What Have I Learned About Life?

The economy is currently undergoing some sort of periodic "adjustment", and with it, many of us! I thought it would be useful to step back, take a few breaths and look at the "big picture".

1. Life is a process.
2. Life is a journey, but it is not about reaching a destination. The journey is the destination.
3. Life is a creative act.
4. There is a purpose to everything. We just don’t know what that purpose is, and even if we think we do, it is useful to consider that it is quite possible we are wrong!
5. As I am a part of "everything" I too have a purpose, but I may not be aware of what that purpose is, or it may not be the one I think it is!
6. When it all becomes too frustrating, it is useful to remember that "The guardians to the gate of knowledge are paradox and confusion".
7. We do have free will and we do have choice, but happiness lies in acceptance.
8. We are not really alone, although we usually operate as if we are. (It's somewhat like a child pretending).
9. God loves us.
10. The universe doesn’t care that God loves us.
11. Nature abhors a vacuum. In other words, if I don’t put something in place, then external forces will, and that includes what goes on in my thoughts.
12. Life is a test. But it is not pass or fail, and like most tests, it is difficult. (But what is this aversion I have to difficulty? Why would I say that life is difficult?).
13. Life will not turn out as I expect (OK, I can be crude and say that it will end in my death). However, that is not my point. Perhaps all there is, is NOW, the moment. My intellect is just too small to fully comprehend the extent of the universe around me, much less to figure out where it is all going, my exact part in it, and comprehend the future.
14. The mind is a record, a stack of records, each being a memory or perceived memory (actual events distorted by my judgments and evaluations), but like those other records, the 33-1/3 rpm discs, the mind sends up memories which play on and on continuously, clouding our reality and interfering with "The NOW" (or to say it another way, interfering with our ability to be in and experience the present).
15. Memories have limited usefulness. As the mind runs continuously, most memories are like "Muzak" playing in the background, and are meaningless.
16. The Ego thinks that human beings are the top of the pyramid and I am the pinnacle. ("It's all about me!").
17. What I want may not make me happy, and "having things" will not make me a happy or a better person.
18. We human beings are always looking for "strokes" (It's not just girls who wanna have fun!).
19. We are rational beings and we like structure and certainty, but we say we value spontaneity as in the Nike ad, "Just do it!". And we have lots of advice and contradictory aphorisms designed to make us continually wrong, as for example: "He who hesitates is lost" and "Look before you leap".
20. To succeed in life, find out what is wanted and needed, and then provide that.
21. Everything can be resolved in communications with others.
22. It is a natural consequence of doing things that the phenomenon we define as "making mistakes" will occur.
23. The only constant is change.
24. There are cycles, or "ups" and "downs". But these are all subjective. I think it is empowering to think that "now" is possibly the best moment of my life, and to live out of that.
25. There is nothing as exhilarating as "making a difference" on this planet.

Note: Adapted from something I originally wrote to my dear spouse in August, 2004.