Wherever You Are is the Center of the Universe

By Enock Tan / Creator of MindReality.com

The entire universe is a projection of consciousness. We experience the universe as a projection through us because each of us is a center of consciousness. Therefore we are all centers of the universe.

There really is no here or there because everything is at one point where consciousness is. We all do not exist in different places but are all present at one point. The reality of here and there is all created and experienced within the singularity of consciousness itself. Where you are is the center of the universe.

Consciousness is the dimensionless program that simulates dimensions. It is the omnipresent dot that creates the illusion of everywhere when there is nowhere but here and now. There is only one true place consciousness exists in and that is here. There is only one true time where consciousness exists in and that is now. Everything else that is experienced as there and then is only a simulation that is experienced from here and now. When you think of a time and place, you instantly travel there mentally.

In fact you do not really travel at all. The world around you shifts as your external environment and the things in it changes into the new one that you think of. It is because it is all a simulation. You never really move at all but it is everything else that moves. The center of anything never moves and therefore the whole world revolves around you. The physical world itself is also a simulation of consciousness. It is a simulation that you are walking and traveling from one place to another or moving along through time.

When you take a plane to another country which you last visited ten years ago, your change in experience is really a change in the simulation of reality. The simulated image of the city has changed as some buildings have been removed and new ones have appeared. The simulated images of the people you met before has also changed as the consciousness program reflects the effects of how people are effected by time. A few white hairs, wrinkled skin, height increase or sexual endowment has appeared.

We think that no one is the center of the universe because everyone cannot be the center at the same time. That is because we perceive consciousness to be separate from itself. Actually consciousness is projected from where you are. It only exist at one place and one time and that is where you are. If you are a tall, handsome man looking at a beautiful women in red, you are consciousness projecting the woman in red. If you are the woman in red, then you are consciousness projecting the tall man.

You are consciousness itself and whichever point of view you are experiencing at any giving point of time and place, everything else around you is a projection from you. You are more than just the particular person that you are. You are the entire universe itself. The reason why you perceive reality from a particular point of time and space, and as a particular person is because you are consciousness individuated into a single point of view for the purpose of experiencing everything else from that point of view.

Think of a computer program that runs a simulated game world where all characters are interacting with each other. It is all really just one program cycling between each character so fast that it seems as if all characters are being run simultaneously when they are actually being run one at a time. It is the activity of consciousness playing every single role in the universe that makes it seem as though there're separate programs running when it's really one program running everything in turns at infinite speed.

The reason why consciousness runs at infinite speed is because it is not confined to the boundaries of time at all. Time is only a simulated concept that is created by consciousness to be experienced by consciousness. Imagine playing a particular character and filming yourself, and then reversing the film and playing a different character. Superimpose the film of the first character with the second and you'll get the effect of two characters in one film. That is how two of you exist at the same time.

But consciousness doesn't really have to take turns experiencing itself from several points of view. It splits itself into many individuated versions of itself so as to experience all those points of view simultaneously. All those individuated versions are simply different parts of that one consciousness. When you shift your perspective from one point of view to another, you are shifting the center of the universe from one point to another. The center is everywhere yet nowhere according to how you see it.

So to experience your reality as the creator of it, realize that where you are is the center of all that is occurring. This is what it means to be centered. When you think someone, something or somewhere else is the center of what's going on, you are giving your power away to the external world. Move through your world with the consciousness that you are the center of the universe and you will find that you don't really have to shift much as things and people around you shift themselves instead.

You will become a lot more at peace, stable, cool and poised as your perception of being the center aligns your experience of reality with the state of being godlike. Less and less do things move you without your permission and more and more are you able to cause things around you to move instead. People will feel your strength, stability and solidness as you carry and project yourself as the center. You will become more and more of a master of reality as you control how time and space move around you. 

اول فيلم كرتون مصرى عام 1937 --- من صفحة تراث مصرى

http://www.facebook.com/turath.masry?sk=wall

فى قاعة سينما كوزمو بالقاهرة 18فبراير 1937 كان بروجرام العرض فيلم " ليلى بنت الصحراء " وفيلم " مشمش أفندى - مافيش فايدة " - مفقود - أول رسوم متحركة مصرى ..وكان ناطقا باللغة العربية ومدة عرضه 15 دقيقة ، وبعدها بأيام عرض بدار سينما النهضة فيلم رسوم متحركة آخر بعنوان " حبوب وحبوبة " رسوم الفنان المصرى أنطون سليم .
مشمش أفندى إستثمار مصرى لنجاح شخصية " ميكى ماوس "فى والت ديزنى التى شجعت السينمائيين المصريين والأجانب لمحاكاة تجربة ديزنى .
رائدى التجربة هم " الإخوة فرانكل " وهم متمصريين من أصول روسية يهودية .. بدأوا عملهم فى مصر فى مجال صناعة الموبيليا ، وتركوها بسبب قلة الأرباح ، وقرروا الإتجاة إلى فن الرسوم المتحركة .
قام بزائيل " الأب " بإعداد الأحبار والألوان ، وانفرد الإبن سالومون فرنكل بعبء الأدوات من تصوير وإضاءة وأدوات صوت والمونتاج ، أما الإبن دافيد فكان يرسم الشخصيات والديكور وتحديد الزوايا والرسم بالحبر ثم يقوم ديفيد بتلوين ما سبق . 

أشهر حلقات مشمش أفندى كانت حلقة " الدفاع الوطنى ، وفيها تذهب شخصيتهم الشهيرة " مشمش أفندى " إلى الحرب فى الجيش المصرى إلى جانب الحلفاء ويشارك فى النصر النهائى ..
وهى رؤية تكاد تدفع بالمصريين إلى حرب لم يكونوا طرف فيها .. مما يكشف مدى سعى الرأسمالية اليهودية وقتها فى خدمة إحتياجات جيش الحلفاء .
فى عام 51 تركت عائلة فرانكل مصر بسبب أثار حرب فلسطين عليها وإستقرت فى باريس ، وإستمرت معها شخصية " مشمش أفندى " بدون طربوشه وقدم فى فرنسا 10 حلقات أخرى .

فيلم مشمش أفندى فى الدفاع الوطنى 
ج1 .. مدة العرض 5.22 دقيقة
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dg5_LlCYXU
ج2 .. مدة العرض 5.19 دقيقة
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkYy2u2kQiQ



المصادر ..
عبد الله أحمد عبد الله .. 50 سنة سينما 
منير محمد إبراهيم .. السينما المصرية فى الثلاثينات 
كتالوج المهرجان القومى الثانى للسينما المصرية 96
أحمد رأفت بهجت. .اليهود والسينما المصرية  

مدونة جيمى هود 

http://www.gemyhood.com/2010/11/blog-post_11.html

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The 5-Step Path to a Life of Love -- By Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra, co-founder of the Chopra Foundation and co-author of the new book War of the Worldviews: Science vs. Spirituality, reveals how to create a life founded on the world's most generous and joyful emotion.

Love has arrived at a strange crossroads. It seems very odd to say, "I want to be more loving. Is there a scientist who can help with that?" But in modern life, our notion of love has shifted. More and more we are told—in magazines, learned journals and media reports—that love can be broken down into medical explanations, that it is produced by reactions in the brain, both chemical and electrical. We may wish that love is divine, ideal and life-transforming, the news says, but to be realistic, we should throw out our old, unscientific notions and learn more about what the brain is doing to us.

I strongly oppose such a view of love—in fact, it frightens me. On the spiritual side, there's a completely different and higher view of love, which goes something like this: Love is part of creation, woven into the very fabric of the universe. We love one another because we have tapped into nature at a deeper level. Yes, the brain is responsible for giving love its physical expression, yet ultimately, love comes from the soul.

A catchy phrase from an old pop song said, "Love the one you're with." Although you can journey outside yourself, the person to give your love to (and who, in return, must return that love), in truth, the one you are with every minute of the day, is yourself. The more rewarding way to find it is to go inward to the very source of love. If you do not do this, your love will depend on your mood swings, on how others see you and on the lovable and unlovable traits you see in yourself and others.

As soon as we measure people by what is lovable and unlovable, trouble arises. The unlovable person is labeled odd, an outsider, bad or an enemy. We create unhappiness instead. We practice nonlove, that voice inside that whispers in our ears, "They are different from us." Or, "Fight for what you want and don't quit until you win." Or, "When bad things happen to other people, it's their own fault."

We need to restore love as the key to happiness—a difficult task. That's why we need a spiritual path, so that we can walk away from nonlove and its confusions. Here are five basic steps that can lead you to a new life where everyone, most especially yourself, is worthy of loving and being loved.

Step 1: Believe in Love
When you say, "I love my work," or "I love my partner," you are expressing belief and showing faith in something outside yourself. As good as that is, even better is to have faith in love as part of yourself. When anyone asks me, "How do I find the right one?" I always give the same advice: To find the right one, become the right one. Belief in love is a spiritual kind of belief. It holds that love exists as a universal quality, outside ourselves, that can never be defeated, only covered over. Thus love and nonlove are not equals. Love is permanent; nonlove is temporary.

Step 2: Don't Limit Love to a Few People and Deny It to Others
It's very common to say: "I love my own children, and I love my neighbor's children. But when it comes to my kids, I love them more." That's perfectly understandable. But there's a spiritual teaching, going back thousands of years, which goes "The world is my family." If love is universal, no one can be left out. To leave others out of your love is the same as inviting them to leave you out too.

Step 3: Make the Search for Love an Inward Search
Often we feel loved and insecure at the same time. The one we love is somebody we invest in emotionally, and emotions, by definition, are changeable. The one you love may turn indifferent or worse. The problem here is a kind of illusion. When you take someone into your heart, it's like filling a hole inside. If that person should spurn and reject you, suddenly the hole reappears as a terrible ache. Yet the hole was always there, and only you can fill it permanently. Ultimately, the inward journey is about finding your own fullness, something that no one else can take away.

Step 4: Seek Other People Who Value Love As Much As You Do
There's an old tradition: If you want to be wise, be in the company of wise people. I'd say the same is true about love. If you want to know about any human experience, seek out those who have walked the path of that experience. In our society, we are embarrassed to talk personally about truth, compassion, faith and love. This inhibition is part of our insecurity. Think of spirit as a community; it's not a talent you develop like a teenager learning to play the guitar. Perhaps community is too big a word, however. Perhaps you can start by finding one person who is wise in the ways of love, who knows what it means to live at a deeper level. That's a wonderful step in the right direction.

Step 5: Believe in Love As a Powerful Force
The first four steps depend on this one, believing that love has its own power. This is a power to transform. It's a power that cuts through doubt, suspicion, distrust and even hatred. Unless love has its own power, there are too many reasons to act from nonlove. We see all around us people who madly pursue pleasure or money or status because they don't trust in love. Without such trust that love can make a difference, of course you will pursue surrogates. Pleasure, money and status are compensations when love is absent or too weak to transform your life. No one has to give up on such surrogates, but it makes a huge difference to know that they are nonlove. The power of love is that it dissolves nonlove. That's the kind of power you find on the spiritual path.

None of the steps is automatic. Each takes work and practice. But now, more than ever, it's all important to reinvent the spiritual side of love. The steps may not be easy, but they are not impossible either. You only need to follow them with all your heart.

Doable) Ways to Increase the Love in Your Life -- As told to Leigh Newman

Can we increase our ability to love and to be loved? Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW, author of The Gifts of Imperfection and professor at the University of Houston, has spent the last 12 years looking into questions like this one, scientifically researching the scope of human emotion, from shame to what she calls in her celebrated TEDx talk wholeheartedness. Here, she talks with Oprah.com about what this last idea means—and how it can change your life if you take some practical, down-to-earth steps to cultivate it.

Of all the thousands of people I've interviewed and studied over the years—looking for patterns in the data—only about 15 to 20 percent were folks living with their whole hearts, folks who were really all in when it came to their relationships. So I decided I wanted to find out why. What quality did these people have that made them so capable of both receiving and giving love?

When I examined my research, I discovered that these were people who deeply believed that they were worthy of love and belonging. These folks believed this regardless of the circumstances, unlike the majority of us who think: "Okay, I'm worthy of love and belonging a little bit, but I'll be superworthy if I get promoted. Or I'll be superworthy if I lose 20 pounds." These folks believed that they were loveable and that they had a place in the world, and those beliefs translated into specific choices they made every day. They were aware. They recognized shame, and they knew how to deal with it. They recognized vulnerability, and they were willing to feel it—rather than ignore or numb it.

What I wondered was, How do the rest of us cultivate these same qualities? It's not like we can just decide to be vulnerable or say, "Hey, I'm worthy," after which—poof—this instantly comes true. But there are practical changes you can make in your life which encourage these beliefs. Here are five basic everyday actions that can help you develop a deeper, more loving sense of wholeheartedness, both for others and for yourself.

Letting Go of Exhaustion

Everybody in the world says that you need to work less in order to live a fuller, more connected life. But so few of us address what prevents us from doing it. The reasons are simple: (1) exhaustion is a status symbol in our culture, and (2) self-worth has become net worth. We live doing so much and with so little time that anything unrelated to the to-do list—taking a nap, say, or reading a novel—actually creates stress.

Wholehearted people, on the other hand, know when to stop and rest. Personally, I had to learn this. I'm still learning this. I screw it up every now and then, but five years ago I made some huge changes in my personal and private life. I went from full time to part time at the university, and my husband, who is a pediatrician, cut his hours to four days a week. As it stands now, we never get less than eight hours of sleep.

What did this require? A constellation of choices. For example, one of the things I have to do to cultivate more rest is to say no. Last year, I turned down 85 percent of the invitations I got to speak. Because I have a commitment to be at the family table four nights a week.

To say no, we have to understand why we're saying yes. One of the reasons is scarcity. I, like many of us, was so afraid that maybe all these opportunities would just go away, that maybe next year people wouldn't ask for me to come speak, and maybe my work wouldn't get the attention it needed, and that if I didn't have my work, who would I be? So I thought I had to say yes, yes, yes. The only reason I can now say no is because I work on my shame "gremlins." Gremlins are the tricksters who whisper all of those terrible things in our ears that keep us afraid and small. When the gremlins say "you better say yes, or they won't like you" or "they'll think you're lazy," I whisper back: "Not this time. I get to say no. I get to love myself, stay home and drive soccer carpool."

Painting a Gourd

All of us were made to make things. During my studies, I found out a surprising piece of data: There is no such thing as a creative or noncreative person. Every single human being is creative. Every research participant could recall a time in his or her life when creativity brought him or her great joy. It was usually childhood, and the creative expressions ranged from coloring or finger-painting to dancing, singing or building. What was most fascinating was that the participants never talked about learning how to be creative—they just were.

As adults, what keeps us from being creative—from painting, cooking, scrapbooking, doodling, knitting, rebuilding an engine or writing—is what I call the comparison gremlin (a close cousin of the shame gremlin). People say, "I'm not good enough," or "Why am I the only one with dangling modifiers?" or "I'm not a real sculptor...I'm a total poser." In other words, we shame ourselves into stopping. While we may have all started creative, between ages 8 and 14, at least 60 percent of the participants remember learning that they were not creative. They began to compare their creations, they started getting graded for their art, and many heard from a teacher or a parent that "art wasn't their thing." So we don't have to teach people to find joy in creating; we have to make sure not to teach them that there's only one acceptable way to be creative.

I had to push myself to rediscover my own artistic side. Unused creativity is not benign. It clumps inside us, turning into judgment, grief, anger and shame. Before I turned my life around, I used to dismiss people who spent time creating. When a friend would invite me to go to an art class or something, I'd respond: "How cute. You go do your A-R-T; I'm busy with a real J-O-B." Now I realize that was my fear and my own frustrated need to create.

To kick things off, I went to a gourd-painting class with my mom and my then-9-year-old daughter, Ellen. It was one of the best days of my life. I'm not kidding. I still paint, and now I'm having a serious love affair with photography. But start with something easy. Why not start with a gourd? Put a silly face on it. Make it smile.

Practicing Calm

None of us get calmer by telling ourselves to calm down. We get it by understanding what calm is: being able to see clearly because we are not overreacting to a situation. We're listening and understanding. We are letting ourselves feel the vulnerability of the moment (the call from the doctor, the meeting with the angry boss) and then managing that feeling.

Calm participants in my studies all have a few things in common. They breathe when they're feeling vulnerable. They ask questions before they weigh in, including the three most important questions—ones that changed my own life. The first is, Do I have enough information to freak out? (Ninety percent of the time, the answer is no.) The second is, Where did you hear the upsetting news? (Down the hall? From a trusted source?) The third is, If I do have enough reliable information to freak out, and if I do that, will it be helpful?

When my daughter, Ellen, comes home and says, "Oh my God, Mom, the school moved my locker, and now I can't reach it!" I stop. I remember what I used to say: "Oh that's it! I'm furious! I'm going off to school tomorrow, and you're going to get your locker back!" Now I say, "Tell me more about it." And 15 minutes later, I find out that the guy she likes has a locker down at the other end of the hall; what she really wants is to have a locker nearer to him.

This is real change. Four or five years ago, I was the least calm person you have ever met. And when people describe me today—people like my co-workers, friends and family—they say, "You're the calmest person I know." Well, it's because I practice it, the same way you practice the violin.

Fooling Around

One of the things I noticed in my research was that wholehearted people tended to fool around a lot. This was how I described their behavior, "fooling around," because I didn't know what this behavior was. It was such a foreign concept to me that I couldn't even name it correctly until I happened to be sitting in the backyard watching my kids jump on the trampoline. All of a sudden, I went: "Holy crap. Those grown-ups in my studies are playing! They are piddling and playing! They are total slackers!"

Then I found some research by Dr. Stuart Brown. He said that play is something you did "that caused you to lose track of time." Which I called work. He called play "time spent without purpose." Which I called an anxiety attack.

Clearly, I had a problem. So I sat down and made a list of nonwork-related things that I love to do where I lost track of time, I lost my sense of self-consciousness, I didn't want them to end, and they didn't serve any purpose except that I enjoyed them. Then I had my husband do the same thing. Then we did it with our two kids, and I made a Venn diagram to understand the data (sorry, I'm a researcher).

Our family-play Venn diagram showed us what kind of play we share in common, and we realized there were only three kinds that we all enjoyed. Because sitting on the floor playing Candy Land? I'm not losing track of time. I've been on the floor for 30 minutes; I could shoot myself. But swimming? Hiking? Going to the movies? All of us enjoy that.

So now, we totally build our family vacations around being outside. Because it's play for all of us. It's battery-charging for all of us. But that doesn't just happen. We draw diagrams. We plan. And then...we goof off.

Doing the Scarecrow

What keeps most of us from dancing—at any age—is usually the desire to be cool, and being cool, even for grown-ups, is a refusal to be vulnerable. Cool starts early. Some of the latest research shows that rather than being an adolescent issue, our kindergartners and first graders are starting to feel anxiety over being cool and belonging. Imagine being 5 years old and deciding that it's not so good to let others see how we feel.

When it comes to dancing, we're afraid that we're bad dancers or that others will laugh at us, so we don't do it enough. About eight years ago, my daughter and I were at Nordstrom. She was in fourth grade, and there were these beautiful, put-together mothers in the shoe department with us. I was in my Jabba the Hutt sweatsuit; I looked horrible. And I was doing the whole shame routine...down to telling myself: "Argh. You're a disaster. You don't belong in this nice store with these fancy, put-together people."

The kids' department started playing a song. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some movement. Then I saw three of the beautiful, put-together mothers and two of the daughters look past me, gasping. When I looked over, it was Ellen. Everyone was looking at Ellen. She had put her shoes down, and she was full-on doing the robot to the music—popping and locking. Without a care in the world. And you could tell these daughters were getting ready to laugh, and the moms were like, "Oh my God, girls, shield your eyes."

At that moment, I had a choice. Previously, shame would have taken over, and I would have looked at Ellen and just said: "Pull yourself together, Ellen. Come on. Jesus. Stop being so...weird." But I just heard this voice, the voice from my research and the voice from what I was trying to change in my own life, and that voice said: "Don't betray her. Be on her side. Be on her side." So I looked over and said, "Awesome robot." And she said, "Hey, Mom. Show me the scarecrow again."

The scarecrow is when you swing your hands like they're not connected to your elbows. I did not want to do the scarecrow in Nordstrom. Inside me there is a seventh grader with sweaty palms who doesn't have anywhere to sit in the cafeteria. But I did it. My daughter and I danced. Maybe I was faking it at little, but actions are far more important than anything we tell children. We have to show them love and self-worth, just as we have to show ourselves love and self-worth. We can't just overlay these ideas on our lives. We have to change the way we live—and, fortunately, there isn't just one way to do it.

The 3 Questions To Ask Yourself When Things Go Wrong - By Deepak Chopra

Challenges are part of everyone's life, but there are dark moments when a challenge turns into a crisis. The outcome of our lives depends on the choices we make at those moments. Will they be breakthroughs or setbacks? What we call wisdom is a crucial tool here. Without it, people usually make their most important decisions based on impulse or its opposite, habit.

It might seem impossible that any three questions can—and should—be asked anytime things go wrong, but the sad truth is that millions of us dwell on the three questions we shouldn't ask, questions such as: (1) What's wrong with me? (2) Whom can I blame? (3) What's the worst-case scenario?

We all feel the urge to condemn ourselves out of guilt, to blame others for our misfortunes and to fantasize about total disaster. But these three questions will haunt you and do untold harm unless you consciously stop them, push them aside and replace them with the right questions, leading to the right actions. Here are three positive, self-affirming ways to approach your next tough situation:

1. Is this a problem I should fix, put up with or walk away from?

Unless you can answer this question clearly and rationally, your vision will be clouded. Without knowing it, you will be acting under the influence of negative emotions such as fear. You will give in to impulsiveness or fall back on old habits.

You must clarify your inner confusion. You must get your bearings in a reasonable way. The first step is to consider—in consultation with those you trust—a course of action that begins with finding a fix. If the fix isn't there, ask why. Perhaps someone is blocking you or you lack the resources of money and time. Yet it is always worthwhile to search for a fix and commit yourself to finding one. Only when you feel satisfied that you've exhausted your realistic options should you begin to decide between putting up with the situation (using patience, not passivity) and walking away.

The three alternatives are easier than they sound, because most people vacillate when things go bad. One day they wishfully hope for a fix and maybe take a few steps toward it. The next day they feel passive and victimized, so they put up with things as they are. The third day they are sick and tired of suffering and simply want to escape. The overall result is self-defeat. No solution can ever be found by running in three different directions. So clarify your situation and act on what you clearly see.

2. Who can I consult who has solved the same problem successfully?

Bad things aren't solved in isolation, yet there is no doubt that our reactions isolate us. We become afraid and depressed. We draw into ourselves. Around the edges we entertain shame and guilt, and once these appear, there is even more reason to shut down.

Finding someone who has gone through the same crisis that you are facing accomplishes several things at once. It gives you an example to follow, a confidant who understands your plight and an alternative to withdrawing into isolation. Victims always feel alone and helpless. So reach out to someone who has proven, through their own lives, that they were not victimized by the bad thing you are facing now.

We aren't talking about hand-holding, shared misery or even therapy. All those activities can be beneficial (or not), but there's no substitute for talking to a person who has entered a dark place and come out successfully. Where do you find such a person? Ask around, tell your story, seek support groups, go online to find blogs and forums—the possibilities are much greater than ever before. And don't stop until you find not just good advice but real empathy from someone you trust.

3. How can I reach deeper into myself for solutions?

There is just no getting around that turning bad things into good things is up to you. No one can be there all the time, and like it or not, crises are all-consuming. You find yourself facing an inner world that is suddenly full of threats, fears, illusions, wishful thinking, denial, distractions and conflict. The world "out there" won't change until the world "in here" does.

There is a simple spiritual truth that I believe in deeply: The level of the solution is never found at the level of the problem. Knowing this, you can escape many traps that people fall into. What exists at the level of the problem? Repetitive thinking that gets nowhere. Old conditioning that keeps applying yesterday's outworn choices. Lots of obsessive thinking and stalled action. I could go on. But the relevant insight is that you have more than one level of awareness, and at a deeper level there is untapped creativity and insight.

Your higher self contains the potential for new solutions, but you must find it. Instead of "higher self," you can substitute any term that applies—soul, Atman, Holy Spirit, muse, inspiration—because linguistics are not nearly as important as the experience itself. You must experience the place inside where the light dawns and brings hope, where peace is possible and there is certainty about finding a viable path forward.

It's not a mystery that such a place can be reached, because even in the worst crisis we experience flashes of it. The trick is to be able to inhabit the level of awareness that brings solutions. First, know that this level exists. Second, make a plan to get there, through all the techniques open to everyone: meditation, reflection, contemplation, prayer. Reduce your stress by every means you can find. Seek others who understand consciousness. Read books that inspire you but also books that realistically describe what it means to go on the inward journey. I've given an abbreviated plan of action, but the important thing is that you take the first steps inside.

Of course, I can't know what bad things are happening to you specifically. I just urge you to quit the majority who live in confusion and conflict. Join the minority who see a clear path out of present darkness, who never submit to fear and despair and who in truth lead the world into a future full of light.

What the Happiest People Know for Sure ot how success really works? By Dawn Raffel -

I grew up revering goals of all kinds: big, small, and bite-size; readily attainable; wildly ambitious; broken up, written down, projected on the stars. My attitude was hardly surprising, given the adages that are central to our culture: If you can see it, you can be it; if you don't know where you want to go, you're never going to get there; the road to bliss is paved with goals. Okay, I made that last one up, but a lot of us seem to believe it.


Which is why Stephen Shapiro, a cheerful subversive in casual business attire, comes as a shock to the system: He's making a cottage industry of what he calls goal-free living. (His book is titled—what else?—Goal-Free Living.) If you want to be happy—successful in the broadest sense—he suggests you take your nifty five-year plan and your lifetime to-do list and throw them out the window. And while you're at it, get some air.


Shapiro had a long track record of running motivational workshops for major corporations when he had his epiphany on the road. He had published a book called 24/7 Innovation and was planning to interview business leaders throughout the country for what he envisioned as a sequel. Not far into his research, though, he spotted a pattern: The most fulfilled people were also the most spontaneous and the least goal oriented. Fascinated, Shapiro chucked his agenda and drove 12,000 miles in his techno-wired car (equipped with cellular Internet access, digital recording equipment, and everything else short of an espresso bar), interviewing risktakers and box breakers, and asking for their suggestions about who else he should meet. He spent time with everyone from Doug Busch, a VP and a chief technology officer at Silicon giant Intel, to John T. Martin, then curator of one of the world's only voodoo museums, as well as 148 others thriving in such fields as education, technology, and philanthropy. After learning about the circuitous paths they'd taken, Shapiro was convinced that the key to happiness lies in checking out the detours and back roads, literal and figurative, without fear of changing course. Road maps for life, he believes, might lead to material gain, but there's a good chance that if you follow them unquestioningly, you'll lose yourself.


"I was giving a speech on a cruise ship recently, and the other speaker was a professional athlete," he says. "Her session was on setting goals, and mine was on not setting them. Someone in the audience raised her hand and said, 'I have a question. I've been very good at setting goals and very good at achieving them, and I'm still miserable. Why is that?'"


Give Shapiro a minute, and he'll rattle off the reasons, as he did that day at sea, and as he does almost every day, everywhere he can. "Number one I'm calling 'Whose goal is it, anyway?'" he says. "Most people's goals aren't their own. They tend to be driven by society and family pressure."


Second, he says, when you focus on a goal, "you put blinders on. You lose your peripheral vision and miss out on all the great opportunities around you. Third," he says, hardly pausing for breath, "you're always living for the future. You end up saying, 'I'll be happy when....' You sacrifice today in the hopes that something wonderful is going to happen tomorrow. But it almost never does." Yes, you might win the promotion or bag the trophy, but you rarely feel the lasting satisfaction you'd imagined. "Mountain climbers have a concept called the false summit, where they get to what they think is the peak and then they realize they're only at the bottom of an even bigger mountain," Shapiro says. "That's what happens with goals. You're constantly chasing them. The fourth issue is that you're courting failure." Meaning, he says, you become attached to one outcome, and even if you get it, reality seldom matches the dream in all its Technicolor splendor.

But just a minute here. Aren't goals, however idealistic or elusive, crucial to achievement? How much greatness would be lost to the world if artists, athletes, scientists, and thinkers fled potential disappointment and boredom to wander off in search of delight?

"Goal-free living isn't about being aimless or saying, 'Oh, this is getting tough. I've got to stop,'" Shapiro contends. "It's about being passion-driven in the moment, while knowing you can change course." It's also about "getting out, playing, and trying lots of new things." You can't find out what you love to do by sitting and thinking about it, he says; you must experience it.


Intel's Doug Busch, for instance, started off picking fruit during college, then maintained machinery in a poultry processing plant. "Most people think that's pretty low-end, but he actually loved it, and realized the reason was that he wanted to work with his hands," Shapiro says. "So he went back to school and became a mechanical engineer." Next, he got a job at Intel and grew more interested in other aspects of technology, eventually growing into his current position. "This is meandering with purpose," Shapiro says. "When you're living a life of passion, you're almost always making a contribution.

"Let's say you'd like to be a healer," he says. "You can move down the road to medical school but look around and see that maybe you don't want to be a doctor after all. Maybe you want to be a nurse, or work with the elderly, or start a charity. You don't lock yourself in."


If, like me, you are a goalaholic, you can't be expected to quit cold turkey, nor do you need to. "The question is, do you have the right goals, and are you relating to them the right way?" Shapiro says. Some people abuse goals "as a way of escaping from being present. They distract themselves by looking ahead. I'm much more into enjoying every single moment for what it is and allowing things to unfold." He suggests thinking in terms of aspirations (work in the visual arts) rather than goals (get a painting into a specific gallery by date X) because they give you pleasure today and are more broadly defined.


Even corporations—in fact, especially corporations, Shapiro tells his clients—suffer from rigid planning. No one can foretell how the world will look in just a few years—witness the quick burst of the dot-com bubble. His biggest beef is with the popular institutional concept of goals that are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, results oriented, and time based. The idea that you'll know right away whether you've succeeded or failed is misguided and crippling: "Not only have you set yourself up for failure but you've put a time limit on everything," Shapiro says.


His antidote to the pain of a failed goal is to step back and ask yourself whether you defined the desired outcome too narrowly and whether you tried to control the uncontrollable. "Life is unpredictable," he says. "So give up control. Create many paths. And play hard."


Above all, trash the "If I don't succeed by Tuesday, I'm a loser" mentality. "You know what?" he says merrily. "I'm not going to be done with what I'm doing till I'm dead. Sometimes I think of things so audacious they couldn't come true, so I just keep playing with them. It's really about applying creativity to every aspect of your life."


And that, if you'll excuse me, sounds like a worthy goal.

Kony2012