Having trained with don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements®, she currently takes students on spiritual journeys www.journeysofthespirit.com works with personal apprentices and enjoys being extremely happy.

Life is a Lemon

A note from peter@thewealthyattitude.com for Wednesday August 12 2009

Welcome to this midweek point of this beautiful second week of August.

I must declare that we're having a hoot here in B.C. and The Okanagan Valley gets more interesting my the day. The local fruits and vegetables are just flodding the area, and the juicer here at home can hardly keep up.

The whole thing reminds me of an important lesson in life's pathway that is conveyed in today's missive. Another new contributor clearly shows us that....

Life is a Lemon
by Arcel

Squeeze a lemon, and it will produce a juice, too harsh to be palatable. But it forms the basis for lemonade, the world's oldest refreshing drink. Like a lemon, life is full of sour things. It is full of challenges, hardships, pain and suffering. But in all this is hidden the seeds of greatest achievements, happiness and success. Life at times can even be cruel, but that is what makes it worth living.

We become happy as we fight sorrow. We become wealthy as we struggle to remove poverty. We develop intimate relationships as we overcome loneliness. We produce light as we fight the darkness. In other words we produce positive in our endeavors to remove negative.

Life will hand you a lemon. Bigger it is; more sour it is, tastier and more of lemonade you can make with it. Bigger the suffering, bigger is the blessing; bigger the challenge, bigger is the reward. Big people made it big because they had bigger lemon in their lives. If they didn't have theirs, they take others. Mahatma Gandhi, was a lawyer, and could have made a great career at it. But his sensitivity towards inequality and injustice made him what he was. Life handed him his lemon the day he was thrown out of the first class compartment of the train for having the wrong skin color. Would Gandhi be Gandhi we know if there was no injustice and India would not have been a ruled by exploitative British imperialists. What Mother Teresa would have done, if there was no illness and pain on the streets? Would Helen Keller rise to the heights she did, if she was not blind? The list can go on and on.

Your life is full of big problems? It has sorrows too hard to describe? You are facing hardships that you do not even want your enemies to face? Congratulations..... You have the lemon to make the lemonade. God has given you these not without reason. It is in these hard times that we grow towards our potential. So thank God for it. It is during these trying moments when you rise and keep rising, till you achieve greatness. No one is born great, but it is his challenges, pain and misery that force him to become great.

You may rightly argue that if pain and hardships are required for success, then why there are so many who are still homeless and poor. Why so many people are castigated to a life of loneliness. Why people live an entire life in misery and ultimately die a miserable and obscure death.

It is simple; this is the way they want to be. They accept that lemon is a sour fruit and nothing can be done about it. The pain and misery in their life though apparent to others does not seem to hurt them. You are not suffering if you are not feeling the hurt. It is only when you feel the hurt, that you do something to remove it. And in the process you become a hero.

A lemon does not turn into lemonade all by its own. Someone has to press it to squeeze out the juice, and then add water and stir in sugar. It requires the thirst and the desire that prompts you to take action. It needs faith, that it can be done. To get the perfect lemonade, it requires careful planning and execution. And it requires patience perseverance till the sugar dissolves. And the important part, you have to make it your self. You open a bottle of readymade lemonade; it is the manufacturer who earns the money (pun intended).

So, are you ready to make your lemonade........?

Let's see!

So You Thing YOU Can Dance?

A note from peter@thewealthyattitude.com for Tuesday evening.

As one who has been touched deeply by watching friends deal with the ravages of cancer, I'm obligated to share every uplifting message I find in their memory. I miss them dearly and I know they are giggling to all get out with what is posted here.

Share this around. It must have legs. Oh, and do you really think you can dance? Let's see!

Who is Responsible For Your Happiness?

A note from peter@thewealthyattitude.com for Tuesday August 11, 2009

Welcome all to this very fine Tuesday.

With all of the stuff that folks are dealing with right now it very easy to forget some of the ineffable guiding tenets that make our lives incredible.

Many delightful authors that support us here at The Wealthy Attitude are really stepping up to the plate is amazing ways. They are going above and beyond to bring forward messages that cause each of us to sit up and pay attention to the truth of our lives.

Today, one of our favorite writers provides us with an opportunity to clarify.....

Who is Responsible For Your Happiness?
by Warren Wojnowski

Do you feel unhappy and trapped in your present circumstances? It's not an uncommon feeling, especially in today's modern world. And it's easy to believe you're trapped without choices, that you're somehow at the mercy of everything and everyone around you ... that somehow your happiness depends on things over which you have no control.

Let me ask you this question: who is responsible for your happiness? Shouldn't it be you?

I'm here to tell you that you have complete and total control over your happiness. If you find that hard to believe, let me explain.

1. Your happiness is your Choice. If you're unhappy with where you are, recognize you are where you are because of the choices and decisions you've made up to now in your life. This is something that you may or may not at first blush agree with and it's something that took me a long time to understand. We're conditioned to believe we have no choices. We live where we live because that's where our parents lived. We work where we work because it's the only job we believe we can get. The result is that we tend to get stuck in the status quo because we believe we have no choice. Yet the truth is we always have a choice and, in fact, doing nothing to change our circumstances is in itself, a choice. If you don't like your job, why not look for another one? If you don't want a job, why not start your own business? If you don't like where you live, why not look for somewhere else to live? Too often, we get caught in the trap of waiting for something or someone else to bring change to us, failing to realize that our happiness is our responsibility and no one else's. You always have a choice to accept things the way they are or to begin to do something about it.
   
2. Choose your own thoughts. Taking personal responsibility for your happiness begins by beginning to deliberately choose your thoughts. Rather than buying into all of the "no you can't" monkey chatter, start to deliberately think "yes I can". When you start deliberately choosing your thoughts, all of a sudden you begin to feel inspired and you start to look at the world and your circumstances in another way. You begin to see opportunities rather than problems. You begin to shift your mindset away from being a victim of your circumstances.
   
3. Take the action. Once you begin to choose your own thoughts and start identifying opportunities, you begin to feel inspired. You start to feel yourself compelled to take certain actions that will begin to move you towards what you want. The minute you begin to take actions, you've begun the cycle of assuming responsibility for your results -- and for your happiness. If you're not willing or afraid to take an action, ask yourself how badly you really want change. If you really want it badly enough, then take responsibility for initiating the action. There's no point waiting for someone else to because that's only going to prolong the current situation in which you're unhappy.

Would you like more information about how to take personal responsibility for your own happiness? I've co-written an entire program that reveals how easily you can begin to discover and experience true happiness, starting today. Sign up for my free introductory eCourse here: Life Happiness Secrets

Warren Wojnowski is an avid student of personal growth and self improvement. He is a respected writer, teacher and Intrinsic Coach® who is very willing to share what he's learned (or still learning), what's working, and what isn't. Warren says "If you have an aspect of your life in which you feel stuck, whether in your life or your business, I can help you get back on track and start living the life you want.

Anyway, Who Is This Inner Critic?

A note from peter@thewealthyattitude.com for Monday August 10 2009

Welcome to a shiny new week.

At the end of last week everything seemed to go a little nutsy around here. A whole bunch of stuff was going on in TwitterVille, FacebookLand, GoogleBurg, and it was all compounded by my own lack of understanding just how much of this cyberdiddly thing really works.

Many of you didn't get to see Sir Laurence Olivier as he does an amazing job narrating the Theme from Time. So when you have four minutes do watch it, itb will set you up for the day.

Today though, we have a delicious offering from our friend Thea Westra. You'll really enjoy it as she aske the question we've all thought about....

Anyway, Who Is This Inner Critic?

by Thea Westra

That is it! I have had enough... and who is this Inner Critic person anyhow? I do not even remember the day when I originally put that character on my personal management team. Then, to top it all off, as well as insidiously positioning itself as my second in command, I find that much of its time on the job is spent on spreading lies and malicious rumours!

Here is the clincher though, I cannot remove this disdainful little character, it constantly eludes me. It has been with me so long and its voice is so embedded in my subconscious thoughts, it is often indistinguishable from the more logical and conscious conversations that I might have with myself.

Do you know that this character even has cultural attributes, and depending on the environment in which we were raised, it will have you believe many things as absolute truth? Mark Twain once suggested, "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." Those kinds of internalized beliefs are fortified by the community of people surrounding you. For example, the tall poppy syndrome that is so much a cultural cliché in my country (Australia), might suppress many from even contemplating exciting projects that could expose them to prominence.

"Reality is made by agreement. Agreement is created when two or more similar or identical images are projected and fused. The more similar or identical images that are fused from more sources, the more solid the agreement and the more real the reality. Reality is not truth. The more solid the reality, the more untruth it contains." A quote by Alan C. Walter, from "Gods in Disguise".

I am putting in place an Inner Champion to over ride anything that I am advised, by this Inner Critic. With all future decisions, I will seek my initial advice from the Inner Champion, and especially when I strongly suspect that I am receiving false information from Inner Critic.

To challenge the information I get from the Inner Critic I will ask questions of it, such as, "Where did you get that information?", "How are you so certain about this?" or "Is that really true?" I then call my Inner Champion into the room to join the conversation and to hear what it may have to say on the matter.

A great way to call forward your Inner Champion, in everyday situations, is by having an affirmation or mantra to envision, feel and repeat as you go through the day. It is useful to change those daily or they will eventually become invisible, and the Inner Critic steps in immediately, sidelining any contribution from the Inner Champion. Some sample affirmations might be, "I choose to always be enthusiastic", "I choose to be crystal clear about what I want to achieve" or "I choose to win and help others win".

Reduce the power that your Inner Critic holds over you, by avoiding giving it a label of being "bad" and by giving your Inner Champion a "good" label. That will give both these characters an elevated sense of importance, causing disharmony. Conversations would then be confrontational instead of open dialogue. Remain engaged in open enquiries and conversations that explore possibilities. It is common for us to feel that we must remove something that is "bad" and this gives our Inner Critic much more of our focus and energy than it deserves!

By having our Inner Champion engaged in conversation with our Inner Critic, we are distancing ourselves and we can more easily hear what both are saying to us. Stand on the outside, looking in. Be a fly on the wall in the conversation. Remembering that you cannot change anything you do not know is there.

It is important to start hearing the internal dialogue between Inner Champion and Inner Critic. When you reject what either of these two characters bring to the table, you will not hear anything that they have to offer, and you may miss something of which you really want to be aware. That is their secret way of keeping you in the dark about who, or what, is really running the show when it comes to creating your own life and expanding your personal power.

Thea Westra is the senior thought leader, at her Forward Steps site. She resides in Perth, Australia with her ultra-supportive partner Greg. Thea publishes a monthly ezine (among many other publications and products) at http://www.forwardsteps.com.au Enjoy her life success blogs at http://www.timeformylife.com/blogs.htm and get personally connected here, http://www.ask-thea-about.com

Theme from Time

A note from peter@thewealthyattitude.com for Friday August 7, 2009

Good day there folks and welcome to the weeks end.

Our first week back from hiatus has been filled with awareness's that went deeper than we ever imagined. The feedback from many of our subscribers tells us that, even though the world is still in economic turmoil, personal leadership and responsibility are the overriding thoughts highest in many peoples minds.

Here in North America we are richly blessed with options that much of the world just do not get. We have business opportunities, learning opportunities, free libraries, incredibly inexpensive Internet access, healthy dialogue among ethnic groups, religious freedoms, and the cheapest food on the planet.

In fact, today would be a grand day to spend time and write yourself a list of all of your amazing blessings, and then spend the weekend in gratitude. Think about it!

To help bring clarity to your personal powers, and there associated responsibility, we present to you in our usual Friday video one of the worlds greatest voices as he narrates the theme from Time. You'll want to share this around.

Enjoy The Theme from Time.



See you on Monday

Take care.

~peter~
peter@thewealthyattitude.com
Twitter: glasshammer1
Skype: pcomrie