Hard to imagine, right? Today is simply a continuation of yesterday, and tomorrow won’t be too much different.

It all flows together: the past is all there in our memory, some of the moments we remember, others have either faded away or been sufficiently repressed. And the future holds our dreams and fears in pristine purity.

Each day we create more past, reinforce or make alterations to our future thoughts, and simply go about our lives in such a continuum.

The past unfolds into the present moment, quickly becoming a memory as we contemplate our future. A steady stream of past into future, past into future.

Until we die.

But that’s not how it really works.

Continue reading →

Yes, you really did.

The first response that people often have when hearing that they chose their parents – not the other way around – is this:

NO WAY!

Usually with some expletive thrown in there.

The second response is inevitably, “WHY?”

It seems to make no sense. But let’s back up a bit and look at the bigger picture.

We wrote the entire script – not just our parents, but everything we experience in life. Just like when we dream at night – we wrote the script of our dreams. While we are sleeping, we don’t recall that it is “our” dream (unless we are lucid dreaming). Instead, it feels like we are a figure (often the hero figure) who wanders “idly in and out of places and events that it contrives.”

Continue reading →

Imagine if you were given one million dollars to go on a shopping spree at the mall. And all you bought was tons of stuff that you don’t like and don’t want.

Now all that crap arrives in your home, completely surrounding you.

How would you feel?

Not very good, and you would likely ask yourself, “Why did I buy this stuff?”

Only a crazy person would use that precious commodity (money) and purchase things they didn’t want, right?

Such is the brilliant metaphor posed by Wayne Dyer when he suggested that our thoughts are just like money in that they are a precious commodity. With those thoughts we can think anything we want. But whatever we allow into our minds, consider that we’ve now “purchased” it.

We’ve allowed into our sacred inner sanctum whatever it is that we focus our attention on.

Continue reading →

My high school had a very active and somewhat (locally) prominent athletic program: football, track & field, lacrosse, basketball to name just a few. In fact, one of my classmates became a player in the NFL. Many of our school activities revolved around athletics including pep rallies and the actual games / meets. For each event, nearly the entire school (about 2000 students) attended.

Except me.

In my four years there, I attended just one game.

Was it because I didn’t like sports? No, I loved sports. I even ran track for a bit and tried out for the football team.

The reason I didn’t attend the events was because I felt like I didn’t fit in.

Continue reading →

Back when bookstores were more prevalent, I often found myself perusing the most popular business, psychology, and philosophy books. All these great minds sharing their collective wisdom in one place.

My quest was to find the synthesis between living and producing in the world while experiencing inner peace.

Great books are like great religions – at their innermost core, they all say the same thing. It’s the surrounding fluff that creates sects, schisms, and strong opinions.

The challenge is that strong opinions reinforce belief, the same way repetition strengthens a habit. Thus my focus was moving through the fluff in order to get to the underlying essence of these eminent writings.

And here’s what I discovered: our thoughts create our life.

Continue reading →