What If...

Enjoy The Little Things

You said yes, with little or no doubt, first thing out of your mouth when asked, “Can You…Will You…Can We????

  It’s all about participation, the verb that can transform life into a party.

 Yes, to those things I am uncertain I can do.

 Yes, to those things I have never done before.

 Yes, to the Wisdom of aging and the Ages. 

 I ponder the concept of the Pursuit of Happiness and the insights of Thomas Jefferson. In Jefferson’s time “Pursuit of Happiness, “written in the Declaration of Independence, meant PRACTICE. One of the premises of the Declaration of Independence meant to practice happiness, not pursue, or chase anything!

 Life, Liberty, and the Practice of happiness.

 In our times I expand the concept to include:

 Follow your Bliss.

 Do what you love, and the money will come.

 Be Happy for No Reason.

 The Dali Lama says, “Our business is to be Happy.”

 Master Thomas Jefferson starts his famous statement with Life.

 I was at a seminar and the trainer asked the participants  “Who wants to represent life?” My right arm headed for the sky. Every chance I get, I say yes. In this group it was obvious that I was the oldest personification of Life.

 The trainer placed a chair on the front of the stage, I was asked to stand on the chair and represent Life. I respectfully obeyed and looked out on those seated on the floor below me. I took deep relaxing breaths, inhaling and exhaling as much Life as I could. I felt my hands filled with energy as gratitude seemed to flow into the room. I enjoyed the attention, importance, and the challenge of being present.

 The trainer said, “When we are small children, and we reach out to the ‘bigs’(adults) in our Life to lift us, and if we are continuously ignored, we imprint that Life is unable or unwilling to give. We decide that I am not good enough to have what I want. The child begins to imprint thru their Life not to bother to ask for what they want.”

 At that moment in me, the persona as Life stopped being a mystery and became an entity, a field of abundance. I felt a profusion of energy residing in me.

 I am Life, its representative with incredible power and permission to give, to connect and affirm: Ask me, I am here to deliver, was Life’s message.

 The trainer said, “Reach to life,” the group did, and I, as Life reached back. We merged Life, Liberty, and the Practice of Happiness by happily asking for what we want.

Outlaw Attention

“To live outside the law, one must be honest” Bob Dylan

 This is Attention on the edge, where the action is. Think merry-go-round, the operator stands in the middle in a slow spin with a bit of boredom, while the riders swirl with excitement on beautiful horses, their minds a whirl of sensations and imagination.

 Outlaw Attention, partnered with self-honesty, is about eluding the posse of habit police, those who serve and protect what has always been.  The habit posse enforce the unconscious traps of sleep walking, the drills of negativity, the collars of having to be right, the shackles of not making mistakes, and the handcuffs of already knowing.  

 Children flirt as outlaws. Whenever freedom offers a painted pony of presence and where self-expression shows up creating a rodeo, children want to ride the bronc!

 Outlaw Attention rides that trail beyond ‘get along little doggie.’ The ride is down into the Forbidden Canyon, toward the echo’s mystery. With magic the child creates maps to return to where Attention comes from. They find Attention from searching the high mountains and Great Plains.

 Pay Attention to children. Lasso those who want to keep the children jailed by the habit posse corralling them into the land of the in-SAME.

 Lead the habit police down a false trail. Let yourself follow the free attention trail to gratitude, enthusiasm, and joy in bringing the little cowpokes along.