Serving Others Better

One of the principles I try to live by is ‘own your journey’ and another is ‘serve others,’ and to me these are very much linked. If we have our own issues with our health, relationships, work, etc that we leave unresolved, because we don’t want to deal with them, we are not in a good position to serve others. Therefore, in order to serve others well we need to make sure we are in a good place.

The way we make sure we are in a good place is to take ownership of our problems and find solutions for them. Anyone who has reached advanced stages of a spiritual practice will be effective in serving others, because they have put in the work of resoling their problems. Whether you are spiritual or not, you still have to do the work.

Imagine having such peace of mind and clarity that you help to solve the problems of others effectively. If more people took ownership of their lives the world would be a better place. Let’s do the work and make it better together.

Taking Ownership Of Your Life

Our thoughts are largely made up from the information we have gathered from outside of ourselves through our five senses. Our understanding of who we are and how we should be comes from outside ourselves.

Our bodies are made up of the food and drink that we have too. If we eat an apple a couple of hours later our bodies has broken the apple down into it’s useful parts, which become our bodies and will be in the process of getting rid of the rest of it.

We are almost entirely made from that which we have gathered. However, what we do with what we gather is where we take ownership of our lives.

How To Live A Good Life

I have been thinking recently about how we often hide from taking responsibility for our own journey through life. This story illustrates what can happen if you don’t take ownership. It is a made up tale, but it has a good point.

In a valley there was a town that was starting to be flooded. A van pulled up in front of a man’s house and offered to take him to safety, as they were evacuating the area. He said, “No, God will save me.” When the water level rose up to the first floor of this man’s house a boat came by to take him to safety and again he said, “No, God will save me.” When the water level had reached the rooftop a helicopter came to take the man to safety but again he said “No, God will save me.” The man drowned and when he went up to Heaven he got quite cross with God and asked him why he did not save him. Of course God said, “ I sent you a van, I sent you a boat and I sent you a helicopter.

The moral of the story is that we need to take responsibility for our own journey through life, to be our own rescuer. We also need to be our own cheer leader and take that which scares us as a sign that perhaps it is the direction that we should move in; to do the thing that rhymes with our true selves. To do the work of figuring out what our calling is and go all in on bringing it to life. This is the life long work of living a good life.

The Power Of Imagination

We suffer more in our imagination than we do in reality. This happens to many of us more often than we would like. We look into the future, or the future we think will happen, and we lean towards the worst case scenario. Our brains are wired to do this as a survival mechanism, but it is, I would say, the main cause of stress in people’s lives.

The way to avoid this is to pay attention to our thoughts and find the beliefs at the root of the thoughts and examine them. Most often they will be untrue and if the belief is untrue then some form of the opposite must be true. What then would this look like? If this new belief is true then what actions should then be taken?

Following this process will move you from a disempowering state to an empowering one. If you do this over and over you will change your belief system and the future will look less scary. You will then be able to imagine the future that you do want and how you might act, what you might do and how you might feel.

Your brain does not know the difference between your imagination and reality, so the future you imagine is more likely to come true, because your beliefs dictate your thoughts which influence your actions which cause your results, which reinforce your beliefs, and on it goes. Your future is yours to create.