Get over self-indulgence

You may seek to experience more peace and harmony within yourself, and yet, be unwilling to admit, examine or address what isn't working.  This isn't simply a question of what isn't going your way.  Re-assess what other people tell you isn't evolving in appropriate directions.  Even if you disagree with others, your attention may be drawn to areas of your perception or beliefs you hadn't thought about before.  What benefits could you see in all of this?  Its useful to look beyond your own envisaged outcomes to see how you could be enhancing or hurting the lives of others, in ways you hadn't anticipated.  How would that knowledge make you feel?

At this point in your life, you need to be willing to perceive and assess your behavior in new ways.  Adaptability reminds you different forms of adjustment exist.  Consider attitude, perception, and willingness.  You function and make choices that define a certain quality of life.  You go places, see people, and embrace activities with a degree of freedom.  You have continued to make choices which enable you to maintain that quality of life, or at least, you have made valiant efforts.  So, how would you know things weren't working? and after all, not working for whom?

1) Your lifestyle isn't sustainable.  You may realize deep down that you spend more than you earn. Its a vicious circle to use credit cards to pay other credit card bills.  Remortgaging or borrowing from 'Peter to pay back Paul' isn't reducing your debt.  Your choices do the opposite.  Sustainable living creates a circling back to functionality. You need to realize taking all trees from your lot and not replanting, won't leave anything for next time. Greed has negative repercussions. It's not just you in the 'here and now' who is affected by your choices. You teach by example and you deprive others when you hoard. Imbalance may lead to a change in the scales, not simply by creditors, who auction your belongings, but also by environmental crises, as ecosytsems adjust in order to survive.  These hints imply your behavior and desires for ownership may be distorted.

2) You lack clarity.  A concrete sense of direction is missing.  Underneath it all, you desire lucidity.  As you evolve into a clearer state of mind, you'll no longer feel lost or confused.  You can't ignore wrongdoing or a sense that you may have gone to far.  You can't change the past, but you control what you decide now.  No behaviors are coincidental.  You may go to extremes because you feel disconnected to the world and your true self or, you're initially blind to the consequences.  You simply need to grasp how your mind offers you clues to set things right.    

3) You're ready to admit the truth.  Events have unfolded in such a way as to empower you to notice the world around you is evolving.  You come to recognize you have been changing your own rules to get what you want, and the world has responded by depriving you. To feel you possess people, things and situations you hope will remain in your life, suddenly strikes you as inappropriate. The fear of losing what you cherish has led you to seek to hold far too tightly.   

4. You realize your view of security has been too rigid. You begin to recognize that raising your own awareness of your present reality reveals what you have to do.  Its time to develop courage to go against the staus quo, to behave differently than you have done before.  Your fear of losing what you think you have has taught you that you don't posess anything. You only care for people and things for the time necessary for you to learn what they really symbolize and tell you about yourself. 

Leave the realm of "I died yesterday"

Imagine someone asks you what you truly wish to do. What would you reply? As for people who are aware of some key hope or desire, they may say it, but usually add reasons why they feel unable to make it happen. You may know someone like this or it may sound a lot like you.

Now, if part of someone you know feels trapped in their own life, it's not you're role to cause them to change. Yet, if it's you who feels confined in some kind of life which is incompatible with who you are, then its time to leave the realm "where you died yesterday." How much of your life will you choose to reclaim? Part of you believes you may have to fight. Ask yourself from whom you wish to reclaim your life, if it isn't from yourself and an inappropriate mindset.

In essense, for a time, you have inadvertently chosen to give at least part of your life away. You may devote time to causes, give money to people, and do other things that make you feel good. The spirit of giving isn't the issue. Rather, its the things you do which cause you to wish you were somewhere else doing something else. Is this because you choose not to learn from a potentially valuable situation? Or, do you accept being what you're not so much you almost come to believe it? Only you can determine the level of contentment and joy inside of your own soul.

The idea of coming into yourself is always possible. You exist to get-to-know yourself better and reading this article is guiding you deeper into that experience. The more you realize what you don't wish to continue doing, the closer you get to what you really aim to accomplish. This isn't what you're doing now, but you had to experience that to move ahead. Now, you're more likely to take steps. As you ask new questions, you reach out and find clues to answers you already know inside.

If your dream would require you to give up all that you know and yet, you prevent yourself from taking a leap of faith, then the world will respond by holding you back from other opportunities. It deems you're not ready. Your behaviour is your own statement of what is enough of what kind of existence. Redefine your view of what is enough of your past and current experience. Rather than think of not having enough of things, consider what it would take to reverse your thoughts. How you think determines the energy you produce, and what you believe will come to pass.

Turn away from recklessness

If you desire to change some part of yourself, nothing has to stop you.  You fuel your dreams. The road to awakening begins with you from inside.  If you didn't have tha ability or potential, then you wouldn't recognize that desire. 

Turn away from recklessness. Become concerned about the consequences of each of your actions. Stop being careless.  Cease to be indifferent.  Refuse to deny or ignore what you haven't yet done. 

Learn to recognize that each person you meet, each choice you make about how to spend your time, each food you decide to eat, each choice you postpone or tackle, all define who you are and whether or not you wish to improve some aspect of your life. It's really your prerogative.

Think of the many ways you can make you day count. Choose to be productive. Decide you'll set new goals, recruit new partners, engage new clients, serve people who's life you'll open to new options.  As you make conscious decisions to raise your awareness about yourself and how you can improve what you do for yourself and for others, you will be making the world a better place. You will be building on your personal contribution. You will be making an even bigger difference than before.

Nothing & everything to prove

You likely know people who feel they have something to prove to themselves.  Think of the guy who feels he must prove he can eat one too many hamburgers or drink one too many beers.  Think of the girl who feels she must go on one more diet or stretch her budget with just one more credit card.   Think of the bodybuilder who thinks he needs steroids to grow even more muscle mass even though he's bigger than everyone he knows already. These people stretch questionable limits.

Maybe something inside yourself isn't satisfied with what you've done so far either. You simply feel you wish to prove you can extend your vision, your physical strength, you agility, dexterity or possibility.  Ask yourself for whom you are doing this and what would it require to establish the line of enough? If you're as yet unable to define the limits of self-acceptance or health and well-being, then it's past time.

How much of your own value and self-worth is wrapped up in what people think of you? Why might that be?  Something may have caused you to think you need to live down to someone's expectations when these don't even come close to what Higher Forces intended. Part of your may believe you're aspiring to live up to your role model's expectations of you. Yet, have you taken time to get-to-know yourself well enough to establish who you really are outside other people's views? 

The next time you feel compelled to ask what kind of value you have and for whom, why not remind yourself you have intrinsic value? This was established from the moment of conception and grew in life from there, and continued since the day you were born. Each of us has gifts, inner talents and potential that we haven't yet even begin to discover, let-a-lone tap into.  When are you going to start? You're in a great position to assist other people to recognize their own truth.   Raise their self-awareness that they can also learn from having nothing and everything to prove.

Could I have done better?

It's easy to turn introspective if you sense you're on a downturn or a losing streak in your life. Would this behavior be a cop-out? You might outpour justifications like, "it happened because..." or, "it wasn't my fault." Maybe refusing accountability would suit you? Some people would rather wallow in regret or 'turn a blind eye.'

Wait a minute! A downturn from which original vision? A losing streak in who's opinion? Ask yourself if your feelings come from within or from other people's criticism or impatience for your results. What kinds of messages and lessons are available for you to learn in your current situation?

My own life has repeatedly taught me that not getting results I thought I wanted can be the best thing that could happen. The interviews that didn't lead to the desirable job offers, the dates which didn't evolve into intimate friendhips or relationships, the seeds I sowed in other areas of my life which didn't bear the fruit I thought I wanted. Deep down, I realize now that some of these seeds I sowed sensing already the experiences weren't for me. I simply had to prove it.

These awakenings sometimes hit me late at night or when disappointment aimed to take hold in my heart. Still, I pressed onward to seek clarity inside. I accept new realities even when part of me feels they're initially hard to accept. Why? Part of me feels like I hadn't achieved things I'd hoped for and worked toward. Its not failure but unfinished or unresolved business.  I take time to grasp some things and people would eat away at you constantly if you permit it. Not achieving what you set out to do can be a subconscious goal to teach you valuable lessons. Your motives may be misplaced. Is it your ego taking charge?

I'm not the kind of person to dwell on whether I could've done better than I think I have. Who I am today differs from who I was in the past. My aim is to learn from each experience and look forward. I sharpen my listening skills and let go of situations which are out of my control. To let go of some dreams I hold too tightly enables me to embrace joys accessible in my reality now. Former dreams evolve and change or even disappear as my priorities change. Life is like that. I do my best.