Ageless wisdom

To know what it means to experience a meaningful life implies a kind of personal growth. You will recall life phases where certain activities and friends seem important, and later, these things will no longer seem important at all. You may even ask what possessed you to devote time to causes and relationships you would no longer favor. What is the impact of time on you? How do you evolve?

I recently assisted friends begin to sort through the house of their deceased great aunt. During her 101 years, her habits changed considerably. Imagine how the world evolved in her lifetime. She lived at home until the last four months of her life. Only then, she dealt with the politics of aged care homes. From age 94, she had daily home care visits yet, she also helped herself.

During her youth, she was apparently a social butterfly. However, as she outlived her friends, she became far less social. Her life evolved into simple routines from eating, sleeping and bathing to reading as long as she could strain her eyes. She became quite solitary, except for a few regular visitors. She also outlived her husband by 30 years. He was 6years older than she. What did she do to refine making the most of her time? Health and faculties determined what was possible.

It was quite startling to discover piles of clothing and shoes stashed away that this lady had bought many years ago and never worn. She had a wardrobe full of mould and dead bugs along with newspaper cut-outs, shot gun shells and basic sewing accessories, among paper bags and buttons supposedly worth saving. Handbags, gloves, hats and scarves had been collected during an era when shopping was her favorite thing. That part of her life was over, but she wanted to hang onto these things.

Her kitchen drawers were stuffed to the brim with coupons, knick knacks and paraphrenalia. She was portrayed as a pack-rat, a sorter of gadgets and a very organized woman who knew exactly how much her bills were and whether or not they had been paid. The stories she retained and shared were perhaps the best example of her humour and ageless wisdom.

We can learn a lot form our elders; how they lived, what they did or didn't do, and their general perspectives on situations which may be part of our history.

The utmost reassurance

If a goal or dream matters to you, it will matter to your guardian angel.  As you become aware of their constant presence, and exert effort to work with them, you'll discover new kinds of power.  Rather than asking, "where is my guardian angel when I need him?" remind yourself that you may actually have been saved a worse fate than you experience right now.

In life, if you desire to uncover things, you simply set your mind to it.  The same can be said for seeking more about your guardian angel.  If you don't sincerely believe in such things, then your efforts will be undermined before you start.  Imagine that nothing would give your guardian angel greater pleasure than connecting with you to empower you to enrich your own life.

You can determine many ways to collaborate with your guardian angels.  If you desire to be an agent of personal change, consider this your wake up call.  Along with other life phases, you can forge a spiritual destiny that is separate from other pursuits and beliefs.  You have free will.  Rethink those recent incidents you assumed were coincidences. Is there more to them? They may be the utmost reassurance.

M. Scott Peck & 5 Tips to smell more than coffee

Dr. M. Scott Peck is a recognized authority on the relationship between religion and science, and became especially known for his views on the science of psychology in inspirational writing.  He may be best known for his first book, The Road Less Travelled (1978) which sold over 6 million copies in America alone.  During his life, he helped select and train leaders to conduct workshops for the general public, and for organizations as diverse as churches, schools, government agencies, prisons, universities and businesses worldwide.  His timeless legacy leaves many lessons;

1)  Discipline brings wisdom.  Whether or not you realize exactly what is happening to you right now, you are hiding from something.  It could be some part of yourself that scares you or, some situation in life you struggle to face.  Focusing on the matter will help you to work through it.  Have faith in yourself. You can do it.

2) Love is a perpetual self-enlarging experience.  In coming to any point in life where you don't know what to do, grasp a sense of unconditional love.  This is available from people who cherish you and/or Forces beyond you.  Stepping back from regular routines will also enable you to remember who you are and build on it.  Allowing life to unfold through love is profound.  You can learn from everything.

3) You can't solve life's problems except by solving them.  Short-cuts aren't why we're here.  Awakening our inner talents and discovering our potential will only happen as you identify your values and those things that contribute to your identity.  Personal growth, like any success, is a subjective experience which can only be initiated and experienced by you and nobody else.  You define your own answers.

4) We must be willing to fail to appreciate the truth.  As you admit you have failed in an effort to reach a particular goal, in a short time, you'll feel as though you end up back at square one.   Slowing down won't necessarily prevent you from a sense of failure.  Convince yourself that the ultimate goal of stopping what you're doing is to launch yourself in more fulfilling directions.

5) Vulnerability doesn't exist without risk.  Life is full of opportunities for our own adjustments.  Change in any small direction has the potential to affect many areas of your life.  As an adult, nobody has a responsibility to tell you what you need to know.  You are required to figure things out alone.  Opening yourself up to recognize possibilities also means you're open to other risks. That's life.  

Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. ~~M. Scott Peck

Subconscious life change

Goal-setting is most effective if you isolate precisely what you hope to achieve and why. Subconscious life change begins with you. Since your source of motivation will drive you, it would be helpful to identify what this is. To create goals which will move you forward, you would benefit from pinpointing benchmarks. These are milestones which you can recognize to give you a sense of forward movement.

1) What makes your goal particular to you? If you connect your goal to your primary motivation and detail the process to a fine tooth comb, its more likely you'll realize the goal.  If you don't really understand what you aim for, its less likely you'll achieve it or make it happen. The better you know yourself, the more specific you can be about it.

2) How will you measure progess? In the case you aim to complete a marathon, you can set up a daily, weekly, monthly training schedule in advance to build stamina and endurance. Each time you complete another mile during your regular schedule, you will sense you're energy level is growing.  Similarly, if you seek to lose weight, you can measure quantifiable progress during regular weigh-ins, and plan a managable exercise program. Set it up to suit you. It's that simple.

3) What makes you think you can reach it? This means you need to know yourself well enough to realize you can outline a plan and make it happen. If you don't like chess, aiming to win the world chess championship wouldn't be logical. If you fear water, setting the goal of swimming the English Channel before your next birthday maybe a bit 'over-the-top.'  If you think you have what it takes to run for office, complete a puzzel, or enter a dog show with your pet you're willing to train, these projects could be realized by sticking your guns and being disciplined.

4)By when do you intend to realize it? Its easy to lose sight of the desired prize if you have no idea by when you would achieve it. If you prepare for an upcoming event, like a festival, reunion, holiday, then someone else already set your deadline. However, if you desire to put a new addition on your house, write a book, clean out your attic, plan financially for retirement, write a letter, or generally sort out your desk, these are the kinds of things where you must set a timeline. How rigid or flexible you are will influence how punctual your projects are completed.

Unclutter your life

On the surface, it may seem like collecting objects is a harmless pastime.  In some cases, that may be true.  After all, what's the risk in buying another pair of shoes? What's another book, magazine subscription, box of antiques or rubbermaid container of old papers? If you're someone who drowns in stuff, or who worries about someone else, the idea of collecting may not serve everyone concerned.  Who is it supposed to serve? Did you ever consider messages in this?

As you pin down your beliefs, you will evolve to recognize that what you say and do in your life reflect how you feel inside.  Consider the benefits of being able to tap into what drives your desire to collect or store oodles of things for a rainy day.  How you spend money or even pick up cheapies at auctions or fleamarkets is telling you something about yourself.  The question is, are you ready and willing to listen to the signs?  Are you up to change and unclutter to live the life you deserve?

1) How do you feel about yourself? If you feel a sense of entitlement or that you deserve more than what other people have, what might this say about insecurity, self-worth or emptiness?  Who in your past may have influenced such conditioning? If you can't define "enough", you're missing things in life that crave attention. You may be influenced by more than the success syndrome or "keeping up with the Jones'."

2) Do you have control issues?  Perhaps you've come to believe that if you don't do things your way, your environment won't be acceptable? Let's say you fear being judged or misunderstood and you fear people will mis-label you. Imagine what it would be like to release your control issues. You would not longer feel you had to compensate for what you didn't have.  Let go of fear of loss and create a new life.

3) Where is your focus?  Your subconscious mind stores ideas, but doesn't qualify what is good, useful, bad, incorrect, acceptable or unacceptable.  Your beliefs evolve from what you hear other people tell you repeatedly and what you choose to retain.  Identify root causes of beliefs, what you're really saying if never have enough of clutter; do you lack approval, purpose, affection, success or other intangibles?

4) Do you fear change?   How do you feel about doubting your ability to adapt to your circumstances? You may detect low confidence or seek to hide your clutter because it represents your embarassment about your lack of courage to change.  If a pattern you detect isn't working, if its causing you to feel uncomfortable, this is a sign it would benefit from a new approach.

5) Motivated for or against?  Some people act to avoid certain results and other people work to create more desirable results.  You may stack newsprint because you don't make time to read it or you plan to move in 5-10 years.  Yet, it may actually reveal a sense of desperation or struggle, something you feel powerless to change.  You are as empowered as you truly choose to feel. 

6)  Should you reframe your life?  What is it that enables you to feel committed and doing meaningful things?  If you feel you must work long hours in order that people not assume your lazy or taking short-cuts to success, then you may be unconsciously neglecting other parts of your life.  As you decide to let certain mindsets and behaviours go, you prepare yourself for new kinds of abundance. The clutter you haven't made time for is what represents the life you'll leave behind.