ARTICLE 1 "Breaking Orbit"

It takes a lot of energy to break free from the Earth's gravity. When a rocket launches from the surface of the Earth it consumes 87% of its fuel blasting off. It goes through this in less than 20 minutes.

The same is true for you when you want to make changes in the 'flight' of your life. Your routine of gravity keeps you in place each day. Changing that gravity will require a lot of energy at first. Then you will need much less fuel to maintain the change once you break free.

This is why most people don't change. The initial work, the blast, is hard. It requires a lot of energy. What people forget is that the initial change, the blast off, is just a fraction of the entire trip. It is the tough part, but it is temporary and will be over before you know it.

I encourage you to think of the benefits of flight. Consider the potential of where you might be able to go if you try making a small change in your life. If it seems too hard, remind yourself that it is hard to stay put, too. It just might be worth it to take the chance. (It almost always is.)

Gravity is good, you will want it again. You will want a new orbit when you figure out and adjust your life's needs. That orbit will be easy to maintain when compared to the energy you'll spend blasting yourself into it.

Just don't get discouraged before you start.

ARTICLE 2 "Just When Things Are Great, They Crash

I was just thinking about how sometimes things go south just when they seem like they're on track, then things get really good right after they are bad.

Everyone has a positive and a negative side, which side wins (or wins most often)? The stronger the positive, the stronger its negative resistance...

Like exercise - I know it's good for me, but just when I get going, it rains, or I don't feel like getting up early, or something happens in my business early in the day, etc.

Resistance builds, even as the good things in our life start to build.

I have several projects for work, websites and stuff. Things are quiet for ALL of them at the same time. Then things pick up and I am swamped with business.

These projects are so different it seems the odds against this would be impossible. How can websites for Health + Psychology, Industrial Filtration, Automotive, Investing, Electronics ....all slow down and speed up at the SAME TIME?

But then I realized it's not the stuff, the businesses or websites. It's me.

Positive and negative go hand in hand. The stronger the positive, the stronger its negative counterpart. Like a plane on a runway, the faster it goes the more resistance it encounters. But it needs that resistance to take off. If it slows down, the resistance goes away, but it can't fly.

Fight your way through your resistance and you'll ALWAYS get to the positive. But you have to EXPECT it to happen.

I have learned to be happy when I see resistance - it shows me that I'm on a positive track.

We get the strongest resistance to the things we want most. If you want to be happy, you also have to "be" your fundamental darkness.

You have to recognize how negativity shows up in your life. It can be devious...if you're totally laid back you may never see what bothers you. It's almost like you have to push things a little bit to get them to show up.

If things are too 'smooth' I know I need to try harder.

Sounds metaphysically groovy, I know, but it's true.

I also figured out that my PERSPECTIVE drives this ebb and flow.... the things I think are my faults can be my best strengths. If I'm stubborn about something I'm 'dense, inflexible and arrogant'... but when I turn out to be right, I am 'determined, confidant and resolute'....

It's human nature to protect myself when people try to show up my faults -especially when I'm trying to hide them from myself.

People withdraw when they get criticized. They start to feel threatened. They stop listening and pull back.

I know that my life's reflected in my environment, and my environment is reflected in me. I used to hate my job and it showed up in me while I was at work, then people picked up that negativity in me, but I felt justified and got defensive...a bad cycle.

I had to make the situation better.

It started with ME changing - not the world around me. I had to find the courage to do this.

wisdom...

courage...

compassion...

Responsibility starts with YOU too, become the change you want to be. If YOU change your environment MUST change to reflect it.

You help yourself by changing for the better... you're the one person you can definitely influence...

ARTICLE 3 "No Such Thing As 'Coincidence'"

People never cease to surprise me. It's inevitable, they ALWAYS change and do things different than what you expect to be their normal character.

People who are 'greedy' or 'selfish' or 'self-centered'.... then they do something nice for you.

For them, just like for me and you, it's karma. There's no such thing as coincidence.

There seems to be a pattern in life. Things work in cause and effect. 'Coincidence' is just an effect where we can't see the connecting cause.

But really, karma is like a bank balance you take with you, the sum total of all causes. It shapes your future.

Cause and effect and karma are something a lot of people get emotional about. They start to assign FAULT. But 'fault' is just their interpretation (or mis-interpretation).

Habits form, we think and act certain ways in certain conditions. Around people we like, we act more friendly...

Around people we don't like, we act less than friendly, the pick up on this and we stay unfriendly...

We stay in this loop because of habit, with expected outcomes. "Fault" is judgmental.... a better word is CAUSE. Cause and effect isn't limited to what we can see or hear, it is everywhere. It never sleeps.

If you get cancer after smoking all your life, no one is punishing you, you're realizing effects of causes of smoking. Karma is like a web of cause and effect. The heart of it is taking total responsibility.

So, it seems, mixing cause, effect, and chance doesn't make sense. What happens when it appears to work at some points, but not others? This is usually because we cant figure everything out... we start to use god or luck or karma to explain the mysteries.

Which makes the most sense to you?

Karma doesn't take away your power. If you believe your fate is in the hands of god or chance you have no power. If you believe in karma, that all the causes led you to this place, then you have control over the future. You can change things.

Taking this responsibility puts power into your own hands. If you take responsibility you're in charge and don't have to wait for others to change. The irony is, if YOU change, THEY will too. Your environment is a total reflection of your life. If you change the inside, the outside HAS to change.

What's your plan of action to escape 'coincidence'?

ARTICLE 4 "Nothing Prepares You For The Day Your Life Will Change"

Nothing prepares you for the time your life will change. When it happens, you likely wont be looking for it.

I know this because it happened to me. I lost my job and my relationship on the same day. When it happened I was definitely NOT ready for it.

I had to admit some tough things. Number #1 was if I don't sort it out now, it will get worse down the line. I needed an income. I needed someone to talk to. I needed courage to deal with the fact that I had neither.

If it was going to get better it was going to be up to me...

I realized that it's not the problem that's the problem, its how you SEE the problem. You need to see it correctly before you can solve it.

I surprised myself. By re-aligning the way I looked at everything I was able to start my own business. By reading and studying (even alone, on my own) I was able to find the courage and resolve to move ahead in my life.

Today I am still single, but I have my own business.

I decided to share what I learned with other people. If I can help even one person it will be worth the effort. I read a lot of psychological/motivational stuff that was difficult to get any value from. It was either clinical and technical, or full of 'you can do it...' cheerleading.

Neither really helped me.

I had to dig DEEPER, and I had to get info from VARIETY of places (psychological text, human interest, video, documentary, biographies, friends' advice, group and individual counseling, meditating, etc). I took all of this and
used it to ask myself the right questions.

I decided that it wasn't working to listen to someone else who didn't know me try to give me ANSWERS. The answers didn't work because they didn't know enough about where I was in my life. Once I had the ability to ask myself the right QUESTIONS I found the answers for myself.

I didn't believe this at first, but now I do: In the highest life-state you will welcome problems as challenges. The real question isn't "what's the problem", but "how's your life state".

Some people actually seek out 'the problem' (surfers, mountaineers, etc). They want the rush of getting through challenges. The 'horrible stuff', like losing relationships and jobs, is just part of life, you don't control it.

We just need strength for the change that is inevitable.

Problems are just facts. Attitude is what makes us suffer. If we feel bigger than the problem we cope, if we feel smaller we suffer. Many times problems just reveal our weakness, and that is what we can't handle, that is what makes us unhappy.

Somehow, for me, it turned out BETTER that these things happened to me.

You life state is not fixed, it changes moment to moment, (like waking up and feeling better the next morning). And the path to understanding is not a straight one.

Everyone has wisdom, courage and compassion inside of them, they just need to remember how to use them. You can use them like weights, to get stronger and stronger. Your adversity is just the resistance that makes you grow.

Expecting to win or fail is just habit of thinking. We are in charge of this habit. Don't get me wrong, getting fit and staying fit takes effort. But in the long run it DEFINITELY pays off.

Perseverance for the sake of good wins, try not to accept your natural, negative way of doing things.

So, to summarize (even if you don't believe it yet):

Perseverance wins.
Problems are good.
What matters is life-state.
What we need are wisdom, courage and compassion.
You have a choice. When you feel you cant handle something, you can chose to give up, or you can try to turn poison into medicine (even if it's not your fault).

(By the way, I am NOT religious. I believe structured religion sometimes causes damages.)

I do believe in one thing, pessimism sucks away your life force.

ARTICLE 5 "Be A Man (Or A Woman)"

In life we are lucky if we get to the point where we ask ourselves. "What's worth doing?" Sometimes it seems like a lot of things are not working or aren't worth the time you spend on them. It may seem like the people involved aren't well adapted or aren't very well evolved or grown up by your standards. Perhaps they don't see the implications or haven't thought things through to the very end.

So you look around aiming to find something worth doing. And after awhile, for me at least, I got this insight: just Be a Man. Take something and MAKE it worthwhile. I am who makes it worthwhile by MY focus and doing, by MY sweat, tears, aspirations and energy.

If you want and make a difference on certain levels join the Peace Corps. Look into the priesthood, adopt a chunk of highway and keep it clean, become a Big Brother/Sister, get on with an NGO in Afghanistan, etc..

One of the great Chiefs that the army caught back in the Indian Wars was put to agriculture, you know, farming, tilling the ground. A lot of others didn't cooperate at all, because in most of the plains tribe's farming was 'woman's work', but he did it. He said, "When I do it it's MY work..." It's the mindfulness.

And you yourself are the power and the focus and you determine what each thing, each series of duties, actions, circumstances, what its value is. You are the arbiter, the Genghis Khan or the Gandhi. There are absolutely great human beings we'll never hear of because they're totally focused on what they are doing and determined that it -whether it's detailing a car or driving a bus or building a company -is IT. It becomes the point of focus and energy, and making it change to the dream or the goal is where they are and what they're doing at that moment.

So get really clear about your goals and what you're doing, and ask yourself some time when you're sitting quietly, "What do I need to do next to get to the (blank) goal?" "What do I need to do..."

And then do it, because nobody will take you to the next step. You have to do it yourself.