What is a world that works for everyone?

What does that look like? How do we get there?

Some might say we are there already, and in a limited sense, we are.

agreement-black-business-943630We are not limited in the possibility that the world can work for everyone, but in our belief that it doesn’t work already.It works right now by the conscious belief that it does or doesn’t. While I may believe it works for me, and it does, another person may feel that the world really sucks for them. So, by our belief in the idea that it works, it does. And, conversely, by ones belief that it doesn’t work for them, it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean it can’t, but their choice is it doesn’t.

How can this be? How can it work for me, but not for everyone? It works by our belief in it, and by our disbelief that it could. It’s that simple, but we have to learn to let go of our expectations that everything must happen the way we expect it, and be open to the idea that there is another way, or another possibility.

Most people get stuck in the idea that their way is the only way and that everything must unfold exactly as they have planned it. If they were the only ones who existed in the moment that may be true, but with 7 billion people and just as many thoughts, we need to be open to the idea that just maybe there is an alternate or better way.

I remember when I was manufacturing hot sauce, I had this great idea for a name that was colorful, and enticing. I checked the trademark and there was nothing, so I engaged an artist friend of mine to design a label around my theme “Leapin’ Lizards.”

I designed the labels and was ready to send them to the printer when I took a trip to Miami to buy equipment and visited a manufacturer I was thinking of using for distribution and went on a tour of his factory. It was there that I was introduced to “Leapin’ Lizards” marinade. There were hundreds of cases and right then, I knew my label idea was history.

I could have let that be my demise or held the thought that my hot sauce line was doomed, but I knew something else would come along, and upon returning to the islands a friend referred to my sauces as being “a little spice from paradise” and a new tag line was borne. From that came a bunch of even better ideas and Caribbean Marketplace and “Mean Mama Jamma” were borne.

So, just because something doesn’t work the first time, doesn’t mean it won’t work, or that something even better won’t come along. Heck, Thomas Edison failed to invent the light bulb hundreds of times, but in the end, he did. In the process what he did was to eliminate all of the ways not to have it work. That’s what the scientific method is all about. You may be a success right out of the gate or you may have to work at it a little. That’s life.

So, how do we build a world that works in a positive, sustaining, productive way for everyone?

We open our minds to ideas that are inclusive of everyone. We begin to respect each other’s cultures and recognize that in the differences, we find similarities.We learn to engage in real conversations that build on those relationships and cultivate them with compassion and empathy. And, above all, we learn engage with and respond to people from a loving place.

Will this happen overnight? Probably not, but the only way it will happen at all is, if we try.

Image: Courtesy of Pexels.com

Oh Woe Is Me?

“We will never get anywhere unless we can accept the fact that politics is an inextricable tangle of good and evil motives in which, perhaps, the evil predominate but where one must continue to hope doggedly in what little good can still be found”.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, Pg. 116

 

Fears-are-storiesLife is full of perceived good and evil. Every day we make choices in how we live our lives. We can get caught up in our emotions about all the things that are happening in the world and try to effect change in a haphazard way or worse yet, allow ourselves become emotional basket cases, whereby we become useless to ourselves and those we thought we might be able to help.

Instead of this self-destructive route, we could take pause, first to see how these things we think have so affected us to make us this way by looking at the bigger picture, and ask, “How has my life really changed since that thing happened?” “Can I see this as a lesson in some way that will make me stronger, or do I just give in to fear, and allow this thing to define me.”

Remember, things have no power, except the power we give them of ourselves.

-rev jim starke

spirit-edu.com

Learn to play the hand that’s dealt you.

“When you believe that your problem is caused by someone or something else, you become your own victim.”
– Byron Katie

dealing-cards-250Every Day we make choices. Those choices have consequences. They may be good or they may be bad. Where we seem to fall short is when our choices go bad.

That’s when we seem to start the blame game. It wasn’t my fault, it was so-and-so’s. Or, the tool was faulty or the engine hesitated, or whatever. Much of the time we are unwilling to admit that we were somehow responsible for our own failure in some way.

While it may be true that another was involved in the mistake we made, we were the ones that used someone else’s judgment as our own, so we need to accept at least some responsibility for the outcome. Heck, we tend to take all the credit when something does work.

Then there are times when something happens that is completely outside our control. What do we do then? Another person or thing may be at fault, which may be the truth, but we don’t have to get stuck in that story and put our life on hold or give up on life. We can accept that something has happened and make a conscious choice to move on. Soldiers get injured and choose to move on and have a normal life. People lose money to bad investments and move on with their lives. The difference between those who do and those who don’t move on is, those who move on make a conscious choice to not let the incident define them. Therefore their life doesn’t get put on permanent hold so they can continue to live their story.

Sometimes people lose this perspective and life goes on without them.

Is it an easy thing to do, to move on? In many cases, depending on the severity of the loss, No! There is always a period of grieving when there is loss, whether we realize it or not. We need to give ourselves permission to grieve, allowing ourselves time to release the guilt, or anger we have with the incident. But then, we need to find some way, whether we call it inner reflection, or prayer or spending time with a professional or group for healing.

In that healing, we learn to release the hold these ideas of disability that have clouded our reasoning and held us up from enjoying life. And really, it is our own mind that has held us captive and imprisoned us in the idea that we are less than, or don’t deserve something.

Why do we do that? Ego! It’s the thing that keeps us from hurting ourselves and doing things that are not in “its” best interest. It also keeps us from being the very best version of ourselves that we can be. Ego doesn’t like to accept responsibility for anything that doesn’t bode success for us. Oh, and there are no good or bad choices, just choices.

But that’s another story for another time.

from Love, in Peace,

~revjim

#spirit-edu.com -Spirituality Online
#aworldthatworks

Are you a victim?

cannot change-DL

When something doesn’t seem to go the way you had thought it would, do you adjust and forge ahead, or do you succumb to victimhood.
You can move out of “your Story” and empower yourself by changing your course course slightly and moving ahead in a new direction.

~revjim

#spirit-edu.com -Spirituality Online
#aworldthatworks
Spirit Education is a CSL Authorized Virtual Education Provider
https://spirit-edu.com
https://spirit-edu.com/zoominar/