We need to know that life is about more than impressing the neighbors and having more than the next guy. Who is your employer? Who are you working for? What are you working for and what do you hope to achieve in your lifetime?
How many parents, teachers and clergy really get you to look at those issues in a healthy, inspiring, and meaningful way? As Joseph Campbell said, “You climb the ladder of success and when you get to the top it’s leaning against the wrong wall.”
God breathed life into Adam through his nostrils. The word for spirit and breath are the same in several languages. There is a message for us here. If we are to live, we need to be inspired and find a sense of meaning in our work and service to the world. Information and material things are not the path to happiness; 95% of the time lottery winners tell you winning the lottery ruined their lives.
So find what inspires you and fills not only your lungs with life, but your every activity. By doing so you become a co-creator and begin to realize that a perfect world would be meaningless, giving you no choices or possibilities. Undertake the possible and even what seems to be the impossible. The inspired have nothing to fear. As Maude says in the movie Harold and Maude, “Reach out, take a chance—get hurt even. Play as well as you can. 
Go team go.
Give me an L.
Give me an I.
Give me a V.
Give me an E.
What does it spell? What do we yell? LIVE!
Otherwise you’ve got nothing to talk about in the locker room.”
Having role models can help you behave like the person you want to become. Look carefully at the title of this exercise and you may find my hidden message. What makes up three-fourths of a lifeline? If you said FELINE you are right on target. And what is God spelled backwards? That’s easy, DOG. So now you know where I look for guidance.
Animals are complete and can be excellent guides and models for us all. If none are available, an infant can help temporarily, but once children grow up and start acting like adults, they are no longer good role models. They just don’t see where the true wisdom is because of how they are parented. Our home was always filled with animals, and they were wonderful teachers about love, reverence for life, how to live in the moment, and how to be a survivor.
Why are you living this life? Did you ever stop to think about it? Or are you too busy complaining and whining to stop and ask questions? What action performed in your lifetime would make your life complete, and would allow you to die knowing you did what you came or were sent to do? I saw a cartoon which showed two animals standing over the grave of another animal and on the headstone it said, “Return to Sender.” On my father-in-law’s headstone it says, “He Just Fell Up.”
So what do all the religions and philosophies try to tell us about our job. I’ll save you some time. It is this: The only thing of permanence is love. So if you want to be immortal, display love. Your body will perish, but your love will not. So make use of your body and demonstrate your love.
Who do you help? When do you help? How do you help? How would you answer each of those crucial questions? The answers are simple. Who you help is the person in front of you; how you help is just by doing what they need done; when you help is now, or when they need it done. As you start living in this way, you get on the Universe’s schedule and many things begin to happen that benefit you, which are good side effects of your actions. Remember, everything in the Universe is subject to change and everything is on schedule.
I always keep an eye peeled for pennies when I am out and about in the world. They are not of great value but their message is—Liberty, In God We Trust, and Abe Lincoln looking toward the east and the sun. So if you start finding pennies, know that you are on the divine path.
Think about not trying to know God, but about imitating God. Now there’s a role model! And think about the poor ugly duckling who struggled to accomplish what most people are unable to do on their own. How many children rejected by their parents ever look in a mirror and see a swan?
So, learn to reflect God’s love and you will become beautiful, too. If I asked you to tell me what you would hang in every school lobby with this sign over it, “Look at How Meaningful and Beautiful Life Is,” what would your answer be? I once asked this of several thousand personal health trainers. All of them were beautiful men and women in excellent condition and yet their answers were rainbow, flower, baby picture, etc. They felt like ugly ducklings despite their beauty. They had no one to reflect their beauty back at them. Those enlightened by loss, or illness, or loving parents answer, “A Mirror.” Yes!
Exercises
- Find what inspires you and go out and make the world a better place today and every day.
- Find a role model you admire and go and live the message.
- Act like a loving grandparent and let your eyes be like a divine mirror to everyone and help them become the grand- child.
- Count the pennies you find as you follow your divine path, not your intellectual one.
- Find someone to help, or ask for help, and watch how you feel due to your actions.
Peace,
Bernie