CHAPTER 1
Why This Handbook Can Help?
We live busy lives. Such is the case in a modern world. As for myself, I find myself busy with my career; my wife busy with her career; my daughters are busy with both school and extracurricular activities. The day is done in the blink of an eye. We sleep. Then, we get to do it all over again. This is the treadmill of life. Millions, perhaps billions of people live this life.
For the so-called "successful," which I will discuss, the small amounts of open time in their calendar are filled with "things." These things may be the next event, the next party, the next trip, the next school event, the next social dinner, and on and on. Largely, we pretend to have fun in these brief moments, and this is not to say that we do not derive joy from these moments. However, it is quite evident that those who live busy lifestyles are often unable to live in the present and enjoy those items we place on the open slots in the calendar of our life.
We come back from a week of vacation with photos shared on Facebook, and yet for the vast majority of people, this leaves them feeling empty: as empty as the day we planned the trip, took the trip, experienced the trip, and traveled home. This is truth and is the kind of tragedy associated with the modern human experience. Perhaps you stood on the beach to pose for an Instagram photo, yet very little of the experience on the beach "sticks" with you. You stood in front of the Eiffel Tower and captured the moment, but then it was on to the next thing to see, the next place to eat, the next hotel in which to sleep, the airport, and home. Blink. The trip is done. Are you happier? My guess is no. Yes, you added to your life experiences, but largely, while these moments do become memories, we all get right back on the treadmill of life. Sleep, work, eat, and repeat. Repeat and repeat.
If you are fortunate and live into your eighties, you get roughly 30,000 days. We are all mortal, and nothing can change that fact. So, the time you have is an absolute. Perhaps for some, this number is higher, and I hope with all of my heart that you do indeed get to enjoy more days. For some, it is less. Perhaps fewer days are just part of your fate. Perhaps something comes into your life that is unexpected like disease or an accident. Similarly, I hope with all my heart that this does not happen to you. That said, it is a fact that some who read this book will have fewer than 30,000 days, and for some, more. For some, the quality of your life over that 30,000 day period will be better than for others.
This is the reason I w rote this book. Why? It is my simple and very genuine hope that it w ill serve as a guide to help your life be a far fuller and joyful one, whatever be the quantity of days. That your days, whatever the number may be, w ill be infinitely better than the step-and-repeat days you are experiencing today.
No one gives you a handbook to life. Your parents, should you be fortunate, did their very best to provide a compass for you. Some will provide a moral compass. Others may provide a direction for your life, based upon their experience and seek to very genuinely help set you on a course that they believe will make you most happy. There is sincerity in most parenting, yet the subject of life for the majority of parents will not be well understood. You see, they in fact are on the treadmill of life trying to raise you and do the very best they can to set you on their personal belief of the "right path." This is the process that happens for the most fortunate of children. Less fortunate children might not be blessed to have loving guidance.
I am not a god nor am I a trained psychologist. I have not run experiments with empirical data that I can show you. I am simply a person. I am, more precisely, a pentagenerian with an accumulation of experiences gained over some roughly two-thirds of those 30,000 days. My wish for you is to absorb the simple advice provided in this handbook so you can avoid my mistakes, put your life on a better and more fulfilling path, and find joy in your days ahead. That's it.
And so, I give you the gift of life. This is perhaps the greatest gift one human being can give to another. I would like you to envision that through my simple wisdom and truth that I am actually extending your allotted 30,000 days by making them not greater in quantity, but greater in quality. I hope to convey advice that will make your days more meaningful and full. My prayer is that I enriched each and every one of those days in a way that w ill extend your experience of this life. Read. Understand. Then, go forth and make your life wonderful.
CHAPTER 2
Ego: The Cinder Bloch Wall
Most parties begin with harmless icebreaker conversation. Nine out of ten times, a person w ill approach you and say in a benign way, "What do you do?" Most of us have our canned responses ready to go at a moment's notice. "I own a successful landscaping business." "I am a nurse at the prestigious hospital in Boston" (or Dallas or San Francisco or Phoenix, or any one of a thousand other places). "I am a lawyer for Jefferson and Associates." "I am a bank executive." "I am a business consultant with Deloitte running major accounts. "I am a surgeon." "I am a high school mathematics teacher." "I am a senior pilot with United Airlines." "I am a professor at the University of Chicago teaching graduate physics." "I am a director for a prestigious high-tech firm." "I am a hotel manager for Hilton." You get the picture.
From the earliest age, we identify ourselves by what we do and what we own. This is not your fault in the least. Our society places extraordinary value on these things. What mother would not want to say her son or daughter will become president of the United States? What father would not want to say his son or daughter will become the CEO of a multinational corporation? What parents would not want to proclaim from the rooftops that their child is performing research that could bring an end to cancer? It is all very natural and fully aligned with our society's values. And so, we begin to identify with the short elevator pitch of what we are. "I am X, and I do Y, and I own A, B, C, and D — and oh, by the way, I also own two Zs."
What you do translates into what you own and, therefore, becomes the foundation upon which your life is built. Your personal narrative is entirely based upon you being an individual, performing something of value, and translating that into material wealth.
Let's begin the party again. "Hi, I'm Shaun! What do you do?"
"I am a fifty-year-old man with a wife, and w e are raising three daughters." Cue the sad-sounding slide trombone. Wah-wah-waaa ... You can almost hear the music played on game shows when the wrong answer is given. While the answer given may be factually correct, it is not your best-sounding personal résumé. It does not show the best image of the individual that you have created for yourself in your mind. There are no words in this particular response that show the slightest form of ambition, substance (except perhaps procreation), or achievement. Shaun, our fictional listener at the party, is preprogrammed to screen for keywords that show signs he is speaking to someone of substance. A fifty-year-old man with a wife and three kids is nothing special. He politely states he needs to refill his wine glass, and the conversation is over. Wah-wah-waaa ...
When you were born, you were devoid of ego. Simply put, you were perfect in that you were a living creation of the universe, born with a natural curiosity and love for all things around you. This is a state of bliss. There is no façade to defend. There was nothing to compare between yourself and another human being. There was no mental stress. There was no sense of being ahead or falling behind. You were simply alive and absorbing the wonder that was the world around you. That is as it should be.
Now, as time passes, circumstances put you in a position to size up yourself against others and build your so-called ego. Your family lives in a bigger or smaller home. You got an A versus a B in math. You were picked to be in the spelling bee. You sang a solo for the chorus. You were tougher than others and were able to get your way. Teachers liked you, and they were more likely to boost your grades. You were the favored child in your home. You obtained a master's degree.
The cinder blocks of the ego are put in place, and we all build up our own personal walls. That wall is filled with the stuff of which we are most proud. We are then placed in an unconscious cycle to put more blocks in our wall.
We graduate magna cum laude. We earn a PhD. We do research as part of a university grant. We are employee of the month at our place of work. Yes, we are piling up those achievements and cinder blocks that make up the ego.
So, what's the problem? Well, the truth is that most people will never see a problem. Let's play the pattern out. You are successful in school. You get a good job. You earn a paycheck. You see the car you want to own and buy it. You buy a big home. You fill that home with the very best you can afford. You buy a summer home. You travel away to exotic locations for vacations. And more and more and more and more. This is a pattern without end. The ego is hungry and will never, ever be fed enough. It needs the next thing, the next accomplishment, and the next validation that all those cinder blocks are valuable. Our egos force us to chase things that may or may not be part of the true direction of our lives. I want to repeat that: our egos force us to chase things that may or may not be part of the true direction our lives. How do we know this? Have you ever received a promotion and felt empty inside about the longer hours you will have to dedicate to work? Have you ever received a very expensive gift that felt nice but did not make you any happier? Have you ever relentlessly researched for months the next car you will buy until you buy it, sit in it, drive it, and feel no additional joy? Have you ever moved, thinking that your new location or home is going to sweep away feelings of stress and discord, only to discover you are living the same troubled life, but simply in a different location? Have you ever had these empty feelings? The ego wants us to accumulate more, but more often than not, the "more" does not bring happiness or joy.
Let's try something. Close your eyes in a quiet space. No interruptions. Try, in that moment of inner peace, to separate yourself from your ego. Tell yourself that you are not the sum total of grades, degrees, homes, cars, or vacations that you always seem to identify yourself with. Instead, connect with your true inner self. What do you feel? Does your mind take you to a different place? Do you find your mind telling you, "I wish I spent more time painting like I did in high school," "I wish I lived in the country close to nature," "I wish I did not have this particular job," or "I wish I spent more time with my family"? My bet is that your true, peaceful inner self will have the ability to look right through the cinder blocks of ego and see a more truthful and genuine form of yourself. This is the path you need to follow.
A higher power placed inside each of us specific gifts. You are gifted in some way. Ninety-nine percent of us will be on our deathbeds never having pursued the gifts given to us by a greater power. If you believe in God, then let's call this greater power "God." If you do not believe in God, you should accept that each of us has a unique genetic code that predisposes us to specific physical and mental abilities. Your true joy will come when you align your life with those inborn gifts. There is no other path to a more joyful life. Buying another home? Nope. Having another child? Maybe, if that is what aligns for you. Buying a Porsche? Unlikely. Rather, it is your responsibility, not only to yourself but also to the world around you, that you find your inner gifts and share them with the world. The outcome that diminishes you and the entire world is you not achieving your higher purpose in life. You owe it to yourself and to the powers of the universe to discover and put your gifts to work in the world. This will require that you strip yourself of the ever-hungry façade of ego.
Once you are able to put aside ego, a world of possibilities comes to light. It is a brilliant and holy light. It lifts a burden from your shoulders. You no longer have to say and do what others expect. You are, in the most profound sense, free. Free to explore the world in the way that you were gloriously made to experience it. You will get to do this on your own terms. Are you brave enough to separate yourself from years of the cinder block wall you created called ego? Yes. You must be, because therein lies the only path for a sincere and true life for yourself. The universe will see to it that you pursue the gifts that have been bestowed upon you. You cannot fail. There is no such thing as failure once you are on the path of your own inner truth.
CHAPTER 3
The Power of the Universe
There is a power accessible to all in the universe. I cannot explain it fully. I have experienced this power in many ways and seen it at work in the simplest and most powerful ways in my life. However, I know for a fact that you cannot access the power of the universe without first stripping away the ego and replacing it with your own inner truth. Once this occurs, you will feel inner peace and the connectedness of all things. You will feel connected to others. You will feel connected to nature. You will feel connected to all things that surround you. That feeling of inner peace is what I can only describe as love. Having put ego aside, you have made room for you to "love" your true self and that path you choose to pursue. You also begin to radiate love. You radiate your inner peace. The people around you will see this incredible power of the universe reborn in you, in your eyes, in your tone, in your appearance, and in your interactions.
You will only be able to access the power of the universe once you no longer see yourself as a disconnected individual. This is the price paid for ego. If you live in the ego state, you are an individual with individual needs, individual wants, and insatiable individual desires continuing in an unceasing way. Ego = Disconnected. Once the ego is gone and you begin to follow the path the universe meant for you, you will immediately feel your unquestionable connectedness with others, animals, nature, the earth, and the infinite universe.
How do I know there is such a power in the universe? I happen to be writing this section on an airplane on my way from Boston to Texas. I have cleared my mind of ego and feel my place of inner sincerity and peace. I can feel myself completely energized. I feel an inner love, or perhaps better stated, a complete and total inner peace. Now, just as I started to write this paragraph, I mentally was in this state of mind and purely mentally suggested to the lady next to me, offer me a pretzel. Yes, I know it sounds absurd but stay with me. I just said to my inner self, "This looks like a very nice lady. I wonder if she would offer me a pretzel?" I expand myself in a way that connects with my inner peace and repeat the simple, benign, purely mental request. I want to emphasize there is no body language or other suggestive movement on my part.
Moments later, the lady puts down her book, reaches for an unopened package of pretzels, opens it up, and offers me one in the most polite way. Coincidence? Perhaps. However, if I told you that I have experienced this same outcome many hundreds of times in a vast multitude of different circumstances, would it then validate that something powerful is at work?
Think of yourself as a radio station. If you are emitting love and peace, it seems that people perceive this and receive your emissions of love and peace. Similarly, if you are emitting negativity in any form, people will also receive this signal from your personal radio station and you will receive signals of negativity. You need to decide what you w ant to emit. Now, if you do emit love and inner peace, you will find that you have tapped into the "power grid of life." It exists. It connects all of us. It is the source of unexplained miracles. It is the power that fuels acts of unselfishness and goodwill. It is the thrilling feeling you have inside when you know you have done something good for another human being. It is the feeling you get when you connect with the beauty of nature when you are on a hike or sitting by the beach. You are connected to all things through the power grid of life.
Why be connected? I am not advocating that you use your connectedness to pull off third-rate magic tricks like getting pretzels on plane trips. Kidding aside, once connected, you can experience everything in a fuller way. You are not blocked by the cinder block wall of ego. You see nature in all its true beauty. You see others for all of their truly beautiful inner qualities. You are an open radio station to receive the omnipresent power and love that exists in the universe and are free to transmit on that same grid. It is the most wonderful feeling, and you actually feel not only separated from ego but additionally feel as if your physical self can traverse the vast power grid of the universe. You can "fly" in a manner of speaking. You are one with the universe, and the universe lives inside of you.
