M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 59

What am I Not Doing?

I know what I need to do – am I doing it? If not – why not?

Thalia shares an example of not doing.

To be where I desire to be, I know all the things I should be doing. After reading and listening to countless self-help, self-improvement, money-management, mindfulness, psychological, inspirational, and similar books and articles – the answers are here before me.

The key is doing.

Thoughts and feelings each make up a third of mindfulness and conscious reality creation. The final third is action. Doing.

I am not doing enough.

This is not about the actual things I am doing with my life. In that regard, I am doing plenty. No, this is about the more esoteric, intangible things I should be doing.

These are things like how and what I think about. From there, the feelings I am holding onto.

I am largely mindful of what is going on in my head. However, while I am aware of it, I am not necessarily doing anything about it.

What am I not doing with my thinking?

There are always thoughts inside my head. That’s true for everyone, right?

But when my thoughts are dark, dreary, and on things I would prefer not to give my attention to – the only person who can alter/change/redirect them is ME. It is wholly up to me to choose to take care of that and make any necessary changes.

Do I? Not as often as I should.

Especially during this period of necessary isolation – I am spending too much time on Facebook. It is a rabbit hole – and all too easy to read all about this conspiracy theory, those awful people protesting idiotically against necessary restrictions – and don’t even get me started on Trump, the GOP, and the utter and total disaster that is the US Government during all of this.

That overwhelming info takes up residence in my subconscious. There, it manages to plan roots of distress, concern, anger, disbelief, and fear that’s just unpleasant on multiple levels.

My thinking, thus, is influenced by all that negativity. What am I doing about it? That’s where it gets complicated.

I am not being mindful of my intake. Then, I am not being mindful of releasing that negativity – and instead am being a sponge and absorbing more.

I should read less Facebook. This is something I know, have stated before…and yet why am I not doing?

To change my thinking, I need to step away from this thing that is such a cause of negative thought. I know what I should be doing – now it’s on me to do it.

As Yoda said – and I repeat constantly but don’t to heart as well as I should:

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

By not doing what I should with my thinking this impacts my feelings, of course.

What do I not do with my feelings?

Falling down the Facebook rabbit hole and allowing my thoughts to be influenced by all that negativity absorbing into my subconscious inevitably leads to negative feelings.

Sadness, uncertainty, confusion, anger, distress, ire, outright rage, and other negatives become rooted deeply in my psyche. They keep me feeling off-balance and generally make me feel uncertain.

To be fair, it is necessary to be aware of what is going on – and feeling distressed and angry about aspects of it opens you to seeking means to change it. I need to feel these feelings to see what I can do to impact the world at large for the better.

That’s all well and good – until I do nothing with those feelings. If I let them fester and do not release them or act on them in some way – that just makes me feel anxious and depressed. Is it any wonder so many people are currently having issues with anxiety and depression during this situation?

I know I am not alone. And I know these feelings are natural and normal. But I also know that not acting on them or to release them just amplifies them.

I need to find a better outlet for them. It may be time, for example, to start journaling for myself again. I used to keep a journal of inner thoughts and feelings – in fact, I have several old books of them here. Perhaps I need to write them out to release them again.

Or its time to create more articles to share to express my anger and concern – and do what I can to help others in the same situation. Then, take it further and email political leaders to remind them who they work for.

Express or release. That’s what I need to do with my feelings.

The doing is in the actions

Acting on or in release of thoughts and feelings in a generative way is up to me. Doing nothing has no impact except to hold onto negative energy. When you hold onto it, it grows roots deep into your psyche where it can hold on and impinge on reason, logic, and rationality.

When I am not doing something constructive with these negative thoughts and feeling they become more frustrating, reduce my desire to act on them or much of anything else, and seek comfort in distractions, including food, the internet. and other things that are counterproductive.

Of course, it is ok to have moments of doing nothing. Sometimes you just have to let the thoughts and feelings sit there – especially when you are starting to feel overwhelmed by them. But it is necessary to move on at some point – and choosing to be proactive rather than reactive can open you to possibility and potential.

I know what I need to do. The onus is on me to act and make with the doing.

Doing isn’t hard, but it does require action

Knowing that action is a third of mindfulness and conscious reality creation, while thoughts and feelings make up the remaining two-thirds, you can see the necessity of taking action to impact yourself and the world around you. When you make the choices for what you should be doing, you put yourself in control over the only thing which you truly can control, and that ultimately empowers you.

When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that can spread to people around you. It can create a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.

As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, generating yet more positivity and gratitude.

Then, that can spread to change the world for the better.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity that can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred and twenty-seventh entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all of my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

Please take a moment to sign up for my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button below and receive a free eBook.

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The post What am I Not Doing? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Merging Two Paths

I am currently on two paths. They share several things in common – but are still not the same.

I have a habit of being more than one thing at a time. Some of this has been a response to attempting to do two things at once. On some occasions, this has been about me working a “normal” job while pursuing a passion at the same time.

Over the past year, now, I have been working on a singular vision. I don’t have a “normal” job while pursuing my passion. Instead, I have been walking the path of my choosing.

To be fair, it’s a rocky path. Also, not even a little bit straight and full of obstacles. Challenges lie around nearly every bend, and this hasn’t yet landed me exactly where I desire to be.

But I am walking the path of my choosing. It has been very freeing in many ways. Yet still, it’s not a singular path, either.

I am on two paths. Both are part of my intent for how I desire to live my life. Yet they remain separated. It’s akin to railroad tracks. Heading in the same direction but forever just shy of five feet apart.

On the one path is my career as a professional writer. On the other, my identity as a business.

The writer

Every day I publish articles on Medium.com. Additionally, I am still placing two articles on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don and one on my professional website weekly.

I am finally publishing the first novel in my new sci-fi series. The Void Incursion – Book One – Opening Gambit comes out on Friday, May 8th. It joins the fantasy, Steampunk, and less-well-defined fiction and non-fiction I have previously published.

For a long time, I saw the different forms my writing took as different paths. Now, I have greater clarity and an ability to see all my writing work as one-in-the-same.

There are worlds of fiction inside my head that need to get out. I put them to the screen and potentially publish them to share. Further, I have learned a great deal about mindfulness, conscious reality creation, positivity, and other self-improvement, inspirational, and self-help notions I feel are worthy of sharing.

All of it originated inside my mind and I believe is worth putting out into the world at large.

While I have seen some success on this path, there is still room for growth. All of my work can reach a broader audience. Taking the steps to make that happen is an ongoing process.

This is the path I choose for myself. It may still be a work in progress – but that’s life. It is still satisfying and worthwhile to continue this pursuit.

The business

I have been working on my overall branding for several months now. To that end, I combined multiple domains to just one website. It makes it easier for me to be found and unified as one singular brand.

For the first time since I tried to run my own business, I am a true independent contractor. Granted, I have a title and business cards from the company I am contracting with – but still a contractor.

And my primary job with this company is writing. I write and edit blogs and pages for the website. Much of the work I do aside from that is copy editing.

This has also helped me to improve my Photoshop skills in creating some of the digital content, and I am gaining more and more experience with the ins and out of WordPress themes. I’ve even made use of that to improve all of MY websites.

Then there is the voice work. I have now recorded – in addition to my own 2 audiobooks – 15 audiobooks for ACX (thus available for Audible and Amazon). While these books are not the most spectacular works ever – they are work that I have done.

Writer, blogger, editor, podcaster, audiobook voice artist, worldbuilder, copywriter, and copyeditor. As a business, I do wear multiple hats – but they are interrelated.

Still, these two baths are more parallel to one another than I should like them to be. So how do I merge them?

Bringing two paths together as one

The key is to merge these paths inside my philosophy and in my own mind.

That requires mindfulness.

I alone am capable of being conscious of my thoughts, feelings, and actions. The awareness of my headspace, mindset, and overall psyche is unique to me alone. Nobody else can get inside my head, heart, and soul – but me.

The concept that I am walking two paths at once is a matter of perception on my part. I saw myself on these train tracks. That means I have the power to turn the tracks into a singular road or pathway for me to tread.

MJ Blehart is a singular being. Writer and business, as such, are thus one-in-the-same. I am the corporate entity, sole-proprietorship, entrepreneur, et al. When I can conceive of myself as being that one entity on these paths I can merge them together.

How? By removing the division in my mind. It is on me to accept myself and my path as one entity with the same goal and taking the same journey.

What is the goal and what is the journey? The goal is to maintain independence and make my living on my own terms. Corporate America and I have never gotten along well – this has always been the best option for me. The goal is to earn my living as the business and all the aspects that make that up.

The journey is all the bits and pieces that I experience along the way. Some – like my current contract gig – will be unexpected and amazing. Others – like the pandemic – will be less helpful. But every step of the journey is a new experience and a step closer to the goal.

Is this selfish given the current world situation?

No. Despite the insanity and uncertainty of the world as it is in the middle of this pandemic, life goes on. It is altered and changed by the circumstances – but has not stopped.

Of course, some people have been impacted by this and are suffering on multiple levels. I empathize with them – but I can do nothing for them by denying my own life and my paths. The journey goes on – and the goal doesn’t go away.

The future is always uncertain – more now than ever. However, I am still here – still alive – and still get to choose to be mindful, consciously create my reality, and do all I can to experience life as fully as possible. That’s not a selfish act – it is, in fact, self-preservation.

Are you still choosing your paths during these uncertain times?

This is the four-hundred and thirty-seventh article for my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along the path of life to consciously create reality. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. I further desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.

Please take a moment to subscribe to my mailing list. Fill in the info and click the submit button below and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *MessageSubmit

The post Merging Two Paths appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Kindness is a Superpower

How to make use of kindness and save the world.

People are scared. Confused. Distressed. Bored. Uncertain. We are living in a period of confusion where we are watching opportunists do awful things in the name of lining their pockets and disempowering certain groups and individuals – while at the same time seeing heroes risk their lives to help others alongside many practicing incredible care and mindfulness.

The news media loves sensationalism. So they are going to share the images of haters and their guns, the privileged protesting without consequence, and anything else that will rile you up, get you angry, and cause you to watch and seek more information.

I am not telling you to disregard what you are seeing. Those things are out there and you need to be aware of them. What I am suggesting is that you be mindful of what YOU are practicing now.

Kindness is simple. It costs nothing. And it is a tremendous generator of positivity not too unlike gratitude.

When you give kindness, you tend to get kindness. Further, being kind feels as good as receiving a kind act.

Practicing acts of random kindness is a superpower.

What are acts of kindness?

Being kind can take any number of forms, both material and immaterial. Kindness is a practice of consciously giving in a way that holds zero expectation of payment or even reciprocation. It is an act of pure heart and empathy intended to do, create, and be good.

Today, given the incredible uncertainty of the world in which we find ourselves, there are lots of things one can do to be kind. For example:

Stay homeMaintain social distancing when you go outWear a maskSay “THANK YOU” to anyone who delivers things to you, rings you out at a store, or works in a factory or medicine (or frankly to anyone and everyone you encounter)Wash your handsLend a hand to those in needDon’t empower the hatersSpread truth, not propaganda

Why are these acts of kindness? Because they are positive things that you can do to better the world. When you are mindful of the present, being aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions impacts you and all around you. Kindness makes that a positive thing.

Resist with kindness and empathy

There are a small number of powerful people out there stirring the pot and playing on fear. They are behind the privileged protesters claiming stay-at-home orders are oppressive. These people are also the ones who want to open up the economy not for the good of you and me – but for themselves.

Unfortunately, rather than a unifying voice leading us in this difficult time, we have The Great Divider. He loves anything that places attention on him from his devoted followers over truth and the greater good. He’s not alone, but until the election this fall, we’re stuck here.

However, you and I are empowered to be leaders. Recognizing this power and spreading it into and through the collective consciousness can save more lives and better us all without taking anything away from anyone. Kindness is the superpower we need.

Don’t ignore the negativity and terrible things and people out there. But stop feeding them. Don’t give them misery and anger and ire. That only makes them stronger. Resist them –not with their ugly weapons of negativity – but with kindness, empathy, and your mindfulness.

Kindness is NOT a weakness. Empathy is NOT something exploitable. They are the ultimate expressions of basic human decency. These are the superpowers of you and me that can be employed to save the world – but to be certain, with less flair than The Avengers in the comics and movies do.

They fear empowerment

Those in power are well aware that their hold on their power is tentative at best. Divide and conquer no longer requires armed forces. All you need to do is create “them” and “us.” Keep emphasizing how the “them” are going to destroy the “us” and watch the fireworks ensue.

Kindness and empathy are bridges across the divide. Being kind to anyone and everyone ignores these artificial divides. When you ignore the divisions, you open up the ability to empower the people.

Did you know that virtually every division is artificial? Even those based on physical attributes are false. Nationality, wealth, skin color, religion, gender, sexual preference, ethnicity – all of these are false divisions.

The chasms created by widening these divisions are exploited by those in power to weaken the masses.

And yet, despite that, for the most part, this pandemic is making us stronger.

The majority of people are practicing acts of kindness towards one another. Maintaining distance, wearing masks, and practicing caution. Those who are not are in the minority.

I will not suggest being unkind to those who will not express kindness and do not recognize the need for such. But I will suggest avoiding them. Isolate them by steering clear of them and letting them shout into the void. Don’t attack them, don’t throw their fear back at them – just stay away from them. Separate yourself from them. Keep away from them – but be kind while turning your back on those people.

Kindness is a superpower. You can use it to make your corner of the world better. When you empower yourself it can easily spread to other people. Be kind, be empathetic, and one corner at a time change the world for the better.

Employing kindness isn’t hard, but it does require action

Knowing that kindness is a superpower, which makes you stronger – as well as those around you – you can use it not just to generate positivity but to change the world for the better. When you practice kindness and empathy it makes you feel good, which in turn makes those around you feel good, all of which ultimately empowers you.

When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that can spread to people around you. It can create a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.

As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, generating yet more positivity and gratitude.

Then, that can spread to change the world for the better.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity that can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred and twenty-sixth entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all of my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

Please take a moment to sign up for my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button below and receive a free eBook.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *MessageSubmit

The post Kindness is a Superpower appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Practicing Mindfulness – Thoughts, Feelings, and How They Impact your Paths in Life

Breaking down the roots of mindfulness for conscious reality creation for more clarity.

What is mindfulness?

It is the awareness of your thoughts and feelings. You gain recognition in the present of what you are thinking, as well as what and how you are feeling. (The intent of actions is a part of mindfulness as well, but I’ll get to that later).

Mindfulness doesn’t just cover your thoughts and feelings alone. It also goes deeper. Mindfulness delves into your psyche, your overall mental, emotional, and spiritual makeup.

Being mindful, in a nutshell, is ultimately being aware of you.

Because of how society tends to work, people live more subconsciously than consciously. What does that mean? It means you do things by rote, you live within and by a routine and just go with the flow.

To be fair, there are times this is a good way to be. But not all the time, because your subconscious mind lacks filters your conscious mind has.

Consciously you filter the information you take in. Subconsciously you do not. As such, all the negative energy and distressing news you come across embeds itself more easily and unquestioned when you are letting your subconscious have control.

It is not hard to take control and use your conscious mind more regularly. It does, however, take some work that initially requires a lot of effort but gets easier over time.

Becoming conscious of your thoughts

I am thinking all the time. Turning my mind off and not thinking is pretty much impossible.

Thought takes on many different forms. Ideas, notions, chewing on facts and figures, past, present, future, people, places, things, tangibles, and intangibles all makeup thought.

Thought is a many-colored notion. One way to quantify it is by using D&D character stats. Thought can be made up of both intelligence and wisdom.

Intelligence is information knowledge. It’s the things you have learned and get to know. Book smarts, in other words.

Wisdom is sense. It’s knowledge in the ways of life, the Universe, and everything. It’s instinct, and it is street smarts.

Thought is abstract in that it can often be incomplete. A half-baked idea may pop into your head for a story, a song, an invention – or anything else you can conceive of.

Everyone has thoughts that are good, bad, and neutral. Thinking about how you can sew masks to provide for people in need is a good thought. Thinking about what to eat for lunch is a neutral thought. Then, thinking about robbing a bank or committing a crime is a bad thought.

Thought, to be made manifest, needs to be married to feeling. Thought alone has no power to be created. It requires passion and other feelings to come into reality.

Some thoughts take only a slight amount of feeling to drive action and be made manifest. Others take not just a lot of feeling, but journeys into wholly new and never-before-charted territory.

When you become conscious of what you are thinking you empower yourself to marry that thought to feeling and action. That opens you to conscious reality creation and manifestation of the things material and immaterial you desire to have in your life.

Becoming conscious of feelings

Let’s clear some things up right away. Feelings are messy. Complicated. Super-variable and unique to everyone.

When it comes to feelings, we all have a common dialect for their names and the notions of what they mean. Identifying what you are feeling tends to include names like happy, sad, angry, annoyed, calm, content, irked, irate, joyful, sorrowful, and on and on.

What you are feeling, however, may not explain how you are feeling. How you are feeling can be as variable as the names for feelings and the almost 8 billion people living on this planet.

Take anger. Some feel it as a cold, icy dagger. Others feel anger as a red-hot fiery flame. Still, others can feel anger as either of these extremes depending on the situation and circumstances.

How I feel when my family angers me is different from how I feel when a trusted confidant does.

What’s more, sometimes the how of your feeling cannot be readily labeled. Depression, for example, manifests in a lot of different ways for different people. Then, just for a little more added fun, it can blend diametrically opposed feelings together into a hodgepodge of unnamable unfathomable emotion.

Feelings can rise up based on a single word or action. And they can originate in your unfiltered subconscious like a matte-painting background. Out of nowhere the Cliffs of Despair are no longer a distant painting but looming right over you.

When you become conscious of your feelings you empower yourself. Recognizing what and how you are feeling allows you to alter, influence, change and control the emotions. This can be difficult – especially if you have allowed your subconscious to do most of the driving – but gets easier over time.

Nobody is perfect when it comes to mindfulness practices

I have been working with mindfulness and conscious reality creation for years. When I am having a good day and am conscious of my thoughts and feelings, I can get a lot of work done and do some awesome things.

However, when I am having a bad day – and I am overwhelmed by either happenings directly impacting me and/or world news and information – this is challenging. If I absorb too much of that negativity into my subconscious, taking back conscious control becomes that much more challenging.

It’s easy to beat myself up for slipping. I don’t practice what I preach, and who am I to keep pushing my philosophy, mindfulness, conscious reality creation, and so forth?

The answer is easy – a human being. And like everyone else I will have bad days. I am perfectly imperfect like all the rest of the people in the world.

Nobody is perfect – or – everybody is perfectly imperfect. As such, nobody is always conscious of their thoughts and feelings. Mindlessness happens – and there are times to just embrace it and let go.

You are empowered at any time to reconnect to yourself and be mindful.

Action spurred from thought and feeling

Finally, to make anything manifest and consciously create any tangible or intangible thing, there needs to be action.

When you have practiced mindfulness to become conscious of your thoughts and feelings that opens you to knowing and directing the intent of your actions. Intentional action is a step to manifestation. Big or small, it’s how things get done.

Unintentional actions are things you do with no goal or purpose. They can also be done subconsciously with no intended consequence nor outcome. Action for the sake of action looks like it’s something – but tends to be inconsequential.

President Trump holds daily briefings on the COVID-19 crisis to look like he’s taking intentional action. But since nothing comes of this it’s merely action for the sake of action.

If his action in the briefings was intentional – directing things to help the situation along rather than narcissistic masturbation – that would be intentional action capable of manifesting something into reality.

No matter who you are or where you come from you are empowered to consciously create your reality. When you break down mindfulness into its constituent parts and examine closely what awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and action are, you can see how it can help you help yourself.

Do you practice mindfulness to consciously create your reality?

This is the four-hundred and thirty-sixth article for my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along the path of life to consciously create reality. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. I further desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is availablehere. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.

Please take a moment to subscribe to my mailing list. Fill in the info and click the submit button below and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *PhoneSubmit

The post Practicing Mindfulness – Thoughts, Feelings, and How They Impact your Paths in Life appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You Can’t Change the World at Large

But you can change your corner of the world for the better.

Spend any time online and you will probably become sad, angry, frustrated, or otherwise pulled in a negative direction. Between COVID-19, politics, fretting about the global economy, and all the rest of the current news, things are more uncertain than any previous experience in most of our lifetimes.

This may be a bitter pill to swallow – but there is nothing you can do to change the big picture.

However, that doesn’t mean you are powerless. You can impact change, and you can change the world. But the process is much smaller and more local than you realize.

Every little bit counts

Who you are and what you do in this life matters. The things you do and say, thoughts, feelings, and actions your share, and general way you are at your core will impact the world. It may not be a huge impact, but every little bit counts.

Ever work with glitter? My friends and I refer to it as Craft Herpes because it gets everywhere and never goes away. Days later, you find an impossible speck of glitter on your body somewhere it couldn’t possibly have found its way to. But there it is.

You are a piece of glitter in the world. You may not think your impact means anything at all. Yet there you are, having done your part.

Whether the impact is only on you or other people doesn’t matter. You matter. Maybe you can’t change the world at large but you can change your corner of it for the better.

How? Practice mindfulness.

Mindful positivity differs from toxic positivity

Mindfulness, at its core, is conscious awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. That awareness allows you to know in the present where you are at in mind, body, and spirit. That knowledge will inform you if you are being a force of positivity or negativity.

This doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen and pull you down. They can, they will, and they do. What mindful positivity does, however, is recognize that the negatives are happening and determines how long to allow them to be impactful upon you.

As author Haruki Murakami said,

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

What that means, to me, is that you will experience negativity. Pain. Sadness. Etcetera. But how long that is held onto by you is your choice.

No, I am in no way saying you can’t hold it at all. Sometimes pain and sadness are a learning experience. These negative things make you a better person.

The problem comes when you hold them, become them, and don’t release them. You choose not just to feel the pain but to become it and suffer.

Mindful positivity is acknowledging that you are in pain and allowing yourself to experience it. But then, ultimately, taking steps to let it go and release it.

Toxic positivity denies and avoids the pain in favor of a false narrative of positivity.

Positivity is a good thing, and it can be super-empowering. But it comes with the knowledge of it’s opposite – as well as all that exists between the positive and the negative.

Change is going to happen. Your “normal” life before COVID-19 has changed to the present situation. Life after this will not be the same as it was before.

Change need not destroy your world

To many people, the loss of the life before this experience is something to grieve. And you have every right to do that. You have suffered a loss and grief is a natural part of that.

One of the things that mindful positivity can do is to help you choose what direction to take with the next change. When we can stop social-distancing and reconnect with people publicly, it won’t be the same as it was. A great many things will have changed or will still be changing on the other side of this.

That, for many people, is terrifying. It is overwhelming, upsetting, and deeply negative. And there is nothing you can do for the world at large.

Who can you impact? You. It is up to you to decide how you will roll with any change – resist it, combat it, overcome it, or direct it. You are empowered to influence and control a great deal of change for yourself.

When you practice mindfulness, you become conscious of your awareness. That means, now, in the present, you know where and who you are. Recognize that It is inside your own head that you have the origin of all the control you can exert on the world.

It is about your own mind, body, and soul. Your head, heart, and general essence are controlled by you and you alone. By that same token, you have no control over anyone or anything else.

So how can you change the world? By being mindful of your impact on it.

Be the best you that you can be

When you are genuine, real, thoughtful, kind, and empathetic in the things you do – that can spread faster than an invisible virus. When people are impacted by you – directly or indirectly – and your mindful positivity – they may be more inclined to act similarly. Not because you control them, but because you positively impact upon them.

Every little bit counts. When you say “Thank you” to the delivery driver, give a person appropriate social-distance space to pass you by, or sew masks for other people you have an impact.

While you can’t change the world at large, your thoughts, feelings, and actions are still able to change your corner of it for the better.

Finding and/or creating mindful positivity in the world isn’t hard, but it does require action

Knowing that nobody can change the world at large, you can instead focus on your own life and experiences, working on impacting change from there. When you practice mindfulness, you gain awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and actions in the here-and-now – and that ultimately empowers you.

When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that can spread to people around you. It can create a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.

As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, generating yet more positivity and gratitude.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity that can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred and twenty-fifth entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all of my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

Please take a moment to sign up for my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button below and receive a free eBook.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *PhoneSubmit

The post You Can’t Change the World at Large appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Where Do We Go From Here?

That’s the question on everyone’s mind. Where are we going and how will we get there?

What we are all experiencing as a result of COVID-19 is unprecedented. The shut-down, social distancing, isolation, and self-quarantine on a national scale are awkward. On a global scale, it’s downright frightening.

The world has slowed way down. Most people understand the necessity of this and the stay-at-home orders from local leaders (as opposed to the always conflicting disinformation from the top – in the US, at least).

Those that do not recognize why this is necessary are being fueled by misinformation, inexpert advice, and feeding of broad (and often antagonistic) fears.

Unless you were alive a hundred years ago for the last global pandemic – or for that matter one of the world wars – you’ve never seen anything like this. The level of uncertainty, doubt, and fear are amped up. I know that my own anger – mostly over seeing displays of surreal stupidity at various levels of society – is uncomfortably elevated.

The big question overall is – where do we go from here? How long will we need to practice social distancing? For how long will we need precautions? When will we be able to hold public gatherings again?

Or to sum up – when does life go back to normal?

And that’s the rub, really. Why are we so keen to return to how things were?

Familiarity breeds contempt

This is all about comfort zones. The human race has an inherent need to nest. By-and-large people desire to find comfort.

That can take a wide range of forms. Food can bring comfort. Physical affection can be comforting. Certain fabrics on the skin are comfortable.

It’s not just physical. Comfort extends to the mental, emotional, and psychological. It’s why small children often possess a well-worn familiar in a small blanket or stuffed animal. This need doesn’t leave you as an adult – it just takes new forms.

Every time I have had any sort of office space – from a cubicle to a room with a door – I have nested. Personal touches, art on the walls, and various personal effects live in my space to mark it as mine. But it also turns my space into something that reflects on me.

Creating an environment of familiarity creates one of comfort. It feels stable. When that stability is ripped away it tends to create doubt, uncertainty, and various other negatives.

Hence why having our general, collective conscious normal abruptly undone causes backlash and negative reactions. The habitual lives most people lived differently before this pandemic have been torn away. Your woobie is gone.

Hindsight is seldom 20/20

Many people have a tendency – when they look back to the past – to see things from a matter of wistful perspective. It’s why so many people desire to go back to how life was in the 1950s.

What it ignores is the racism, extreme inequality, and lack of social justice that was rampant in that era. The nuclear family – where mom stayed at home in a pretty dress and make-up – is mostly a lie. It’s a nostalgic notion based on a desire for simplicity often in the face of fear spurred by progress.

I used to believe that hindsight was 20/20. You could look back and see perfectly clearly what you missed before. But I have come to a new conclusion that, frequently, hindsight gets distorted. You see what you WANT to see in the past more than what was the truth.

Hence why I question returning to the “normal” of life pre-pandemic. Far too many people have been struggling for basics that nobody should struggle for. The uber-rich – who can afford months or even years out of work – largely can’t be bothered to support their struggling workers. The government and their ridiculous belief in trickle-down economics just make them richer – while throwing coins to the masses.

Too many people believe in a lot of lies about how the economy works. They also believe that its crash will devastate everyone. While it will certainly suck – there are plenty of ways out of this where very few people need to suffer.

Where we could go

Recently responding to a post about Universal Basic Income (UBI) by Shannon Ashley – a Medium author I deeply admire – I came to a realization. The problem with this notion – as well as the stories told about Universal Health Care – is based on two big misunderstandings.

The first is fiat money. Most people think money is based on a standard like gold or silver or some other tangible. It used to be. But it has not been based on any such thing for just shy of a century now.

Money is based on nothing tangible. It’s fiat – created by governments and banking systems out of thin air (or probably hot air). As I wrote in this article about the reality of money and currency – the Euro – used throughout Europe – has only existed since 1999. That’s 21 years. And yet this currency is the 2nd most traded in the world.

Because money is generated in this way – it’s utterly abundant. Hence, coming up with the funds to support a UBI is already in place.

Which is where the second problem comes in. Trickle-down economics. This is the belief that if you give lots of money to those at the top they will trickle it down to those at the bottom. More money for job makers equals more jobs for everyone.

This practice caught fire and became the norm in the 1980s. This is where huge tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy began to support the idea that when they have more they will give more.

It doesn’t take a genius economist to see that this failed miserably.

Some of the ultra-rich earn so much money that their equivalent daily income often could pay $50,000 to more than a thousand “average” people.

Can you see why misunderstanding these truths is problematic?

Where do we go from here?

Nobody can accurately predict how long the measures being taken need to go on. You can decide for yourself, however, where to get your news, whether to listen to actual experts or demagogues and the actions you will or will not take.

Practicing mindfulness can help you see that your path is unique to you. You can decide what thoughts, feelings, and actions to take-in and put-out. The choice to be afraid for the future – or to look for hope and possibility – is in you.

There is no simple, easy, one-step one-size-fits-all answer. All I can advise is this: practice mindfulness and be aware of yourself and what you are thinking, as well as how and what you are feeling. Recognize the intent of your actions. This will open you to knowing yourself and your overall psyche.

Practice kindness, gratitude, and empathy. Don’t go out grocery shopping without a mask. Be smart and maintain social distance – based on good science – to protect those you care about. Empathize with those who are working still – whether cooking at a restaurant, moving goods in a warehouse, or practicing medicine and risking exposure to the coronavirus to help others daily. Offer them gratitude.

You can control the here-and-now for only yourself and your life. Focus on that rather than the question of where we are going. There is no answer right now, and any answers we have are subject to change.

Reach out to friends, family, or an impartial person to maintain balance. Don’t let fear and uncertainty overwhelm you.

Where are we going and how will we get there? I think the better and much more answerable questions are: Where are you know? Where do you desire to be and what can you do to get yourself there?

This is the four-hundred and thirty-fifth article for my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along the path of life to consciously create reality. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. I further desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.

Please take a moment to subscribe to my mailing list. Fill in the info and click the submit button below and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

The post Where Do We Go From Here? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Nobody Can Predict the Future

Nobody can predict the future, and this can be frustrating for many people – but it can truly be a good thing, too.

When you woke up today, you may or may not have had a plan. Perhaps you have a daily routine that you will be following, and the expected outcome of that is fairly constant.

You know who you are, you know what you will be doing…and then something happens. Your car breaks down. Someone you know has gotten sick or died. The water in your home isn’t running. You woke up with a tweaked back and can barely move.

There was no way to predict any of that. Despite your plans and expectations for how the day would go – now it will be different. You didn’t see any of that coming.

The truth is that nobody can predict the future. That applies to the immediate, day-to-day future, as well as the distant future.

For a lot of people, this is infuriating. The lack of control that this represents is unacceptable, so they either become anxious about prospects, depressed at the expectation of loss or suffering, or angry that something might not go as planned.

The uncertainty inherent in the future can be extremely harmful mentally, emotionally, and physically. To make matters worse, whole industries make money on predicting the future. This includes psychics, stock market traders, media pundits, so-called experts, and more.

Unfortunately, more often than not, the focus is on the lack, scarcity, fear, and uncertainty of the future.

The simple truth is that the future is yours to make.

Your approach is unique to you

I am finding that during my self-quarantine and social distancing I am having issues with anger. That comes largely from reading about the people who, out of fear and uncertainty about the future, are doing incredibly stupid things. This includes not practicing social distancing, holding protests for “lost liberties,” and ignoring the advice of science in favor of demagogues.

It is impossible without going on a total media blackout to avoid this. Because I want to do good in this world, that I can do nothing about this is infuriating. What’s more, nothing I can write will have the necessary impact on such people.

So, what can I do? First, I need to accept that I can’t help anyone other than myself. Even if someone asks for my assistance their reaction to it and how they take my help is outside of my control.

Second, I can focus on doing all that I can to be a good example. Practice social distancing, share ideas to take advantage of the potential positives of this situation and be true to me.

I can’t predict the future – but I can choose how I will approach it.

Three approaches to the future

There are three distinct options here available to us.

Just let it happen. Give it no thought, ride it out. This is what most people will do. They will experience all the highs and lows and let their subconscious do most of the driving. I can’t deny this is easy – but it leaves you utterly at the whims of fate. It opens you to unnecessarily riding on an insane emotional roller coaster.
See terrible consequences. There is a lot of doom and gloom right now. It’s easy to see how a crashed economy, closed businesses, and ruined lives is a potential outcome. But predicting a future of awfulness, pain, suffering, lack, and scarcity is disheartening. No, you cannot deny that there will be negative consequences resulting from this. But if that’s all you can see then that’s likely all you will get.
See potential. Everyone has been forced to slow down. The pace of the world at large has been tremendously reduced. Pollution is dropping, families are spending more time together, and humanity can see how working together can have a positive impact. Rushing back to jobs that support the wealthy and don’t satisfy us may seem necessary – but at the same time ridiculous.

I can’t predict the future any more than you can. But I know that I would prefer to see hope, potential, and possibility ahead. Yeah, this sucks on lots of different levels. However, it also is showing us that much of what we have clung to when this all began is extremely artificial.

Nobody can predict the future – but everybody can choose their approach to it

Because times are even more uncertain than normal in the here-and-now, the future is extremely contentious. Tomorrow in-and-of-itself is unpredictable, let alone next week, next month, or the rest of the year.

This is why being in the now and practicing mindfulness – being aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions – is empowering. Right now, in the present, this moment – you are in control.

No, you can’t impact what other people do, nor control your environment. You CAN make your own choices and decisions for how to be in this moment. That can color, influence, impact, and change the direction you are taking to the unpredictable future.

Stressing about what could be does nothing but stress you out. Instead, you can choose to be present in the moment, see what good you can do for you and others, and in that way be an example that could positively change the world for the better.

You have more power than you know. Use it well, use it in the now, and use it wisely. Don’t try to predict the unpredictable future.

Finding and/or creating non-toxic positivity isn’t hard, but it does require action

Knowing that nobody can accurately predict the future, you get to choose how you will approach it in the here-and-now. When you spend more time in the present, you can make more of what you currently have, be more mindful in this moment, and that ultimately empowers you.

When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that can spread to people around you. It can create a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.

As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, generating yet more positivity and gratitude.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity that can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred and twenty-fourth entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all of my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

Please take a moment to sign up for my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button below and receive a free eBook.

The post Nobody Can Predict the Future appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

When Does Persistence Pay Off?

Persistence is the best way to choose, follow, and stay on any given path.

During and after college I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. There were a few vague ideas, even some thoughts of pursuing my degree program achievements.

Use my major and get a job in theatre? That never panned out. My one, very brief gig in semi-professional theatre was a month of annoyance, irritability, and no fun.

Use my minor and get a gig in radio? I couldn’t land a job in the Ithaca market, which is a pretty low-ranked market. And I was unwilling to relocate to a middle-of-nowhere, even lower market, to pursue that.

Make use of my other minor in art history? I considered more than once going back to school to complete an education program or acquire another degree so that I could teach. But I never worked up the get-up-and-go or general motivation for that.

So, I bounced from job to job, no career idea plan and no ambition to rise up to the next level.

Then one day I got hit by a car crossing a street and spent the next year of my life recovering from the injuries. Yet that was not just a physical recovery – I began to develop the basis for my Pathwalking philosophy and working with conscious reality creation.

It was in this period that I began to form the idea for what to do with my life. I’d done it for years and years already, but I have never chosen to pursue it.

Turning an idea into practice

When I was a kid, I had a really active imagination. The bay-like window in our living room was the flight deck of my starship, and I was the pilot. I flew my version of the Millennium Falcon – but mine was cooler.

The swing on my swingset was a starfighter. I fought a lot of pretend villains and probably handed the Empire a lot of defeats over the years.

I was a storyteller at a young age. When other kids were playing football, baseball, and hockey I was writing and drawing.

However, I was led to believe that writers don’t make money. So the practice was a hobby and not a pursuit. Not until my 30s, at any rate.

I finished a 550+ page novel. Then I wrote and finished its sequel. I paused form that series to write a couple of short stories and started another series in a different genre. Blogging online occasionally became a regular practice.

Writing started to take the form of more than just a hobby, but a path that I desired to travel. As opportunities presented themselves for me to make use of this skill, I took them on.

For the first time in my life, I applied persistence to an idea to turn it into reality.

Over time, I developed the idea of being a writer into practice. After a lot of fits and starts, missteps, and other obstacles, I truly began to practice the art.

Using applied persistence

A year ago, I lost my job. It had been what I thought was the most perfect fitting job I had ever held. My writing practice had – along the way – also evolved into an editing practice. Thus, editing seemed like an excellent fit.

Yet I went from consistent, strong work to inconsistent so-so work with many mistakes. Somewhere along the way, my attention to detail slipped and I started to make errors frequently. Even redoubling my efforts didn’t produce improved results, so they let me go.

To be perfectly honest with both you – and myself – I have no idea how or why my quality of work declined so drastically. The only answer I could come up with after a thorough analysis was self-sabotage.

I loved that job. And I liked the people I was working with. So, how and why did I drop the ball and screw it up? I simply have no answer for this.

When I concluded that it was a form of self-sabotage, rather than become defeated, upset, or self-deprecating, I looked at it as a sign. I’d joined Medium less than six months earlier. Maybe it was time to write full-time for money?

Thus, I began to apply persistence and write daily, even twice daily, to produce articles. Over the next year, I published online dozens of articles about conscious reality creation, mindfulness, positivity, politics, self-awareness, self-improvement, inspiration, writing as a practice, and even poetry.

I intended to join the ranks of the Medium writers earing better than $100 a month, and even those earning thousands a month. Persistence would pay off.

I am happy to report that is has paid off! Granted, it hasn’t really “paid” yet, but that’s just half the story.

Ongoing progress

Starting in 2012 I published a Pathwalk a week. Over time I was publishing two articles a week, then three, until you get to now, where I am writing articles daily.

I have no yet reached the desired level on Medium and become a top-earning writer. However, I have seen articles from other writers where they point out it took time to reach that level.

I have been practicing persistence in writing for over a year now. Though I am not yet a top earner, I believe in my ability and my skill as a writer. Additionally, more writing equals more practice, and more practice is how you build up any skill.

Maybe my persistence has not paid off monetarily yet…but it certainly has in other ways. How? Not only am I writing articles daily – I am walking my walk and talking my talk, so-to-speak. Also, I am working on my fiction regularly.

The first book in my new sci-fi series – The Void Incursion – will be released in less than a month. Its sequel is with the editor now and will be out in November. I have been making headway on the 4th book in the series (book 3 is done but unedited by me just yet).

Persistence in practice has paid off. After many years without direction and uncertainty, I have a clearer path. I have direction, and my practice of writing – in multiple forms – is ongoing.

Success is a measure that often gets over-wrought and expanded too grandly. It’s not a matter of a lowered bar, but rather reveling in the results of my actions. Every little bit counts, and celebrating that is powerful.

I know I am on the right path for my life

There is room for improvement. However, that’s true of every aspect of life itself. Improvement is a part of growth. Growth is learning, experiencing, and seeing all the potential and possibility life has to offer. This can be especially good to use when life becomes tremendously uncertain and unpredictable, as it is currently for most of us.

I will continue applying persistence and strive to get better. Not just with my practice but how I experience every day.

Maybe my payday isn’t quite where I desire it to be. But my sense of accomplishment and a higher level of life satisfaction tell me this chosen path is the right one for me.

How has your persistence paid off for you?

This is the four-hundred and thirty-fourth article for my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along the path of life to consciously create reality. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. I further desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.

Please take a moment to subscribe to my mailing list and get your free ebook!

The post When Does Persistence Pay Off? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Do Positivity and Toxic Positivity Differ?

The difference in how each variant of positivity works comes down to reality.

I am a huge proponent of positivity. That should come as no surprise.

However, I also believe that you cannot just live on positivity. Bad things occur, shit happens, and you cannot just avoid, deny, or neglect that.

The notion of toxic positivity is to deny and ignore the negative. Gloss it over, pretend it is not there. But that’s not realistic in any way.

Life is a paradox. Yin and yang. You will always have a little of this and a little of that in your life. Sometimes there will be a lot of this, that, or the other thing.

Too vague? I cannot be more specific nor direct here because how I experience life is not going to be the same as how you experience it.

Positivity raises your frequency, which in turn allows you to draw more good things to yourself. Negativity lowers your frequency, which in turn allows you to draw more bad things to yourself. You can and will experience both.

Bad things can, will, and do happen. Many, even most of them, are likely totally outside of your control.

What you can control and what you can’t

You have control over yourself. Externally, that’s your appearance – how you dress, how you cut your hair, apply makeup, do your nails, and so on. Internally, it’s all about practicing mindfulness – awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. That awareness helps you to influence and control them.

That’s it. Those are all the things over which you have control.

Short list? Not really. When it comes to you what else is there? It’s your mind, body, and spirit. That’s really your everything.

Is that realistic? As Einstein said,

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

What that means is that reality is how you perceive it to be. If you believe the world is an awful place full of doom and gloom, that’s what you experience. On the other hand, if you believe that the world is an amazing place full of potential and possibility, that’s what you experience.

All that is within your control is you. But that covers a really wide swath of territory.

What can’t you control?

Mostly other people. You can’t make anyone else drive better, bathe more frequently, practice social distancing, choose science over speculation, or anything else that people do.

While you can control where you live, you can’t control the weather, other people in your environment, the feelings people have and express, or any other outside factor. You can live wherever you desire but you can’t choose who else is there or how it will be every single day because that’s not something in your control.

The importance of positivity

Currently, a lot of people are having a tough time being isolated due to social distancing. Many are down and depressed because of layoffs, job losses, and the constant stream of negative news and information across all forms of media.

The level of uncertainty is formidable because nobody has ever lived in a time where things were so completely messed up – and also fraught with uncertainty.

When will we be able to return to holding social gatherings? How will the world look on the other side of this situation?

Speculation runs the full gamut from uber-positive to super-negative. It’s hard to know where to turn, and both extremes involve a lot more change than most people are equipped to cope with.

Hence why finding positivity is so important. When you have something positive to turn to it will raise your frequency. That can be the equivalent of pulling an airplane out of a nosedive – and equally as lifesaving.

Toxic positivity denies the negative, avoids it, neglects it, and tries hard not to see it or in any way acknowledge it.

That’s just not realistic because it’s not possible.

In short – shit happens. You lose jobs, get broken up with, experience car accidents, break bones, lose friends and loved ones, and other bad things happen outside of your control. You can and will feel bad when they do.

But you CAN decide if they will overcome and overpower you – or if you will choose to release them.

How is there a choice?

I would bet that you know somebody that had something bad happen to them at some time. It may have been pretty damned awful. Possibly it changes their life drastically.

It does not matter what the bad thing was. It happened. Yet the person has decided that they are living their entire life DEFINED by that bad, terrible, negative thing that happened.

How long it takes to recover from bad things varies from person to person. Yet when something takes you down and you choose to stay down – well, you chose that, didn’t you?

What if you could choose another way to empower yourself and feel better?

THAT is the positivity I am always writing about. The kind where you are making strides to release and leave behind whatever badness has occurred. It tends to be difficult, is seldom easy – but it beats wallowing in self-pity, depression, misery, and all other negativity it produces.

It is a choice. You get to decide what that choice will be. No, you are not expected to ignore and deny negative things that happen. But seeking, finding, and/or creating positivity can help you choose how to go forward.

Positivity recognizes that there are ALWAYS choices. While toxic positivity denies negativity, real positivity is the knowledge that the decision to not dwell, live in, and be mired in that negativity belongs to you and is ultimately empowering.

Be strong, kick-ass, take names, and see that your choices using positivity are tremendous.

Finding and/or creating positivity isn’t hard, but it does require action

Knowing the difference between positivity and toxic positivity, you can see that it’s a choice you can make use of to help influence and/or control your mind, body, and soul. Acting upon positivity to combat and overcome negativity is a decision you can make that ultimately empowers you.

When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that can spread to people around you. It can create a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.

As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, generating yet more positivity and gratitude.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity that can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred and twenty-third entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all of my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

Please take a moment to sign up for my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button below and receive a free eBook.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *EmailSubmit

The post How Do Positivity and Toxic Positivity Differ? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

What Do You Really Want?

Not to be redundant, but what you want and what you REALLY want may differ. That’s an important distinction in conscious reality creation.

I read a lot of blogs and articles by a lot of different self-help and inspirational writers. I have read or listened to a vast number of books on the topics of self-help, inspiration, self-improvement, conscious reality creation and manifestation, mindfulness, and finding/creating wealth.

Along the way, I have developed my own philosophy on this topic and call it Pathwalking. Finding, choosing, and traveling my own path in life and making my own destiny is the whole notion of my life philosophy.

No two people have exactly the same path in mind. What you seek is not the same as what I seek – but the underlying premise is pretty much the same.

Ultimately, you desire to do something with your life that makes you feel satisfied.

This may not necessarily be an all-the-time thing. Let’s face it – is ANYONE happy all the time? I’m rather certain the answer is no.

But to be satisfied overall, and more often in a positive rather than a negative headspace – that’s both possible and worthwhile.

A lot of this, however, comes down to really, truly knowing what you want. What do you really want?

(“I’ll tell you what I want what I really really”…sorry, couldn’t help myself).

For a long time, I had a pretty vague idea of just what it was I desired. What I wanted was far more of an abstract concept than practice.

A little vague is a good thing, but too much is problematic

When it comes to conscious reality creation and choosing the life you most desire to have, it’s important to have detail. How does it look? What is its shape? How does it feel? These are questions that need answers to be made manifest.

When you have nothing but an unclear, vague idea of where you want to go, guess what you will create? A vague, unclear reality. You will have some of what you seek, but not a fully satisfying resolution.

However, on the other side of this coin, too much detail and a precise focus can have the same impact. Why? Because the Universe is capable of heeding your commands and providing what you work to create. But, the how of it can be unexpected, mysterious, and can produce an end result not precisely as you would design it.

Important truth: If you knew how to get where it is you are desiring to go – that you have not already been – if you knew how you’d have done it already. But you don’t know how – so why make it so laser-focused?

Discoveries along the way may alter the outcome. They may also produce other bits that were unexpected but are pretty awesome.

The journey can be as wondrous as the outcome

My wife and I love to play Diablo III on our Xbox. Most of the time, though we have a specific quest to achieve, we take our time. We seek out and destroy all the monsters between where we are and where we are going.

Further, we take side quests. Go into the Cave of Mystery or Keep of Abominations or what-have-you. It takes longer to complete the quest – but we get cool armor and weapons, as well as experience and gold.

It also prolongs how much time we spend together playing the game.

When you reach a certain level the end bad guy becomes somewhat anticlimactic. You are going to overwhelm the monster no matter what. But the side quests and journey themselves can be a lot of fun.

This is true in every aspect of life. The journey is the everyday. And you never know what today will bring you.

Yes, we are currently living in unusual and uncertain times – but that just means that every individual day is that much more important. The end of this situation is nowhere to be seen just yet – and focusing on that can be disconcerting.

So why not work with the now instead?

It is possible, working on the day-to-day, that you will see that what you really want is not what you thought it was.

Be mindful of false advertising

If you buy into the modern American notion of success, what do you think that means you should have?

Generally, it looks something like this:

You have a large and impressive home
Your spouse is stunningly attractive
The car you drive is expensive and probably impractical
You have cash to burn and time to spare
Only the finest things will do: clothing, food and drink, luxury items, big and bold parties and so on
You must show off, be impressive, and want for nothing.

Does that seem even a little realistic? I’m pretty it’s not – it’s false advertising.

Not long ago I got a new car. It has all the features I have ever desired in a car. Fantastic fuel economy, leather seats, moonroof, fun to drive, and plenty of room for all my gear.

It is a standard, mid-level Japanese hatchback. Even if I could have afforded a much fancier car – like a high-end Japanese or German model – I wouldn’t have. This is all the car I want and need. My car is perfect (for me) and I love it.

Do I need a big house? Of course not, my wife and I have no kids and aren’t having any. The apartment we call home is perfect for us.

Yes, more money couldn’t hurt – but neither are we struggling. Life is, frankly, pretty damned good.

Yes, I still am after more from my life. But it’s not things or necessarily success. It’s satisfaction. It is the freedom to be the best me that I can be.

Let me share what I really want to do/be

What do I really want? I desire to make a living as a fiction writer (insert shameless self-promotion here! My new sci-fi novel – The Void Incursion – Book One – Opening Gambit – for Kindle pre-order and available for purchase May 8). I desire to take Pathwalking further and help other people walk THEIR paths in life.

I believe that this will satisfy me. It is, I feel, that which I am here in this life to do. That is what I, at least, really want for myself.

Satisfaction should never be complete and total

Finally, this is important: Even when you get all that you might want – you can and should still desire more (not literally more – just some continued need for learning/doing more).

Why? Because that is how you grow. What else you desire is likely going to be different in many ways from anything you wanted before. But that’s part of life. You are always growing, learning, and changing.

Change is inevitable. That’s why what you wanted in your 20’s is generally not what you want in your 40’s. You have changed. As such, your tastes and desires have changed, too.

This can be disconcerting, and it can feel selfish. But it’s normal, and you are empowered with the ability to use mindfulness to choose your way.

You are worthy and deserving of being the best you that you can be. Take the time to figure out what you really want for your life. Then do what you can to find, choose, and/or create the necessary path so that you can get there.

Be mindful. Think, feel, and act in your best interest. Choose the best path for you.

Do you know what you really want?

This is the four-hundred and thirty-third article for my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along the path of life to consciously create reality. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. I further desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.

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