Day Twenty

DAY TWENTY
Sharing
The point of life is to share it with others, or at the very least, with another. Into The Wild was a great movie, but if that movie taught us anything, it taught us that Eddie Vedder is awesome and being and dying alone is not awesome. So, let me keep this short and simple. Yes, we’ve all been hurt. Yes we’ve all been alone. And yes, almost all of us have been with another. If you are with another now, I implore you, love that other like you’ve never loved before and see in them the love that they give you. It is the source of everything and you deserve every bit of it. If you are not with another, your other is out there, waiting to love you, whether you see the other or not. Sometimes you find this other without looking. Sometimes this other is looking for you and you may not even know it. Sometimes this other is looking for you looking for them—as bizarre and unbelievable as that sounds. If someone is throwing themselves at you, consider deeply what this other is to you, what they have deep inside, and what it is they must see in you to continue to do this.

We are not meant to be alone. It is neither in our nature nor in our DNA. Find this other and you will find ultimate happiness. It is often through others that we discover the greatest characteristics about ourselves. This is proof that another completes us, fulfills our destiny—that life is to be shared.

Imagine the funniest joke you’ve ever heard. Now imagine that you want to tell someone else that joke but there is no one to tell. The joke suddenly becomes less funny because you don’t have the benefit, the additive benefit of sharing it. The same holds true with life events. What if you got a major promotion at your job. It was everything you wanted and more, you want to tell everyone you know, especially those closest to you. Now, imagine having no one to tell. It suddenly makes the event less because you can’t reach out and share your joy with others, with another. For most of us, there are always others (friends, family, acquaintances, etc.) but for many of us, there is not that one other, that one person who sees you in a way that the rest of the world doesn’t, that person who knows you better than anyone else, sometimes better than you know yourself. To share with that person, whomever he or she may be, is more meaningful than sharing with any other. This person has a large piece of you within them and vice versa, so to share with this person is to share, more deeply, with oneself.

So today, I tell you, as I desperately am out of convincing, love your other. Whether they see you for what you are or not, whether they see themselves for how you see them, never stop loving. For when you do, you are alone. And that is not what we are meant to be.

Today’s task: acknowledge this love in another. Give it to another. Love and be loved and for the sake of everything that is holy, do not suffer alone. If you do not have your other, yet, your other is out there. I assure you.

I love you. Yes, you. I always have and I always will. Everything I do is to demonstrate this love for you. Solitude is not the answer; being alone In The Wild, is not the answer; love, that is the answer, but love that is reciprocated. Until tomorrow, love like never before.

Day Nineteen

DAY NINETEEN
High School, what it means 10+ years later 
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I attended High School at South Tama County High in the town of Tama, Iowa. I never went to my high school reunions, I was poor about keeping in touch with my old classmates, and it was a chapter in my life much like Tuesday is a day on the calendar. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that that’s not true. In Day Six I talked about Inspiration and I have to say, a lot of who I am today is because of all the experiences I have had in my life, many of them at South Tama. Only recently have I reacquainted myself with former classmates and former graduates of STC, but my life has been enriched by the friendships we’ve rekindled and fostered over the past few years. It’s about commonality; it’s about a shared experience; it’s about home. Obviously, the stronger the bond you have with someone, the greater the ability you have to connect with them and the deeper your words will penetrate, whether those words are meant to heal or harm. My entire purpose for this book, as I’ve stated before, is to create a global community of healthful, constantly contagiously happy people, and for this vision to spread, like wildfire, to every person, young and old. So, clearly I rely on those I have a stronger bond with to help see this mission accomplished.

Today I’d like to talk a little bit about High School, and not to alienate those of you in High School, I want to take a trip back…

It’s probably just me, but I never really “belonged,” properly, to any one group or clique. Surely this is what both made my relationships with others most rewarding and also most awkward. I was an athlete, I was in theater, I started the Chess Club, I was in Gifted and Talented (we called it A.L.M.), I pretty much had a small or medium role in every “group” that our school had. Now to those who belonged exclusively to one group, this created the tension, and I, at least at that point in my life, never avoided tension, but rather found myself on the instigating end of it. For this, I wish to apologize to Scott Pansegrau, Jim Townsend, Michael Bradley, Christian Bisher, and a few others whose names slip my grasp. Guys: yes we were all fellow athletes, and yes you all were very good at the respective things you did, but I failed to appropriately clarify my role in our group and as such, I was clearly misunderstood, both by you, but also by myself. No worries, no hard feelings, we’re all cool now. Such is the benefit of time. I’m sorry I made life awkward for us, but alas, that is what High School is sometimes for—there’s always one in every crowd, and I was the one—in every crowd.

It’s been well over 10 years and I can easily remember the names of those few gents as if I’m recalling the names of old war buddies and the experiences we shared. That, dear readers, is true inspiration. I’m of the belief that High School is not so much about learning, per se, as it is about learning who you are. And like a lot of courses we take in college, or at least some of the ones I did, it doesn’t make sense until about 5 years later. So for those of you in High School now: hang in there. Be who you are; change for no one; you’ll love yourself more when you are older.

For those of you who didn’t attend STC, which will be a great number of you, this won’t make any sense, but allow me a moment to diverge and I’ll return to my point presently…let’s see how good my recollection is. Here I’m pulling from my inspiration (apologies friends, but some of these are embarrassing and too good not to share. If any of my stories cause offense, please let me know and I’ll include the more embarrassing ones):

Ian Mallory: I cannot, and will never forget the time you drove fifteen miles north of town to TP my house. It was such an honor, and having never lived “in town” it never happened, and for you, a fellow thespian and not athlete made it brilliant. And that, Ian, is what makes me smile every time. You successfully ninja-style toilet papered my house and in your nimble getaway you literally clothes lined yourself on our clothes line! I’m laughing out loud just recalling it. I remember you came to school the next day with your arm in a sling and I laughed because I knew before you said anything what had happened. Ian, you rock and you will forever live as one of my dearest friends. I could always count on you for that little bit extra.

Travis Mullen: First of all, thank you for suggesting that I write about High School. At first, I was a little hesitant because I was unsure how to tie it in to everything, but once I got going, it made perfect sense. I remember one time when we were detasseling, under the supervision of Coach Plantz, and you asked out loud what time it was. I, not wearing a watch, shouted out what time I thought it was and then obnoxiously began counting the seconds out loud. Soon after, someone with a watch confirmed that I was right. You turned and looked at me, and I’ll never forget the look on your face, you thought I was psychic. Pure, complete, dumb luck. But it was funny and it made us forget about how hot it was. Today, I’m very grateful for some of the conversations we have had about Life, The Universe, and Everything (shout out to Douglas Adams intentional) and I must say, I knew in High School that you were a mental giant, but I am incredibly impressed with your command of argument, intellect, and conversation. You make every dialogue interesting, worthwhile, and incredibly entertaining, so much gratitude for that.

Mrs. Barclay (Melissa): I, well, I can barely tell this story because it’s so funny and I’m not sure if you even remember it. I remember this time in Chemistry, junior year, we were all taking a test and you either didn’t know the test had started or you thought it was open book. Our instructor, search me, I cannot remember her name, came up to you and said, “Melissa, what are you doing?” Deer in headlights. She basically accused you of cheating. You, clearly panicking, said, “is this a problem?” pointing to your notes. It was such a brilliant and completely unexpected answer, that despite the panic in your voice, she surely realized that she hadn’t made something clear and simply said, “it’s closed book.” People say it’s not what you say it’s how you say it. Well, you defied that completely. It was clearly what you said. It was so perfectly unexpected and terrifically honest that I think everyone chuckled inside. And in the end, it didn’t matter anyway because everyone but Amy got a C or D and she created a second exam. To you: you are brilliant on your feet. I’ve been a huge fan of your very upbeat and positive outlook that you’ve shared online. You make being positive and happy good company. Thank you.

One more so as not to make private a conversation open to all…

Gary Zmolek, (Mr. Z): Z, so completely randomly will things you told me so many years ago wiggle their way into my mind and finally make sense. I have never, in all my life, met anyone who embodies all the virtues and wisdom that you are so amazingly fortunate to possess. There is no way that anything you told me when I was years younger would have made sense then, but I am immensely grateful that I understand it now. I’ll be eating lunch, enjoying my day, having a conversation and then BAM—epiphany. Your words seep into my mind and I receive temporary enlightenment. I love how any time anyone ever talked about anything you would always have a book that that reminded you of. Voracious is a gross understatement if one were to use it to describe your reading habits. Anytime I find myself directing another to a book I always think of you and smile. I don’t have to go into how many lives you touched and how many people have blossomed under your tutelage; all I have to say is you are one of a kind. The world is a much better place because you are in it and little pieces of you are in so many of us. I personally owe you my deepest and most sincere appreciation for everything you did for me and the entire ALM program. If any of us can affect the world, even in a fraction of the way you did, what a wonderful world it will be. Gratitude dear Sage.

Thank you for allowing that tangent, I’m smiling and crying. That, friends, is truly what High School is about. It’s about who you are. Today, I am a puzzle of pieces of everyone I’ve met. I’m the culmination of my past experiences combined with the undeniable evolution we all experience as we age and mature. I’ve said in other writings that our pasts don’t define us. This is true. We define ourselves. Perhaps that’s why I’m finally understanding what everyone has meant to me: because I define myself as pieces of all of you.

Today’s task: High School is just a starting point; what I’ve learned today is that understanding the connections we have with others is key to understanding the connection we have with ourselves. How do we view ourselves? How does the world view us? And as in the examples above, how do we view others? Today, take pause, reflect on your friendships, reflect on yourself, and if you don’t smile, we need to talk. (Quick note: yes, those of you I went to High School with, you knew me, let's say, differently named, but I'm still the same, well similar, guy that you knew).

As always, all my love, all my best. Seek not peace, but find it in your heart and it will seek you.

Day Eighteen

DAY EIGHTEEN
Love: the glue that binds
Of all the emotions known to us, love is not only the strongest and most important, but it is the primary catalyst for the Law of Attraction. With love, in all respects, we can attract anything we want into our lives and can be guaranteed a life full of happiness. In fact, love is so critical to the concept of the Law of Attraction that often times the Law is simply referred to as the Law of Love. Today I want to discuss the power of love, and the power it has in our lives by keeping everything “glued” together, so to speak. Love is the glue that binds all other emotions, and if we are devoid of love in any aspect in our lives, despite being happy and content in all other areas, we can still suffer unhappiness. Thus, it is important for us to properly assess the areas in our lives that we find unhappiness and to determine how much love exists in that area. Surely if you experience unhappiness, you are lacking love.
The concept I want to use to describe love, in the way in which it enters into our lives and holds everything together, involves thinking of emotions, reactions, actions, thoughts, etc. on a sliding scale. Imagine a scale designed to gauge forms of happiness in every aspect of your life. Now imagine this scale representing 0 through 100, where 0 is misery and depression, and 100 is complete bliss. Let’s look at a few examples to further clarify this point. Consider the following:

Financial Happiness (FH)
0---------50--------100

Spiritual Happiness (SH)
0---------50--------100

Relationship Happiness (RH)
0---------50--------100

Health Happiness (HH)
0---------50--------100

These are just a few examples, but together they represent a major part of our lives. Now let’s put this example into play: let’s say that your (FH) is at 80. It’s at 80 because you have the money you need, but maybe you just received an unexpected bill that requires more money than you have at the moment. It causes you a little worry. You aren’t distraught, or even unhappy (below 50) because you know you can find the money, but it was unexpected and it occupies your thoughts (maybe you might not want to even pay it because you had other plans for the money). Let’s keep the example easy and say that your (SH) and (HH) are at 100, so nothing to work on there, but let’s say you have a genuine source of unhappiness in your (RH). Let’s say it’s at 25. That’s quite low, it’s below 50, so you are clearly unhappy. But why? To make the example easy, I’ve lumped all relationships into this category, and that might not be wholly accurate, but for the sake of the example it works. You have good relationships with your children (if you have them) and those are at 100; you have good relationships with your friends and family (also at 100); but you do not have a special someone in your life. This creates a sensation of loneliness and a void in this area. As a result, you suffer unhappiness that this void exists and is not being filled. Again, this is just an example. I am not saying that you need to be in a relationship to be happy. For this example, I’m assuming the person we are describing desires to be in a relationship and struggles because s/he is not. So, in total, just from a quick glance, we have 80, 100, 100, and 25. We aren’t really operating within the realms of math in this sense, so the total is not simply the sum of the numbers. What we are focusing on is the areas of unhappiness. We can ignore the 80, for this example (later I’ll discuss how to keep areas above 50 as close to 100 as possible) but we definitely need to focus on the 25.

Before we delve into how to address this issue and why it’s happening at all, it’s important to understand that even though we can be happy in all other areas of our life, even one area of unhappiness can affect our overall happiness. Even one area of unhappiness, if significant enough, can bring us down and cause an overall unhappiness. This doesn’t mean that the 100s become less, this simply means that our attention is focused solely on the issue at hand, so overall happiness is temporarily halted and replaced by what it is that is currently concerning us (thus, it makes no sense to add all the numbers together because for those that are above 50, we don’t care about those while we suffering with those below 50). Obviously, the more areas we have of unhappiness, not only the more unhappy we are, but the harder it becomes to address these issues because the more we have on our mind. But rest assured, the solution is simple, in theory, and it applies the same to all situations.

Now, back to the unhappiness in our relationship example. This person is unhappy because s/he wants to be in a relationship, perhaps because s/he is at the stage where that makes the most sense and would add to his/her overall happiness (because sharing the best parts of one’s life with another truly is the most rewarding and amazing experience). This person does not have that, as a result has a void, and consequently suffers unhappiness. How can we resolve this? The answer is love. But wait, love, in a very exact sense, is what is missing, how can love fix itself? That is The Secret. The answer: give love, in all areas of your life, and you will receive love, in all areas of your life. It is slightly more complicated than this, as it does involve employing the Law of Attraction in all ways, but the principle holds true. If you give money without worry (even if paying a bill!) and you give it with love, money will return to you, out of the love in the Universe, as you need it. If you give love in your faith, whatever that may be and whatever you personally call it, then your faith will come back stronger because of love. If you pursue your health with a love for yourself and body, mind, spirit, then your health will be refined and given back in abundance by the power of love. And lastly, if you pursue love in your life with love, it will come to you, it will find you, from the love you offer. Effectively, you will get back what you put in. And unlike a machine where the output is less than the input, the Universe is perfect, you get back exactly what you put in. But the more areas you put love into, the greater it will come back to you.

If you are with me so far, I’m going to flip this all on its head. Remember when I said that we can’t add each area together and take the sum of them all? Well, I said that because that’s probably what you believe. We all are predisposed to believing that. Negativity is all around us. It’s in the news, it’s on the radio, it’s on the television, it’s in our friends, family—it’s everywhere. The reason I said we can’t do that is because most of us focus on what’s wrong in our lives and not so much on what’s right. If we have something come along that we aren’t prepared for, it can derail us, it can take away our focus, and we forget about what’s important. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that those areas of concern aren’t important, I’m saying they aren’t everything. Everything is everything, hence the name. Thus, we can and should add all areas together so that we have proper perspective. To maintain focus, we should realize that any area of unhappiness is simply an area, a detail, if you will, not the big picture. And if the rest of your life is going well, then the big picture is a good picture. My point here is that if we can maintain focus on the good things—the positive, then we promote more positivity in our lives—even in those areas that aren’t positive. Make sense?

So let’s go back to our example. Let’s add all the areas together: 80+100+100+25. Now, I did say before that lumping the relationships together might have been inaccurate. Here is where that’s true. If you don’t have love in your life, as in this example, but you have great relationships with your friends, family, children, co-workers, etc. then you aren’t going to ignore those areas of strength and support, and you aren’t going to act negatively towards any of those people because you don’t have what you want, are you? Of course not. So that 25 is a bit off because it’s 25 out of at least 4 or 5 other areas that could all be 100s. Keep that in mind in this example. So 80+100+100+25 is 305. 305/4 is 76.25. In school, that would be a C+, that’s passing. We are much more happy than not. But see how one area alone can bring us down, quite significantly? And see how an 80, which on its own is rather remarkable also brings down the overall number? That’s why we need to focus on keeping everything as high as possible, and when you do that, it’s not about the numbers, it’s about love. Give more love and get better results. Don’t sweat the unexpected bill, pay it with love and forget about it. You have great spiritual health and fantastic health. Your life is going very well. Bills are a part of life (just keep them out of your bedroom, wink) so let them be that. All of the rest of your relationships are going well, and yes, it’s hard when you have struggles, but love itself will give more love—it’s a law, just like gravity. Have faith in that and let the warmth fill your body until that void fills itself. Love, when given in all areas of your life, comes back to you (in all areas of life). 

Take a minute. Absorb. Now, to sum it all up. Regularly take stock of how you are doing in your life, focus on the positive, don’t let the negative eat at you, those areas are simply devoid of love. All you have to do is add some more glue to the holes, or add love to the negative areas, and it all comes together.

Today’s task is to understand this. Come back to it as often as you need. I make it sound simple, but that’s because it is. Let me show you: 

Dear Reader: I want to thank you so much for giving me a few moments of your time. You personally make me feel so happy, incredibly worthwhile, and you validate that I have something to say. If I can reach only one person, beyond myself, then I have done something. It is with immense gratitude that I thank you for lending me your time. I offer you in return everything I hold deep and sacred in my heart so that you too may find peace, love, and happiness in your life. All of my love.

This is nothing less than complete love. I give it freely and it returns to me in abundance, in all areas of my life. 

Thank you again for reading. I wish that everything you desire shall always be yours. Love.

Day Seventeen

DAY SEVENTEEN
Sanctuary
We all need a place in our lives and in our homes that is completely sacred, a place where the  rest of the world does not exist, and where we alone, in all of our strength, our humility, our honesty, and in our hearts and souls exist alone, devoid of the world. For me, this place is my bedroom. I do not bring my wallet, my checkbook, bills, magazines, nothing from the external world is brought into my bedroom. I don’t want any of the energy or attitudes carried by any of that material to enter my sacred domain. The only thing that enters my bedroom with me at the end of the day is my phone, and that’s simply to function as an alarm clock and to provide me with soothing sounds to help me sleep or meditate. Otherwise, I don’t even bring gum or chap stick or any item that I use elsewhere into my room. This might seem unorthodox or a little bizarre to you at first, but I am a fundamental believer in sanctuary. My bedroom is my temple (aside from the temple I create within and from my mind-body) and as such, it is sacred ground to me. I meditate here, I sleep and rejuvenate here, and otherwise, that’s all I do there. I don’t want any attitudes I have about money, about the external world, about anything but those functions which promote rest and rejuvenation to enter into this domain. So I work very hard to keep this area separate from the rest of my world.

I believe that each of us needs such a place. For some, this is church, or your temple, or your place of worship. Yes, such a place is literally a sanctuary, but it’s not entirely personal. I am advocating a personal sanctuary. My bills and money and news all occur in my office; my meditating and sleeping and decompressing occur in my bedroom, etc. We have separate rooms in our homes for a reason: to compartmentalize our lives. This not only aids in decluttering your life, but it aids also in decluttering your mind and spirit. It’s an everything has its place mentality. When you adopt such a mentality, you can literally feel the weight of your world drop from your shoulders as you enter your sacred place. The energy you have worked to maintain is calm and welcoming and the rest of the world disappears. I also avoid tense conversations in my bedroom, as this is not the place for those to occur. The last thing I want on my mind before meditating or sleeping is a difficult conversation. I have those in my office or living room, where such conversations are acceptable. I do promote peaceful and loving conversations in my sanctuary, as these aid to enhance the atmosphere I work to maintain.

Although it may seem like a lot of work at first, or it may even seem unnecessary, living in such a way makes it so much easier to separate one thing from another and it helps you to identify the uniqueness and independence one thing has from another. What this can do for your mind alone is incredible. You will have less stress because you will find that you less often associate two things with each other that in reality are quite separate. Yes, causally, one thing can affect another, sure, that’s just basic cause and effect; but the things we tend to stress and worry about have very different foundations if we can see them in their respective appropriate contexts. If you need to see to believe, and that’s perfectly fine, then take today’s task and “see” for yourself.

Today’s task: create a sanctuary in your home. I haven’t talked about meditation much yet—I will, but the goal in creating your sanctuary is to set aside a spot that is ideally suited for you to meditate. A place that is completely devoid of distraction, a place where you can spend 10-30 minutes uninterrupted focusing on nothing but your thoughts, or lack of, depending on your meditation style. Now, your meditation spot does not have to be in your bedroom. For me personally, this works better, but you may have more rooms in your house than I do, or you may have a more perfect spot. But consider the spot you choose carefully. Think of what actions, emotions, and daily experience this room or spot has. Ensure that it can be, if it is not already, devoid of negative emotion and lots of traffic (aside from your own occupancy). If not, make it so. To clear the energy and reset it, burn some white sage and replace it with an incense or pleasant aroma that you associate with meditation. You really only need to do this once, unless your spot is frequented by others too often. Again, choose this spot carefully. Once you create it, use it, daily. Again, this is why my bedroom works better, because I use it every day. Then again, I am the only one that uses it, so I have a slight advantage there, and this may be something you want to consider. You want this particular space to be yours alone. This is just for your sanctuary. To further this task, keep your rooms and your life separated into the appropriate compartments. This will aid in your organization of your life, it will aid in a newfound mental clarity, and it will aid in alleviating stress. You might want to do what I do or maybe you have a better system. The point: the kitchen is made for cooking and cleaning; the dining room is meant for eating; the living room for living; etc. When you act to realize that this is meant to benefit you, you develop a calmer and more appropriate sense of how and why things work. You rush less. You see and respect things in their appropriate context. You eventually live better and attain a greater sense of happiness. Trust me, it’s not as rigid or ridiculous as it seems. In fact, it’s quite liberating. You can have a kitchen/bathroom if you want, but the work has already been done for you, why reinvent the wheel?

All my love. I wish you ultimate happiness, the greatest success in your endeavors, and may you always find what you are looking for (or it find you!). Feel free to share your ideas of the sanctuary you create. You never know how a few tiny words can affect another until you utter them. To you!

How to...

How to...

HOW TO MAXIMIZE BELIEF
Combing Faith and Reason 

This tattoo on my wrist is a modified Sun Cross and it’s been a great source of inspiration to me. It represents the unity between faith and reason. Reason is represented by the circle, and each of the four lines extending outside the circle represent faith. The symbol visually demonstrates the unity of faith and reason by showing the independent and joint realms of each form of knowledge. Essentially, it's possible to have some knowledge which is completely exclusive to reason alone, some knowledge exclusive to faith alone, and the rest and majority would be shared between the two. I chose my wrist for this symbol so that I would always be reminded of how I come to possess my knowledge, and to remind me that every time I shake someone's hand, they too come by their knowledge in the same way. Thus, I am reminded of the connection we all share in how we come to believe what we all believe.

The reason this symbol and this clarification is pertinent to the discussion of belief is because belief is the hallmark of the law of attraction. In a three step process, it's step #2, coming after asking and before receiving. But belief itself comes in three distinct forms: that which we believe through reason alone, that through faith alone, and that which is a combination of the two. Each form is unique, but no one form is necessarily better or more preferred over the other as each is purely circumstantial. With that said, there are ways to maximize your beliefs, and in doing so, you will increase your ability to utilize the law of attraction to the fullest.

Quite simply, understanding the dynamic of the faith-reason relationship makes it much easier to manipulate their cooperation, or lack of, to your benefit. Anytime you have a belief, the more real you can make it in your mind, the more quickly it will come to fruition. If you accept a belief on faith alone, say for instance you think, I put my faith in the Universe (or whatever you want to call your Higher Power) that such and such will happen, this becomes a real belief, the Universe is acting to make that belief occur for you. But what happens when you waiver in your belief, especially if you hold it on faith alone? Well, whenever this happens, look to your reason to save you. Faith is always stronger if you have the ability to add reason. Say for instance with that same thought you also told yourself, and I know this will occur because and then insert your logical reason. Now you’ve strengthened a belief by combining It with reason (say for instance your logical reason is because it happened to me before or because it happened to my friend). The same works in reverse. If you have very good reason to believe something and it has a greater chance of occurring than not, when you add faith to the mix (putting your faith in the Universe by asking for such to be the case) you strengthen that belief. Your reason alone tells you that it should happen, but your faith solidifies it so that it will happen. And for everything else, we naturally have a tendency to combine the two forms of belief.

There’s another trick, and I have to give all of the credit here to an absolutely brilliant man and amazing motivator, a lover of the Universe and all mankind, and a truly inspirational soul—Mike Dooley. If you do not know who he is or if you are not familiar with his work, stop now and go to www.tut.com and sign up for his ‘Notes From the Universe,’ these are completely amazing. Mike says not to worry about the “hows.” What he means by that is whenever you find yourself worrying about “how” such and such will happen, you are slowing down, sometimes stopping, the Universe from acting in your favor. You are changing your mind about what you want. So whenever doubt enters your mind, because wondering "how" is doubting the possibility of the outcome, have faith, and I’m going to have to ask you to accept that on faith. But if you need a reason why, then use me as an example. I have faith that the Universe will provide to me all that I ask of it, in the way that I ask, and if ever I change my mind, the Universe will act to provide me the best possible outcome in any scenario. This is true because I have already seen it work in my life. This is true simply because I think it so. Mike’s mantra: “thoughts become things.” And this, dear readers, is completely true. So, anytime you find doubt in your mind, remember what George Michael said (and that’s the singer, not the Bluth).

Peace, love, and eternal happiness to you and all who come into your life. I believe you will all find amazing happiness, and I believe in you. Love AO.

Day Sixteen

DAY SIXTEEN
Optimism vs Pessimism
People sometimes say I'm overly optimistic, then I reply, "it's surely better than being overly pessimistic, right?" But what I think they are really focused on is the "overly" part. Many people think it's okay to be optimistic, just so long as it's not too much. And that's where I disagree. If you shoot for the stars and miss, you usually end up somewhere a lot higher than those who shoot for 100% and miss. My point is shoot for more than 100%. It might not make sense mathematically, but if you are achieving something greater than what has ever been achieved, well, you are effectively resetting where the 100% mark will be--you're setting the bar, as it were.

The point here is to not just be overly optimistic in your attitude, but also in your attraction, that is, your ability to attract the things and people you want into your life. If you are overly optimistic, you can easily find good things in all situations; thus, good things will easily find you. The opposite is exactly true. If you always find the bad in situations, the bad will always find you. So for me, I practice being overly optimistic and the law of attraction works flawlessly and without delay. And I'm as happy and positive as I can possibly be. 

Today's task: focus on being overly optimistic, like "over the top" optimistic. Try it just for one day. Avoid negativity and negative people, and if you happen across them, keep on keeping on. See how different your day goes, see how much more positivity you attract and compare that to your "normal" days. In time, by practicing this, you'll quickly realize how much better you feel and you'll soon notice how much greater your ability is to attract the things you want in your life. Wishing you the best!

Day Fifteen

DAY FIFTEEN
Heroes
Today I want to talk about heroes. If you’ve already mastered loving yourself, then it’s time to give credit where credit is due by realizing who in your life has helped you to become who you are, and who in your life inspires you or motivates you to be more. For me, my heroes are my mom and my girlfriend. My mom, because she has given me so much of who she is, and my girlfriend because she constantly makes me want to be the best version of myself that I can be.

My mom, my hero. I just recently realized how much my mom passed on to me. She works 2, sometimes 3 jobs, has an at home business, works all day, comes home and cares for her grandchildren, then, and only then does she take time for herself. She does it with grace, without complaint, and without any chinks to the armor. Amazing. Truly. Then I look at myself. I’m accustomed to working 2+ jobs, I started two businesses, I’m constantly busy, and I wonder where I get all the energy and motivation. Now I see. Thanks, Mom, you are my hero. You deserve the credit, the recognition, and a trophy (I’ll start working on the trophy)!

My girlfriend, my best friend, my love, my hero. Once in a lifetime, if we are so truly blessed, with divine fortune and a twist of luck, we may have the opportunity to meet our exact match. Doubly blessed are we if we happen to notice. I of course noticed because I specifically summoned her into my life by utilizing the law of attraction and asking for exactly her, so I was not at all surprised when we met, rather I was immensely grateful. But even knowing she was out there, looking for me looking for her, I am still constantly surprised and amazed at how terrifically wonderful she is. Every day I strive to become more, to embody the best possible version of myself. Every day I let her know exactly how special she is and how grateful I am to have her in my life. Every day I tell her why she’s so special, so let me tell you why: she’s a brilliant, loving, and resourceful mother; she is clever, cunning, and witty and always brings a smile to anyone’s face; she’s got her feet on the ground but her eyes to the heavens; she possesses a strength and passion that will make you fall to your knees; she radiates a warmth from her soul that can make you better know your own soul; she is honest, dependable, kind, emotionally in tune, and she loves like no one else. My girlfriend, my best friend, is my hero. If I could ever possess even one virtue of the numerous she so gracefully brandishes, I’d be a better person. Thus, I strive to be the best “me” that I can be so that I may honor her beautiful existence.

Today’s task: who are your heroes and why? Write it down. Let them know. I love mine and surely you too love your own. I wish you peace, love, happiness, and fortune in your journey to a more happy filled life. AO