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Home | Self Improvement | Spirituality


The Secret. What Would Jung, Aristotle, Jesus Or Moses Say?

By: Rick London
 

I used to debate with my former girlfriend, a woman much more socially and finally successful than me, about the business principals to success. Though she did it, like me, the old fashioned way, made a plan and worked the plan and increased organizational skills along the way, she still believes there is some mystique and "laws of attraction" to it. Of course she is a Beverly Hills attorney, I, a cartoonist and e-tailer. Since the times of EST and other "thought mills", California has been a haven for slick re-packaged ancient scrolls disguised as "NEW"-AGE. She partly buys into it. I don't buy into it at all. Let me rephrase that. I do buy into it. I just happen to know it is nothing new except more slickly packaged and worded more for the proletariat.

I am the better marketer of the two, she says, but the jury is still out. She never advertises, does not even have a website, and her waiting room is always full of people waiting to pay her and pay her well.

My ex-mate has life head and heals above me, and I admire her for it. I admire he character and the way she works. Though I have learned to multi-task, she can multi-task ten things at once and do them all perfectly. She built a huge Beverly Hills law practice starting from a park bench, with English as a second language, and has more clients than with which she knows what to do. I on the other hand have some nifty Internet cartoon stores from my Londons Times Cartoons. Respectable? Well yes, and know. I make a good living, but a lot of my peers, doctors, lawyers and such, still consider me a Waylon Jennings almost grown-up cowboy. In other words, we don't share the golf course at the country club.

She drives a new Mercedes. I drove an '89 Buick Regal until I got a heart condition and stopped driving. She has a big home in the Valley. I have a modest studio apartment on a mountaintop in Arkansas. I now have a 2000 Saturn and I'm prefectly satisfied with it.

I live in the Arkansas hills. Her once complaint is that we Arkansaians "think small". Wish Sam Walton was alive to hear that one. Maya Angelou would love to hear it as well

We differ in our opinions of "New Age". I have lived in Southern California so I realize all that is a way of life. But I also, hopefully, am savvy enough to realize that the majority of it is ancient biblical history, reworded ever so carefully, and packaged beautifully to make the new guru rich. And it works. And hopefully Oprah will endorse it, and the guru will live happily ever after.

Now there is nothing wrong with attracting wealth and good things for you and/or your family by praye and meditation. But there is nothing "New" about it. It is in both the Jewish and Christian Bibles and mentioned numerous times regarding the labors of attraction, prayer, and "ACTION". What seems to be left of a lot of the new age laws of attraction is the action part. If you've met someone who has sat on an easy chair for weeks, months or years, without moving a muscle, and suddenly his BVD Tee turned into an Armani Suit, his '57 Chevy Pickup into a new Lexus, please do let me know about it and I shall gladly edit or remove this article. The Kaballah (hardly New Age) but the mystical intrpretation of the Torah, still considered a bit controversial even in Judaism, has all the information in that is in the slick new age packaged goods. The big difference is that it is available for free. And the information is more precise and based on real spiritual dynamics, not on a spiritual guru's bank balance.

Life is what it is. I can't debate with her about income. If I want to make more, I will promote my business more, go to law school, or both. A good lawyer, historically, makes a better income than a good cartoonist and e-tailer. But I don't like law. Grew up with plenty of lawyers in my family and though they made a great living, very few of them enjoyed it. In fact several quit and one never even practiced after daddy paid for law school. So it goes.

She wants me to "live the dream". Ok ok. I don't like that term. It sounds so MLM-sh and I feel like I'm in Egypt starting a Pyramid scheme. But I digress.

But I have an ally. He's long gone now but his words live on in his writings; Carl Jung that is. Many people do not understand Jung's message and that's okay. I think it was because he was so interested in the spiritual and metaphysical side of things. So am I. But he, like I, am also interested in living in the now, enjoying the now, appreciating the struggle. For if not to appreciate the struggle, once the dream "happens", what's next? I don't want to keep living for "new dreams". I want to enjoy the ones I am living and gradually evolve into other ways of life, if they look health and positive for me.

He purveys the caveat that it will never be utopia no matter how "pristine the dream". So, what to do?

In our culture, we correlate happiness and success with our bank account. We were taught that in our formal education, and its a big mistake. Yes having a big bank account is wonderful, but that's not all there is to it. One has to do what one loves to do, to build one's own happiness, not let anyone else do it; not a boss, a spouse or anyone else. They can add to it like we can add to theirs, but they are not THE SOURCE.

I worked in corporate America for two decades chasing the almighty dollar. I made a lot of them. I can assure you they did not buy me happiness, and, in retrospect, because I hated what I was doing for a living.

It is insightful to read autobiographies of captains of business such as Bill Gates and others. They struggled too. They had many missteps along the way, many failures. They discuss them. It was those mistakes that led them to finally do it right. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite before he invented his famous prize. It was for blowing up mountains to build cities. When he learned the military was using it for killing people he fell into a depression. That is not how he wanted to go down in history. So he re-invented himself. So can you. So can I.

I have many wealthy friends, many middle class, many upper class, many lower class; I really don't find any of that important as a requisite for friendship. I love being around people who are doing things to try to improve themselves and others. If someone is out there just trying to make a lot of money, so be it. They bore me. If they are out there trying to provide the best service, product, or creative endeavor out there, and whether they make a pot of gold, or not, I will hang with them.

So to each his own on living the dream. My dream may not be yours.

Whatever your dreams and goals, try to forget some of the things our parents taught us. We now live in a "live and let live world". No more sales tactics. The ultra-sales gurus are old news.

Even though I am living my reality, I am also living my dream, not somebody else's. I have my own hours and I work at my own pace, which is twice as hard as any boss ever asked out of me. The difference is I love what I do. So my reality is a dream in many ways.

"To thine own self be true", Shakespeare said. It was a short sentence but a most memorable one, and memorable for a good reason. If we learn nothing else about life, that statement describes life. If we are not who we really are, we are the walking-dead, striving to be someone else. It is not a fun way to live, though way too many buy into it.

You will be happy, rich, or not.

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