Timing is everything

Each of us has opportunities to learn all kinds of facts and figures in school.  Its often understood that the practical things you learn outside the classroom may also be very useful to you in life.  Knowledge alone only gets you so far unless you come to understand when to use it and you clarify your purpose for yourself and others.

Consider that a friend of mine is an art dealer. He buys statues and paintings as investments from artists, brokers and even the Internet. He learns art history and the value of art from a variety of sources. Following market trends teaches him that its important to understand when is a good time to buy an object, to sell an object and when is a good time to wait before taking action.

Consider your partner may have had a long day at work. You may have serious issueso n your mind which you desire to discuss.  Experience can teach you that bringing up such issues right when a tired, hungry person arrives home is not going to yield focus or even good results.   Yet, if you wait until after a good dinner, and your partner is morexed, then this person will be more focused and you'll likely have a more meaningfl discussion. Timing highly influences results.

Consider that in your youth, you may have learned your parents' payday or just after you had completed yardwork were better times to ask to borrow money than when all the household bills were due. You can gain a sense of a person's mood and this is a clue as to whether or not your request will be welcomed or not.  As you show the other person can benefit from your request, you may also be more likely to get good reception.

Consider that as a traveler, I've learned the value of taking advanatge of 'seat sales.' You don't always anticipate when these lower prices will be advertised, yet, if you keep watch on trends and make agency inquiries, you can end up with a lower priced tickets and discover your money can go further. This is another case where knowing where to look for information is useful, yet knowing when to look and when to take action can bring you even greater advantages.

Consider that many people have goals, hopes and agendas, and become impatient when events don't unfold as planned. These situations can also be percieved as opportunities to learn that what you consider to be appropriate timing for appointments, births, deaths, retirements and other milestones may not be what other people consider to be the best timing. Let go of control and appropriate timing will run its course. You don't always have to understand why things happen when, yet its humbling to grasp that all events you wish to influence aren't under your control.

Consider that earthly timing may differ from cosmic and other kinds of timing.  This implies you won't always sense a particular logic to events and experiences. Accept timing can be a mystery.

Consider that when you start out in any endeavour, you may not feel as confident or prepared or exhilarated as you desire. You may stumble and make mistakes, even experience a sense of failure on multiple occasions. Okay. Realize that perceived negative feelings and events also have timing which you influence based on your reactions. You learn about emotions based on experience and reactions. You will come to feel spontaneous, challenged, astronished or overwhelmed based on your own timing. You influence feelings on a conscious, unconscious and supraconscious level even if you aren't aware of all your feelings or why you experience them.

Take the bull by the horns

If the time comes and you decide to take new responsibility for your life, a good place to begin with self-assessment is to zero in on your guiding principles and values.  These unspoken signposts actually influence how you see yourself, where you sense you are and where you wish to go.  How clear you are about who you are and what you feel determines what you would like to achieve in life as well as the ingenuity and resourefulness you would draw on to make it happen.

Taking the bull by the horns means facing a situation head on without refusing to be honest with yourself.  If you're unsure about your guiding principles, its vital to your future to isolate them.  Consider what issues you believe in or what ideas you would support.  If you asked people who know you, how would they describe you? What kind of character traits and qualities define you?  Would you consider these outside opinions to reflect who you truly believe you are inside?

Take self-assessment further:

• Who are your role models? Why do you admire them? How does this shape your values? 
• Who would you offer as examples of people who are incompatible with your values? Why?
• What do you like and dislike about yourself? How do these views influence your values?
• Where would you indicate 5 strengths and weaknesses? How do values evolve from both?
• How would you like to change yourself? What do these desires tell you about your values?

Death doesn't exist

Henry Van Dyke reminds us that "some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live."  Writers, artists, painters, sculptors, teachers and open thinkers evolve to believe death is one of the most exciting revelations of your life.  What they say and create on Earth reflects this. Are humans are on a cyclical journey to learn to deal with issues they were unable learn?

Deepak Chopra draws from parables he learned during childhood to explain how death as a concept seemed to emerge to temper human desire to crave permanence.  According to Chopra, "death itself was seen as a brief stopping point on an endless soul journey that could turn a peasant into a king and vice versa."  He implies that we leave our earthly bodies at pre-destined times, release emotions, and come back again later in different forms to learn new lessons.

Do we have the possibility of experiencing infinite lifetimes and experiences that invite us into limitless adventures?  Eastern and Western cultures as well as a multitude of religions offer their views in texts.  We exist on different levels of consciousness. We understand different vibrations and frequencies. The underlying consensus is beliefs and perspective determine our experiences. What if we only think we expeirence a three-dimensional world and it really far more complex?

It has been asserted death is a set of phases, or states of becoming re-oriented with heightened awareness.  Heaven and hell are considered self-created illusions that we imagine to reward or punish ourselves for things we have done or not done.  Humans will become astute observers of their finished lives and come to understand what they were supposed to learn and what isn't real.

If, at the core, humans are pure energy, death may be a period where we change form again.  In this case, death would represent a doorway through which we would pass in a kind of transition.  As openings symbolize opportunities, this movement would be a chance to expand and create experiences, a chance to be guided by thoughts, visions and sensations you may have forgotten.

Neale Donald Walsch suggests that in death, hope will actully be the "doorway of belief, belief is the doorway to knowing, knowing is the doorway to creation, and creation is the doorway to experience." And so, hope will determine what you think you know, experience and express.

Mistaken objectivity

When it comes to objectivity, you'll get exactly what you expect.  Complete objectivity is a fallacy. Nothing can be observed and also unaffected by the observer. If objectivity is your goal, then subjectivity will be your result. What you see or plan depends on how you perceive.  Even mistaken objectivity can be valuable where you discover different levels of observing yourself.

Goals are our friends. Whether we realize them or not, we may always learn. The more goals we set and pursue, the more opportunities we have to gain insight into ourselves. The faster we gain inner wisdom, the more we discover that everything has purpose, even our perceived mistakes. The more we identify goals, the more we realize that we repeatly come full circle in our results.

How you look at where you are enables you to stand back and learn new and different things about yourself.  Coming full circle means a you can experience repeated learning curves. Stepping outside your traditional judgments and assumptions may lead you to believe you achieve some kind of objectivity.  However, you still ultimately perceive yourself from your own views. 

Consider isolating what you really desire in your business or career, in your personal life, in your level of health and well-being, in terms of spiritual and other pursuits.  Then, identify what you sense stands in your way of achieving these goals.  Recognize your subjective influence means your goals, anxieties, fears all exist in your mind.  They characterize who you are through your moods, attitudes and opinions. You can always learn more about your own feelings and emotions.  They determine how you create, perceive, prioritize, disregard or realize individual goals.

You are what you perceive

Take a risk to see what you cannot see, to hear what you have not heard, to taste what you have never put to your lips, to touch and to feel what you have never felt.  What are the experiences like and what holds you back from exploring them even further than you already have? Who told you that you couldn't? shouldn't? or wouldn't?

Ask yourself why you cling to the ideas that you must fear what you have never done, regret what you have never said, feel guilty about circumstances you cannot change.  What prompts you to make your life more difficult than it is?

Permit yourself to feel all those feelings that may confuse or otherwise trigger sadness, darkness and hardship. Take a risk of letting go of control.  Discover emotions for what they are. What do you sense?  What do they teach you? Consider them all gifts which offer opportunities to learn.

As you take jumps and leaps of faith to explore what you don't understand, you will gain new insight into what you're capable of giving, receiving, creating and encouraging.  Take a risk to remove the limits you have unconsciously self-imposed. Break them down. They'll disintegrate. You may discover that these kinds of steps will re-integrate all that you are, and then some.