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Cultivating Empowering Change In Your Existence by
Embarking on a Journey of Neuro-scientifically Lucid Growth,
Sincerely Compassionate Verisimiltidues, Intuitive Decision-
making, Authentic self-dialogue,, and ebulliently Connecting to
Spirituality
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Kuczmarski, John T.
Validate Your Life : Cultivating Empowerment through Authentic Dialogue, Personal Religion, and
Embarking on a Creatively Intuitive Dialogue of Clarity
This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author. It is intended to provide helpful and
informative material on the subjects addressed in the publication. It is sold, shared, and/or transmitted
with the understanding that the author and publisher are engaged in rendering medical, health, or any
kind of professional services in the book. The reader should consult his or her homeopathic, wholistic
healer.
Although the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or
otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any
contents of this book, the author is interested in sharing his advice, wisdom, and guidance to generate
communion of happiness to any reader or writer.
Being neither a messy conglomerate nor an incomplete pastiche of ideas, the letters forming words
forming sentences, forming pages, forming this book are dedicated to the presence of acknowledged family in the
trust of healthy compassionate ideas moving towards miraculous clarity.
Many books are dedicated to the immediate family of a spouse, parents, and/or kids and how those
people provided grace, discipline, and substance for the material. Other authors choose to dedicate their
book to an idea, like Robert Frost’s poem of the forked road, pride and joy, or discipline and grace.
Alternatively, some books’ dedications explicitly reference mainstream icons like Oprah Winfrey or top CEO
executives. A beautiful dedication is simply to miracles. Just as this book does very little “outside of the box
thinking” compared to its amount of “completely deconstructing and recreating the box thinking”, the
dedication is no exception.
A cknowledg ements
Carl Jung writes, "Theory-building is the outcome of discussion among many"1. I am whole-
heartedly thankful towards and have the deepest appreciation towards discussions with many
teachers, friends, provocateurs, and sages that I have worked and lived with to create these
theories.
The deepest thanks towards everyone contributed to the ideas, the form, the construct, the
concept, and the momentum of this book. I have tremendous reverence for you. This has not so
much been written by me as it has been by many people -- the family that gave birth to this book
in the process of accomplishing and the Journey of life. I am really less of an author and more of
a being who distills experiences and coalesces the ideas, sensations, and inputs of fellow
earthbeings. I then proceed to fuse what I perceive as the contemporary Geist through the
conduit of Nature
People
There certainly exists the need to acknowledge two people I have spent and enormous
amount of time with, Thomas Dale Kuczmarski and Susan Smith Kuczmarski. Thomas Dale's
perpetual peace, his even earthy keel, and his slow and deliberate lessons of a deeper energy, an
esoteric and richly spiritual linkage to our ancestors, I am tremendously thankful. Before
designing my own lifestyle framework, I mimicked and lived Thomas Dale's blueprint of
tremendous material organization, pensive words, and rhythmic patience. I thank Susan Smith
Kuczmarski's insights and direction into the complex rules of corporate and sociological
American culture. Her mentorship was invaluable for mastering etiquette and the game of life,
while her intellectual caliber and political acumen are qualities I admire, her wisdom, advice,
brilliant "beyond belief" parenting style, and encouragement allowed me to overcome obstacles
and grow prosperously and wholistically; I have the tremendous gratitude and reverence for you
and Thomas Dale.
Of course, all my brothers and sisters -- my two biological siblings, copious seasoned
comrades, and countless lifelong friends -- I honor an enormous recognition of happiness; I am
thankful for your very illuminating presence in my life. Thomas Michael Kuczmarski and James
Smith Kuczmarski, whose words and actions I have a tremendous amount of reverence for, have
directly or indirectly, generated tremendous guidance, challenge, and liberation throughout my
life. Funny and exciting is the life of an older or a younger brother because you spend a lot of
time trying to superficially annoy the heck out of each other, but deep down everyone knows you
are evoking each other's strengths towards greater flexibility and joy. The love between siblings
is as stronger than the most resilient Oak.
Programs
I will also thank the orchestrators, directors, and leaders involved in creating and sustaining
the seven academic programs, including the three paramount institutions of Chicago City Day
1
Jung, Carl. The Relations between Ego and the Unconscious. New York: Modern Library, 1943. p. 229.
School, The Latin School of Chicago, and The Colorado College and the four institutions of
equally positive impact, but of a shorter duration, The Lincoln Park High School, The London
School of Economics, Sea Education Association, and The University of California, Santa
Barbara. The institutions invited not just information into a classroom, but provided profoundly
passionate instruction, as well, generated a tremendously clear source of validity.
Additionally on a certainly more spiritual level, I have to specifically address my
elementary school, Chicago City Day. I feel elementary school is when most of the core roots of
this book were really planted before evolving and fermenting into this organized grouping of
outlooks and ideas.
On an equally influential dimension as the academic programs, certainly from a greater
source of spiritual clarity, I herald and praise the seven distinct formal journey programs in my
life, including (in order from least to most recent) Davee Smith’s Surf Academy, Alaskan Cruise,
Mediterranean Cruise, TeenFreedom, The Road Less Traveled, Summer Program in Tropical
Conservation, and two Costa Rica Christian Surfer mission trips. I call these "formal journey"
because every step in life is a captivating and mysteriously juicy journey, but few programs
successfully portray this life journey in and encapsulated form. Whether it be going down the
line and doing a gnarly cutback the crest of a wave in Surf Academy, gawking at ice glacier
chunks collapse and recede in Alaska, photographing leaning Tower of Pisa or running a lap on
the first Olympic track in Athens during the Mediterranean cruise, getting inspired by world
philosophy in TeenFreedom, hiking, long intrepid treks in the Rockies on The Road Less
Traveled, chasing after spider monkeys in Mexico during the Summer Program in Tropical
Conservation, or experiencing the bizarrely “other-world” culture of Costa Rica, all these
programs (DSSA, AC, MC, TF, RLT, SPTC, and CR) completely provided enourmous guidance,
encouragement, or challenge through provocation. .
..
Collectively, the seven academic institutions and seven journey programs have contributed
tremendous gems of information, experiences, and breakthroughs by challenging my inner
beliefs and getting me out of my shell. It was from those fourteen institutions and programs that
I was given the structure to format my life for success. Instilling a richness of worldly flavor and
cultural insight, these “formal journey” programs and institutions instilled an unfathomable
awareness of people, society, and motivation. I thank those leaders and organizers
More People
I especially thank Davee Smith, with his smooth father-like grace towards everyone he
meets, combined with his certainty on the wave and calmness in life.
I, of course, have tremendous gratitude and thanks for the psychological wisdom John
Cooper for his brilliant advice on counter-acting the Judge and making one’s life more intact.
Without his rooted commitment to peace, many great people would be lost.
Lee Flayton for his uproarious commitment to good times.
All my Colorado College friends including James Kroeker, Jon Broida, Katherine Wheeler,
Jonathon Bredin, Cal, Julila, Anna Child, Taea Takegi, Lief Carter, Scott Drury, Andy Mendrop,
Casey Brazeal, Mimi Cave, Molly, Mitch, Justin Strauss, Dash, Edward Carlson, and that whole
awesome crew, a huge shout-out of thanks.
Michael Pereira was like a father for me, showing me the uncivilized, jungle world and
opening my eyes to a truly spectacular reality of science and clear goodness.
I deeply appreciate Breck Costin for his ability to create change in himself and display a
Validate Your Life / vii
Hollywood-style form of consultation and invigorated coaching, creating the reality of a person
with multiple hearts, more than one mind, and many souls.
I am indebted to Beth Ylvisaker for her wisdom and gifts of stepping out of what is
normal, conventional teaching and sharing the lessons of Individuality.
Reed Fellars, I have the deepest appreciation for your mastery of conviction in your
words and you’re ability to connect on a very real level with people.
Tracy Coleman, I have a profound reverence for your enthusiasm and passion for
teaching and you’re ability to teach the so-oft bewildering religion of Hinduism.
I also thank my close friends and biggest teachers and mentors of all, Lisa Gebbia, Justin
Lacaillade, Tom Fort, Bret Diskin, Alexa Hartrich, Ari Samo, Scott Bronner, Anne Liggio,
Gloria Martinez, Anna Morro, Nana, Mr. Frellick, Ms.
Hartdegan, Mr. Raffeld, Kira Hesser, Zoe Hartzell, Alex Ekman, Tom Fort, Sarah
Shroud, Elizabeth Muezin, Jeff Zheng, Zackary Fellars, Captain Binh Lee, Chief Scientist Kara
Lavendar, Scott Price, Garrit Cullerton,, Alex Castro, and the rest of the friends that had a
profound, illuminating, and confidence-building impact on my life. Some of the interactions
with these people resulted in revolutionary understandings and breakthroughs, so, while some of
the experiences with these fine people were not conventionally “didactic” per se, the lessons I
learned from the experiences and the presence of these people crafted the essential dips and turns
in the river toward sensational accomplishment, success, and awareness.
Contents At A
Glance
Part 1: The Discovery of Validation
Trusting in Your Vibrant Existence with Inner Voice, Ever-Increasing Path of Happiness,
Verisimilitudes, and Contemporary Essence
Part 2
Cult iv ate t he Intr insic S pir it
The Altruistic Demeanor of Compassion: Trusting in Your Vibrant Existence with Inner Voice, Ever-
Increasing Path of Happiness, Verisimilitudes, and Contemporary Essence
Section 2: Cookie-Cutters 86
Part 3
Captivate Your Essence
Expereince authentic revelation in your essence. Create a snapshot of your authentic life pattern, personal
religion, customized style, and intuitive practice and use that snapshot as a prescient beacon to gracefully
navigate toward your fascinating and exciting future.
RELIGION
Section 1: Arriving at Passion by Authenticating our Pleasures 186
Section 5: Connotations of Language and Actions Alter our Personal Religion 197
Part 4
Relin quish Your Restr aints
Radically Alter Your Relationship to Ego and Experience Engaged Success and Compassionate Love.
Learn the Five Validation Utensils of Judge Scrutiny, Ephemeral Time, Cohesive Commitment, Directly-
Aligned Intuition, and Computational Problem-Solving
Section 3: The Basics of Programming and People: Applying The Java Construct
and Computational Problem-Solving 331
Part I
The Discovery
of
Validation
Trusting in Your Vibrant Existence with Inner Voice, Ever-Increasing Path of Happiness, Verisimilitudes, and
Contemporary Essence
A bout this Book
Books, TV, Movies, Hollywoood, even business – all of these operate through the economics of buying and
selling products. More importantly, all products or services are sold – any product or service ever sold in existence
– because of illusionn. The illusion of false necessity, the illusion that you’ll be entertained, the illusion that some
Television show, book chapter, consulting firm, or food to consume will trigger a drug-like reaction, causing you to
feel satisfied, full, and content.
This book, unfortuantely, is no exception. While I aimed for it to be entertaining, powerfully poignant, and
able to transform your life in a powerful and clearly illuminating way, it is still an illusion because you are reading it
instead of writing it. I believe you could just as easily gracely conjure up all the ideas in this book and even better
ones. You could convey these illuminating insights and more, even more cogently and parsimoniously, and with
greater conviction. I hope this book operates as a catalyst exploding and eroding any illusions that trapped your
creativity, concealed your invigigoratied vitality dormants. I hope this book rips open your mind’s eye passage to
your compassionately electric and happy spirit.
While this book is no exception to the illusion rule, Validate Your Life, having 365 pages, can be read
throughout the year at the leisure pace of a page a day. It’s designed to be read at a pace congruent to your own
style and certainty.
Being a major them recently, with the Da Vinci Code book and movie, and historically, with ancient
croptologies, communication, and hieroglyphs of the old, symbology is a major topic of contemporary interest.
These the symbols for Chi in T’ai Chi and the great energy source of the Tao:
Chi Tao
I wish you lucid congratualations in discovering this book and Godspeed in the adventure towards greater
Chi energy and balanced commitment.
Chapter 1
Verify Your
Validity
efore we embark on our spiritual journey through the mind’s cavernous pathways of
B
synapses and reactions, the purpose and design of this book is illustrated. This chapter
defines validity, introduces the reader to the concept of building a liberating platform
based on valid, as opposed to invalid, decision-making processes. Acting as an
introductory chapter, it also broaches how to take care of your embodiment and the
significance of trusting in your vibrant existence.
reliable. We certainly will want room to expand, introduce different ideas, and build off a stable
framework that is firmly centered. By choosing valid decisions – actions that uplift our spirit,
arouse our awareness, and increase our happiness, – we provide ourselves with an unwavering
foundation. Validity is the key to creating this foundation. Additionally, by making emotional
changes, we can elevate ourselves to a more profound platform and, consequentially, a more
meaningful life.
Just as Christopher Columbus embarked on a sea voyage to explore the undiscovered
continents and the land of new frontiers, so will we embark on a quest. Our voyage will not be
of terrain. We will embark on a neurological voyage exploring the uncharted synapses and the
cavernous recesses of the mind’s pathways. After unearthing the psychological spirit, we will
embark on an emotional voyage discovering the roots of passion, ambition, and motivation. We
will excavate the emotional essence to discover illuminating artifacts of the soul.
the fear of medical practitioners created a ritualized pattern of invalidity. This invalidity was so
maladaptive that it not only debilitated, but endangered, his life because he emotionally could not
seek medical help when it was desperately needed.
Despite the difficulty in determining which option is valid, it is more important to make
and commit to the decision, than to jump back and forth between the alternatives. We must
commit to decisions or, according to the famous Italian poet, Dante, be condemned! He writes
of people that get incessantly stung by wasps and bees. These tortured souls were not rebellious
against God, but never committed to decisions and were only true to themselves on earth. In this
case “To thy own self be true” will condemn you! The correct ideology is to “To thy own
decision be true”. Having made a decision is a better situation than remaining undecided,
regardless of the selection.
Remember: Justify the decision, make it, and commit to decisiveness, instead of
wavering between options. The simple act of making the decision will provide you with
energetic clarity, even if the decision wasn’t the best choice. When you learn the system of
validity you will quickly be able to make the right decisions.
By understanding the system of validity, you will become aware of your patterns of
invalidity. Additionally, you will learn how to rewire conflicted rituals, and gravitate toward
making valid decisions. You will learn how to transform your foundation so that it is buttressed
by authentic choices. You will even find yourself readily compelled to make decisions where the
valid choice appears clearly vivid and straightforwardly visible. More than that, you will learn to
create decisions where the valid decision is simple and blatant.
steps that lead to authentic results. If you have ever been curious about the hidden talents you
possess, or the absence of passion in you life, you will experience immediate and long-term
benefits from the high-impact system of validity. Your search for passion or attempt to unearth
your strengths will diminish. In its place will be the discovery of passions and the utilization of
your profound strength.
Instead of worrying about being unrepresented, you will represent yourself with
exuberant dynamism. Instead of being restricted, you will be released to take care of your self –
to nurture the embodiment of your existence. Validity is about altering your life to a new level
of commitment.
Previously, your strengths were in the process of becoming unearthed; a few artifacts
may have been poking through the surface, but a blurred imprecision in your judgment made
your strengths nearly indistinguishable. Your ability to use your strengths more to your
advantage has been seriously and, even, harmfully hindering your lifestyle. By re-aligning your
decisive tendency toward validity, you spark awareness -- awareness that resurrects your
unearthed strengths. The perceptive process of the system gives you access to your unforeseen
potential by providing a creative pattern that results in consciously making valid decisions.
Instead of cramping, condemning, and standardizing your vivacity, these valid decisions will
intuitively animate and cooperatively nourish your existence. Rather than feeling condemned,
you will reside in liberation.
An example of validity in action, with a real-life example, occurred with my brother his
senior year in high school. He had been constantly going in loops with his college decision-
making process. Considering that this was probably the most monumental decision of his life so
far, he was committed to making the “right” decisions. After becoming frustrated with endless
“pro and con” lists between two schools, I said to my brother, “How could you possibly know
what the right school is if you’ve never attended the school for more than a year?” Suddenly, he
realized that he was resolving this decision with as much information as he could accumulate,
but, retrospectively, a paltry amount of data for such a paramount choice. In realizing the
difficulty of the decision, he validated the entire process. He immediately realized that either
decision would be an exceptional experience. Validation is about honoring your approach and
understanding that making the correct decision sometimes isn’t nearly as important as your
relationship to the decision-making process.
--“You can grow instantaneously by honoring validity, discovering your passions, utilizing
your strengths.”--
Habituating your self to the process of validation ultimately leads to higher capacity of
control because you can manage your emotions through efficient communication. By expressing
your sensitized voice, you become less of a subject to your emotions.
Proactively, you will be able to support your emotions by intuitively interacting with
them. By being able to intuitively relate to your world, you will nourish situations that sponsor
and cultivate your inherent capacity, motivation, and strengths. A fantastic example of one’s
inherent capacity being nourished occurred to a young man I once knew who always went to his
neighborhood park everyday to feed the ducks.
Everyday he would throw bread at these little ducklings, and many of his friends
considered this a waste of time. But this man understood the profound benefit of taking time,
and that if you never take it, you never possess a sentient entity to spend it. Captivating his time,
via these brief visits to the local park, allowed him to intuitively relate to his business with a
strong sense of confidence because he was engaged in a relaxing activity that was meaningful to
him, which made him very successful.
We all must discover and then create time for our own agenda that motivates us. Your
previously hidden gifts and talents will be creatively engaged on a day-to-day basis if you take
time for yourself. From this newly enriched lifestyle, you will be able to experience growth that
embalms and preserves your life with rich intensity, motivation, and self-confidence.
One fact that we must continuously be aware of is how we produce certainties in our life.
When we produce validity, we can make anything certain. The basis of obtaining this fact is to
create an association that allows us to understand that the self that you are right now, at this
moment, didn’t just occur because of genes, or fate. Instead, you are where you are at this very
moment – handicapped emotionally, spiritually aligned, or balanced on disconnected plane of
existence – because of your decisions. Use this incredibly powerful exercise, called “The
Validity Revealer”, to automatically design your life with peace, so you can eradicate your doubt
with conviction.
number is positive, then this choice has positive, affirmative, and motivational
energy associated with it. If you get a negative number, you immediately know
that this decision is invalid. A zero signifies a neutral decision – bringing you
neither validity nor invalidity.
The words on the validity page were scientifically chosen to directly align yourself with
feelings -- some are adjectives, some or states of being. You must envision yourself
experiencing the specific experience and create an association that resonates with the words on
this detailed sheet of validity and invalidity.
Look at this example in Appendix A if you’re struggling with the process of the Validity
Revealer.
Validity Appendix
After envisioning the situation of spending time at college, this person did the validity
revealer sheet and after the 30 second time interval, circled these 15 words that she thought
would describe the experience she envisioned (Note: Because the placement of valid and invalid
words is random, one does not know which words are circled until applying the Validity
Revealer Sheet):
This is the table with the Encoder Page over it. All the invalid words are excluded. Put a
check next to the visible words that you circled:
√Expansive Uplifting Didactic Adaptive
Productive Authentic √Trust Inspirational
√Intuitive √Compromise √Prolific √Creative
Artistic Initiative Reconcile Light
Active √Accolade Vibrant Progressive
√Capacity Variety √Positive Personal √Essential
Incite Liberal Enlightening √Focused √Promote
Essence Eclectic Utilize Flexible Genuine
Poignant Interconnected
Authentic √Fortitude Relaxed Evolving Certain
1 Verify Your Validity /9
After circling all the words that applied to decision one and checking the ones that
showed up in the box, this was the result:
This is the table for decision two with the Encoder Page over it. All the invalid words are
excluded. Put a check next to the visible words that you circled:
√Expansive Uplifting Didactic Adaptive
Productive Authentic √Trust Inspirational
√Intuitive √Compromise √Prolific √Creative
Artistic Initiative Reconcile Light
Active √Accolade Vibrant Progressive
√Capacity Variety √Positive Personal √Essential
Incite Liberal Enlightening √Focused √Promote
Essence Eclectic Utilize Flexible Genuine
Poignant Interconnected
10 / Validate Your Life
After circling all the words that applied to decision two and checking the ones that
showed up in the box, this was the result:
Picking the choice with the highest value will put your life on the path of validity. You
have just learned one of the key practices to transitioning your pre-existing vitality to a tier of
rich self-nourishment.
The Validity Revealer is just one of the many methods of becoming aware of the power
of validity. The result of this awareness is reaching a new level of resilience towards the events
and situations from which you would normally shirk away.
Validity teaches you how to climb the staircase, when before you were trying to scale the
wall. After pursuing your passion and utilizing your strength you will be ready to graduate to the
next foothold: utilizing your passion and strengths to mitigate and release your weaknesses,
making you a much more holistic being.
One of my best friends that I have known nearly my entire life always had a problem
with success and coping with the demands and expectations of achievement. Whenever a salary
increase was in the near future, some promotion in reach, or some kind of academic achievement
was about to be awarded, he altered what he was doing to avoid the success. He shirked away
from the fruits of his assiduous work because he could not scale beyond his emotional wall, or
barrier, that had debilitated his entire lifestyle. After teaching him the process of validation and
making him realize that validating his accomplishments and understanding the importance in
verifying the merit of his achievements could eliminate all of his struggles, he swiftly excelled
with grace. He soon began to realize that hitting this “success wall” was jeopardizing his
growth. He began to tear down this emotional barrier, replacing it with a very accessible
staircase for achievement, where he soon went on to be the head of his company.
Just like my friend who realized the presence of his own personal wall that was stymieing
his growth, all of us have limiting emotional boundaries that constrain our potential. Operating
1 Verify Your Validity / 11
with validity allows your innate, passions and strengths to illuminate your character, provokes
you to “bound” up the staircase, and heightens your quality of life to grand fulfillment. My
friend was able to dissolve his personal wall and reach new heights by using validity, and so will
you be able to undergo such a liberating transformation.
By becoming a more holistic being and residing in personal fulfillment, self-nourishment
and encouragement will become second nature to you. Consequentially, your voice, that is so
easily buried by daily threats, fears, doubts, and hesitancies, will become much more easily
accessible. By utilizing this increased accessibility to your voice, you will experience a lifestyle
that spiritually excels, emotionally grows, and altruistically inspires. You will fervently self-
nourish and gracefully change in provocatively creative, and productive ways. You will emanate
spirituality and growth because these characteristics will be ingrained in your personality.
By accessing your voice on a regular basis, you will use it for enhanced expression. How
will you know how to pursue your own goals, passions, and dreams if you cannot instinctively
access your own voice? How can you holistically progress in your life and career if you cannot
access your voice at all times? The system of validity provides the tools to create convenient
access to your voice. You will realize that habitually accessing your voice is a crucial necessity
to success and a catalyst for achieving your goals, profession, and life mission. This progressive
habit – of relying on your voice inveterately -- will provide you with the opportunity to embrace
an entirely beneficial, creatively rich, and unproblematic lifestyle.
This painless process, of discovering your wrong choices and utilizing your voice to
make the right judgments, accelerates the climb up the staircase to achieve profound realizations
of your genuinely exceptional strengths. Additionally, you gradually grow aware of the five
elements of empowerment -- the concept of validity, voice, passion, intrinsic verisimilitudes, and
essence. By accessing the clearly outlined process of the validity system, your insightful wisdom
will be enunciated with empowering clarity.
--Take the time to take time for yourself and use your inner voice to validate your actions. If
you never take time, you can never have time.--
a path that led to more invalid decisions -- those that debilitate, restrict, and condemn your life --
you will be able to swiftly correct these derailments by using the Resolution Reference Library.
--Embracing validity leaves time for incredible fortitude and your inner voice.--
Chapter 2
Inner Voice,
Inner Guide
owerfully aligned messages of our inner voice must be separated from the crippling voice
P
of Ego. This chapter teaches you how to relinquish insecurity by undergoing a proactive
process of self-discovery and self-questioning. By emphasizing the process of looking
within, you better understand and interpret that your eternal voice perpetuates beyond
calamities. You begin to understand that any obstacles or impediments that arise on our
life’s path are for the collective good. By acquiring awareness of and consultations with
our inner voice through internal examination, we engender a our tenacity to deal with any
circumstance. We will focus on using our majestic inner voice as a beacon during times of
distress, as a device to keep us on our spiritual path, and as an insightful light to rejuvenate our
relationship with authenticity.
“The great man is he that does not lose his child’s heart”
--Mencius (Confucian Philosopher)
understand what your fears are, you can turn them off. When you know exactly when and why
you hesitate because of fear, you can discontinue your patterns by stopping, looking within, and
making the pivotal change that will set in motion a sequence of reactions. This reactionary
sequence leads to clarifying decisiveness, non-resistance, and strong-willed resolution.
Valid decisions, a positive outlook, or the eradication of ego initiates the benefits of this
reactionary sequence. Our ego is what always wants to threaten and turn down our inner voice,
manipulate our challenges into fears, and darken our inner beacon with shadows of uncertainty.
The method of avoiding this inner conflict is to carefully examine your inner voice. Stephen
Nachmanovitch describes the poignancy of the inner voice, “the simplest yet most elusive lesson
in life is learning to listen to that guiding voice” (Nachmanovitch 40). Furthermore, he says his
inability to listen to that inner voice has resulted in missing extraordinary and vital experiences.
To avoid irrevocably losing the crucial and vital experiences of our life we must tap into and
heed our inner voice.
We receive messages from society, from our work, from our friends and family all the
time. How do we tell which messages to heed? How can we determine which direction to
follow? The secret to determining the proper message is to undergo an internal inquisition of
looking within.
Looking within gives us the power to be aware of what goes on inside us, separating our
inner and outer worlds. Without being aware of, and knowing how to communicate with our
inner agenda, we can become very lost and disorientated. Learning how to examine our inner
existence offers us the opportunity to create incredible lives because validity is applied most
efficiently by looking within, which cultivates happiness internally.
In all of my travel to three different continents, and to myriad countries – such as Italy,
Greece, Spain, Peru, Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada, Turkey, Morocco, and Switzerland, to name a
few -- I have learned a valuable insight. You can have everything in the external world, but not
be happy. Looking within and addressing your internal needs is the path to realizing our own
verisimilitudes. By applying the awareness acquired from external travel and exploration, you
can know more about your inner verisimilitudes. This internal travel provides access your
intrinsic truths that allow you to receive profound guidance.
By establishing your personal power you will exude more confidence, have more success,
create more authentic relationships, and jump ahead of problems because you will understand
where you are going and how you will get there. The key to acquiring personal power is looking
within. When you look within, you put yourself in position for pivotal change. From this
intuitive fulcrum, you can understand what you need and how to make the change internally.
Everything originates internally – in the mind. The greatest writers, thinkers, and
analysts agree on the power and unlimited potential of the mind. Great philosopher Heraclitus
reminds us that “To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong
and some right.” In other words God doesn’t create the polarities of good and bad; right and
wrong; instead, they are man-made fabrications. Shakespeare exemplifies the perspective-
altering power of the mind with this famous quote: “There is nothing good or bad, but thinking
makes it so” (Shakespeare). Philosophers to playwrights agree it is true that any situation or task
has the potential to be amazing, but can also become negative and depressing – depending on
what we choose the situation to become. We can transform folding clothes into an enlightening
experience, if we make it meaningful in our mind. Even love, as Anthony Robbins points out, is
simply a state created by the mind: “Love is a state, and like all states, all results, it is produced
by specific sets of actions or stimuli when they are perceived and represented in certain ways”
(Anthony Robbins 105). This is a crucial point. Something as powerful and poignant as love is
a creation of the mind. Love is a decision – not an emotion. American actress, Mae West, said
2 Inner Voice, Inner Guide / 17
“love isn’t an emotion or an instinct – it’s an art”. If we know that love is a state that we have the
power to induce or turn on or “off” by looking within, then we can do the same with fear.
Similarly, fear, like love, is a perceptual state where our interpretation of events induces a
state of uneasiness. We can turn off this internal state by looking within and simply altering our
reaction to the stimuli and change fear into courage. This internal pivot is where the nascence
for our positive changes must originate. Using this internal guidance, of our inner voice, we will
have more control over life because we will understand what we want to do with it and how to
avoid fear and achieve your goals. Additionally, we will become more socially enticing and
even more popular because people will be drawn to the genuinely sincere and motivated energy
and power that we command. Let me show you how to conquer your inner doubts and cultivate
your personal power by looking within.
The primary method used to create certainty with your inner voice is to understand that
the inner voice can be utilized in a variety of formats initially, it can:
Inciting Motivation
Be a Powerful Reconciliation
Cultivate Relationship with Inner World
Synchronize the Inner Self (with Colors)
Reveal Inner Tenacity by
Make Happiness Tangible with Childhood Self
relationship, athletic ambition, or health goal – are problematic, yet simple. These mental blocks
are problematic because they force your life into unhelpful patterns, where your only option is to
continue wishing for that desire, instead of taking action. The simplicity of these problems lies
in one single common vein -- invalidity.
You may not even be aware of its harmful and restricting presence, but this restrictive
specter that jeopardizes your ability to lead a fulfilled and incredible existence, dominantly
controls your mind’s validity and forces you into patterns of invalidity, many times,
unbeknownst to you. You can provide clarity about your doubts by looking within and asking
yourself “Why don’t I always have these goals?” After learning how to engage your inner
doubts and rewire your negative feedback patterns, you will not be asking, “Why can’t I live in a
place that doesn’t leak and is more glamorous?” Instead you will be deciding which color to
paint the glamorous French doors that you just had installed in your enormous mansion. In other
words, your questioning process will transform from “How do I achieve this goal?” to “What
should I do now that I already have achieved this goal; what should my next goal be?” Do you
see the difference in the train of logic and thought process? The ritualized patterns of the first
reference become cramped and self-defeating, while the second reference reveals a pristine token
of validity. It is time to uplift these deleterious roots, relay your emotionally toxic doubts and
tendencies, and transform your desires and wishes into pursuits with authentic results. To best
accomplish this, we must do a little emotional and interpersonal digging.
Section 3: Interpersonal Digging
For the longest time, I emphasized building on my weaknesses, to balance out my
personality, making me “Mr. Versatile”. I put so much time into being a jack-of-all trade that I
performed, at least a mediocre level, with nearly every endeavor. This versatility, certainly,
provided me with a multitude of options, but it also instilled an intricate complexity in my life –
it was difficult to pursue my strengths! For example, when it came time to figuring out my
strengths for the need of picking a major, I was caught off-guard because I had neglected my
strengths for so long. Because the quality of my talents had reached a plateau – all of them being
equal – the difficulty to determine my strengths forced me to examine my past and remember
that I had always been good at English and at intuitively understanding people. Honing in on
and being naturally aware of your talents, and inner gifts, is one of the crucial points to knowing
your self and a key concept to accessing your inner voice. Knowing your inner strengths
becomes a process of looking within.
When I was frustrated with sorting out my strengths and weaknesses, I immediately
remembered my love of interacting with people. It was a huge wake-up call in arousing my
awareness because by consciously appreciating that admiration, I found myself instantly at peace
with my goals. If you hate people, you won’t get anywhere in life. Understanding how to relate,
and even to cope with people who attempt to sway or alter you, allows you to fully integrate your
functionalities with your own agenda. If you can genuinely enjoy relationships, this produces a
fantastic opportunity for connecting with people. This humanitarian appreciation was something
that I had to interpersonally dig up, but remembering this was crucial to overcoming my own
obstacles.
People can very often get in the way of our plans. For the longest time, I tried
minimizing my interaction with people to try to develop plans that were easily accomplished on
my own. I felt that athletics was a way to allow myself to achieve goals without people.
However, I ran into people in races or at the gym, had to share lane lines at the pool, and I
needed a team to play soccer, basketball, and baseball. Alternatively, I turned to books – locking
myself up in the language and perspective of another author -- but then I found myself wanting
to share my opinions and hear how others related to the plot or phrasing of the book.
2 Inner Voice, Inner Guide / 19
It became very clear to me that whatever endeavors, life path, or profession, (whatever
you want to call it) you choose, there will be the inevitability of working and interacting with
people. Sometimes, to find poignancy and meaning in those interactions, we must dig for
answers within our emotional selves. The purpose – one of the grandest – in life, is to
understand how people help your endeavors and harmonize with your choices, so they act as
gentle aids along the way. This is not saying people should be stepping stones, but they certainly
shouldn’t be roadblocks or emotional, mental, or physical walls either. Like cilia on the inside of
a lung which gently directs the flow of oxygen and carbon dioxide with each inhalation and
exhalation, people should gently guide and help each other on their life path – with each and
every breath.
The Trek
The chime of our rhythmic footsteps
Befuddles me.
For,
We endure and puncture the shambles of brambles
So merrily,
And purge the sweet-smelling greenery.
After surviving the heinous weather, tough climbs, and rough physical demands of the
hiking excursion, the thirteen hikers and myself did become wiser, stronger, and bolder. But in
dealing with the powerful challenges, our collective maturity and overall companionship reached
new heights, and we were more open to hearing each other’s opinions, as well. In addition to
hearing the voice of the group, I heard my own inner voice more clearly on that trip. It was
during that excursion, nearly four years before writing this book, that I first crafted the mental
outline for this book. Taking a month in the wilderness was the first step I needed to clear my
head, hear my inner voice, and, envision the craft of validity for Validate Your Life, giving
cognitive birth to this book. But any activity based on looking within – from meeting an old
friend on the bus to taking a walk in the park – can initiate the fermentation of ideas that enhance
your life.
risking the relationship to come tumbling down in an emotionally expensive and trying break-up.
This negative kind of fear and skepticism affects his daily life by preventing him from seriously
dating any women. The extremely unfortunate thing here is that he did not have an awareness of
his hesitancies in relationships. Because of this unawareness, he dates someone for a while, and,
as if from an automatic response mechanism, he then subconsciously creates reasons to dislike
that person. He begins to nit-pick and find all the bad things in the person so the relationship
won’t become more involved, where the risk of emotional pain in a break-up could be greater.
His entire lifestyle is cramped because he cannot trust himself enough to put time into a
meaningful relationship.
This is a dangerous condition that, despite its severity, can, luckily, be cured by looking
within. His lack of trust can only be addressed by internally examining the source of the
problem. After understanding that he had been holding on to the worry of a relationship that
ended six years ago, he must work to dissolve the negative energy. Finally, he must look within
and validate his positive intentions and heal the wound, to find a new partner. After realizing his
invalidating pattern, he had the opportunity to examine his maladaptive patterns and resurrect his
passion for relationships from an entirely new and inspiring angle. The ability to look within
allowed him to relinquish his inner doubts.
expression of exuberance, thinking that shouting enthusiasm was too illogical. Additionally, I
didn’t want to disturb other people, and made up some lame excuse about a sore throat.
Just recently, I kicked the habit up again, and I tried the “whoop” while running. Amidst
heavy breathing and a determined stride, I managed to wheeze out a passionate “I love life”, and
I seriously felt my body uplifted. Consciously I thought about turning around to see if a gust of
wind was rustling leaves, and that was what pushed me. Unconsciously, I knew it was almost
like a grace of god’s hand pushing me as a result of my commitment to life. I felt physiological
changes, my spine arched back, shoulders relaxed, head perked up, arms moved in unison, and
my legs had more rhythm, but I couldn’t’ get over the intense push sensation. I felt I had
received an actual push, as though some invisible hand were shoving me forward, or some
intangible gale propelling me down the road. I realized then, that if you commit to your life, and
not squander it, but truly validate it, you get help along the way – huge help.
Now, before I went on this magically enervating and invigorating run, emotionally I felt
like I was in a slight rut and almost called up some old colleagues whom I didn’t trust all that
much, but needed a connection. Instead of doing that I went for this run and, literally uplifted
my spirit, and was refreshed with some clarifying new awareness. I remembered how powerful
it is to say to yourself while whooping, “I love life!” If I hadn’t gone for a run, I would’ve
rejoined with the people that I didn’t really trust and probably have ended up in a rut again. So it
shows how actual physiological changes and real-time alterations can occur by saying “I love
life!” and validating your commitment to whatever endeavor you pursue. A powerful element
inhibiting us from committing to life is the expectance of gratitude. Let’s learn to lead a more
liberating life by not expecting recognition.
The best method to alter one’s interface in dealing with the lack of gratitude is to become
benevolent: “let’s remember that the only way to find happiness is not to expect gratitude, but to
give for the joy of giving” (Carnegie 137). By altering our motives to be more aligned with
benevolence and giving, and by abandoning the “toughing it out” theory, we will reside in
greater authenticity. From this authenticity we will have a higher aptitude to “give for the sake
of giving”.
could say my cold had made me see some odd things, but this was an authentic experience. I had
never noticed my entire visual perception change in hue. It felt like my eyes altered in picture,
saturation, and tint, so that my optical experience was only showing blue shades. For the first
90% of the race, I remember seeing everything as blue, and experiencing a very calm, peaceful,
Zen-like experience. The last 10% of the race – the remaining 200m of the 1600m run, I
experienced yet another drastic shift in my color perception. I had my entire visual experience
become a reddish hue as I sprinted in the final straightaway of the race. This change in color was
incredibly jolting because it felt as thought someone was fooling around with the wiring in my
occipital lobe (the lobe used for visual senses in my brain). After having this color-altering
experience, I became fascinated with the meaning behind these colors. What could they mean?
I soon had more brief experiences where my visual experience appeared to be blue or red,
sometimes green or yellow, as well. Did blue always signify that my mind was in a peaceful
state, my emotions in a trance of equanimity and tranquility? I saw the red when I was gunning
it in the last few meters of that mile run and when I was arguing very passionately for something
I really wanted.
One of the most interesting aspects of utilizing your voice is creating an interesting and
engaging relationship with the colors you experience. Many New Age spiritualists believe in
something called Chakras to symbolize connection and association areas of their body. Chakra
means spinning “wheel of light” and have different colors, locations, and rotational spins
associated with each area. The interesting element to focus in on with the Chakra system is the
presence of colors during a certain type of connection. The generic identification of what each
color typically means is displayed below (from Monica Palmer’s, “Body Alignment”)
Purple— Located at crown; purple signifies a beyond words connection with the universe and
cosmic energies; represents pure being
Indigo -- Located at forehead; indigo symbolizes “knowing” of being where spiritual matters are
passed down to the rest of the body; represents knowing of being
Blue -- Located at throat; blue shows the transformation of emotions into expression and deals
with everything related to sound on physical and metaphysical level and provides space for self-
reflection; represents expression of being
Green -- Located at heart; green shows the generation of feeling as though you can love freely
without fear and self-consciousness; represents loving beyond the self
Yellow -- Located at Solar Plexus; shows where personality is formed with combination of
feeling (impulses and desires) and being; represents formation of being
Orange -- Located at Lower abdomen; orange shows where sexual, creative and pure emotions
arise and the free flow of emotions between friends is possible; represents reproduction of being
Red -- Located at root; red links the individual to the physical world where “being” is accepted
and is a foundation to evolve and build personality emphasizing survival and expression;
represents physical entity.
Now, while a lot of the Chakra advocates believe very strongly in the presence of these
wheels – more so than the actual physical body parts – I still prefer to take a more logical,
neurological approach to improving one’s life. However, if you look within and examine the
26 / Validate Your Life
relationship with these colors to your life, you can find very revealing things about what you
need to work on. Is your expression open? What color (spiritual area) do you most commonly
reside in? By understanding the color system I realized that first portion of that track meet (blue)
was a form of expression where I was relating with celerity and very strong lucidity to the
physical, emotional, and spiritual world. When my place and time was threatened in the last
200m of that race, I switched into my survival, foundation mode (red) and had almost a physical
response to the race. Because colors could vary in meaning or hue for some people, they should
not be relied on entirely by themselves, but they certainly allow for some creative inspiration
from a didactic attempt at introspection.
“A humble spirit does not ask for more than it needs, and what it needs, the Universe provides.
A humble spirit is content with the fulfillment of its authentic needs, and is not burdened with
artificial needs.” (Zukav 226).
These artificial needs, like violence or harm, are not part of a truly humble person’s
spectrum – artificial needs and harm are absent from his or her vocabulary as much as his or her
capacity. They are incapable of living a malicious, self-centered, artificial life. Finally, the
humble spirit has the capacity to tap into power center that makes them have a timeless, centered
relationship with life where the opportunities they receive are always appreciated (because a
humble person will recognize the vitality of such a gift). The power of the humble spirit knows
“the quality of the immortal, giving that is not impeded by fear or vulnerability, a timeless soul
not bounded by personality and body, and does not care about the size or color or shape of what
they receive. (Zukav 226). The person who embraces humility has conviction, sincerity, and
knowledge, and the ability to undergo inquisition so that their life is not bound by debilitating
physical body.
Truly humble souls are the only people that can experience healthy competition. So
many people seek victory, glory, and a way to beat a foe. But victory is lost after an instant,
glory is fleeting, and beating a foe is only losing against yourself. Humility allows you to
“compete” (it can’t be really called competition because of the traditional connotations of the
word) with giving a select conscience that ensures the expansiveness of the Universe. Humble
competition opens a conduit that ensures the articulation of your soul: “If what you seek is the
joy of giving without reservation, of giving with purpose and joy and consciousness all that you
have to the effort that you and other souls creating jointly, you competition is the expression of
your soul.” (Zukav 226). In this light of “competition”, antagonism is out of the equation
because you aren’t competing with anyone but your self and that personal competition isn’t even
a war or struggle, but the charged and electrified pristine expression of your spirit.
The purpose of giving must be connected to certainty in our process of moving away
from existing as a body with a spirit and becoming a spiritual person with a body. That
transformation is a change that is ideological, reflecting your outlook and opinions, as much as it
is behavioral, reflecting your lifestyle and tendencies. One of the most effective maneuvers in
making that change is seeking out and creating a perpetually benevolent atmosphere of giving.
Any emphasis on one-way giving then receiving must be abandoned. I never feel comfortable
just receiving. The most optimal situation is one where one is giving in an atmosphere of giving;
an empowering environment where everyone is so actively engaged in giving that everyone is
perpetually and instantaneously receiving everything and then giving it all away. This harmonic
exchange of extremes is the most effective, challenging, and the most spiritual dance imaginable.
When we allow such an enigmatic dance of gusto and fervency to organically generate, we open
doorways to new forms of spiritual growth and humanitarian evolution. This expansion isn’t
myopic or debilitating because it expounds off the dance, but draws from its energy, not
depleting it, but simply generating momentum from it, like a fish generates momentum from the
propulsion of its fin against the water, not the water itself. Catalyzing the exchange of our
rhythm with our personal connection enunciates and authenticates our every action, word, and
intention. Rejoice in our artistic creativity, relinquish it with a spirit of gratitude, and savor the
surrender with passion!1
When we discriminate our strengths for the sake of ensuring that we don’t show off, we
harmfully limit our potential. If people consider your actions arrogant or boasting that is their
problem and certainly not your issue. We must learn to discriminate against the inner Judge
(discussed in Ch. 10 and 16) that cripples us, but not against our inner strengths and intuition.
One method to discriminate against these negative concepts is to become aware of what we
really are drawn to, and to understand our sensitive emotional reactions by examining the
28 / Validate Your Life
majestic beacon and navigational power of our inner voice. One of the best ways to access and
harness our powerfully aligned inner expression is by relating to the “child-like” portion of
ourselves. This portion may be labeled as “immature”, but many will agree that the child within
us becomes a huge conduit for activating the inner voice.
Many people consider acting like a child to be puerile and foolish, Alexander Pope
whittily reminds us that “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. Accessing our inner child is
one of the most sophisticated sources of creativity and anything but foolish. But even if you do
label the inner child as foolish, at the very least children rush in to situations where others would
be impeded by fear. A child’s ability to completely cope with and dispel fear is remarkable.
However, it can be a heartbreaking struggle for us to arrive at a place where we are no longer
afraid of the child inside us. We often fear that people won’t take us seriously, or that they won’t
think us qualified enough.” (Nachmanovitch 50). The ability to open up and reveal your
vulnerable inner child is the greatest form of liberation, but incredibly frightening because it is
total vulnerability. The best way to cope with this vulnerable openness is to not care if people
will take you “seriously” or “qualified”, abandon seriousness and qualifications when you are
dancing with the inner child, and true absence of fear will arise. Dr. Dale Carnegie points out the
incredible benefit to realizing that the things we worry about rarely happen. He pointed out how
Lloyd’s of London, an insurance company, has been remaining in business for over 200 years, by
relying on people’s worries (people need to get insured). If people didn’t worry, the famous
Lloyd’s would go bankrupt. Children, however, have little of these worries because they simply
exchange their emotions and fears in real-time. A child expresses his or her fear through the
outlet of expression by whining, complaining, crying or some other form of expression. This
positive form of communication dispels their fear, when so many of us try hiding our worries,
instead of coping with and eradicating them. There exists true power in maintaining the role of a
child.
“Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter the Kingdom of
Heaven.”
--Jesus Christ
This quote was said by one of the most paramount religious figures in the world. The
sayings of Jesus direct us to listen to our childhood voice and essentially be the child, trapped
within the aging body. One of the most respected religious figures in existence stresses the
significance of the liberated role of a sensitive youngster, residing in the heaven of childhood.
The child’s mind in the adult’s body is the most beneficial combination because we have all the
privileges, lack of restrictions, and judgment of adulthood, but with the inspirational dynamo of a
child.
Additionally, Kahlil Gibran, the famous author of the deeply spiritual book, The Prophet,
points out that children have a dynamically changing and incessantly alive component to their
essence that is completely intangible: “You may give them your love, but not your thoughts. For
they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls
dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, even in your dreams” (Kahlil; Children).
Talk about a well-protected reservoir of creativity and inspiration. The soul of a child already
always resides in the future – the tomorrow – making it unblemished by the past, and it incapable
of being imprisoned, debilitated, or criticized by the present because even in one’s dreams a
child’s pristine soul cannot be accessed. This reason alone doesn’t provoke esoteric sentiments;
instead, it is clear why we must become connected with our inner child voice – it provides us
with an unwavering source of resilient originality (with own thoughts) and unexploitable
compassion (from dynamic souls that cannot be manipulated). According to Gibran, children
2 Inner Voice, Inner Guide / 29
truly are delicate, well-protected, masterpieces of enlightenment and engaged liberation, and we
must never discard that source of emotional freedom by neglecting our own child-voce.
When we are kids, young children, we are the most emotionally expressive of ourselves
and most enthusiastic. Etymologically, enthusiasm means “filled with theos – filled with God”
(Nachmanovitch 50). When you are enthusiastic don’t bottle up this spiritual force because other
people don’t appear “revved up” as you. Express the enthusiasm as if you were speaking to a
wall or an engaged audience; in other words turn off the impact of people that debilitate or cramp
your creative expression.
When a child is hurt, he or she screams; when he or she is happy, they giggle; and when
they are tired, they conk out and go to sleep. The crucial combination, however, is play and the
inner child: “It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be
creative and use the whole personality. This access to our entire personality – just like access to
our mind, which is limited to only 10%, with a few exceptions like Einstein – covers a very
confined spectrum. We must tether play with our childhood self to become “Einstein’s of
personality” – individuals who master the balance of more than 10% of their personality.
Balance can be considered to be “continuous adjustment of continuous change” (Nachmanovitch
48). When we make to-do lists and priorities we are planning the adjustments to later produce
change, but the process is anything but instanteous. The instantaneous mastery of balance is a
craft only possessed by the inner child. For that reason alone – of balance – we must connect
with our childhood self.
One of the most important qualities to accessing our inner child is “having technique to
burn” (Nachmanovitch 44). When you have numerous artistic outlets, a musician who has high
aptitude for playing the piano, organ, flute, and violin, for example, has “technique to burn” –
they have a capacity for generating enormous amounts of creative expression because they have
outlets for their art. “A would be artist may have profound visions, and insights, but without
skill there is no art. Skill creates a conduit, an outlet for the artistic expression. If one is
extremely grounded, but lacks stability of their self, they have countless outlets, but no internal
creative source. The person who has an endless supply of artistic creativity and knowledge, for
example, but not outlets, has an immensely stable personality, but lacks groundedness, A
grounded (possessing outlets) and stable (possessing intrinsic creativity) personality is created by
the intrinsically satisfying nature of play and the access to the child self. The inner child
generates the creativity, the nature of play creates the artistic connections and outlets. The
emotions of a child are most realistically expressed with vivid animation, and it is a well-defined
veracity that children are some of the most in-touch beings with their feelings. So many adults
neglect their emotions, discarding them for the sake of finishing a project, making the sell, or
pursuing the client. You should scrap the tendency toward a debilitating, patterned, and habitual
lifestyle associated with a “mature” disposition because it shadows the power of being a child.
Make the adamant decision that you will always be inhabited not just by vigorous youth, but also
by the curiosity and emotional freedom of a child. Dr. Wayne Dyer points out that “Geniuses
and children share a willingness to explore without thoughts of failure or worries about
criticism”. The openness of a child unlocks incredible resources. Unlocking the inner child is
clearly a way to harness your hidden potential from a generative source of creativity.
I have, obviously, grown and changed since I was a child; instead of riding my bike
around the block four times, I ride 40 miles; instead of writing a one-page homework
assignment, I write hundreds of pages of a book; instead of analyzing and contemplating about
what I am going to eat for dinner, I analyze and contemplate about world politics, self-
fulfillment, and the interconnectedness of technology and humanity. Despite all of this
quantitative growth, I am still, qualitatively, the same person who rides his bike around the
block, does one-page homework assignments, and analyzes his dinner options, but with more
30 / Validate Your Life
experience. Experience can provide growth, but the child-hood memories are crucial in order to
substantiate the belief that the child component is still a part of us. Our inner child is not a thing
of the past, but a voice of the present. After all, accepting creativity and converting the mindset
of the child becomes our ticket into the Kingdom of Heaven! The inner Judge negatively tells
us to “move on and forget that immature childish stuff”, but only by embracing that child
mindset, can we truly experience joy and happiness.
The ability to create new ideas, invent concepts, and think outside the normative box is in
effect to have the mind of a child.
One of the greatest minds and arguably one of the most original thinkers ever to exist,
Albert Einstein, fervently understood the importance of growth through the mind of a child.
Einstein said the proper purpose of education “is to develop the childlike inclination for play, the
childlike desire for recognition, and to guide the child over to important fields.” The inventor
himself reveals that he developed his world-changing theory of relativity and hundreds of other
inventions by cultivating his childlike curiosity. By honing his childlike inventive eye and
guiding it toward recognizable and important fields, he created some of the most revolutionary
inventions. The important “fields” that Einstein spoke of were, for him, obviously, physics,
universe theory, and concepts relating to energy and matter, but the point is for you to define
your own area of interest. By guiding our childlike curiosity, originality, and creativity to
significant and crucial areas, Einstein says that a new invention or incredible idea becomes
almost a guaranteed inevitability. It is clear that we must never neglect the potential of the
directed childlike mind, and that it can produce extraordinarily original, and lucidly awakening
results.
The adaptation capabilities of your inner child produce remarkable reservoirs of freedom.
The child doesn’t pick up a catalog and order extra Legos™ when he is trying to build a toy
space station. Instead, he will use some construction paper to create the toy without having to
leave is own room. The child is an expert at doing what is possible within the bounds of location
and possessions.
Listening to the adaptive potential of our childhood inner voice directly aids you in
leadership and your ability to cope because you instantaneously become more authentic. When
you listen to your inner voice you are truly listening to the combination of your intuition and
intellect, harnessed through an unprejudiced interpretation. Teddy Roosevelt once said:
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
--Theodore Roosevelt
This adage illustrates the perfection in Roosevelt’s thinking, but more importantly, it
depicts the potency of utilizing your inner voice.
When you listen to your inner voice you are capable of creating incredible combinations
of answers for powerful solutions. Take the example of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders of
1898. This voluntary cavalry unit was composed of Ivy League athletes, polo players, Princeton
football players, trail-wise cowboys, English aristocracy members, club singers, academic
Rhodes Scholars, Texas Rangers, and Pawnee Americans. If this isn’t the definition of eclectic, I
don’t know what is.
All cultural, educational, societal, and ethnic boundaries were chopped down for the sake
of patriotism; everyone merged together regardless of social class for the same purpose. By
seeing beyond segregating boundaries and listening to his inner voice, Roosevelt unified one of
the most wide-ranging cultural groups in existence and harnessed their energy, productively
leading the Spanish-American war multiple times. Twenty-three thousand people applied to ride
with Roosevelt, showing how he was such a respected person with incredible leadership skills.
2 Inner Voice, Inner Guide / 31
Most importantly, however, people were drawn to Roosevelt’s ability to look within and
discover the unity amongst segregated people.
Abandoning the intuitive awareness of our inner child is extremely deleterious, and,
unfortunately, is a common and erroneous occurrence. In actuality, discarding your childhood
voice remains, in itself, despite the societal perspective, an excruciatingly immature maneuver
because you abandon the powerfully sensitive gifts of observation – internal and external – that a
child possesses. Maturing is about systematically evolving the expression of your sensitive
emotions so you validate them in correlation with your society, family, work environment, and
community. We must build and nurture positive virtues in children, by gradually building up
their ability to understand gratefulness. Dale Carnegie points out, “that gratitude is a
“cultivated” trait; so if we want our children to be grateful, we must train them to be grateful.
The learning starts at childhood, and must remain a part of one’s emotional system.
The childlike voice shines through in terms of curiosity and mood, as well. Children are
rarely depressed because of their constant interest in the world. Dale Carnegie points out that
there exists an extremely effective method in overcoming depression quickly and efficiently:
“forget about yourself by becoming interested in others. Every day do a good deed that will put
a smile of joy on someone’s face”. What a perfect description of resorting to your inner child-
hood voice this bit of advice is. Isn’t a child always inquisitive, seeking answers, and captivated
by other people and his or her outside world? Carnegie recommends taking on attributes similar
to a young child as a cure for depression. I recommend the same remedy to cure invalidation.
As you progress in age, you move beyond (hopefully) simply screaming, whining, or
giggling as the mechanism for expressing your emotions. The trick is to maintain your
childhood intuition and emotional clarity, making you a truly holistic person. You can’t validate
your emotions if you aren’t aware of them, which is why you must hang on to you childhood
awareness. However, you won’t be able to get anywhere in the business, athletic, societal, or
academic world if you only whine, giggle, or scream to express your emotions. Therefore, your
capacity for expression must maturely grow around the embodiment of your childhood
expression; you must keep the child-hood creativity and sensitivity but the emotionally
intelligent skills of an adult. Maturing around and with your childhood embodiment is the valid
growth pattern because it will possess a greater intuitive knowledge base.
With the childlike grasp of the zeitgeist, you can connect and perceive what is missing in a
situation – be it in society, nation, community, science, religion, or politics -- and then fill in the
gaps by cultivating a solution from your creative resources like a child. Harnessing the creativity
of the child in the bubble of the adult framework is preparing to embark on an incredibly
liberating journey of inspiration and original thinking. Activating the childlike voice becomes
one of the many ways to utilize the inner voice.
accomplishment. To relinquish insecurities about scientifically unsupported myths and use them
as a vehicle for dreams revealed the remarkable capacity of belief. Authentic beliefs can only
originate by looking within and examining your internal source. One of the Peruvian intentions
was to cultivate a deep heritage and produce cultural roots that were pure. By relinquishing their
doubts and embracing the myths, they achieved this dream. The remarkable part of this
accomplishment is how they leveraged the unlimited potential of having a distinct belief,
originating from the act of looking within that drives and motivates dreams.
In addition to the fulfillment of dreams, you will find that you are capable of some
remarkable predictions if you maintain a consistent trust in your intuitive expression of the inner
voice. Take the example of late 19th century writer, Morgan Robertson. He wrote a novel about
a ship called the “Titan” that sank on its first, maiden voyage when it hit an iceberg, and
Robertson’s fictional “Titan” even contained insufficient lifeboats. This book was written 14
years before the “Titanic” sank. Not only does this story remarkably resemble the real sinking of
the Titanic, the fictional “Titan” and the real-life “Titanic” both had the same tonnage! Now,
this is a clear example of how by allowing yourself to internally inquire, you create a directed
and aligned intuition. Sure, Robertson may have been involved in the shipping industry and
overheard plans of building the great Titanic, but crafting a novel that was historically accurate
14 years into the future, is a remarkable display of looking within and experiencing the powers
of inquisition, regardless of one’ resources. Robertson’s account was made more than realistic –
it was nearly a harbinger of the fate of the Titanic.
To begin pursuing your dreams, goals, and aspirations, you must examine your internal
patterns to determine what is poignant for you. Instead of having them remain a fantasy, you can
alter these patterns and make them real by looking within. This is accomplished by taking action
to dissolve the harmful, restricting invalid loops within your decision-making process. Along
with the aid of exercises from Chapter one and the information on passion you will learn in the
next chapter, you will quickly feel the uplifting effects of validation.
Taking this action is crucial for any type of growth. In his book, Feeling Good, Dr.
David Burns refers to a crippling depression-inducing state called “Do-Nothingism”. Do-
Nothingism is where non-action and lethargy lead to increased depression. According to Dr.
Burns, when experiencing “Do-Nothingism”, you, “[lie] around in bed all day long…courting
negative thoughts (Burns 83). When experiencing Do-Nothingism, obviously, you do nothing,
but this condition becomes so dangerous because you make it increasingly more difficult to take
action. This is similar to compound interest in a bank account. Instead of compounding savings,
however, you compound depressed inactivity. The more you “invest” in doing nothing and not
taking action, the more depressed and negative you become. Eventually you will have
accumulated a ton of depressing “interest”. You do not want to experience this harmful and
crippling condition, so you must look within and motivate yourself internally.
The disposal of these negative tendencies takes place by initiating the right relationships
with the three states of life. In the Next Chapter, we will explore the three state- inducers -- pain,
pleasure, and neutrality -- and we will learn how to acquire rejuvenation with liberating
interpretations of passion. Let’s progress forward toward to revealing your passionate potential.
Chapter 3
Liberate
Your Passions
his chapter examines the relationship between happiness over time to correctly calculate
T and analyze your relationship to your passion. Because of the common misconceptions
regarding pleasure and pain and the frequent and deleterious misconstrued conceptions of
healthy relationships to happiness, this chapter will clarify any erroneous
misinterpretation. By analyzing the three states of our life, we understand the relationship
between conquering pain and engaging pleasure. The three states are:
Pleasure-Inducers
Neutrality-Inducers
Pain-Inducers
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of
principles.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
that produced the contentment. Similarly, you can find happiness when you are with your lover,
friends, co-workers, family, and colleagues but you have cultivated that joy. I am definitely not
saying that you shouldn’t pursue relationships. You must engage in relationships with a myriad
of varieties of different people, because this will give you high spirits and continue relating. You
can find that you are comical, passionate, or enthused around friends – men and women. You
may know that you are happy with the relationships that you have cultivated in your life.
However, you create the happiness and you and only you, through your earnest
eagarness, can continue to make yourself perpetually happy.
We must constantly ask ourselves “What is meaningful in our lives”, so that our time
goes to worthwhile causes. Applying the concept of relative ephemeral time (See Chapter 17:
Grasping Ephemeral Time) becomes extremely important to this idea. Additionally,
discriminating against the actions that do not promote joy creates an atmosphere positively
targeting passionate endeavors that lead to happiness, as well. We will learn how to respond
with discrimination or embracement by appropriately creating a unity of passions.
When we unite our passions, we, in reality, unite our soul. This unity forms a cohesive
and concrete bond between the broad ends of our life’s spectrum, tying together the vast variety
of our interests. Whenever we feel the need to fulfill a pointless obligation imposed by others or
ourselves, we must relinquish this obligation and follow our passions instead. Just as Emerson
pointed out, only our own passions and ourselves lead us to triumphant, glorious victory and
happiness, while our obligations simply bog us down.
You must completely eradicate any discrepancy and confusion from your life by allowing
yourself to intertwine your passions in an interconnected harmony with your daily tasks. Your
passions shouldn’t be accessed on the rare occasion far and few in between. Instead, you should
make everything fascinating, cohesive, alive and brilliantly awakened for every moment. That is
what you should strive for. But you won’t even have to strive for this if you accept your
passions and cohesively interconnect with the normal agenda of your life.
Embracing the moment as infinity becomes a crucial concept for the creation of
authentic, happiness without obligation that originates from yourself. We must always be
moving toward the creation of situations that make us happy. Through our creations, we can
craft the happiness and find validity within our pre-existing conditions. The five crucial points to
remember in order to liberate your passions and awaken yourself are:
This chapter will investigate all five of these dynamic tools to eradicate your fears and
essentially leave you with you passionate exuberance illuminating your direction.
desire for the neutral feeling not to diminish”2. Additionally, he says that we tend to discriminate
against feelings of pain and are drawn to actions that increase pleasure. This is how our
fundamental nervous system works on a physiological and psychological level. When we go to
the store we are drawn to foods that bring us pleasure, sometimes we develop a positive
attachment to them. In this case it is important not just to select foods that cause us pleasure, but
foods that produce nourishment and good health, as well.
We are beings naturally more inclined toward pleasure, instead of pain. In the primitive
Neanderthal days, our ancient ancestors would run from predators to avoid pain, and search for
food to feed and create pleasure. Similarly, when we go to a party and are immersed in a social
atmosphere, we are more inclined to avoid saying certain things that could cause us to commit a
social blunder, leading to embarrassment and emotional pain; we discriminate against the
suffering of embarrassment. However, without factoring in the risk and reward factor, we may
never take a risk of saying something in a social setting, trying something new, or taking a
different approach. Therefore, the significance of seeking out pleasure and avoiding pain needs
to be juggled, simultaneously, with weighing the risks and calculating the benefits of rewards.
However, the Dalai Lama points out an incredibly important point regarding attachment.
You can become too attached to anything – even discrimination. He writes, “A particularly
strong dislike of a person or group can cause one to be reborn in the country of one’s enemies
from a previous lifetime and develop hatred for one’s previous compatriots due to the attachment
involved in excessive discrimination” 3. You don’t have to believe in reincarnation to understand
the ramifications of this statement. The bottom-line is that overly discriminating upsets a
delicate equilibrium, causing a sensitive balance to fall apart. So, while discriminating against
the actions that produce pain is important, just as the Dalai Lama says, excessive amounts of this
discrimination can generate detrimental results – on a karmic, emotional, and mental plane. We
must remind ourselves that we are naturally inclined toward pleasure, but not to over-
discriminate pain, or risk disturbing the fine balance of attachment.
2
Dalai Lama. The Meaning of Life: Buddhist Perspectives on Cause and Effect. Boston:
Wisdom Publications, 2000.
3
Dalai Lama. The Meaning of Life: Buddhist Perspectives on Cause and Effect. Boston:
Wisdom Publications, 2000.
4
Dalai Lama. The Meaning of Life: Buddhist Perspectives on Cause and Effect. Boston:
Wisdom Publications, 2000.
36 / Validate Your Life
bring us neutrality and the things that bring us pleasure are karmic and emotional blunders as
well.
The Dalai Lama suggests our emotions and the course of our life flows readily over each
of these three entities. Where we embrace each of the three states without resistance; this will
offer us the most complete sensation of genuine happiness. Below in Exhibit 1-1 is a
mathematical representation of how the details of these three states appear visually.
Neutrality-Inducer
Quality and Quantity ooff
Pain-Inducer
Happiness
Exhibit 1-1. Get on the green track of happiness or fail to lead a fulfilled life. Always expand the
quality and quantity of happiness you experience by perpetually engaging pleasure-inducers
and things that keep our mood constant (neutrality-inducers) are the three states that can affect
our happiness. Even the Buddhist guru, Thich Nhat Hanh comments on our three types of
sensations: “There are pleasant sensations, others that are unpleasant, and neutral sensations”
(44). Instead of overly discriminating against these things, we need to create validating and
authenticating actions to put our lives in a pattern of happiness. When should we induce a
mentality that simple promotes the things that bring us up, relies on the neutrality-inducers for
stability, and abandons many of the things that bring us down? By creating situations where our
lives rely on more of the pleasure-inducers and neutrality-inducers, we avoid the attachment
dilemma because we do not have the problem of becoming too attached to something; we simply
take validating actions that promote circumstances where states of pleasure and/or states of
neutrality will occur more frequently than the pain-inducing states. So we don’t have to worry
about being reborn into our worst enemy’s family nor fear being a servant to our rival’s business
or something, if we avoid practicing over-discrimination. While the Buddhist perspective on
needing to validate your life is a bit in-depth, its points are extremely significant to the
construction of a validated life. To validate our pleasures we must understand how the balance
of the three state-inducers operates on a sentient level.
The way we conceptualize time causes us to make decisions that fit into a specific
schedule. When we plan a date, we look at our calendar. When we make a doctor’s
appointment, we check our schedule. So much of our day revolves around time. We know that
3 Liberate Your Passions / 37
we have the power to choose options that are pleasure-inducers, pain-inducers, or neutrality-
inducers, so let’s validate our pleasures so that we can choose the options that provoke
happiness. This way we will have the power of awareness to plan pleasure-inducing activities
into our date book.
Section 4: Validate Your Pleasures
For the longest time, I felt that being attached to things that only I was passionate about
and took pleasure in would frame my life with an outlet of negative Karma. I felt that if was
experiencing tons of fun, I would need to karmically “repay” this debt to balance the happiness
scales. I felt that everything was in a fine, delicate balance and having tons of enjoyment,
pleasure, and happiness would be taking out a debt that I would have to repay later in suffering.
However, I realized that it is important, no, more than important – imperative -- for us to
maintain our pleasures and pursue passions and things that make us happy. Abdulaziz Sachedina
examines the purpose of suffering and its exemplary role as a simple reminder: “Secularist
culture seems to be pushing us to conquer suffering as an evil. [The culture is] a reminder; the
culture is some kind of divine celestial intervention in human materialistic and consumeristic
concerns which are dragging us to believe that we can really overcome pain and suffering”
(Naisbitt 181). This states that suffering is not a problem that should be feared but an essential
step in overcoming our crippling attachment to material goods, and the pathway to true
happiness. Suffering is just an essential dip in the endlessly upward path towards happiness.
Just as a rollercoaster car needs to gather speed going down a declination so that it has enough
momentum to go upward (happiness), suffering sometimes plays the necessary role of creating
this momentum on the path toward happiness. This path is composed of pleasure, neutrality, and
suffering – all three states, and it is the combination of the three that leads to true happiness.
You can see below that, although at times, we may encounter dips of suffering and outlooks of
pleasure, these changes are all simply part of the process – a process we must embrace – of
constantly-increasing happiness.
38 / Validate Your Life
C
D
D
A B
Exhibit 1-2. Illustrates how points along the space-time continuum of our life are exponentially decreasing in
pain, while dynamically increasing in pleasure. Our dimension of happiness is always increasing.
You may need to recollect some of the elementary school graph-reading skills to
understand the Exhibit 1-2 chart, but in deciphering it, the enigma becomes clear. As you can
see, the quantity of pleasure at point A is much less than the amount at point C because of the
increased amount of happiness after the elapsed time between the two points, but they are both
episodes of pleasure. This type of cumulative happiness increase happens on the emotional,
physical, and spiritual plane. Take the physical, with running as an example. Have you ever
gone for a run, felt slow, cumbersome and painfully cramped? If you run through those cramps,
you almost always find yourself coasting smoothly, glad that you didn’t stop, and more
replenished at the end of the jog. The same is true spiritually. If you find yourself in a rut,
unable to communicate yourself or validate your pleasures, eventually you will have gotten
beyond this will, and, like the physical example, be residing in clarity.
The points A and C vary so much in the amount of pleasure because C is so far to the
right on the constantly increasing path of happiness. It’s a fact that pleasures become more
intertwined and activated through the dynamic process of change. Lucky or us humans, this path
of ever-increasing happiness is the path we are intrinsically on. Some of us may be farther up on
the trail, but we are all blessed with the course of this path. Embracing this concept is crucial to
establishing patterns of passion. Patterned passions can only occur by embracing the process and
validating pleasures.
By validating our pleasures we assimilate our passions. Instead of furthering the things
that produce anxiety, we will evoke our strengths. We simply will not be able to create an
enthusiastic passion, if we have not validated our pleasures, embraced suffering, and designated
a plan to eliminate our worries. These obstacles thwart our passions from cultivating exuberant
potential. However, we cannot cultivate a place of such talented capacity and excellence while
3 Liberate Your Passions / 39
being bogged down with turbulent emotions or worry of too much pleasure. Therefore, must
placate our apprehension and validate our delights.
I am not saying to lead a life of debauchery and abuse of pleasures, but to delicately
dance with the myriad joys of life. These copious little joys could be anything from an intimate,
liberating relationship, to a walk on the beach, to a cup of coffee in your favorite restaurant. We
must not let worrying too much about balance between pleasure or suffering impede us from
having our validation illuminate our life. Validation is one of the most powerful forms of
reconciliation, and we must allow its soothing, clarifying affects to take the most action possible
without the confinements of superfluous worry or reluctance toward our passions.
I realized that I am not obligated to lead a life of suffering and pleasure. Rather, I am
obligated to lead a life of pleasure, without excess and over-attachments. When you validate and
integrate your life, happiness and pleasurable enjoyment become so tangible. You must utilize
the suffering you have undergone and create a place where your passion and pleasure and
happiness, is not taken for granted, but runs strongly through the framework of your life. This
won’t spoil you or instill overbearing ego or pride, nor will you soon plummet into a valley of
suffering after coasting on the pedestal of pleasure; this pedestal is non-existent because it is not
a pedestal – there is nothing to fall from. You cannot escape your own ingenuity, and you must,
therefore, validate your pleasures. This is what this book is all about.
"We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in this world has been accomplished without
passion."
--Georg Hegel
Clearly, all successful activities – endeavors that generate vigor and sincerity – must
connect with passion in some way or another. One of the most sincere ways to connect with our
passions is to elaborate our pleasures in a healthy atmosphere of trust and direction.
For the longest time, I feared the pleasures in life, ironically, while most people avoided
suffering, because I was certain pleasures had to precede suffering, which, in a way, is an
indirect fear of the suffering. I was so afraid of pleasures because I strongly believed that
suffering would follow pleasure. While I believed in the intrinsic learning that occurred with
suffering, I didn’t want to be in pain. I played mental mind-games with myself, where my inner
criticism would kick in full blast, shouting internal disparagements. I would feel unqualified, as
though I wasn’t good enough for a situation, relationship, or pursuit.
With relationships, my internal criticism and fear of pleasures became horrendous. I
would make a fool of myself around a person, and I would end up making the invalid decision,
of dating (actually dating) a person that only liked me, instead of mutual affection. I did this out
of fear of rejection. I did this out of the fear of having too much pleasure. I did this out of
fearing to commit without knowing.
Fear had limited my options with relationships. If I had the certainty of their affection for
me, regardless of my impact on them, I would have felt more secure. However, without this
certainty, the emotional impact of fear was too great. Instead of validating my passions, I ended
up wasting my time in emotionally vacant relationships, where the only binding element was
physical attraction or intellectual conversation, but never the coexistence of a physical,
emotional, mental, and psychological connection. This also wasted the time of my partner
because they ended up loving someone that does not respond with mutual affection. I continued
to pursue these “relationships” with my emotions hanging by a hinge as if I were a door that did
not fit in a doorway, until I embraced the fear and committed without knowing, simply by
validating my pleasures.
Fear produces the positive change, only if we change origin the stimuli. If I changed my
fear of being rejected by displacing it to a fear of being in a relationship that was vacant and
40 / Validate Your Life
this creed of non-resistance because it has brought me so much clarity and connection. By
embracing a state non-resistance, we will lead a more fulfilling existence because we learn from
the lows to have more awareness of the highs. Let’s embrace the entire roller coaster. Begin to
authenticate challenges, instead of fight them. Let’s produce a metamorphosis, generating
awareness, balance, and the potential to transform one’s entire mentality of suffering from pain
to elation. All of these benefits become after-affects of leading a life of non-resistance.
Non-resistance, I should note, is not being a lifeless, undirected, disconnected leaf
blowing in the wind. Instead, it is being a tree firmly planted with strong roots possessing,
simultaneously, the strength of an Oak, but the resilience of a sapling. Non-resistance
encourages the past from the personalization of the present. By making the present tenacious to
our motivations we can swiftly customize the present to integrate the past. We must not lead a
fragmented life; we must learn to embrace suffering without resistance.
Suffering can provide a more fulfilling existence in many ways: “Through undergoing
small sufferings in this lifetime one can purify the karma of many ill deeds accumulated in
former lifetimes” (Dalai Lama 103). This mentality places one in a state similar to an accountant
-- constantly doing checks and balances on his karmic intentions and past actions. Being a
“karmic accountant” is not an erroneous perspective, but it should have boundaries. Don’t
become consumed by a rigid “checks and balances” system. Rather, cease worrying about
having too much or too little suffering and/or pleasure, and relinquish the fear altogether. This
makes us less imbalanced, because balance occurs naturally when fear is not present. Fear
distorts our conception of balance by making us awkwardly misaligned; recursively, this causes
us to deepen into a downward spiral away from equilibrium. Let’s break the degenerative cycle,
conquer fear, and eliminate worry. This cyclic pattern of destruction can be censored and
expelled with non-resistance.
For the longest time, I thought interacting with company I loved was such a rare bonus,
that during the few sparse times where I authentically enjoyed a group’s presence, I was actually
hesitant interact with them! This was a conjecture of continuing the suffering instead of
balancing it within my entire life. By examining the broad spectrum of life, I realized that I have
authentically enjoyed many people’s company. Mr. Abdulaziz Sachedina, a bioethicist, says, “I
am afraid we are not helping people overcome the fear of suffering” (Naisbitt 181). Overcoming
suffering should not be our objective, but embracing the entire life process – that should be our
essential goal.
It holds true that the difficulty and talent of understanding the big picture is essential to
enjoying every step of the process of happiness because it truly is a process, not a pathway with a
destination. We must not possess fear throughout this process, because fear is what transforms
suffering into hardship. Love can transform suffering into didactic challenge. Because you will
never find yourself one day permanently embalmed in happiness, residing in bliss, as though you
clicked on a light switch, we all must transform suffering into worthwhile experiences. This
transformation requires effort, however, and happiness is about cultivating the awareness to
appreciate this effort. This is accomplished by learning from the crags and challenges in your
path.
You learn from suffering and use the dips and bumps in the road to achieve a
souvenir of happiness. This souvenir symbolizes the growth and compassion that
happiness rewards. It is not the happiness itself that should be our existential aim, instead, it is
the souvenir that provides awareness of the path. Therefore we shouldn’t become enveloped or
over-engaged in the groove or niche of life, but zigzag around it, and occasionally in it, to be
constantly acquiring awareness of it. To experience our extraordinary happiness in life,
however, we must be aware of our designations and affirmations.
42 / Validate Your Life
Affirmations
3 Liberate Your Passions / 43
Simply saying these affirmations leads to producing more and more confidence and
clarity. The correspondence with these two qualities leads to more validation on a regular basis,
producing even more certainty and the ability to self-empower one’s self. The simple repetition
of these five affirmations and the three designations establishes the openness to change and the
process and solutions of how to activate successful, fun, creative, and poignant living. Sure, you
can say that planning, and looking “down the line’ to examine your future, checking your
bearings and seeing mistakes you’ve made so you don’t capriciously jump into something, is
important, but we can truly only validate our pleasures by stating our affirmations and
designations to ourselves. In order to stabilize the tier of rich self-confidence facilitated by
stating our affirmations and designations, we must eradicate worry.
living hell, worrying so much that they couldn’t interact with their friends or family. To aid
these people in avoiding unrealistic worry, he told them to rely on the “law of averages”.
The “law of averages” is a mathematical law that realistically assesses the probability that
an event will actually occur. Using the “law of averages”, Carnegie points out that one crucial
step to counter-acting this worry is simply to examine our past record: “Let’s ask ourselves:
‘What are the chances, according to the law of averages, that this event that I am worrying about
will ever occur?” (Carnegie 88). This self-interrogation is extremely effective in eliminating
unnecessary and irrational worry because 99% of the things we worry about, actually, never
happen. Carnegie uses reason and rational laws to eliminate the superfluous and unnecessary
worries.
Dale Carnegie encourages us to “not allow ourselves to be upset by the small things we
should despise and forget. Remember ‘life is too short to be little’”(Carnegie 82). When we fret
the petty, we forget to expand. Instead we live our rigid life in confined, cramped, isolated
spaces because we consider this approach to be safer when dealing with “little things”. I have a
good friend, Josh Petty, who always wears a soothing shirt with a funny linguistic play on his
last name: “Don’t seat the petty, pet the sweaty.” Although someone cheesy, this comical
reminder is a great example of avoiding worries that on average or pointless considerations. We
must remember these gems from Mr. Carnegie so we can enjoy life in its expansive fulfillment.
One of the greatest experts I have ever met at not worrying is my brother, Thomas. My
brother is truly incredible at non-attachment and having a very wise, practical approach to life.
His ability to embrace not worrying is truly a rare gift, and you can see it in the way he lives.
From the way he shoots down the basketball court and makes a three pointer, to his non-stressed
and confident approach to making decisions. He is truly a master when it comes to living one’s
life clearly and peacefully. Sure, he has his tough times, and rough decisions, like everyone, but
his incredibly strong approach to not worrying, has led him to a position where he puts more
time in enjoying life than worrying about it.
No matter what the situation, he simply does not provoke himself to worry, and always
has the lackadaisical attitude. He is anything but a slacker, always doing assignments with
intention and punctuality, but he never accumulates residual worry either. His most renowned
phrase is “whaatt-eeva”. Saying “whaatt-eeva” has become a phrase and a mentality around my
family. The nonchalant, carefree tone and the blithe voice that my brother uses as he says
“whaatt-eeva”, to almost any circumstance, is truly remarkable. Because of his “whatever”
approach, he has one of the must unrestricted, Zen-like personalities I have ever met. When
most people would be panicked about which high school to attend, especially out of six different
acceptances, Thomas casually says is famous phrase, “whaatt--eeva”, as though he intuitively
knows it will get worked and there is no point in fretting over little stuff. This intuitive
commitment is precisely the essential case; what you cannot decide now, your intuition will
eventually manufacture the solution without struggle or anxiety. This poem surmises the validity
of saying “whatever”, not producing worry, and committing to the intuitive resolution:
Worrying is what creates the problem out of normal circumstances and situations. In
other words, whatever problem you have, there is not reason to worry about it because you will
find a solution and solve the problem or not find the solution and walk away form the dilemma.
3 Liberate Your Passions / 45
Thomas is incredibly aware of what exactly he needs to worry about. If there is a solution, or
remedy, he will apply it. Otherwise, he simply recognizes “un-curable ailments” and says
“whatever”. Many people can simply say the word “whatever”, but the mentality is as crucial as
the phrase in order to eradicate worry. Thomas’s ability to discern exactly which events are
worth putting energy into and which events should be disregarded, is the truly sage talent that all
of us should try to assimilate into our lives. In addition to causing us to relax when in a panic, by
stopping to find nonexistent remedies, we provide ourselves with the space for certainty and
reconciliation.
Using Thomas’s example of abandoning worrying is exemplary for anyone immersed in
worry or bogged down by hesitation. Let’s try to embrace the “whatever” mentality, so we can
enjoy life and recognize its pleasures, instead of becoming interloped with worry. Enjoying and
validating our pleasures is about recognizing the balance we must attain not between pleasure
and suffering, but between pleasure and passion. It is our obligation to understand this
discrepancy. Doing so is the first step to cultivating our passion.
Oddly enough, we, as Americans, struggle with the concept of passion because of the
historical events that have occurred in the past 200 years – primarily around the Industrial
Revolution. Even though it was considered a prosperous time, this period almost indelibly
changed -- and possibly, distorted – our concept of passion.
We work slightly more, so we have this gap of leisure in our day. Sounds great, right?
More time for leisure and the heightened convenience to use my own time for entertainment?
Not so fast, as with almost all “too good to be true situations” there is a catch. And this catch,
nearly hooked the entire American working population.
Having extra time, or a separate chunk of temporal space, to go see a movie, attend a
play, leisurely read, or go to some entertaining event is great – but only if it doesn’t eradicate the
potential for fulfillment and essence within your profession. This new bubble of free time was a
gem for people. However, the problem with this newly allotted time is that people began to
settle for pathetic, mediocre jobs because they were rewarded with the single hour at the end of
the day for “leisure time”. What good is “leisure time” if 90% of your day – you entire
profession – is mind-numbing and meaningless to you. We must make sure that we pursue
professions that are emotionally and spiritually relevant to our intrinsic needs of empowerment,
originality, and creative spontaneity. Most people think matching their intrinsic needs up with
their profession is an irrelevant congruency, but they couldn’t be more wrong.
Take the example of, man I know very well, who holds a very demanding position in a
consulting firm. In addition to having two daughters and a loving wife, he is overwhelmingly
committed to his work. He spends copious assiduous hours at his profession with very little
opportunities for breaks of “entertainment” and “leisure”, yet he loves every minute of it. He
doesn’t need to consider carving out a bout of time for “entertainment” because his profession is
his entertainment, source joy, and passionate expression.
You should craft a profession that you could do nonstop. Could you follow orders you
don’t believe in, debrief topics you don’t comprehend, or follow values you don’t abide by for 24
hours a day, seven days a week? Of course not. Aside from sheer physical exhaustion (anyone
would be physically fatigued), you’re emotional system would collapse because you would be
battling your internal self. So much of our society has copped out with pathetic, meaningless,
unoriginal, jobs of conformity where they become drones to a heartless system for the sake of
having one hour to watch The Letterman Late Show on television! This is absurdly ridiculous.
I am not berating entertainment or leisure time, but sacrificing they quality and poignancy
of your profession to be compensated by this leisure time is one our nation’s most destructive
habits. It is a habit that corrupts the emotional creativity and the original potential of ourselves,
our society, and our nation’s foundation of independence and growth. We were founded on a
contract for authentic originality and independence. Let’s use this document and at least merit
our own actions with it and find work that doesn’t deplete our energy, but invigorates our lives!
You should pick a profession that would not emotionally drain you after 24 hours a day,
seven days a week of commitment (factor in physical fatigue, of course). A profession that you
would still be passionately committed to, while bursting with persevering creativity is the one
you must pursue because your relationship to the work so vivacious. The environment should be
challenging, didactic, and maintain a meaningful ideology. This is what you should be doing for
a living.
About 84% of the American population doesn’t do this. Instead, they buy into and get
suckered in by the superficial enticement of “leisure activities” sparked by the Industrial
revolution; they sacrifice the opportunity of an incredible profession for an hour long respite of
entertainment. You don’t even, necessarily, have to have the “credentials” to be considered
successful, rich, famous, nor prestigious. Just as long as your profession is meaningful,
challenging, and provides source of passionate motivation, it will have the validating potential to
evoke success and prestige because people will admire your professional connection. Work that
energizes you is even more entertaining than any “organized” leisure activity.
Ask yourself this, what would be more entertaining – Watching an action movie, or being
in the action movie? Listening to a political debate on the radio or participating in the political
3 Liberate Your Passions / 47
debate? Being entertained from you couch sofa by a PGA golf tournament, or swing the clubs of
that tournament on the golf green? Selling million dollars worth of business by inventing a new
product and then being interviewed about your financial success, or being the guy on the sofa
“relishing in his one hour of leisure time” popping potato chips listening to the interview? I
think the resolution is clear – don’t assume your job will become meaningful and entertaining,
make it meaningful and entertaining. It’s okay to have leisure time and periods set aside for pure
entertainment, sure, but make sure this isn’t a harsh contrast from the happiness you receive from
your work. We have the life, liberty, and the opportunity to pursue happiness inside of our
professions and work as well as outside them.
We must commit ourselves to pursuing this legacy of internal and external forms of
passion and to create a clarity that resounds inwardly. From this internal clarity we can discover
our inner truths. The key to understanding our inner truths we must comprehend what appears to
be true – our inner verisimilitudes.
Chapter 4
Awaken Your
Inner
Verisimilitudes
his chapter teaches you how to jump from wanting and desiring ambitions to
T
dealing with their arrival. When you acknowledge your inner truths, you undergo
a mental shift from the passive to the active. Consequentially, your inner voice
strengthens, your spiritual support develops a foundation, and your existence
becomes a hub of eloquence. Awakening the conduits to our verisimilitudes
allow us to communicate on the three levels of awareness:
Preliminary Communication
The Web of Words
Spiritual Incitement
The flux between all three of these communicational epicenters of creativity is what
initiates the active expression of transforming our internal agenda into external reality. More
than simply setting goals and an action plan, awakening your inner verisimilitudes catalyzes a
tenaciously enduring response, ensuring achievement, revelation, and fulfillment.
“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
--Buddha
goals, must find a place in our common, everyday existence. Your verisimilitudes are the goals
you set about arriving on time to work, values you uphold -- such as treating everyone with
excellence and speaking enthusiastically -- and the truths and beliefs you abide by (such as self-
respect, health, and being passionate about your work). All of these are forms of your inner
verisimilitudes.
Without learning about the devastating affects of invalidity and inner criticism, you may
never attain awareness of your inner verisimilitudes. These inner tokens of truth are the key to
discovering what authentically motivates and energizes you. Without this awareness, you could
create a negative relationship to disharmony because you will lack the inner beacons and solid
anchoring provided by your inner truths. Our inner truths anchor us and provide us with a
platform from which to build off. People’s truths, beliefs, and goals regarded as trivial entities;
as a result, their motivational strength becomes dismantled and their goals are forgotten due to
neglect. They decide to not express nor embody these tokens of creativity. This dormancy
causes our lush inner truths to become subdued and depressed – the worst state for them to be in.
These verisimilitudes mustn’t be stagnant nor denied, but must be engaged in an active
part of everyday. So many people say to themselves that, hey, “I want to be passionate about my
work” or “I want to socialize with vivacity, having an equal exchange of teaching and learning in
the conversation”. The problem with this is that those desires are as far as they ever get. They
stop with the quest with the desire to have a passionate workplace or socialize with vivacity.
Those commitments remain commitments; these statements simply remain goals.
The transformation needs to be made where we can undergo a metamorphosis and are
able to go beyond simply wishing for goals; we need to be able to dynamically implement our
goals into our lifestyle. That is what this chapter cogently illustrates and teaches.
We must not desire to socialize with vivacity, or want passion in our work; we must
create a passionate environment in our profession and speak with vivacity. The key to this
transformation lies in our voice and takes a stance of action. When we make the choice to re-
orientate our lives from a passive, longing, and wishful state to a determined, active state, we set
the stage for progressive change. We make way for channeled positive energy. Living your
inner verisimilitudes is all about changing your life from a passive state to an active state by
counteracting the negative affects of internal disparagements and invalidity. When we internally
speak to ourselves with a passive voice, we criticize our actions because we are, in a sense,
limiting what we can do with ourselves.
We need to avoid being the role of door hinge, swinging open opportunities in our lives,
but, never being able to interact with them. Instead, we must be the door, where we have control
over how to open motivational paths by using the active voice. A hinge simple rotates the
opening (the door), but never actually takes a direct role in the opening/closing relationship, it is
an indirect implementation. “Being the door” endows us with the power to abandon the passive
role, and have a sensitized reaction to our opportunities, to open the hallway to opportunities, and
actually create them, so that we move beyond simply observing them, but actually seizing and
engaging them. We must move from passively watching the opportunities whiz by to active
engagement of carpe diem (seize the day).
Your verisimilitudes compose your essence and spirit and are the support for fulfillment
in our lives. Without the foundation of our truths, goals, and beliefs – which act as the
underpinning cement and woodwork, forming a basis – our passions can never be successfully
embodied, and we lead life as an obedient sham rather than a passionate being. This is not the
life we want to live, nor the message we wish to express. To repair this internal duplicity and
lead a more intrinsically honest life we must live actively and not reside in an emotionless void.
A key element to this is, of course, speaking and living in the active voice.
4 Awaken Your Inner Verisimilitudes / 51
Both of these sentences share the same information (that an apple-eating event occurred
and that it was executed by a female), but the expression of each message is incredibly unique
with each example!
In the first example, an active voice is taken. The reader is left with a crisp, well-defined
mental image of a woman sitting down at a table and chewing on the apple, possibly even
peeling the skin and leaving the core on an empty plate. If his or her imagination is creative
enough, the reader may even imagine the woman taking the sticker off of the apple and
chomping through the skin, before eating it. The effect? A clearer, sharper, more detailed, more
validated and more authentically vivid example of the “eating-apple” experience. This state is
exactly how we want our lives to be – clearly vivid and with the freedom to make imaginations
become reality.
On the other hand, take the second example of the passive voice. In this case, the woman
seems to have eaten the apple already and the reader is left with the image of a bare, chewed-on
apple core left on a neglected plate. Maybe that’s a little harsh, but the effect is clearly present.
The second sentence has a very different impact on the reader because the relationship to its
message is much more subdued and less directly-defined. The reader has a much more hazy
picture of the apple with the passive voice, compared to the crisp active voice description.
52 / Validate Your Life
Active listening could be compared to the crystal clear sound heard from the front row at
a symphony. Compare this to passive listening, where one would hear the same orchestra on a
radio station filled with static. The effect is tremendously different. The second, passive,
statement, certainly leaves the reader feeling detached and complacent. You feel disconnected
from the eaten apple in the woman and the experience is much less personal. Compared to the
first, active sentence, where the apple was vividly displayed in our mind’s, the passive stance is
much more detached and boring.
As one would assume, our social interaction is highly correlated with active and passive
voice. The impression we make on people by using the passive voice is equally unaffecting and
subdued. When we interact with people, speak to people, or even think in the passive voice, we
dishonor our inner truths and appear disconnected, just like the passive sentence with the female
subject and her apple. The horrible thing about this is people can pick this up.
Just as you experienced the difference in mood, tone, and impression between the two
messages with the “apple-eating” messages, so can people distinguish the difference between
you using an active or passive approach to life. If you are a passive person, and indirectly follow
-- maybe even neglect --your inner truths, your connection with people will be much more vague
and subdued, like the experience of hearing a symphony from a radio station with static
interference. Passive people meander around with their time, they are uncertain and operate on a
very low-level of commitment.
On the other hand, if you live life with the passionate motivation of an active stance, you
will experience no such problems of “static” or interference. You will resonate dynamic
empowerment and exuberance just by merely engaging in and living the active, as opposed to the
passive, stance. You don’t need to go out and preach the difference between active and passive
to everyone. People will more clearly see your message and productive happenings will occur to
prolifically provoke change in your life. Choosing the active voice causes you to be more
focused and connected to the present. Live life from the front row of the symphony.
Let’s practice trying to transform a passive stance into an active voice. When you enter a
common situation, say, a dining situation, for example (a lunch meeting, breakfast, or dinner
meeting) do you say to yourself:
Only the third statement takes the active voice. Proactively changing your inner thoughts
of a situation from passive to active, will manufacture immediate changes where you provoke
change in your life because you will be more focused on respecting and customizing the present.
This small example shows how significant it is to speak and live your life with the active,
rather than the passive voice. Despite its seemingly obliviousness, it is not an easy task because
the majority of people with whom you interact, neglect notions of natural and grand purpose, and
have slipped into complaining about their qualms and problems and living the whining self-
image of passivity. The people that possess these states of mind will be opposed to you trying to
live actively. Even one of the greatest minds of this century confirms this reality:
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
--Albert Einstein
4 Awaken Your Inner Verisimilitudes / 53
The disparity between the two states of being – active and passive -- is brilliantly lucid.
Even the spell-checker in most word-processing programs tries to change the passive statement
into the active one! By learning the process of choosing validity and how to scrutinize against
crippling internal criticism, you can experience this “active” voice in your life. Living our lives
actively is the certified answer to our solutions. Active engagement in our actions is the genuine
method of reading our own inner truths. In contrast, when you live passively, your are naturally
disconnected from your inner truths. Make the exchange between your inner verisimilitudes a
direct one by embracing the active voice.
Speaking in the passive voice not only blemishes and tarnishes our inner verisimilitudes,
but it tears and corrodes the relationship to your genuine self. The genuine self is honored with
the active voice because this allows a direct connection to our authentic motivators. The active
stance inspires our internal trademarks to be heard. Many times we leave trademarks of our
verisimilitudes that resemble our innate, root voices. When we live passively, these tacit
trademarks and messages frequently become obfuscated and vague. We must learn to abandon
our ill-defined messages of passivity for active clarity so our personal truths can become reality.
Let’s liberate ourselves from complaining, worrying, and whining about our problems
and focus on thoughts of purpose. Instead of directly copying other’s complaining self-images,
let’s reverberate creativity and natural purpose into our lives from an internal origin. This
process eradicates negativity from our lifestyle, separates us from the passive inhibition of
“mediocre minds”, and provides a grander purpose in our life. It goes without saying that
choosing activity over passivity blatantly reveals itself with palpable validity.
Because most of the interactions with our emphatic verisimilitudes and genuine veracities
– such as business goals, health ambitions, or attitude designs – are casual, indirect, and subtle,
we passively reduce these imperative values to negligibility. Because of the fact that our
extremely significant desires, passions, and values are reduced to something trifling (because of
the lack of directness in our lives due to the presence of passive actions and invalidity) we
remain trapped, restricted, and confined. Our life with all of its resources and all of the
opportunities in our existence is being profoundly neglected. This neglect will continue to
produce harmful doubt, fear, and debilitation if we do not acknowledge the presence of internal
criticism and passivity, and eradicate these internal viruses. Through this expulsion of passivity
and embracing the passive voice, we express these personal verisimilitudes and lead a more
inspirational life.
But this type of inspirational lifestyle isn’t an “on/off” switch that we can flick to
instantly produce authenticity in our life. Instead, awakening your verisimilitudes and validating
our life is a process. Living actively in all three of the communicational levels is crucial to living
authentically. This is not “an ends justify the means” game, where only the result is the concern,
because we must embrace the creative process of generating our own agendas from the source of
our truths. By acknowledging your inner verisimilitudes you authenticate yourself and will
understand your own agenda more concretely. More importantly than acknowledging them, is
expressing your inner truths. This is accomplished by actively communicating on three different
levels of interaction. By passionately engaging yourself in your life’s plan, you pacify any
discrepancies of communication. Through this clarity you can allow yourself to actively engage
in the three tiers of communicative awareness. However, understand the three tiers of
communication, you must truly have admiration for yourself.
Only you can provide that nourishment for yourself allowing you to be aware of all three
levels of communication. You want to be able to have active communication with all three tiers
of communication because serious problems will arise if there exist discrepancies or detached
connections to these communicational spheres. Problems with being overweight, malnourished,
or having ill-health are negative ramifications of avoiding open-ness with a specific
54 / Validate Your Life
web of words, and spiritual incitement – will allow you to equally address each component of
your life in a balanced equilibrium.
So let’s explore how we can relate the three spheres of communication and utilize this
awareness to empower our motivations and ability to influence people.
your essence. When you express, feel, or interpret emotions, you are doing so throughout
conduit of the Web of Words. Similarly, whenever you create intellectual engagements or do
heavy mental analysis, you are integrating the mental component of your essence, but your are
doing so through communication device of the second tier – the Web of Words.
You can access your inner verisimilitudes from the stance of the Web of Words by asking
yourself “Do I benefit from the way I am communicating?” or “Am I learning material from the
ways this person is communicating to me?” The answers to these questions address whether or
not your Web of Words is elevated and easily accessible, or dormant, subdued, and obfuscated.
Most everyone’s Web of Words typically is dormant. They only fully awaken their
second tier of inner verisimilitudes when they, say, need to write a paper for school, read a
complex newspaper article, or give a speech. People very rarely interact with everyday events
from fully harnessed second tier of communication. Doing so, however, will dramatically
improve the sanity and the authenticity of your life. By using a fully-expressed Web of Words
you think more clearly, because you can communicate with any one at any time. This is not a
stagnant period of “clearing the cobwebs because your thinking is communicating with the very
thoughts use to converse. This type of dialogue is clear – professional and always ready. Do
you sometimes stutter, or blank out when trying to say something?” Do you ever say a series of
“Ums” or “Uhs” in your speech? This is because your Web of Words is subdued. When the
communication to your web of words is subdued, you can’t think, verbally communicate, or
cogently express arguments or thoughts. When you stymie communication between the web of
words, you do yourself a huge disfavor because your create a problematic agenda of being
unable to have a lucid conversation, but you run the risk of having a lot of unspoken thoughts
bubble up and impede your overall sense of clarity. When you assume the state of
communicational conviction, you can create a sense of harmony with your mental ideas and your
ability to communicate and express your thoughts.
Practice having a clear conduit in the Web of Words by constantly asking yourself the
above questions. Integrate your own responsiveness with your potential to understand what you
want to see, what you want to communicate to another person, or what information you want to
learn. Once you understand the overview of your goals, the linguistic remainder simply falls into
place; the words you use will simply converge to provide you successful results. But this
synchronized convergence of cogence can only occur if you have fully convicted the authenticity
of perpetuating the usage of the web of words. When you decide to disown the web of words,
you disown your communicational mechanism to express clearly and only have the option of
impartial communication.
The more advanced communicator is able to combine tier one and two to interpret the
emotional expression of body language. Body language is very revealing and equally as
communicative. If you are hunched over with your toes pointed inward, head stooped, shoulders
inward, and arms crossed, you portray someone with low self-esteem. On the other hand, if you
have an upright posture and hold your head high, you communicate confidence. By combining
two communicational tiers, you create a sense of communicational intuitiveness that can almost
be thought of as psychic or an “ESP” power. While those types of communicational agendas are
based around a hoax, the reading and comprehension of body language (the convergence of the
kinesthetic correspondence and the web of words) endows you with power to read other people’s
emotions with incredible ease and communicate to them on an emotional level. Whenever you
reach people’s emotions, you can easily create an indelible impact and not abuse or manipulate
them, but create a certified conduit of expression like no other. These kinds of subtleties allow
us to access our own verisimilitudes and interpret the truths of others through the three tiers of
communicative awareness.
58 / Validate Your Life
and nervousness will dissolve because your brain – like a computer processor – requires energy
for the distraction (be it tossing a ball up and down or going for a jog) and the next task on the
priorities is always the positive one. The crippling fear-inducing thoughts will not be used for
the compensated energy, resulting in a clearly defined usage of your brain’s potential power.
Just as a rooster wakes up each dawn with a resounding call of the morning's sun rise, so
can you begin to examine the picture within the framework, instead of fidgeting on the pillar of
the framework's structure. When you turn on a light in your house, electricity runs through the
circuits to most efficiently supply electricity to the bulb; the electrical current doesn't wander or
detour -- it runs along a wire with a single intention, supplying electricity to the end result, the
bulb. You can create this kind of directly-focused action by using the idea of a water bottle for
your energy source. When you empty water out of a water bottle, it is channeled through the
bottleneck, making the flow much more consistent. Similarly, you can call upon your spiritual
incitement tier of communication to channel efforts directed toward a specific goal, and, like the
light in the housing circuitry, the result will be directly-efficient usage of your energy.
Harnessing spiritual incitement causes the light will go on much more often and you will
understand how to supply mental electricity to any task or endeavor you attempt.
It will be like making a phone call to your intuitive pedestal. You move beyond the wall
that blocks such active communication and become emotionally plugged in to utilizing a vessel
that ensures your energy source to be easily accessible. A utility drawer can slide out and reveal
a barrage of mechanisms, devices, and tools that are implemented to solve most any household
problem or fix many defects. But it is not the placement of the devices in the drawer that allows
you to mend something or build something, it is the active implementation and application of
these tools. If you don’t know how to use a hammer and nails, you can never build a house. For
this reason, you must pull your intuitive tools and opportunities for spiritual incitement out on
the table and give birth to a new type of knowing – understanding your cohesive self through
spiritual enlightenment. By learning how to use and understand your intuition, it becomes an
implement that you can turn to mend problems or build opportunities. You will say to yourself,
“This is an opportunity. How can I seize it?”. Your knowledge of knowing how to use, not
where it’s stored or theory of how your intuition works, will provide you with the spiritual
communication to truly seize the day!
For the longest time I would remind myself to do little tasks, or rather, my intuition
would encourage me to do little tasks – like writing a thank you letter to an instructor, running an
extra mile for exercise, or calling an old friend. But many times I didn’t understand what the
importance was in each of these tasks, so I refrained from completing them. But whenever I’ve
looked back on an incident, I always am able to see how thanking the instructor led to a
recommendation that got me into a program or calling the old friend reminded me of incredible
memories that I would have forgotten. Even though you may not understand why your intuition
tells you to do certain things, it is important to collectively transcribe yourself to that form of
advice by opening your avenue of spiritual incitement. When this third tier of communication
becomes a coherent conduit, you will find such an eloquent ease in your life because you will
always be taking upon actions that help you out in the future. So when you hear the little voice
encouraging action – even though, in the present, its purpose may be incomprehensible – take
that action, and pave the way for the development of a composition of events that promote
focused originality and personal liberation.
Say this to yourself to communicate with your spiritual incitement communicational tier:
I will allow myself to live in synchronicity and to constantly uplift my divine self. Just the act
of saying this prayer communicates awareness to your third tier of communication by igniting its
active response to captivate your essence, it will soothe any anxieties and resurrect your inner
60 / Validate Your Life
potential for being an internally directed person. There must be a response to this declaration,
one that will be the open the third tier.
However, the absence of the direct presence of our personal truths, and only mere
representations, references, or suggestions to them, denies the reality of our own existence.
Because most the interactions with our emphatic verisimilitudes and genuine veracities – such as
business goals, health ambitions, or attitude designs – are casual, indirectly subtle references, we
indirectly reduce these imperative values to negligibility. Because of the fact that our extremely
significant desires, passions, and values are reduced to something trifling (because of the lack of
directness in our lives due to the presence of The Judge) we remain trapped, restricted, and
confined. Our life and all of its resources and all of the opportunities in our existence is
profoundly neglected and shudders with suggestions of doubt, fear, and debilitation if we do not
acknowledge presence of internal criticism, address this criticism consciously, and express these
personal verisimilitudes.
Your verisimilitudes compose your essence and spirit and are the support for fulfillment
in our lives. Without the foundation of our truths, goals, and beliefs – which act as the
underpinning cement and woodwork – our passions can never be successfully embodied, and we
lead life as an obedient sham rather than a passionate being. This is not the life we want to live,
nor the message we wish to express. To repair this internal duplicity and lead a more
intrinsically honest life we must live actively and not reside in an emotionless void. A key
element to this is, of course, speaking and living in the active voice. More importantly, however,
we must recognize that a motivational life isn’t so black-and-white.
But this type of inspirational lifestyle isn’t an “on/off” switch that we can flick to
instantly produce authenticity in our life. Instead, awakening your verisimilitudes and validating
4 Awaken Your Inner Verisimilitudes / 61
your life is a process. Living actively in all the communicational levels is crucial to living
authentically. This is not “an ends justify the means” game because we must embrace the
creative process of generating our own agendas from the source of our truths. By acknowledging
your inner verisimilitudes you authenticate yourself and will understand your own agenda more
concretely. More importantly than acknowledging them, is expressing your inner truths. This is
accomplished by actively communicating on three different levels of interaction. By passionately
engaging yourself in your life’s plan, that you designed, you pacify any discrepancies of
emotional lens is what cultivates clarity in the midst of obfuscation. This chapter defines one’s
communication. Through this clarity you can allow yourself to actively engage in the three tiers
of communicative awareness. Let’s remember the quote at the beginning of the chapter:
You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
--Buddha
Only you can provide that nourishment for yourself if you are aware of all three levels of
communication. In fact, the love and affection should primarily be targeted at our tiers of
communication, allowing the cogs in the communicational mastery to fluidly interact. You want
to be able to have active communication with all three tiers of communication because serious
problems will arise if there are discrepancies or detached connections to these communicational
spheres. Problems with being overweight, malnourished, or unhealthy are the result of not
allowing your inner truths to actively communicate with a specific communicational level.
Additionally, emotional problems, dealing with sensitivity to issues, over-reacting, anxiety,
nervousness, insecurity, or being fearful of situations can be cured with the lucidity of active
communication on all three levels. Finally, if you experience lack of guidance, direction,
commitment, or inner knowing, you seriously must mend the relationship between your levels of
communicational awareness. First, however, you must learn about each of these tiers of
awareness.
Chapter 5
Harness your
Contemporary
Essence
he way one relates to the world depends on the nuances of their emotional lens. Whether
T
they take a social, cultural, ethnic, personal, or spiritual interpretational stance, your
cultural lens as our contemporary essence, and investigates how our interconnectedness,
strength, and prescience support the wiring of our contemporary essence towards a more
validated life. By elaborating your emotional lens, you can celebrate more emotional
space and a more meaningful existence. Acquire knowledge on how to be the ship
without water, and stay emotionally afloat.
The ability for us to relate to our intrinsic, authentic persona liberates us from the
ridiculing monotony of conforming to maladaptive norms. When we execute our own potential,
we live out the words of Rousseau. Rousseau was a French philosophy who wrote in the late
18th century around the time of the French Revolution. He strongly emphasized the importance
of pristine purity present in a child. When we are born (as children) we are emotionally free, but
the, over time, we gradually become more enclosed and link by link, the sequence of societal
conform, external pressure, and negative patterns complete the manacle and we become
enchained. How does this shackling process occur? It is based on our freedom from our
contemporary essence. This essence is not a bad or destructive thing (like the Judge) rather its
protective energetic field provides us with the capacity for consistency, but over-adherence to its
permeable affects will enchain us in unoriginality. It is our method of interacting and engaging
the world’s voice through a strongly aligned agenda that is not personal but external. Integrating
the external agenda with our realized internal lamentations allows us to secure a relationship and
reform the lament and emotional grief into celebratory praise.
“You need to realize that you respond not to what happens but instead to your perception of it.”
Dr. Phillip McGraw
Understanding that occurrences in our life are the result of how we perceive situations,
enables us to change our reaction to those circumstances by examining life from our
contemporary lens. Unfortunately, most people are unaware of this lens and have no way of
altering their experience. If you are permanently in a joyful state overwhelmed by happiness this
intractability is fantastic. However, most people are plagued by their dimly lit illuminations of
their experiences and experience nervousness, fear, doubt, and cannot change this. Most people
are stuck in a loop where they constantly end-up trapped in a web of detachment, hostility,
disorganized emotions right back where they started.
When we examine Pikes Peak, for example (the tallest mountain in Colorado), many
people beautiful crested peaks, others see rolling hills, some see a daunting challenge, others see
an interstate divider, some see an obstacle, while others see a mound of dirt. Very strong
visionaries may see only the negative space and see the peak as a hole in the ground!
5 Harness Your Contemporary Essence / 65
All of these different outlooks are defined by our perception. They are probably one of
the most prolific sources of ingenuity and creativity that we possess. Denying the existence of
our perception would weaken our resilience and deny our originality because everyone would
compensate their own perspective for the same outlook. What we perceive influences, and,
essentially decides our response.
To generate a different response, say, enthusiasm instead of fear, for example – we must
alter our perception. To alter our perception and break free from these debilitating loops, we
must manipulate and tap into the power of something called our contemporary essence.
The contemporary essence can be equated to the concept of wood or stone-carving. Just
as a wood-carver chops of hunks of wood and discards splinters to reveal an underlying
masterpiece, so will we discover how to artistically whittle your disposition from a uniform
block to a eloquent and poignant masterpiece. The wood-carver is known for being able to
reveal the “already hidden” masterpiece in wood. Many stone-masons and wood-carvers feel
that they do not chisel a statue or create a carving, but that they, rather, allegedly reveal a
masterpiece hidden in their medium – be it wood or stone.
The contemporary essence can produce something magnificent out of something bland,
regardless of the medium, by endowing you with the power to whittle away negativity. We don’t
have to whittle away an external shell, to reveal our hidden masterpiece, but, rather,
acknowledge that our internal artistic design is already present and ignites our passions whether
or not it is externally visible. By chiseling away the fabric of their material, the carvers remove
the layers to expose the beauty that was already within the tree stump or granite rock. We must
recognize that our life can be like the experience of the wood carver or the stone mason. We can
chisel away deleterious fabric so that we project and interact only with beauty and happiness, or
simply remain aware of our inner hidden truth and beauty. If we feel negative or bland to the
perception of an experience, we can alter our reaction by tapping into our contemporary essence.
The contemporary essence can be utilized as a filtering sequence for creating a greater scope to
interpreting external inclinations and transforming them into passionate happiness.
Learning how to asses and tap into your contemporary essence – even becoming aware of
your contemporary essence – will endow you with the interpersonal faculty to change these
destructive loops into productive cycles experiencing joy and happiness. Simply by changing
our language, perception, and interconnectedness of our contemporary essence, we can transform
our interpretive glance into the world from a dark, cyclical sham, to a meaningful and buoyant
brilliance. To create this uplifting transformation, we must learn how to adjust the three crucial
components of your contemporary essence: Perceptive labels, The Reaction Hub, and The
Reaction Sequence.
There exists two key intermediary components: perception and sensory reactions. You can
liberate yourself from any emotions by changing the situation, your perception, or the sensory
reactions.
Obviously, you can alter your emotions by changing the situation (avoiding scenarios that
produce negative emotions), but if, for some reason, you can’t alter the environment or the
situation, you can just as easily and effectively change the perception of the sensory reactions.
This next section will focus on changing the perception by altering the perceptive label.
There is a perceptive label and set of automatic sensory reactions (responses), for every
kind of perception that could occur
You can rewrite any of these perceptive labels to produce any reactionary sequence you
want.
Understanding that gives our mind the power of possibility. From there we can simply do almost
anything
solder the label of “Guilt” right above the perceptive label for “Innocent” or “birthday party
feeling” or any other perception that would be wired to an authentic and positive reaction. Now,
the original location of the negative “Guilt” label only has a dark blemish, and the new label is
linked to the replenishing reaction sequence. The negative reaction of “unprepareness” will
never occur again, the crippling feelings of anxiety will dissolve just like the old label of “Guilt”
did.
Do you understand how this works? Your brain will still perceive a state of “Guilt”, but
instead of going to the old label, which catalyzed a negative reaction, your brain will go to the
new location of the label and activate the positive sequence that the “Guilt” label is soldered on
to. “When you label me, you negate me”. When you re-solder your negative perceptive
reactions to rejuvenating reactions, you negate the original enervating and crippling
reaction……Thank you Mr. Kierkegaard.
With this “re-labeling method”, make sure to envision all of the old wires that were
connected to the old label, dissolving, too. This “re-labeling method” works just as well as the
re-circuiting method described in the next section. Some people think of re-labeling a perception
as a delusional “trick” and not some authentic change. This isn’t the case, changing the
perceptive label, changes the emotional process, but nevertheless you can learn how to make a
more “lasting” change by changing the actual sequence of sensory reactions.
There is a perceptive label and set of automatic sensory reactions (responses), for every
kind of perception that could occur
You can morph any of these sensory reactions (responses) to anything you want.
To alter how I perceived feeling unprepared for the audition, I closed my eyes, breathed
heavily and envisioned the Darth Vader hat (a visual image for our contemporary essence,
described in the first part of the chapter). This should be the most intricate electrical contraption
you can think of. It is important to not visualize your contemporary essence as something blurry,
like a hazy, intangible fog that hangs over you like a cloud. Rather, envision your contemporary
essence as if it were like that Darth Vader helmet -- like a logistical computer with myriad
70 / Validate Your Life
switches and triggers on it that can adjust perceptions to change your reactions to fear, pain,
worry, and anxiety. You can continue to be afraid of certain things, or choose to amazingly “turn
off” fear! Simply by flipping one of the switches to the perception of a feeling, you can become
incited to action, instead of bogged with intractable suffocation and worry.
Envision all of these wires and switches intricately woven into the mesh of your interface
helmet. Now, using the “unprepared for the audition” example, find the label for unprepared.
By “finding” the “unprepared” reaction label in your wired contemporary essence helmet
contraption, you create a tangible connection to your actual reaction to “unpreparedness” and
have successful traced the sensory reaction sequence to the perceptive source. You can think
that your mental visualization of the Darth Vader helmet doesn’t allow you to access the actual
contemporary essence. You can erroneously believe that envisioning the wiring for what
happens when you perceive your are unprepared as wires, switches and knobs on the
contemporary essence helmet to be some spurious joke but your would be incredibly mistaken.
Envisioning these concepts allows us to internally mutate them, permanently. As silly and as
juvenile as it may sound, envisioning the contemporary essence helmet and performing these
exercises produces permanent cognitive changes – called plastic changes by cognitive
psychological scientists – in how our brain functions.
How do you think you became afraid of spiders, ladders, the number 13, black cats,
heights, or anything else that makes you jittery? You weren’t born that way. No, you internally
made the decision to manufacture a negative reaction to that external event. You manipulated
your contemporary essence to produce reactions of fear and disgust when you see a spider;
superstition if you’re near a black cat, the number thirteen, or ladders; or queasiness if you are
high above the ground. Most importantly, you must understand you nurtured theses reactions.
It’s time to change negative reactions into uplifting sources of enlightenment.
this adjustment. You should revisit the scenario with asking out a date and not knowing his/her
name, and not feel any reaction, to this event. Envision yourself having a mute, “oh well”,
unengaged response. Do the same with every other response. Envision yourself waltzing, with
no frustration, into the party and acting as though you were never supposed to bring a gift.
Simply, envision yourself taking the test as if it were a pop-quiz, no nervousness nor feelings of
inadequacy. And, finally, visualize yourself at the audition without feeling an nervousness,
picture yourself having no huge response whatsoever. You should be able to envision this
indifference and apathetic response to all of these situations.
With the science of emotions, it isn’t necessary for every perception to have an
emotional reaction that is equal and opposite the situation.
-- John Kuczmarski
This statement holds copious amounts of validity and has the potential to unlock
incredibly opportunities in your everyday existence. Understand that sentence, and memorize it.
By embracing the power of this fact, that your reactions don’t have to be the equal and opposite
response to your perception, you liberate yourself to change any hesitation, doubt, or insecurity,
into clarifying and energetic capacity.
However, going back to the ”unprepareness” example, we understand the need for some
kind of reaction. Because everything has a response, you have to still react to (i.e. turn at least
some switches to the “On” position) for the perception of "unprepardness". Not having a
reaction is like saying you’. You are always doing something no matter how inert the activity –
whether it be breathing, pumping blood, laying down, being dead, etc. -- each of these is a state
of doing something. Similarly, you are always having a reaction. I don’t care how “Zen-like”
your reaction states are, you won’t be able actually experience any of the visualized states of
unpreparedness without having some kind of reaction. Because of the implicit need for a
reaction, find the reaction states labeled “Smile”, “Laugh”, and “Feel Invigorated”. If you
remember, theses were the same reactions that are triggered to most of your conceptions of being
at a birthday party. Just as the participation of your birthday party can produce laughter,
happiness, and rejuvenation, so can the perception of “unpreparedness”. You catalyze this
metamorphosis simply by finding the “unpreparedness” perception wires that run to the hub of
all reactions and mentally flick the wires going away from the hub labeled “Smile”, “Laugh”,
and “Feel Invigorated”. Flick these switches to the “On” position.
Now, to complete the process go back and re-visualize yourself in all of the “unprepared”
contexts, but with the switches for feeling as though your are at a birthday (“Smile”, “Laugh”,
and “Feel Invigorated”) activated. Remember, that by flicking those switches, you actually
cause those reactions to occur. Instead of feeling frustrated, inadequate and nervous , you feel
invigorated and want to smile and laugh.
72 / Validate Your Life
Picture yourself walking into the birthday party shaking your friend’s hand, laughing
about good ol’ times and making a joke, like I thought “Bringing myself would suffice as a
present”. Picture yourself truly enjoying the genuine feelings of invigoration as you mentally
revisit the “asking out” scenario. Picture yourself joking with the person you’re asking out and
recognize that by not knowing his/her name you have a fresh start, a clean slate, and the
opportunity for the beginning of a new journey. Picture yourself taking the test, laughing and
smiling, and feel authentically invigorated that you have learned from this incredible lesson, and
will try to study in the future, but that there is nothing you can do now, so just smile and breath.
Finally, picture yourself smiling and being invigorated with ingenuity at the audition. Visualize
perceiving yourself as unprepared, but then realizing that there is no reason to feel unprepared
because it’s an audition. By being unprepared, you can energetically habituate to the lines given
to you at the audition. Instead of feeling frustrated, and nervously stuttering (your previous
response), picture yourself dynamically changing with an organic presence, adapting to the
scenes and script lines, while enunciating your words with forceful conviction. Liberate yourself
and feel the awareness of invigoration as you smile all the way, sincerely through the entire
audition. Experience the smells of the theater, the shocked and pleased reactions of the director,
and even clapping and applause from your performance. You have just completely altered your
reaction to a negative perception of “unpreparedness” to a mechanized nourishing reaction of
resilient laughter, smiles, and invigoration just by tweaking your contemporary essence!
1. Personal Safety -- Safe for your goals and safe for your presence. This means you are
aware of your goals and you connect with them in incredible ways with incredible
certainty and you don’t endanger them by placing your being in an environment that
doesn’t nurture those goals. For example, say you want to be a biologist. Immersing
yourself in a library and constantly talking to people studying wouldn’t be “safe” for the
achievement of your goals. Instead, a safe place would be a laboratory with other
biologists or a human anatomy lab. A safe zone for your contemporary essence is one
that fulfills the goals you have assigned to your contemporary essence.
2. Societal Safety – Because we generate a lot of momentum and motivation connecting
that channeled electric focus in an outlet that doesn’t work you, could cause problems.
For example, if you are interested in running quickly and improving your run times, you
may have a lot of adrenaline in your body. Putting yourself in a very sedentary outlet,
like a bunch of authors, may cause a dangerous chemical reaction to occur. So find
outlets that don’t make you frustrated and intertwine together the ever-increasing path
happiness that always make you feel pleasure while achieving your goals, which the
monumental sacrifice of eliminating doubt. You can make the sacrifice to remove doubt
from your life, which creates more certainty.
dormant beneath the appearances of reality. The Tao is an ever moving force that can be
“blocked or bottled up through neglect, poor practice or fear; it can be used for good or evil; it
flows through us, yet we do not own it; it appears as a principal factor in the arts, in healing, in
religion” (Nachmanovitch 33). This Chinese Tao force creates and destroys and is an energy not
of force, but energy in the realm of information, of pattern. Da Vinci, no doubt, was a mastery at
tapping into this Tao and allowing it to intuitively shape his masterpieces. This Tao force can be
used erratically or impeccably. It is obvious that the incredible detail put into pieces like the
Mona Lisa, St. Anne, The Vitruvian Man, and The Last Supper are what make them some of the
most respected pieces in existence. It is Da Vinci’s craft of cohesively combining, in a
coalescing dance, the art of tapping into the Tao with the talent of honing that natural force to
fastidiously create art.
An understanding of cause-and-effect and a sequence of events is the crucial attribute
with a highly interconnected contemporary essence. They make excellent foundations because
they are incredible at understanding the cause-and-effect consequences to see where they ended
up and the actions and reactions that took place to put them into their current position.
more in-depth investigation and interpretation of how the difference essences relate to each
other, professions, and people’s connectedness with the world. A story to illustrate to illustrate a
situation where I needed to draw on the purely the strength of my contemporary essence
occurred with a run-in I had with a protected seal rookery. The following is the statement that I
would have made in court:
“After participating in a summer project of tropical conservation in Punta Laguna,
Mexico, preserving the endangered, spider monkey habitat, and after engaging in 6 weeks of
oceanographic study at the Sea Education Association, based out of Woods Hole, which is the
most paramount Oceanographic research institute in the country, I have become deeply
concerned and fervently adamant environmentalist. If I had known about the Carpentaria Harbor
Seal Docent Program, I would have eagerly been an actual volunteer to further the protection of
the seal wildlife!
The official description of the Seal Watch Volunteer Sign Up program is for the
Volunteers to “observe the animals from the bluffs above the rookery, gather statistical
information, educate people who come to see the seals, and educate people who are walking into
the closed rookery area” (Rookery Volunteer Bulletin). When I walked near the rookery the last
thing that was taken place was an education. There was incrimination, arrest, accusation, and
heavy use of authority, but very little educational content.
My encounter with the seal rookery, similar to other's encounters, was benign, completely
innocuous, and arose directly from the fact that I saw no signs on the beach indicating there was
a seal rookery, encountered no fences near the rookery, and that I am an out-of-towner, who had
absolutely no knowledge of the existence of the rookery in the first place.
After beginning a long run from Rincon points, I realized that I had to face down to avoid
stumbling on all the rocks along the beach, so even if a visible sign was present, which isn’t the
case, I would not have been able to notice it. (See Picture A). In section A,B,C,D, and E of The
Protection of harbor seals guidelines of chapter 12.24 Public Parks and Beaches, the Seal
Rookery is described as "closed beach area" or a "closed beach". It appears that there is a major
discrepancy between the connotations of the word "closed" because the beach was not secluded,
isolated, nor enclosed.
From the angle I approached from, there were no visible signs, no fencing, and barely any
indication at all that a seal rookery was in that location. My sole indication that something was
awry was seeing a woman (who I later discovered to be a Seal Watch volunteer) confusingly
pointing her finger, holding a vague stop sign, and saying something that I couldn't even hear.
With the roaring sea in the background, me trying to catch my breath from running, and
the fact that the woman was so far up on the cliffs, combined with the fact that I was an
out-of-towner, lacking any knowledge of the existence of the seal rookery, and seeing no
visible signs nor fences, there was no possible way for me to fathom that she was conveying
to me that I had illegally stepped into a seal rookery. What would you think?
Because I did not know the reason why I was being signaled, my reasoning was that I had
entered someone's property, the woman needed help, or that someone was injured. Because of
this ambiguity, foreboding signals, I rationed it would be best to get off the beach as soon as
possible.
I had previously discovered a rocky staircase exit, when I had taken a walk along the
beach near the Chevron pier, at an earlier time when the beach wasn’t closed. The beach,
according to Section A of the Protection of Harbor Seals states the beach "shall be closed at all
times during the harbor seal pupping seasons, commencing each December 1st and ending May
31st of the following year" (12.24.090: Sec A). By the time I reached the staircase, however, the
woman had already called police officers. From thereon I was threatened with mace, forced to
sit down, stripped of my swimming goggles (because swimming goggles are such a dangerous
76 / Validate Your Life
assault weapon), commanded to enter a police car, and had my car, person, and surfboard fully
searched.
Clearly what has happened here is the seal rookery volunteers have, whether intentionally
or not, have exploited their authoritative power. A similar situation fell upon Mr. Scott
Vandertar 6 years ago, where he ended up on the beach in a situation totally out of his control --
sea currents had drifted him there. Mr. Vandertar was there exhausted on the beach, lucky to be
alive, after a malfunctioning wind-surfing board drifted him down the coast and had nearly
drowned him, when, failing to recognize the detrimental state of Mr. Vandertar, their authority to
nearly get him arrested when he had absolutely no control for his arrival upon the beach! While
most Seal Watch volunteers are there to protect the endangered and delicate habitat of the seals,
the volunteers neglected to consider the endangered state of Mr. Vandertar: that a fellow human
being had nearly drowned, and could be still in critical condition on the beach. There are some
seriously pertinent judgment issues that must be addressed with the seal rookery volunteers.
The responsibility issues fall under the category of determining if someone enters the
rookery intentionally or by accident. From my example and Mr. Vandertar's example, some of
the seal rookery volunteers have incredible difficulty from distinguishing if someone has entered
the seal rookery deleteriously with nocuous intentions -- purposefully trying to club or kill the
seals and/or carrying a club, baseball bat, or gun -- from some one like Mr. Vandertar or myself -
- casual beachgoers who go for a leisurely run on or near the seashore and find themselves
accidentally in the seal rookery.
I have nothing to hide your honor, being an avid environmentalist, I would have eagerly
supported the Seal Watch volunteer program, had I known about the rookery. However, because
of the lack of visible signs describing the nature of the rookery, and the absence of any fences
bordering the beach area, the only way of knowing about the existence or the rookery when
coming from Rincon point (aside from a nearly inaudible volunteer pointing and waving
extremely vague signs) is to have known about the rookery before-hand. It is logical to convict
someone who intentionally beats the seals or purposefully violates any acts of the MMPA, but
accusing a casual beachgoer of entering a seal rookery that they did not even know existed, is an
irrational claim. With more clearly posted indicators of the rookery, heightened public
awareness of the seals endangerment, and better judgment calls from the Carpentaria Seal Watch
volunteers, this incident would not have occurred. With these adjustments, however, I feel the
seal rookery will continue to remain a safety zone for pinnipeds, the local community's basic
rights, such as taking a walk along the beach, will not be jeopardized, and, as a holistic entity, the
Seal Watch program and volunteers, casual beachgoers, and concerned environmentalists will be
able adaptively work together to create a more environmentally concerned public.”
Now, this clearly is an example of over-extended usage of a bureaucracy by authority
members who abused their power. But I had no previous relationship (interconnectedness) with
the court system. Nor did I understand beyond the very basics of how the legal system
functioned. I did, however, have the strength to use my contemporary essence to adapt to the
challenges that faced me. I had every possible agenda lined up to create a larger awareness of
the things I had to know and the tasks I had to do in order to have a successful (innocent or not
guilty) trial. I had never been tried for something, and being thrown into a courtroom was one of
the most outrageous things that had ever happened to me.
I was able to adaptively cope with this tremendous obstacle, however, by encouraging
myself to use the strength of my contemporary essence to stay motivated and determined about
what I had to understand. During the evolution and discovery of a solution to the seal rookery
problem, I relied entirely on the strength of my contemporary essence, because this was the way
in which I must interact with the problem – in the present. I couldn’t’ predict what was going to
happen to me, nor try to analyze the cause-and-effect relationships between my actions and the
5 Harness Your Contemporary Essence / 77
judicial reactions. I was not, necessarily, shrewd in predicting or understanding cause and effect
relationships between how I walked on the beach and where errors were made on the part of
bureaucracy. However, because I utilized the strength of my contemporary essence, I
communicated with clarity and remained excellent in staying strongly in-touch with the ability to
cultivate solutions in the present.
As you can see, the bulk of the strength component of a contemporary essence is based
on being able to adapt to systems, trends, situations, problems, and scenarios on the fly in the
present. A person with a strong contemporary essence doesn’t imply they possess the ability to
predict and prevent problems or dilemmas (which would be a characteristic of a very prescient
contemporary essence), nor does it insinuate that that person is able to create outlines for the
formulation of some problems, trends, and societal happenings (which is a characteristic of a
interconnected contemporary essence). Instead, a strong contemporary essence simply denotes
the ability of its beholder to be able to adapt and proactively find solutions in the present
situations. If there is someone to start a new trend or craft a new solution it is the fervent and
strong contemporary essence. Because the strong contemporary essence lives entirely in the
present, there is no time to dill-dally in the past or worry about the future; there is only action
with the current set of tools, dilemmas, and solutions. For this reason, the strong contemporary
essence is always the creator and initiator of new trends. It is not more important than an
interconnected or prescient essence, but simply the tying, integrating component to the three
types of essences. Historical or interconnected people examine the actions of strong
contemporary essences to understand the cause-and-effect relationships of the past, while
prescient essences examine the patterns of strong contemporary essences to predict the
challenges of upcoming events; to a prescient soul, strong souls are omens that catalyze futuristic
interpretations.
Solely having a strong contemporary essence will ensure survival – because one will
always be able to adapt to situations – but it doesn’t ensure comfort or stability because it lacks
the ability to predict and plan for upcoming agendas and/or situations. It lacks stability because
it doesn’t possess the interconnected historical analytical skills, which allow it to move along in a
harmonic fashion by building a strong foundation.
The prescient person can predict future events, foresee future moves, and create changes
to cope with change. Chess players, CIA counter-terrorist agents, and fishermen, for example,
must have a high degree of prescience. Each of those three professions must analyze the
opponent’s moves and patterns (whether they be pawn movements, terrorist meetings, or fish
feeding areas) to predict what will happen next and then react to it. Because of the need for a
reaction – a response to foreseen events – usually a profession that relies heavily on prescience
will also need a degree of strength to react and respond to situations. A good balance between
strength and prescience makes the best survivalist because this person would possess the ability
to foresee the future and then immediately react and prepare for it. Hurricane and tornado
warning crewmembers must have an equal amount of both of these skills. Someone who was
purely prescient would fall into the category of a psychic, prophet, or harbinger. People like
Nostradamus, a 16th century foreseer, for example, had the ability to predict World War 2, Hitler,
Napoleon and foresaw the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb, nearly 400 years in advance. But
because his essence was entirely prescient (lacking interconnectedness or strength), he could not
prevent or act upon his visions. A bit of interconnectedness would allow Nostradamus to maybe
right a play or paint an art piece that could warn the general public of this disasters, while the
possession of strength would allow him to take even more immediate and effective methods to
prevent those military debacles.
Prescience is what allows us to see the current state of affairs – where one is able to be
aware of present stance of trends – and combine this with cause-and-effect knowledge of an
interconnected (“past”) essence to act as a harbinger and foresee futuristic events. This role is
kind of a soothsayer characteristic and is an excellent strength to take action not to cope with
current circumstances but to prepare for encounter upcoming events. A prescient contemporary
essence is excellent at predicting upcoming trends, but not necessarily good at creating or
starting trends or understanding past trends. The prescient soul will observe and examine the
strong contemporary essences to predict the upcoming trends and environmental changes.
An example of a lacking in prescience, but an attendance of strength and
interconnectedness occurred with America’s reaction to the September 11 terrorist attacks. With
the recent breakthroughs in CIA intelligence, the 9/11 investigation is still a paramount issue in
the modern media, influencing our nation’s history and identity. There are many examples of
neglected intelligence reports that dealt with how we interacted with the bombings before they
occurred. Just recently the Director of central intelligence, George Tenet, released information
that he and his deputies received a document entitled, “Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly”, which
documented detailed accounts of the arrest of an Islamic terrorist. By not taking acting on this
information, the CIA committed one of the most “glaring intelligence failures”5 in American
political history. Our lack of prescience blinded us from the upcoming attacks. However, our
nations incredible strength allowed us to emotional cope and industrially rebuild after the attacks.
Our interconnectedness allowed us to analyze the events and track down the terrorists, fueling
our prescience to prevent the events from occurring again..
Because an essence that solely possesses strength, and not, necessarily, prescience or
interconnectedness, will have no awareness or understanding of events outside of the present,
they are not good harbingers or analysts, but merely create the material to be foretold or
historically analyzed. The prescient uses his or her materials and surroundings to initiate a
stance of improved understanding of upcoming events and to plan productively for these
happenings.
5
Shenon, Phillip. “Panel Slams CIA failures before 9/11”. The New York Times. Santa Barbara
New Press. Sec. B, April 15, 2004.
5 Harness Your Contemporary Essence / 79
Cultivate the
Intrinsic
Spirit
The Altruistic Demeanor of Compassion: Trusting in Your Vibrant Existence with Inner Voice, Ever-Increasing
Path of Happiness, Verisimilitudes, and Contemporary Essence
Dissolve the
Carbon-Copy
Character
any times we develop role models that motivate us, but more often than
M encourage, role models limit and destroy.. Most role models can be incredible
sources of inspiration, if an in-depth examination of their values occurs. If
only a superficial analysis takes places, we betray our personal religions for
shallow, insincere adjustments. We must investigate the relationship with role
models by examining the maladaptive approach taken sometimes with, what I call,
“cookie-cutters” and “celebrity conglomerates”. To fully acquire own passions and
cultivate validity in our lives, we must celebrate separation from these negative patterns.
Let’s cultivate a greater comprehension of our relationship with role models and groups
by examining the unproductive patterns of celebrity conglomerates, cookie cutters,
patterns that never leave their parents, and ways to dissolve congested personality
copying.
Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does
not.”
-Alvin Toffler, ‘Future Shock’
Without our passions, we are lost. Passions unify our strengths and channel our
energies into productive actions that encourage our happiness. We must turn inward for
advice on who we should be and how we should act so that we don’t transcribe ourselves
lifestyle from another person.
Whenever the thought arises (which is three or four times a week), I take
conscious action thank God for how good parents I have. They are truly remarkable
fantastic people and excellent story tellers, possessing a huge wealth of proverbial
wisdom If you look at them through the lens of educational experience, business
expertise, or literary genius, you find that they are extremely successful. If you examine
their financial success, emotional and mental well-being, and potential for creativity and
capacity transform ideas into reality, one will find that they are extremely successful.
Finally, if you examine their lives as parents, teachers, partners, and instigators for
change in leadership and values, you will realize that they are remarkably successful
people. However, it is not the success that makes me so thankful for them being parents.
Rather, I thank God that I have such good parents because they illuminate my existence
through the passion in which they pursue their own lives.
Even if my parents were not educationally, financially, corporately, or socially
successful; even if my parents were not excellent teachers, leaders, or mentors, I would
still thank god for such great parents, if they still possessed the quality to live their
existence with as much originality, excellence, and intent on helping others as they do. I
hope they never lose this quality.
Similarly, I aspire to all of us to look at what is meaningful to us and apply that as
a genesis for originality. When we create the design of our life by modeling your life
after someone else’s, you are tediously weakening in your own essence because your
emotional and spiritual side cannot be represented. Sure, it is fine to pick and choose
attributes of people we like and admire, and then integrate them into our lives by
assimilating them as components of our personal construct. But when we directly copy
and transcribe someone else’s personality or lifestyle we are doing ourselves a
devastating disfavor because personality and lifestyle are the few things are our own and
can be crafted of our own design.
Transcribing someone else’s lifestyle is like pouring the ingredients, heating the
stove, and reading the recipe for a void in your life. I’ve done this myself; I’ve molded
the cookie-cutters as well. I constantly see people’s lives molded into uncomfortable
shell-like images. I’ve been there; I know what those feel like. I know they are cramped
roles. These cramped images are messy conglomerates of popular media trends; I see
men decked-out with the facial hair of Brad Pitt and sombrero “trucker hats” of Ashton
Kusher, wielding the attitudes of pop-star celebrity roles. I’ve seen women clinging to
dispositions of Angelie Jolie, outfits of Jennifer Anniston, and make-up of Nicole
Kidman. People adjust their lives with changes to their physical tissue – with the aid of
convenient “plastic surgery” – to distort the skin, excess fat, and ligaments into
“successful” images of celebrities and models. Gibberish!
This is where role models become dangerous. Role-models are fantastic when
you can look up to a person’s values, pick and choose which attributes that are attractive,
and then accommodate – assimilate -- the values of the role-model into one’s life. But
when the relationship between a role model is so superficial and, simultaneously, so
strong, the misaligned celebrity conglomerate is formed. When you go around looking
6 Dissolve the Carbon Copy Character / 85
for values and characteristics you like in people and try to apply them to yourself, you are
“value shopping”. Value shopping never incorporates the new attributes (albeit humor,
honesty, extroversion, or creativity) with an understanding, but, instead, uses a superficial
mockery – a copying of the initial quality.
The celebrity conglomerate is a mish-mash of attractive gestures they have seen
and mimicked, clothing that is appealing to others. It’s can of worms – a mud pie of
other people’s (primarily famous people’s) habits. The celebrity conglomerate puts
themselves in the illusion that they will be famous if they mimic people that are famous.
I’ve tried this and bough similar clothes, talked in a similar and doesn’t bring you fame.
It brings you captivity and weakness. I have been definitely a celebrity conglomerate
and can say personally, that the layers of false mimicry ways you down. Gives you a
drug-like boost of artificial success, but ultimately has no resilience. I’ve felt that – I’ve
felt that lack of endurance and reality. You have to deeply probe and find yourself in
certainty. You have to discover your own methods of speech, gestures, physical
movement in the world, clothing, ideas, beliefs, everything by connecting with your core
essence any way possible. You could connect to your core essence by writing, by
exercising, by swimming, by painting, by giving speeches, by walking in nature – but you
must recognize that internal soul that carry you, express them wildly and lively. There
are cults everywhere – family, schools, clubs – just choose safe environments that
resonate with your soul.
It may sound like I am giving a psychological prescription as though I were a
clinically-trained M.D. Good. That’s what this experience should be like. I don’t want
to create a place where you have to follow 12-step programs (although the idea behind
12-step is incredibly powerful and poignant), write-down lists of agreements with
oneself, or say mantras to oneself. My approach here is cuttingly simply and direct, like
a doctor’s prescription to a patient. One of the main symptoms of celebrity
conglomerates is cognitive dissonance.
I see people constantly in a state of cognitive dissonance. I’ve been in that state
myself and that’s why I can recognize it in others. Cognitive dissonance is a
psychological term described as the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what
you already know or believe, and new information or interpretations. It’s a dilemma of
assimilation. People are hesitant to new learning and avoid risking the creative,
intellectual process that must take place in order for true learning – the accommodation of
lessons into one’s thinking – to take place. Instead, people simply cop-out and
superficially attempt to “appear” as the role model. This is like seeing a friend who had
osteoporosis take a prescription medication for that disease and have immediate, success
in curing the disease. And then you get the flu, and because your friend’s prescription
worked so well for him, you take it for your flu. This is ridiculous. Same thing for
celebrity conglomerates and belief copying. His prescription works specifically for him,
and won’t work for your condition. You must find your own “cure” or own path in life.
Dale Carnegie respects the importance of being ourselves: “let’s not imitate others.
Let’s find ourselves and be ourselves” (Carnegie 151). Just as the lifestyle and role-
models of celebrities work specifically for them, but the details of their lifestyle won’t,
necessarily, work for you.
The celebrity conglomerate has his or her own beliefs conflicting with the
celebrity beliefs and mannerisms they have cannibalized, producing tremendously
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disturbing cognitive dissonance. Take time to meditate, experience the sensation of your
own essence, and take time to share that essence with the world. That is the best process
of living. Looking inward and resonating with your core self, then sharing that, shouting
it, singing it, writing it, and getting it out to the world. Introversion to extroversion,
stillness to dynamism, inner peace to outer harmony – it’s what makes the world go
round.
Section 2: Cookie-Cutters
This is very similar to a celebrity conglomerate except that a there is just a
shell a person adopts, instead of copious cutting and pasting. You cannot cut and
paste lifestyles. This leads to the production the “cookie-cutter” man. The cookie-cutter
man (or woman) is a person who lacks internal awareness – they don’t understand their
identity, nor do they grasp their intuitive, emotional, and spiritual goals – and whose life
is pretty much a blank void.
A major clarification: It’s fine to become a doppelganger (German meaning
“double-goer”, someone who resembles another person) of a celebrity just as long sa
that’s what you evolve into out of your own process. Most of us, what I used to do
for certain, pile on fake facades to try to appear as having the image of someone
else. In other words, there are two types of doppelgangers – Contrived and
Coincidental. We want to coincidentally evolve into someone successful and at that
level, you always resemble someone proficiently effective and successful.
A messy conglomerate of copied success surrounds this void. See the cookie-
cutter person, may sometimes feel clear, but always empty. They have thousands of
achievements, awards, certifications – symbols of success – but because they have denied
their inner essence, and not recognized the steps to make that successful – they feel bleak,
meek, and weak. Their life seems successfully externally and internally their may be
clarity, but there is tremendous longing for fulfillment. The cookie-cutter man will take
bits and pieces of external nuances of successful people – the clothes they wear, social
mannerisms they use, dispositions they exude, etc – as a way for defining their identity.
They mainly emphasize the need to generate accomplishments that look good instead of
feel good. This is a huge distinction. Define your own success; don’t let others define it
for you. This leads to an extremely muddled and emotionally-constrained web of
interacting. These cookie-cutter men and women cannot express their true emotions and
intuitions because they never acknowledged and never really felt them. Similarly, the
celebrity conglomerate can sometimes access his or her true emotions, but they must seep
or wriggle out of counterfeit cookie-cutter shell composed of others’ appearances.
Basically, the cookie-cutters and the celebrity conglomerates suffer from the same
problem – lack of personality “self” awareness and abandonment of intrinsic self for
some external superficial gain or display – but they go about it different ways. The
celebrity conglomerates pile on imagery and mannerisms and bury their intrinsic self,
while cookie-cutters just try to achieve the mold of a successful person with their actions
but neglect their personally-defined success.
Cookie-cutting leads to one’ life being encapsulated and emotionally constrained
in the confining quarters of system. In this system there is no room for the sophisticated
utilization of intuition. Cookie-cutter’s are different from celebrity-conglomerates
because they are the all-encompassing, umbrella category of people who synthesize
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Ask
I Ask
88 / Validate Your Life
Powerful poetic words, but they provoke the frustration, and irritation that can
arise from being engulfed in a dehumanizing celebrity conglomerate or cookie cutter
mold, or trying to interact with someone who is obsessed with such a façade. We all
must wear our costumes, and completely exposing ourselves could actually get bland
after awhile, with everyone else wearing their “armor” so it’s fun to dance in different
costumes, but just make sure, that you always can identify and share your intrinsic self
and to enver lose touch with your core.
An example is “Tommy”. Tommy is a rebellious teen who smokes pot, and uses
his parents’ plasma TV when he’s not supposed to, many times he was scolded but just
numbed himself out. Ten years later, he is married in his own home and still sneaks off
to watch TV and do crack. He never finished this conversation with his parents so it
continues to haunt his heart. That type of conversation must be finished or else it will
endure because the relationship with parents is one of SO much love in order to create
more certainty and vehemence with one’s lifestyle. In the Bible it says "Therefore shall
man leave his father and his mother and be intimate with his wife and they shall be one
flesh." It’s this re-uniting of flesh that occurs quite frequently, while the emotional union
is neglected. If you don't fully leave your parents, there are "too many people in the bed",
meaning you end up marrying not a wife, but your parents. If you don't leave your
parents, you psychologically marry them in order to finish your unfinished business with
them.
You would marry the person that would be the opposite of your mother, if you
mother caused problems for you. If you marry someone who is similar to you father, for
example, you are seeking to get that love you received from your father. It is biologically
instinctive in nature -- if you are a homo sapien, a hedgehog, or a hornet -- to seek love
from the parents. In that quest to get love, children frequently change and alter their
personalities so that they morph into beings that their parents will love. Frequently, if a
parent doesn't like a part of you -- if you like performance, for example, and a parent
disapproves -- you may discard that component of your personality, severing it from
yourself in order to re-access your love for your parents. The child who is so focused on
pleasing his or her parents, can never truly grow up. They have lost their true self and the
"pleasing the parents to get love for the parents" self has been undergoing all the
development. The facade should not prosper, your deep intrinsic self should be the body
growing. Pleasing parents is not an issue of blame. It is not the child's fault for trying to
please and it certainly is not the parent's fault for needing to be pleased -- all that is
biological instinctive.
It is the very rare and very emotionally gifted individual who actually loves his
parents and emotionally befriends them. Ironically, it is the over-whelming need for
acceptance from the parental figures that causes an impromptu departure. The individual
simply flies the coup to escape the exasperation of not feeling accepted. The other
extreme, quite obviously, is the individual who simply never leaves because of a constant
yearning for acceptance. Both of these approaches are failures because the emphasis is
still on parental concordance; you have to accept yourself.
You see, if your goal is to leave your parents, you’ll find them everywhere. Your
goal has to be to intimately love your parents as two people who you know very well;
only then do you truly leave them, because you really simply arrive at a place of certainty
with them.
My parents make it very hard to give love to them because they were always
giving it. It's vital to understand that having your parents not love a component of
yourself does not mean you cannot pursue that aspiration. Frequently, a parent frowning
on a task is equivalent to that task being lost completely in the child's growth dimension.
The so-called "lost self" isn't really lost, but just simply neglected for the growth of the
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facade.
You can recover your lost self in one of two ways -- both of which are
unconscious. Connecting with someone who personifies your "lost self" or recover our
lost self through the archetype of our parents. I met a young lady who was the archetype
of a mother and discovered I had unfinished business with that area. Simultaneously I
saw a performance that was the personification of my lost self, so I was simultaneously
confronted with the external personification of my true self and the archetypal parental
manifestation that had hindered the growth of that lost self.
You see there’s always the lost self you try to connect with or the unfinished
conversation you try to terminate. Only when you synthesize with your intrinsic self –
find your lost soul – and coalesce those conversations can you truly accept yourself.
Then you dissolve the illusion of freedom and experience life as it is (which, fortunately,
is glorious and fun).
The parental facade is whatever your parents like. If you parents like a
performance, then your facade, in order to recieve their love, will be to perform. But
your more authentic self could be more introspective, psychological, introverted, even
meditative. Alternatively, you could have an intrinsic wild, performance self, but the
facade you were trying to earn parental love with is calm, rational, and astute. Disparity
of the parental facade and the intrinsic self, combined with the commitment to receive
parental love (because the parental facade will betray and de-prioritize the intrinsic self
development), frequently causes us to cling or to never finish a conversation. If your
parental facade was incongruent with your true self, whenever you want to develop your
intrinsic self -- perform or meditate, whatever it may be -- the parental facade would pull
you in away from that development.
When you try to be intimate with a partner, given that you have not truly "left" --
meaning resolved all issues with them -- you are not in the present. Instead, you think
you are relating to your partner, but you are really having a conversation -- a discussion
of the past -- with your parents. We must avoid being stuck in conversations of the past.
You need energy and wisdom to be fully present with your partner in the present
moment. Instead of it being present and alert and accessible, much of that energy and
wisdom is trapped in a past conversation, seeking approval from your parents. After that
unfinished business with your parents is complete, you can heal the wound, and interact
as a being of wholeness to appreciate your partner as they are, instead of how you need
them to be to cure some parental discussion of the past. This is essential to authentically
growing up.
It's vital to recognize what some of us have not left our parents. I have not left
financial stuff. I get back from really being alive and doing tremendous good -- talking
to people, visiting many places, looking at places of my own, getting a job, visiting an old
friends -- very good, productive, humanitarian things and I get home and my dad starts
screaming at me that I am a bum. I had asked him for a re-imbursement for grocery
money and he flipped. It's so psychologically important for me to leave my parents
through psychology (and not physical space) because so much of my growth has been via
psychological conversations with my dad. So to achieve his approval, I had to
"psychologically perform", by presenting very PG-13 adolescent problems (like with
girls, teachers, grades not drug overdoses or gunfights -- dangerous stuff) and then
believing in his solutions. I had to play the role of the puzzled, but intrepid young teen,
6 Dissolve the Carbon Copy Character / 91
absolutely sure that some of parental facade is not actually part of our intrinsic self. Our
intrinsic self could be wedged into, in part, through our parental facade, and if that was
the case, throwing it away, would cause tremendous problems and reversion. If your
parental facade was to perform to earn their love, but your inner self truly was
performing, throwing away your parental facade would be a huge mistake because you
would dissociate and disintegrate the necessary nurturing of your inner self.
In writing this, I deeply know this is EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO ME. It
all came as a rush, a very punctuated and NOT gradual evolution in interpersonal
understanding and it occurred to me as I wrote this, and I fear not getting it all down or
doubting it, but this is truly, exactly what happened to me!
I did a lot of this. I felt my parental facade was to perform, but a deep part of my
inner self was to perform as well. So the solution is to not discard the parental facade,
but make the "facade" your own, so that the way you interact with people is for winning
your own love and not your parents’ love. When you act and conduct every decision,
live every moment of your profession, and intimately interact with your partner to
earn your own love and not the love of your parents, you have successfully "left your
parents". You have resolves all issues with them and are in a psychological state to
truly and intimately love another.
Many, many, many people fail to do the necessary unfinished work with their
parental-longing self. Many of us deny that we are longing for conversations with our
parents. We all are, and we all must love the fact that we crave to finish conversations
with our parental figures, and then we must simply say goodbye to that and begin loving
our self. The divorce rate of over 60% is direct evidence of this. People are too often
trying to skip over the dangerous, frightening, horrifying work they must do with their
parents, and as a result, they marry their parents to manifest a solution to a problem they
have tried to short-cut. There are not short-cuts in discovering your intrinsic self; it is
work that must be deliberately and consciously committed to. You will need all of you
energy -- hidden reserves of staimina even -- whits (with the shrewdness of snake),
intelligence (to foresee outcomes and keep yourself form going mad), soul's passion (to
keep you moving), and an incredibly strong relationship with intuition (to keep you alive
and focused and intrepidly endeavoring the unknown – to complete this evolution and
grow into your true being.
Living in the present is so vital. If you abandon it and wallow in the past, you get
sick and hurt. Furthermore, if you understand that the Hebrew name for God, YHWH
(yahwey) means "the God point in the present", you realize that spiritual therapy is living
in the presence of the present moment -- and that moment has all the tools to fully heal
and bring tremendous happiness -- which is always the case for the present moment.
You’re always seeking that happiness, but in this case, you’re achieving it. Furthermore,
there is a balance between a narrow focus and an expansive presence to fully capture the
present moment.
Some deep trances possess the characteristic of overly focusing so that one's focus
is too narrow. Which suggests that one be more expansive to seize the present. But
William James writes that the "wider self" is the more natural self: “My soul longs for the
expanses, to walk in the wide places.” In the Bible it says "Enter through the narrow
gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter
through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find
6 Dissolve the Carbon Copy Character / 93
it. (Matthew 7:13). Wow, that's a pretty large discrepancy! The wise William James
writes that the soul longs for the wide open spaces, but the venerable Bible claims that
the soul is only discovered through the narrow road. These are both credible sources, the
former claiming that the narrow focus is the path to the life of the present moment, while
the latter favors the wide and expansive to connect with the present moment most
spectacularly. Clearly, the fusion of such positions -- being focused and narrow with
one's intent, but not myopic to the extent of blinding our peripheal vision to vital
important details of the present – is essential. In other words, be focused on your
attention and agenda, but, additionally, remain committed to expanding and connecting
with the present! You know what to do with the present moment by having a narrow
focus on aligning your personal agenda, goals, and intention with the present moment,
but you truly connect with the present moment by expansiveness. You engage
expansiveness with "healthy mania", if you will, of grand, goal-achieving actions,
nonstop-talking, and a brainstorming, interconnected flight of ideas. You engage the
focusing of your goals with -- if you will -- "healthy depression". By being "healthily
depressed" externally by not being negative, nor melancholic, but quiet, reserved, and
introvertedly focused you can generate an unwavering momentum that is invariate and
inner-directed. The expansiveness of mania connects you to the environment, and the
narrow focus of depression, aligns you with you agenda and is grounding -- both are vital
for success.
because I felt safe. I felt accepted by this person who had been in movies and who had in
my eyes made it big and that gave me confidence, which is a fantastic thing to feel. But I
was in a state of not wanting to follow my parents' words directly because I felt that I
wanted to change the way I expressed my anger. Because you learn 85% of dealing with
your anger from your parents before you are 5 year's old, I felt they were impeding this
process. I basically felt suffocated around my parents, and this realization put me in state
of confusion, mistrust, and isolation. I couldn't get in touch with the professor’s
guidance that I trusted, and I loved my parents and trusted that they loved me and were
trying to do what was forever best for me, but felt I couldn't rely on them to help me
develop a new system of dealing with anger.
What ended up happening was that I developed my own system for dealing with
anger with the involvement of my parents. Rather than continuing to push on each other,
I decided to pull, and use their compassion to solve the problem. They had helped me
establish my anger system (which almost all parents do) and I began to use their feedback
and companionship through this tough time as a vehicle for altering my anger system
from its source. This way, I was able to not evade my upbringing, but utilize its strengths
and turn the situation from a struggle into a positive endeavor.
Whether intentionally or not, this professor sparked a profoundly tumultuous time
for me. It was an inspirationally didactic experience. Because of its positive process, I
have learned to possess a deep gratuity and cultivated interest for people and the world’s
gifts. The reason that it was so tumultuous (which turned out to be an okay thing because
I learned so much from this process), was because I tried to copy this professor’s
mannerisms and “cookie-cutter” his captivating personality traits. This is an essential
“no-no”. The Dalai Lama points out “It is very important for the guru, or lama, and the
student to investigate each other” (Dalai Lama 74). There was not so much of an
investigation there, or the investigation occurred extremely quickly. While had a lot of
faith in this new mentor, or guru, I lacked the deeper intent of needing to investigate the
professor’s beliefs and convictions: “It is not necessary to regard the teacher as one’s
guru; rather, simply consider the teacher to be a religious friend from whom you are
receiving teachings. Then if, as time passes, you examine the person’s qualifications and
gain real conviction, you can regard him or her as your own guru” (Dalai Lama 103). By
instantly putting this professor on a pedestal, when, in reality, he could have been just an
intellectual prankster trying to toy with people’s minds, I was left in a state of confusion
by having a disjointed interaction with his teachings. I felt that as if this spiritual teacher
suddenly became an enemy trying to deliberately harm me: “Even though an enemy may
deliberately harm you, it is basic practice to develop a deep respect and feeling of
gratitude toward that person. It can help you mental attitude to look at the situation this
way” (Dalai Lama 74). However, my deep sense of gratitude, due to the learning that
occurred at this time, made my respect for this person truly meaningful because I had
cultivated a confident system of self-encouragement and self-clarification from the,
deliberate or not, harm that was caused by the professor’s disjointed communication.
Maybe he designed me this roller coaster of uncertainty, so I would cultivate the
ability to be my own guru, and teach myself the spiritual lessons I needed, and if so, that
was brilliant and it worked because I’ve become somewhat of my own guru along with
Nature and the Geist of my friends, family, and contemporary times, empowering my
teaching and confidence in the process. Whatever his intent, I should have recognized his
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faithful convictions and qualifications, gone to the source of his ambitions, and created an
internal accommodation of his beliefs that I found inspiring after dissolving his
representational system. According to the Dalai Lama, “This is a good procedure” (Dalai
Lama 74). Even though I felt an effort wasn’t made on his part to continue the
mentoring process, I was given an opportunity for introspection, and I thanked him for
the awareness that was cultivated after the course. Some people consider this lesson an
example of poor leadership because it left me hanging out on a limb, but in a way, that’s
the best kind of leadership. Have people lead themselves; that’s what Lao Tzu and all
those other brilliant leaders do. But the purpose is not to label things as good or as bad
leadership, but to make the nourishing decision to truly learn from every experience and
challenge by instilling your own energies of personal leadership, now that sounds cliché,
but it is really very hard to do and the world would be a much happier place if we chose
to do that. We don’t have to have these wars; let’s just lead each other with grace. If I
could turn that experience into a positive nurturing when, that brought incredible learning
skills, I could transform any process – hardship or bountiful experience into a
rejuvenating experience, providing greater awareness of our emotions. After all, that is
primarily what new experiences do: they test our emotional coping contraptions. The
more versatile we become at accessing different emotions and manufacturing creative
solutions to whatever we encounter, the more poignant our life will be become. I am a
very organized person – especially mentally – or at least that is what I strive for. If
something bothers me about the way a person acted, or something I said, or my reaction
to a class, or anything, I always aim to express my feelings and get them off my chest –
loosen my load, enlighten my life. But I have always had this Teen Freedom course as
something that I didn’t really mind, but my parents loathed and I couldn’t get it off my
chest until I made them realize that I chose to do everything I wanted to in that class. We
choose our own actions, despite the tendency for us to blame causality, because it does
control us, if we don’t seize our own voltion. But they were not convinced that I could
do those things. I realized it was easiest – although not authentic – for them to think that
I had been brainwashed to change my life. I accepted that it was an easier way for them,
and let it be. This didn’t avoid the situation, but provided a relief of certainty by
understanding my parents’ reaction and then my reaction to their response. Sorting all
this out clarified the predicament and allowed me to, at least mostly, get the load
loosened and my life enlightened.
The important lesson to learn from this, is that it is not one’s external mannerisms,
creative personality, or magnetic spirit that one must emulate for success, nor are these
external characteristics the real meat of what is so engaging about celebrities and famous
people. Instead it is the internal convictions and faithful beliefs, and the means and
methods in which these are applied, that is so captivating in people. In other words,
beliefs are creative and have a source of connection, if and only if, they are one’s
personal convictions and accepted as inner truths. It is important not to buy into these
superficial means and put people up on a pedestal. Even if they are intrinsically good
people and qualified guru’s they should be regarded as friends, not as some deified
teacher. The internal syntax of faith and values is what we must cultivate, accommodate,
and integrate into our own lives for the sake of continuing passions that fuel our lifestyle.
By invigorating these passions from an internal source of commitment, we instill
a burgeoning creation to our faithful convictions. These faithful convictions become
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crystallized and have a rectitude that supercedes any other form of motivation because
the origin of such a conviction is driven by an intuitive, resilient motivation rather than a
wavering, externally subscribed one. By using the ability to learn from your internal
convictions, you create a place of change and knowing in your intrinsic desire to
understand yourself. By relinquishing your commitment to unstable commitments, and
disowning your ability towards creating a greater resolve in your life, you move beyond
shifting back and forth, unable to focus your skills, to fully committing yourself to every
task you endeavor.
making a chocolate cake look like a chocolate cake with brown coloring and sprinkles. It
doesn’t matter what the cake – or the lifestyle – looks like, instead it is the ingredients
and the recipe that lead to a successful cake. Instead, you must validate your
accommodations and arrange your life into a place where you choose to assimilate, not
characteristics and mannerisms of role models, but their faithful convictions. By
understanding and incorporating their internal principles and beliefs, you cultivate the
source of success and mannerisms, personality traits, and social characteristics will
evolve with your own inclinations and style, but you must carve out and start anew
and create your own values, your own cake. Stop making and eating cake from the
box, connect with your intrinsic spirit and bake your own cake of values and beliefs.
Allowing your societal style to evolve naturally is making the valid decision, whereas the
invalid decision would be stamping on an enmeshment of cliché mannerisms and
characteristic facades.
There exist many affects after dissolving one’s model of personal reverence.
Along with being provided with the opportunity, confidence, and awareness to create
one’s own model for reverence – a remarkably unique experience – one will be bestowed
with the gift of validating one’s personal convictions is created. Once the realization that
a lot of your ambitions and convictions had been designed after, and modeled after a
revered person, you can radically alter them to further validate your life. You will be able
to dissect your faithful convictions, and assimilate them into your own life in a
customized fashion. This isn’t similar to the elementary process of SQRR of interpreting
written material, which involves the Survey, Question, Read, and Review process. The
process of “reading” and reassembling one’s own convictions becomes a process of
exciting change where your life can undergo a radical alteration for the better. One’s
faithful convictions – or the innate beliefs that sway one’s deepest decisions and actions –
are what should be assimilated after the process of reading one’s internal convictions.
This dissection is the first step is to acknowledging some of the values you hold in
respecting and revering a role model.
After acknowledging the presence of a revered persona, one must ask questions
like, "What makes this person tick?” Why do they get up in the morning? What makes
them feel so motivated? How do they incorporate so much charisma into their actions?
Where does their energy come from? Why are so many people attracted to them? The
answer to these questions will vary from person to person, but their answers will be the
underlying values that sponsor their creativity. You won’t be “stealing” or “copying”
their values, because the values they uphold – whether it be compassion, altruism,
sincerity, loyalty, expression, etc – are free entities. The process and sequence of these
values are their faithful convictions because they are values, principles and beliefs that
one believes in on faith, and they support their mood, lifestyle, and personality. Other
people call these faithful convictions, strategies, or archetypes, but they are all the same
idea.
Anthony Robbins calls this process of dissolving one’s external image to
understand their faithful convictions, “eliciting someone’s strategy”. According to him,
one must follow a pattern of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic clues: “before you can
effectively elicit strategies, you must know what to look for, what the clues are that tell
which part of a person’s nervous system they use. We need to find out his main
representational system” (Robbins 126). This representational system is how they
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interpret their world on a sensual medium, a level involving their senses. If someone has
an auditory representational system they will have difficulty accommodating and learning
information visually or kinesthetically, for example. A purely visual learner, being given
a lecture with no visual representations will certainly result in cognitive dissonance,
simply because that person’s representation system is limited. Anthony Robbins talks
about the ability to read people after eliciting their strategies and get across information
in a much more effective manner because of awareness of their representational system.
Learning how one’s eyeballs move, if their ears are really used, or how one “sniffs roses”
– the work of one’s senses – is not really an intuitive system of understanding. “The
experience of intuition cannot be explained in terms of the five senses”. In other words,
you must go beyond senses to a deeper understanding that connotes a relationship to
wants manifest destiny and soul. All work with sensual representational systems is fine
and dandy for the acquisition of superficial strategies, but what I am interested in, is not
one’s sensual representational system, but their faithful convictions (what Anthony
Robbins calls a strategy).
The sensual world is an interesting and captivating place, but if you are having
problems, you must validate your lifestyle, not your sensual representational system.
Anthony Robbins talks about one’s representational system as if it were patterns on how
one represented the outside world internally. What is more important is to look at one’s
representational system as if it were a conduit of one’s faithful values to the outside
world. You must internally grasp these faithful convictions so you produce an amalgam
of results that represent changes in your lifestyle, which, in turn, will lead to
improvements in the clarity of how you interpret and express ideas to your world.
It is the application and the concentrated treatment of one’s values – or their
strategy of faithful convictions – that allows for the positive external results to occur.
The understanding of one’s mental and emotional sequence, which allows for the
creativity and the evolution of external mannerisms to occur, is the key to their lifestyle
process. Just as a cryptologist can decipher a code by looking for a specific syntax and
patterns, we must examine multiple factors: “the kinds of internal representations, the
necessary submodalities, and the required syntax” (Robbins 113). The mental syntax is
the sequence of incorporating values, to understand the process of acquiring mental
patterns, one must think like a master cryptologist and break a code. By deciphering
one’s syntax we learn the sequence of their faithful convictions, and “we will know
which keys to hit and how to produce the results we want in our internal biocomputer”
(Robbins). Now, I feel that one’s internal mental syntax is much more adaptively
sophisticated and intricate than a clunky computer, as Anthony Robbins suggested.
However, the analogy holds merit because it is the sequence of value-based “keys” and
the method in which they are integrated to one’s life that produces the actions and
personality traits that lead to success, fame, and magnetic personalities.
In his book, The Seat of the Soul, Gary Zukav speaks of making internal value
changes for external results:
“If you wish the world to become loving and compassionate, become loving and
compassionate yourself. If you wish to diminish fear in the world, diminish your own.
These are the gifts you can give. When we are drawn to someone’s magnetic personality,
humorous mannerisms, or compassionate persona, we are being drawn to the external
representations of their internal strategies.”
100 / Validate Your Life
--Gary Zukav
While much of his book talks of animal and dolphin manifestations, which I
consider to be “hooey looey” mumbo-jumbo, he does have some very deeply justified
outlooks on self-improvement. By diminishing fear and adjusting your life to associate
with the valid decisions, you make a step toward dissolving fear and instigating
compassion in the world. You’re perception of reality revolves around you, and the
universe will adapt to these changes if necessary. You must understand that the
compassionate internal changes one makes are reflected in their world, simply because
the conduit in which they interpret the world would be compassionate. If you alter your
lifestyle so that you become more compassionate of more fearless, you begin to
emotionally craft a compassionate or fearless lens, and this lens is the trick to stepping
toward your internal gifts of success.
Finding one’s recipe for fame, success, or happiness is truly a process. The
movement of success being a process and not a “finish line” or ends cannot be enunciated
with more certainty. This process is composed of three steps dissolving their
representational conduit, comprehending the syntax of their faithful convictions, and
accommodating these values into one’s life. The hard part is discovering how to dissolve
one’s values and then apply them to one’s own system of understanding. The secret to
this is pinpointing internal and external representational methods (Anthony Robbins).
According to Mr. Robbins, you have internal and external representations of auditory,
visual, and kinesthetic feelings. Feeling the chair’s upholstery you are sitting in, or
hearing a car’s brakes squeal are clear examples of an external kinesthetic and an external
auditory feelings, respectively. These external sensations can be broken up into
submodalities to clarify the experience even more. Submodalities are adjectives that
would describe the specific feeling of the chair (descriptions of texture, temperature,
pressure, weight, intensity) or hearing the car and noting the submodalities of volume,
pitch, rhythm etc. The important details, however, are not the sensations but recognizing
one’s faithful convictions and not their representational system.
emotions. If we wanted appreciation from a person, with the gift example, we should
have asked them for it. Giving a gift and expecting appreciation is devaluing the essence
of what a gift truly is: “something that is voluntarily bestowed without compensation” –
that is a dictionary definition of a gift. A true gift is something where you feel love and
feel good giving it and then it is not owned by anyone, someone else may or may not feel
good receiving, but ideally, someone will. An authentic gift has no ownership, it is
simply a feeling of relinquishment that brings joy and a feeling of reception that produces
joy. If you expect something in return, in other words, what you are giving violates the
basic “rules of a gift” and is not really a gift, but, in this case at least, a request. Knowing
what our personal agenda is, clarifies why we have certain reactions – that seem
completely irrational. Investigating our agenda helps us reveal why we behave the way
we do. The key to accessing our deepest drives, which is our karma, is targeting our
agenda.
One of the way to help shape our agenda into one that is intrinsically providing to
others and compassionate is to ask, “What would help these people the best?” I
remember constantly feeling obligated to talk to people about validation, judge
empowerment, fusing personality with soul, using intuition, and all the other amazing
devices to nourish you life. This was fine and dandy, when I wasn’t in the process of
writing. Sometimes I would be in mid-chapter, get up from work with the purpose to
stretch and see a person I knew. I felt compelled to start up a conversation and usually
did, which led to a half-hour extension of a 20-second break. I then lost my writing
groove and had to start over. By asking myself “If my goal is to help empower people,
what would help them more: A book that they could keep forever, share with others, and
that could target a large audience in a formulized organized method or a quick chit-chat
that one person probably wouldn’t remember?” The answer, of course, was always
returning back to writing by realizing that the writing was an infinitely greater gift than a
conversation to people, but books can only go so far, so the idea is to solidify my words
that can help people and then create an effective method of communicating those words.
Just imagine talking to someone about something irrelevant and trying to tie in once
concept of intuition for 15 minutes or giving them an entire book, detailing examples,
procedures, and ways to use empowerment tools and devices that will enrich their life
permanently. The “decision” quickly became a joke and I realized what a gift I was
creating for people, but it is an authentic gift, because I wasn’t expecting, or even
wanting, any respect of it. I just wanted it as a bound copy that I could share with others.
Gary Zukav realized that writing his book was a way to approach life with
benevolence when he had previously been angry. Here’s what he says about the process
of writing: “I was so excited that I was content to be where I was, doing what I was
doing. I was completely fulfilled, I was engaged, and I believe I was engaging, I was
living in the present moment. That book was a gift to me as well as to the people who
later read it”7. Before his book, he was “always boiling. [He] was always enraged about
something, [He] was always critical of other people and jealous. [He] always felt that he
was an unappreciated person” Writing his book was his first generous gift to life,
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allowing him to cease being a victim and cure his anger. This is what is so magical about
inspirational writing, or any writing, any compassionate contribution it begins to benefit
the creator. I wanted to share my creation as a gift for people not with a hidden agenda
working, but because it worked wonders for me and I wanted to share that positively
empowering reaction. Gary Zukav says about his book, “That book was my first gift to
life”8. This is a true quality of a gift. It must be a gift not to a specific person, but to life,
and it must have the compassionate energy unbounded by compensation.
The way we cope with emotions is our “curriculum in the earth school”9. Some
of us become withdrawn with anger, others become focused, and still others become
expressive and have the need to dominate or make others submissive. These are all
primitive reactions. We should be interested in challenging our anger, “challenging our
anger means being able to give it some articulation”10. When we make others made for
the purpose of allowing them to challenge their anger, we do them a favor, to help them,
hopefully, learn to articulate their anger. The person who invokes the anger isn’t a deity
or someone powerful, just a messenger that instigates stuff that people already know
subconsciously, but aren’t ready to admit on their conscious level. Let’s say you see the
bank has been pulling $10 out of your pocket for the past 4 months in some odd fee, you
crumple the bank note and push it to the back of your mind, kicking the garbage can as
you walk away disgruntled. Someone else with the same $10 fees, says, “Damnit! That
stupid bank!” Takes a bus to the bank and screams at the manager until the fees are
changed. A third situation with the same $10 fee smiles, chuckles to himself and says,
“The bank did it again. Well, if they can’t keep track of bookkeeping, it’s time to find a
new bank.” And then casually makes an appointment with his financial advisor to switch
his funds to a different bank. All these reactions are responses of anger, but they get
progressively more efficient and articulate in expression. The first person buries the
anger – completely ineffective. The second person expresses it, but without tact. The
third person articulates the emotion tactfully. The third person is the most present in the
situation. When you become more present, more human, more free of your fears, as you
experience them and challenge them.” Additionally, “you are more capable of giving the
gift that you were born to give.”11 This is how you create authentic power, which is the
alignment of your personality with your soul. When this alignment occurs, everything
shifts into rejuvenation and clarity because the frightened, fearful parts of your
personality will not be nourished; they all have their own agendas of fear and hesitation,
worry and doubt, and if you focus on your true gift-giving potential, your soul, as the
core of your personality, the fragmented components of your self will wither and die off.
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2005
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2005
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Every authentic gift has a certain energy about it that makes it limitless and a
synthesis for connecting and drawing love among people. “Indifference creates
indifference12”, and this pattern can only be broken by compassion. Gary Zukav writes
that he always did everything for himself, but that his book was not for him. “It was a
gift for others and it was a joy to write. It’s got the energy of a gift, it’s got the energy of
the present moment, it’s got the energy of excitement and participation in life, and that’s
what we’re all looking for.”13This book is an incredible gift that, to me, has the authentic
qualities of a gift.
The idea of nurturing the fusion of our soul and personality is incredibly
important. It’s a fantastic idea because it reveals that, whether this is “opportune” or not
is irrelevant, our personality is kind of a vessel or container for whatever we put in it.
Ideally, our personality receptacle should house our soul. If it does, the effect will be
similar to the nurturing roots of a tree. A tree grows with xylem and phloem in the center
around the pith (the core of the tree). The basic growth of the tree is simple.
The ordering of a tree's rings goes pith, primary xylem, secondary xylem (forces
everything else outward), vascular cambium, secondary phloem, primary phloem, cortex,
then bark (made up of cork cambium and cork). The cork provides an outer cover for the
outside of the stem.. Newly formed secondary xylem forces the cambium, phloem and
all other tissues outward. Xylem has stronger cells than phloem, and xylem makes up the
bulk of the tree. Because phloem cells are weak, they can quickly and easily get crushed
between cells in the xylem and cambium, as the secondary xylem grows outward away
from the pith. Our soul is like the xylem and we constantly expand that outward to create
the house of our soul – the bark. So it is the soul that creates the body – the house – just
as it is the xylem and pith from which the bark cambium, officially grows.
Now the actual growth of the tree has the secondary xylem growing away from
the pith, and the secondary phloem growing towards the pith, because these two
collections of cells grow towards the pith. These two types of cells grow against each
other. The roots of a tree can be broken down into a taproot system which has roots
branching from a single stem for all the way down and fibrous root system has roots
branching from a common source. All plants have three types of tissue, dermal tissue
(which is the outer epidermal layer on plants, sometimes producing the waxy roots),
ground tissue (basically all of young plant bodies, that aid in photosynthesis, storage and
support), and vascular tissues (xylem and phloem, which transports nutrients, minerals,
sugars, and plant hormones). Vascular tissue makes up the bulk of the plant. Xylem,
made up of tracheid cells and vessel elements, transports water and minerals up from the
roots to the rest of the plant. Phloem transports water and dissolved nutrients like sugars,
amino acids and hormones throughout the plant in sieve-tube elements. So the phloem
and xylem channel whatever the tree pull up from its roots. Picture ourselves like this: if
we have our soul fused with our personality our emotional “roots” draw up minerals,
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6 Dissolve the Carbon Copy Character / 105
obstacles, ensures success on the secular as well as the spiritual plane. Now, regardless
of my religion, this is something that I would certainly have faith in. I mean, a deity that
covers you on the spiritual and spiritual level? How can you go wrong!
However, what if you are like the protagonist in “Life of Pi”, Piscine, who has
strong connections with multiple religions? As happened in the novel, many leaders of
the doctrines frowned incredibly on the admiration of multiple religions, saying that such
double-faced commitment has duplicity. I don’t think one should be a kid in a candy
store, taking whatever he likes with religion, but we should have the spiritual recognition
to admire parts of religions – spiritual universality and acceptance. You don’t want to
scatter your faith, but remaining committed to a single doctrine is too limiting because
you are unaware of all the history, traditions, and incredibly extensive array of rituals
associated with it. In this case, you have two options – study up and pursue a single
religion, or validate, not your specialness, but your authenticity, and cultivate your own
spiritual agenda. This way your embrace religion, instead of avoid it.
By creating your own structure you arrive at a pivotal stage where validated
decisions show a definite path in one’s life. Throughout this path, the validated decisions
will resonate more clearly and their affects will be even more profoundly uplifting and
positive. In short, it will keep getting better and better. Whenever we borrow someone
else’s styles or mannerisms, we are cropping their agenda onto our own. This leads to
cookie-cutting and celebrity conglomerates, which lead to a vacant, void-like existence --
certainly, not one of uplifting validation.
Cookie-cutting is so destructive because it leads us astray from our own
curriculum in the earth school. Gary Zukav points out “we each have our own
curriculum in the earth school, our own particular challenges, and our own fulfillment to
reach”14. Participating in your own curriculum is the only way to generate authentic
power from you own place in the earth school. According to Zukav, authentic power is
the exhilaration for being alive and having a purpose, and knowing that what you’re
doing serves that reason of being alive. When we give the gifts we are made to give, we
manufacture authentic power. I remember taking one class and the goal was to try to
provide this reason or purpose in your life. But I already had mine figured out – to make
others happy with jokes and play, while balancing doing things for myself. The seminar
through me off because I thought that, from the investigation of the connection, my
current purpose was off. This certainly wasn’t the case and the course did the reverse of
what it was supposed to do. Knowing when to investigate and change your agenda and
knowing when to continue with what you’re doing, is one of the most powerful steps in
improving and maintaining your spiritual lifestyle.
When I was younger we has music class where we sang such a wild variety of
songs, I am surprised we all didn’t go crazy because of the lyrics. We sang, just to name
a couple, “Ghost of the Ship”, about some apparition aboard a ship of the walking dead,
and “Sir Lancelot”, a song about a medieval, dueling knight who attracted women with
his sword-fighting abilities, and all of these really weird songs. The point of all this is
that it is the unique combination of lyrics that create a song. At the time, the songs were
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Zukav”.February, 2005
6 Dissolve the Carbon Copy Character / 107
complete entities that I had to learn for the sake of getting a good grade in music class,
but I was able to learn them, despite their odd ball messages and lyrics, because of their
compositional integrity. A string of random words cannot make a song. Similarly, a
bunch of mannerisms and personality traits cannot make a lifestyle. You can’t cut and
paste a lifestyle it must be cultivated and practiced with the right tempo, rhythm, cadence,
and pitch. Just as a sequence of lyrics must dance with the music it makes, your faithful
convictions must relate to your unique lifestyle in a similar ballet of interweaving
assurance and fervent sincerity. That is what music really is, a dance of lyrics and
sounds, enveloped in a sincere melody. You have the ability to define you’re your life
melodiously genuine.
Being a huge believer in the genuine soul and not cutting and pasting personality
with cookie-cutters or celebrity conglomerates, Gary Zukav points out that “we are more
than bodies and minds, more than enzymes and molecules and that this universe is more
than our five sense can detect”15 is a valid comment because it provides an alternative
meaning to life. Honoring the fact that science has proven that we are made of enzymes,
molecules, DNA, and cells is crucially important, but choosing to believe in the soul
cannot harm, because it provides reason and motivation from that purpose. “You are on
this earth voluntarily, you have an agreement with the universe, you have potential that
your are now beginning to thirst for. You have gifts to give [creating authentic power],
align the personality with the soul, and experience and challenge and change the
frightened parts of your personality. “This authentic power creates an internal sun that
provides more meaning,” says Gary Zukav. While an internal sun and being all soul is a
little off the rocker for me, these philosophies hold an incredible amount of validity with
knowing that people are here voluntarily, have gifts to give that provide self- and external
empowerment, and are more than cells and molecules. Zukav seems to abandon the
science too quickly, making his arguments too aloof at times, but his ability to connect
soul with personality is incredibly nourishing and evocative. Believing that our bodies
are more than networks of cells and blood and organs is very empowering, but even more
so is to realize that agenda our your soul (given power by fusing your soul with your
personality and giving the gifts you were supposed to give) has its own agenda and the
frightened components of our personality have their own agenda. We must stick to our
soul’s agenda or else be perpetually immersed in fear and doubt. Taking the step of the
soul is the ultimate act of validation, but it is not easy. Validating your life from your
soul requires adaptation and focus. It is hard, and requires a tremendous amount of faith.
In this creative process of self-definition, you eradicate the void and replace it
with identity and intrinsic validity. Avoiding celebrity conglomerates, cookie-cutters,
and overly-aligned allegiances to systems are the steps to follow the path leading to the
acquisition of passion, and a truly cultivated a meaningful life.
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Chapter 7
Elicit Faithful
Convictions:
The Craft of
Emotional
Distance and
Emotional
Engagement
his chapter introduces you to a liberating emotional program, the removal of anger
By expecting its members to blindly accept the group’s values, without evaluating
the beliefs themselves, most groups abduct their members. Rather than cultivate a
7 Elicit Our Faithful Convictions / 111
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine
providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of
events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius
of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their
heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now
men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors
and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides,
redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and
the Dark.”
-- Emerson
In this famous piece of literature, Emerson reminds us that the truly divine place
is with the great men. However, these “great men” are not defined by donning a crown
on your heads or being adorned in ornate robes with prestigious titles (although people
who wear such garb, certainly could be great); instead, great men are those, who became
awe-stricken by the genius and intellectual capacity of their age. The great men are
captivated by the Geist. The truly provocative and alive people are those who are not
minors or invalids anymore, but connect with the passion and fearlessness of their
childhood self while committing to bold tasks of adulthood. It’s that tremendous juggling
act that occurs. This book is about realizing the falsity of invalidity and moving beyond
that crippled position towards becoming the guide, redeemer, and benefactor. Let’s learn
how to sequence our emotional patterns in a way that induces productive emotional
engagement in groups by learning the art of emotional distance through validity.
understand how a group relates to us and then distance ourselves from the unproductive
actions.
A group relates to its members by having common interests, values, and agendas.
A productive, emotionally safe group has its members coexist in free enterprises. The
reliability of a maladaptive group depends on its usage of groupthink. Groupthink is a
psychological term associated with the negative affects that a strong cohesion of values in
a group bond can generate. We want avoid too much cohesion with a group and ensure
that our own values are aligned and that the group moves with that and helps that.
It's a false bifurcation to say that there only exists doers or dreamers because
clearly the two overlap and other classifications exist. However, I have considered
myself more of a dreamer and am interested in balancing out those two essential qualities
with more dreaming.
But this should be examined. What is a lie? An intentionally false statement.
But what about a “false statement”; something that is incorrect. This is cool; this is
interesting. Telling people that 5+2=8 would be generally – generally -- considered a lie
because the person intentionally says something that is incorrect, blatantly says a false
statement. But look again, could 5+2 = 8? If you have 5 medium-sized apples and add 2
gigantic apples, the outcome could be equivalent to 8 medium-sized apples. If the
outcome weight-“apple size” is implied in the statement, then 5+2 (large apples) = 7
(medium-sized apples) would be incorrect! So, given that the apple-weight, instead of
the apple-quantity, outcome is implied, “5+2 does 8”. Key thing here. Key, key thing.
If something that is frequently considered to be false, is proven very correct in
math, almost anything can be spun with a spin of veracity. This is not promoting deceit,
trickery, and malign! I hate – I loathe – those faces of doubt. It is engendering the
fruition of harmony, transparency, congruence, and openness! The person who says that
5+2=8 is more specific; they are more accurate, and they relevant to that scenario! If the
person was talking about universals, they would have to state their case. Everything
people say is ALIVE and invigorated and TRUE! It promotes more authentic ways of
saying things because humans are not robots.
It’s more human, it’s more truthful to ourselves to be dynamic and make creative,
“divergent” connections, than to always say I played shortsop in highschool baseball.
Instead, say, “I wore leather mittens, and blockaded compact balls of twine (along with
cork, what baseballs are composed of) from flying into well-trimmed green grass. I
really was more of a weaver in highschool”. Or instead of saying “I ran the 1600 mile in
track, say, I delivered powerful kicks and punches to planes of a purely horizontal
inclination. I was more of a karate master, actually. And then karate master connotes
hollywood flips and then you can go anywhere, saying that you were an actor. “All the
world’s a stage – that’s what Shakespeare says” That is not decietfully embellishing with
malign and sly deception; instead it is connecting with innovation and the clarity of using
our brains. Saying things exactly the way they occurred, mars and disfigures the capacity
of the human brain because it tricks and slyly deludes people into thinking that humans
are not as creative as we are. We are incredibly creative and alive and focused people;
we must never neglect that and must practice our creativity and our determination and
focus everyday.
Giving the robotic, output input reponse (how old are you? 22. What’s your
gender? Male) tarnishes, and blemishes and negates the synergistic nature of the human
spirit.
So, in reality, giving creative answers of gusto and originality is the most
truthful respones – vehemently declaring the original contingency of the
magnamious human spirit with vim and vigor. We have to fight against those
robotic responses that truly lie to our unbridled hidden virtuoso, and express our
dyanamic self.
So making creative connections can be a way of generating emotional space, but
the juggling act, again, just like using different costumes is to have fun with the group not
114 / Validate Your Life
to decieve and conceal. More importantly, “lying” is being truthful to our intrinsic self
because our intrinsic self prudently thinks, gracefully operates, and makes galvanizing
connections not of static, standardized prosaic responses, but of responses connected to
our successful, thriving future. Everytime you give a generic response that is “societally
truthful” you frequently lie to your intrinsic self because the societal body is rarely
perfectly congruent with the physical body. Whenever you “societally fib” and use
creative serendipitous responses you reclaim your intrinsic spirit and that acquisition
creates more compassion in the world because you are happier and that joy is contagious.
So “conventional lying” can be “contemporary creativity” and connecting with the
current spiritual Geist allows you to access your intrinsic self and it generates more
compassion and world happiness, given that it is through the process of being creative,
exuberant and experiencing the human invigoration. Lying and costumes should
simply be to emerge with connection and fun, never to submerge yourself or
another. It should be a way of allowing your true self to emerge, but to do that, you
must know thyself and not be a pure cookie-cutter or celebrity conglomerate.
I recall a specific instance of groupthink in the my third grade classroom. The
teacher, a very domineering, heavy set, and frightening 55-year old woman, enveloped
the class, and my mind, in an imperious command of control, rather than didactic
involvement. By instilling a decreasing behavior mechanism of positive punishment, she
spuriously made up the guise that cameras were installed in the classroom and we were to
all be on our best behavior for the “academic survey recordings”. This plot, which
caused us to behave and respond with extreme compliance, went to the extent of the
teacher actually sending home a letter saying that we were to be on our best behavior!
This certainly had to violate some legal issues, by blatantly lying to third graders about a
non-existent video-taping! It was preposterous, but effective because whenever we
became rambunctious or boisterous, she commanded order by tacitly referring to the
“hidden” cameras in the room with an authoritative gesture.
I certainly am not conveying that my early elementary school experience was
plagued with a plethora of brainwashing and mind-control scandals. I consider my
elementary school days to be the greatest, most awakening, and most enjoyable
experiences of my life. And, in fact, I try emulate enjoyment I had during those times.
This “camera-watching” trick was actually tried on my class five years later, the
year of graduation, 8th grade, by our shop teacher. By then, we had grown out of the
demands of such decreasing behavioral control and groupthink and merely laughed when
the shop teacher told us he worked for the CIA and was recording every wood-sanding
we did. But the fact that such a control technique was effectively inculcated on a class of
25 students shows the powerful and cognitive control created by the groupthink
mechanism. We all converged into a realm where these unseen illusions controlled our
very actions. Well, there exist myriad unseen illusions – like the spurious camera-survey
program – that elusively control and restrict your everyday behavior in a variety of
environments; we all remain involved in a world of façade and must manufacture a
peaceful knowing of integrity that is pristinely truthful.
ribbed back science chairs (I remember what the chairs looked like so much because it
was extremely unique to have red chairs, and I was always seeing the next chair in front
of me during class, so I had a good glimpse of them) and split his lip open on the table. It
was a gruesome event, but secretly I enjoyed this whole event. Now, I am not a
pugnacious kid; I was overwhelmingly polite, courteous, and properly behaved (maybe a
little too congenial at times, up to the point where I let bullies take advantage of me and
push my best friend down the stairs). I felt in some weird, misdirected, psychologically
perverse way that seeing this boisterous kid crack his lip open as some odd form of
revenge. At the time it was wildly entertaining, and I knew that I should be concerned,
and was deeply concerned with all of the red blood oozing out of his lip onto the red
chairs in the science room, but it was a different kind of concern. Nevertheless, this
boisterous kid, after a 10-year hiatus on interaction, ended up being one of my best
friends after I developed more highly-attuned communicational skills and expanded my
social capabilities and he toned down a bit, too.
That kid always seemed to be getting beat up. He was a real actor (his parents
actually were thespians and directors), and got some kind of head injury running into the
tetherball outside on the elementary school playground. Recess was spectacular during
elementary school that was an incredible fun and liberating time – segments of the day
that I strongly valued. It wasn’t even so much that my friends and I did amazing stuff
(we could have organized a group and engaged in similar “recess” activities after school)
but it was the value we put on the time. Of course, it was very difficult to arrange large
get- together, find access to basketballs, a playground, and basketball hoop, but mainly it
was that short 20-minute period of freedom that we all devoured.
Looking back on it, I realize that it was the shortened length of time that made
recess so fun. We wasted no time changing into our gym shoes (special shoes we had to
wear to walk on the gym floor – my elementary school truly had incredible facilities – the
gym floor was kept so sparkling clean that it was almost sacred!) and then organized
teams, acquired balls, and claimed a hoop in an extremely expedited process. That was,
of course, when we weren’t playing tag or this ingenious game developed by my friends
and I called “Super Contaminator”. I think “Boys-Chase-Girls/Girls-Chase-Boys” (I was
never clear on who was chasing who) was the preschool chasing game. This, of course,
evolved into the traditional, and widely known “Tag” around 1st and 2nd grade. This
alternated between Freeze Tag, and this Group Tag, where when you were tagged you
became part of the “tagging squad” until there where 20 taggers chasing after some poor
little taggee, trying to pin himself high above the chaotic fray on the monkey bars. Then
one of my best friend’s, Justin, created “Super Contaminator”. This was similar to
Freeze tag, except (after watching too many Terminator movies and reading too many
Chernobyl news stories) you would start to gyrate and contort, and shake into some
standing seizure as though your had been contaminated by toxic waste. Those games
were incredible fun. Tag was by far the ultimate game for recess activities. It not only
was incredibly active, but it had no physical boundaries. Unlike basketball, which was
limited to a court, or an organized game, limited to a playing field and rules, tag went
down the slide, through the monkey bars, over the grass, and zigzagged in and out of
every nook of the playground’s equipment and every bit of shrubbery on the school
grounds.
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Then there was this other girl, who was kind of the dichotomous opposite of my
first date (I was always a psychologically complex kid, sometimes. Sometimes I’m really
simple, too). She wasn’t a very good student, had an older sister (so had “ins” with the
older grades, which is huge social leverage in elementary school), and my attraction to
her was primarily physical and maybe emotional. Whereas the first-date girl was almost
entirely intellectual and emotional. I was so scared to ask her out that I had my little
brother go up to her multiple tells to tell her that I liked her. I remember this one
devastating blow I got, was when (after just sending out my fraternal messenger) she
approached me on the playground and told me straight up to my face, “John, I don’t like
you”. That was a blow that I tried to shrug away and emotionally conceal by climbing up
the 3-tiered playground facility towards the slide and act like I didn’t care. Oh I cared,
though. I may have been whopping down the slicked shoot of the slide, but I was cringing
with anger and irritation and, most of all, enormous bucket-loads of mortification inside.
Oh well, I moved on and eventually worked up the guts to ask her out myself a few years
later.
Elementary school days maintained the most peaceful in an academic setting. I
loved moving as a class from room to room where we had separate classes – drama,
science, shop, gym, and language (French for 9 years up until 7th grade). We moved as a
unit, experiencing the variety of academia and the transient classrooms as one gigantic
pod. We returned each year (with one or two kids leaving and then returning) for 10
years (first grade through eighth and junior and senior kindergarten). That was some
great stuff, because you didn’t have to worry about making new friends or even “fitting
in”.
Also, you didn’t have to go through the academic experiences independently, like
in high school where you navigate to all your classes on your own. We coped with it
together, and I didn’t feel as distant from my peers. Because it takes me awhile to evolve
and psychologically get to know my peers, this “10-year” period of togetherness was
incredibly fun. I made all of my best friends then. Of course, I had some incredible
fantastic and scintillating friendships in high school and college, but none that had as
deeply related roots as the elementary school group of friends. I felt like some returning
sitcom, playing the roles we had to play, and enjoying each other’s spectacular company
without the identity confusion of High school.
Before elementary school was preschool and all I remember there is having
cubbies to put your belongings and riding on scooters during recess, which seemed to be
much longer than elementary school recess – the brief 20-minutes. But, I recall preschool
being fun. I don’t even remember if I ate at school, but it was interesting.
8th grade was one of the biggest periods of change for me. I began running on my
own, biking to “less safe” parts of Chicago, not to hang out with gang members or
anything, but to actually play video games at this kind of rundown arcade near an El stop.
My parents wouldn’t let me go to that area by myself so I never told them. In 8th grade
we didn’t have to be escorted to classes, either, so in our academic institution we were
even provided with more freedom. Oddly enough, another huge change was that I started
drinking and even smoking in eight grade! Jeez I was young for that type of stuff. At
least, I flushed that abuse out of my system when I had parents around. Otherwise, as
I’ve seen happen with other individuals, it can get drastically disturbing if this “substance
abuse” rebellion is delayed. I had switched my best friend to one that had older brothers
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that took him to parties, and he introduced me to drinking and even smoking pot once. I
ended up dating that girl that I had been physically attracted to, and she got me into
smoking. Wow! A world of change and bad habits. Academically, I felt I had to force
myself to do homework, whereas before, I had done it naturally with eagerness, and I
began to take Spanish after nearly a decade of French classes. So, the alcoholic and
tobacco habits, and occasional drug habits, Spanish language, girlfriend, and more
physical freedom was just a an incredible barrage of change. I think part of the reason
why I changed so much was to cope with leaving all of my classmates and the incredible
shift for high school. It was kind of a negative way of coping with that large academic
change. I had wanted to perpetuate the academic school experience and had hoped that
they would develop a high school, but that didn’t happen.
I remember high school being cold and isolating with insane loads of work and
sparse times of close friendship. It definitely seemed more like a college – medschool
program. I was overwhelmed by the compelling demand to be “cool” in high school.
Everything, every class, every person, every action, every group seemed to distinctly fall
into the “cool” or “uncool” category. Well, I started off the four-year roller coaster ride
with a bang. Because I was on the soccer team, hanging out with the cool people in the
grade (getting me into upperclassmen parties – one of the biggest high school “cools”
imaginable), and girls seemed to like me. I drifted away from the close bonds of my
elementary school friends and began hanging out with friends, whose main connection
was drinking or smoking. I had some close bonds, but experienced nowhere near the
amount of emotional clarity and tranquility and learning that I did in elementary school. I
feel that because that was where my mind was truly opened, that I learned the most in
elementary school. Its experience produced more than a didactic response; it was
original, exciting, peaceful, and fun. I also remember that I was a straight “A” student all
throughout elementary school, up until 8th grade, when I got a few “B”. The affect of my
transient social life and the involvement in destructive habits had sponsored a reactionary
affect on my academic success. I definitely don’t regret changing all that, and then
coasting through high school with good grades, because I only regret things I didn’t do.
It’s just important that I wasn’t consumed by those bad habits and that they were just an
experimentation. I think it is detrimental to avoid experimentation or to become
consumed by it, which leads to, inevitably, an addiction. Any extreme will produce
someone who has gone through the necessary identity development.
During high school I was lost on what to do during “free periods” – there was not
tag, no Jungle gym, and even where to eat at lunch. Everything was much less laid out,
making me really self-conscious. Also, I wasn’t into books as much. I remember up
until 8th grade, I loved reading books. I was one of the best writers in my class as well.
But when my different social habits changed, so did my relationship to books. I
remember the year early an 8th grade had asked me during gym class in a condescending
tone “You aren’t a book person, are you?”. I somehow felt that I must stop reading
books to be “cool”, and I needed this “coolness” to survive high school. So stopped
reading books for the coolness thing. “Coolness” is something that isn’t a very high
priority in my book, but it’s very important to feel connected, accepted, and alive, and
like a chic person that is sure of themselves. So the drinking and partying and changes in
academic involvement was my way of rationing an arsenal of coolness in order to survive
college. In reality, however, I should have continued my love for English and found my
7 Elicit Our Faithful Convictions / 119
academic and social niche for the people who found those areas “cool”. I redefined my
sense of cool, when it shouldn’t have even been in my vocabulary because this only
distorted my thinking into whatever society wanted. Every day of it, though, I love
elementary school though!
Lesson 1: Bullies
If a faction or party induces groupthink, its members all think with the other
members of the group. They lack individuality, are easily led, and act as obedient,
subservient followers of the groups practices and ideologies. First off, a membership of a
group that practices individuality and encouragement, rather than groupthink, fabricates a
greater temperament for validation. The problem with not recognizing the power of
groupthink, and not distancing ourselves emotionally from a group, is that we tend to feel
“bonded” with a group and this can lead to the impediment of using our fortitudes and
emotional suffocation.
The previous chapter, Acquiring a Passion in Chapter 3, opened by declaring how
neither a man, women, friends nor relationship can make you happy, only you make
yourself happy. This point is clearly outlined in the discussion on groupthink. What I
opened with in the beginning that chapter, I have cultivated into clear reasoning. Simply
put, over-involving oneself in a group’s emotions will lead to the suffocation of success
and impede you from acting from a position of individuality within the productive nature
of a group’s framework.
The real essence that creates our passions is what I will discuss in Ch 15: A
Handful of Validation Utensils. In the section on the Mechanism of Ephemeral Time, I
will didactically outline the perseverance that exudes from our understanding the benefit
of ephemeral time by telling oneself that “I will never see these people again”. The
reasoning behind this is that you put yourself at position of emotional distance, but still a
cohesive bond with the group’s productivity. So you have more fun, but connect with
truth.
This does not mean you negate the productive values of the group process, not in
the slightest. Powerful effects can occur with the electrifying bond of a member and
group, but only if the groups’ norms are defined. Mr. And Mrs. Kuczmarski, in their
“Values-Based Leadership, point out the positive effects of clearly defined group norms.
“When norms are established by groups, four major benefits accrue: 1)Group members
are more effective; 2)groups get more accomplished; 3) individuals increase their self-
confidence because they deal better with people through clear-cut norms; and 4)groups
complete their tasks more quickly and significantly increase their probability of goal
attainment and success (Kuczmarski 152)” It is clear the efficiency, confidence, and
potential for success can be dramatically increased if a group’s core values are defined.
But it is even more important to allow the group norms to be somewhat “undefined” – to
allow room for evolutio. Nothing, especially values and norms, are set in stone, they
adjust and adapt and having too rigid norm guidelines can oppress group creativity. Make
sure the group not just has breathing room, but can act like water of dynamic motion or
like a mountain of stillness when it needs to.
This positive affect, in validating the members’ emotions and using group
momentum to further the potential of the individual, is endogenous growth.
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most certainly “right” in almost any dispute, simply because she has such a wealth of
knowledge and expertise about the restaurant.
However, when I told her this, it was as though I touched a raw, emotional nerve.
I could almost see her visibly twinge. When I complimented her on her expertise, she
became furious, threatened to leave, and almost started crying. I couldn’t understand this
behavior at all because, in all of my experience, compliments mend disputes, instead of
provoking them. Maybe she had malignant intentions to not terminate the dispute, and
my compliment was thwarting this process, but, nevertheless, it was a mystery to me. I
was speechless, so I told her that she is an incredible employee that new much more
about the restaurant business than myself. After this, she bolted out of the restaurant and
refused to allow me talk to her!
I couldn’t understand the emotional behavior that was occurring here at all. I later
realized that, for some reason, she had developed an NLP for compliments, and the effect
of such a compliment was crippling her confidence! It was as though I was becoming the
Judge, but with compliments instead of criticisms. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but
the reaction she had told me that this compliment I was giving her, almost made scream
in pain!
It was pain she was experiencing from the compliment! What does this show us?
That neuro-linguistic programming is excruciatingly powerful; it has the potential to
produce positive and negative emotions in people. Anthony Robbins teaches how to
conjure up strong emotions of empowerment with a clap of your hands. In contrast,
when I complimented this young woman, NLP caused her to conjure up strong emotions
of fear, insecurity, and weakness – the opposite of what I was trying to provoke, and,
most certainly, the opposite of what she, or anyone, wanted to feel.
It is true that our NLP can empower us or cripple us. Maybe her father
complimented her and then immediately told her she was dumb or stupid or useless, so
that a compliment became habitually associated with her irregular emotional patterns,
producing fear and neglect, instead of empowerment and self-confidence. I was so taken-
back by this experience because I had not realized the excruciatingly powerful affects of
NLP. Sure, you could say that she already “knew” she was an incredible employee, and
telling her that was monotonous, but her reaction was so impulsively enraged. I could
see her about to explode as though I had stuck her with an electric volt.
After a respite of limited communication, we resolved our issue with the tip jar,
and created peace. It simply took her awhile to let it sink in that she was right, and that I
knew that she was right. She kept feeling that she needed to persuade or convince me
that I was right, when I was telling her that she almost always was right. In contrast, she
was most certainly wrong about her approach to the incident because we ended up
arguing in front of the customers, a point I pointed out. The only way, I knew the
argument would end would be to tell her that she was right (even though she did act
somewhat immature, puerile, and irresponsible), so I did that. In doing so, she felt that I
had the upper hand, which infuriated her.
She was so used to needing to tell people “she was right” that when someone
actually acknowledged her correctly valid astuteness, she was overwhelmed with
negatively charged confusion. This reminded me of the time when a very close person
kept asking me “why” at my own home, and I started berserkly crying! It hit an
7 Elicit Our Faithful Convictions / 123
emotional twinge, and shows we all have them. At home it was intuitive stuff that I
couldn’t explain cognitively, but the same deal really.
This woman took compliments as insults because she was so attached to the
notion of needing to be valid, in control, and on top of her life, and always achieving it,
and plowing this disposition out for herself (See Awaken Your Passion in Chapter 3 for
more information on attachments). When I acknowledged her work, and told her that she
possess and had achieved an “in control” “valid” life, she cringed with pain!
Compliments have been worse than insults for some people because they are so unused to
them being delivered. People who never receive compliments (because their parents
neglected to compliment them) lack the ability to deal with the strong emotions of
compliments. What this person was feeling was a confused joy, most likely. It would
seem that delving into her family history or history of abuse would be pragmatic, but,
with the mentality of living in the present with NLP, that is irrelevant. You don’t have to
do that psychoanalytical approach which involves delving into childhood history.
What is important is learning how to acknowledge and emotionally experience
compliments. She may have had my image transformed into an authority figure, or father
figure, when I complimented her, but I have had people say that I am mean, annoying,
and experience overwhelming emotions when I compliment them! We must learn to
transform the productive emotional energy of praise into a pleasing experience, instead of
a painful one, because recognitions are a part of life!
I was overwhelmed by the excruciatingly powerful impact I was having over this
young woman’s emotions. I was left dumb-founded about what to do because she was
responding so negatively to recognitions. What I normally thought to be glue-like
compliments – making a friendship bond more cohesive, rather than separating a
connection by inducing an explosive reaction – were provoking dispute and argument.
This goes to show how effective and subjective – specific to each person -- emotional
interactions are with people and that we must continue to awaken each other’s passions,
but to be sure not to Judge there accomplishments to astutely or directly, especially if
they have worked hard at them, because then their attempt at pursuing something is lost.
The restaurant girl’s problem was acknowledging her own accomplishments for herself.
She worked two years, almost more than any other employee, in the restaurant. She
learned all the nuances of making coffee, communicating with the chefs, working the
stoves, taking “to-go” orders, and helping customers. She had put so much effect into
trying to achieve the goal of a respectable, knowledge employee, who “knows what’s
right”, that when she had already achieved that, she forgotten what all the work was for
and felt crippled by the weight of her efforts. There is a saying that describes this
situation perfectly:
The amount of effort we put into our goals can become so incredibly trying,
exasperating, and difficultly arduous, that when we finally achieve the goals, we are lost
not knowing what action to take. This is similar to building a farm – doing years of
research on agriculture, buying the land, understanding chemical growing, erosion, and
soil solidity, and tending to the crops meticulously after the years of study – but when the
124 / Validate Your Life
harvest comes around, you’ve learned how do everything possible except enjoy the fruits
of what you reap. Experiencing our accomplishments is one of the most important parts
of finding our accomplishments, because this allows us to acknowledge them, recognize
them, and become empowered from them. With the restaurant situation, my compliments
were most certainly, not complementing her needs!
Possibly even moving past our accomplishments is a part of the achievement
process. Just as setting goals and passionately pursuing the goals is important to
achieving accomplishments, experiencing, relishing, and absorbing the accomplishment
is an essential part of that process as well. After all, if we don’t keep score, or evaluate
our accomplishments realistically, we may feel like are losing, but may have already
won!
tactfully route that anger into outlets of creative compromise and production, instead of
destruction. The secret to doing that begins with understanding the reason why we avoid
anger.
Thich Nhat Hanh recommends an involved breathing pattern for dealing with
anger, where we recognize it. To care for our pain of anger we should practice:
“Breathing in – I know that I am angry; Breathing out – I know that the anger is still in
me. Ten minutes later you will feel better”. This simple act of breathing causes us to
acknowledge our anger. From this recognition, it can’t have an unknown, secret presence
and seep into our reservoirs of happiness. Hanh warns “We try to repress our suffering
and we invite other energies into our “living room” to fill it up so that the negative
energies will not be able to make their appearance there”16. This concept is perfectly
aligned with the idea of having only enough room for one source in our body. Instead of
our emotional xylem and phloem, talked about in the last chapter, Hanh calls this space
our “living room”, but they both refer to the same thing. The point could not be more
clear: if you refer to the channels of energy in your body as emotional xylem and phloem
or “living room”, you can only allow one type of energy to reside in those spiritual
conduits, there is only enough capacity for goodness, love, peace, and positive energies to
flow, so by acknowledging anger, I address and get it out of my xylem and phloem,
which makes room for the spiritual, loving energy. However most people neglect their
anger and it stews up and brews and turns into a thick, putrid mold in their body and
clogs their emotional conduits preventing from truly experiencing happiness. By doing
the breathing exercises suggested by Hanh, validating anger and all emotions, and by
recognizing our faithful convictions and agenda we avoid producing tension and conflict.
Tension and conflict manufacture negative energies from the friction of going against our
emotional grain. By avoiding this heat and agitation, we create knowing and interaction
that is remarkably peaceful and channel positive energies throughout our essence.
Having reasons why we avoid anger described, let’s move on to the two
mechanisms we utilize to avoid dealing with anger -- intellectually bypassing and
spiritually bypassing anger. Intellectually bypassing anger causes us to say that it is
irrational and that we shouldn't feel such a "base" emotion. In other words, intellectually
bypassing anger is the belief that we shouldn’t stoop to such a primitive “Neanderthal-
like” emotional level and express anger. “Oh I couldn’t get angry, it’s just too uncivil!”.
Spiritually bypassing anger condemns this emotion a "sin", and we pray it away. Bottom
line, regardless of intellectually or spiritually bypassing anger, it stays in the body if you
continue to bypass it.
Similarly, if you have tremendous anger in your body at your father or mother
figure (I have a friend who so enraged at his father’s lifestyle habits – caring about his
health, stuck in a job where he gets shortchanged by his boss, inability to stop drinking
alcohol, inability to lose weight, and reluctance to express his own emotions and his an
emotional time-bomb, something he didn’t want to be like – that just a conversation
about his father would enrage him. This same friend is also emotionally upset at his
mother figure because of her slightly cold, and emotionally-inward personality. His
mother watches television all day and shows no emotional gratitude to her son) The
anger that can accumulate towards mother and father figures has an incredibly massive
16
Thich Nhat Hanh. True Love. 59
126 / Validate Your Life
taught to us by the age of five". Hopefully, our parents or guardians knew what they
were doing, but if they didn’t, our emotional management system is in big trouble. The
point is that, even if parents do know what they are doing, there are going to be some
flaws in teaching how to cope with sadness, anger, and frustration to a 3-year old simply
because of the young age of the child. So a lot of emotional distraught could have
originated from our emotional teachings. Despite this fact, our parents are not to blame –
no one is – but something must be done to effectively diffuse anger.
When we get angry at ourselves for being a poor father or partner, we could be
getting mad at the people or the models who taught us the wrong way to do that. We
should never blame them, however, because they are in their own arena separate from our
emotions. Lee says that you are born "into the world” lacking knowledge of morals,
emotional management, and values because “you didn’t know how to do this until people
told you”. Lee encourages us to accept that our emotional management systems,
especially for anger. Our family, society, and environmental culture teach these systems
to us. Accepting the fact that they were taught to us, and that there are, inevitably, a few
flaws in the instruction no matter how good it is, allows us to rearrange how we deal with
emotions more clearly because we are dealing with a system and not ourselves. Many
people fear changing how they respond to emotions because they think they will be
altering a part of themselves, altering, for example, your DNA. But it is more like
altering the engine of a car. Society, family, and friends helped build the cars parts and
assemble it, just like society, friends, and family helped build how we interact with
emotions and assemble our emotional system. Tweaking with the engine components
isn’t destroying ourselves, but improving our emotional proficiency. He then ask us to
take the next productive step and “look at what they’ve been teaching you”. Lee says
that the inadequate, skewed emotional management systems, taught to us before the age
of five, are the reasons for many of our problems today. He says, “get angry at that [the
emotional management systems], and take responsibility for going into your anger about
that. Then the next responsible step is to commit to an ongoing process of increasing your
body of knowledge, information, tools and support to help you do relationships, or to be a
better husband, parent, teacher or whatever". We should be regarding the emotion of
anger not as expression of pure anger, but as something that we should investigate.
If you want to be a better lover, teacher, client, a more passionate partner in a
relationship, or if you want to more proactively deal with your emotions, you must
increase your resources for dealing with anger. So I am on my way to being a more
passionate teacher, lover, coach, athlete, writer, and computer scientist because I take
responsibility for my anger and get mad at the emotional management systems that
prevent me from using it effectively. By increasing my knowledge base, support system,
and information, I was able to transform anger that frustrated, crippled, and depressed
me, into a resourceful invigorating energy. Most importantly, right now we need to
express anger appropriately, "Because anger expressed appropriately will equal energy,
intimacy, and serenity. We’ve got to get to the appropriate expression of anger soon, or
else child abuse, spouse abuse, elder abuse, racism, and all the things we are using to let
our anger leak out are going to kill us (Lee). We have to go into our anger, to investigate
it, to take responsibility for it, so that it doesn’t seep out into disgusting ways like the
Holocaust or the KKK, which was a band of angry lawyers. Anger exists and we must
use it to effectively motivate toward better lives and greater harmony and being aware of
128 / Validate Your Life
our anger is the first step. Here, Lee discusses the deadly chain of depression, abuse, and
discrimination that can result if anger accumulates in unproductive emotional
management systems. Utilizing awareness of your anger with the knowledge base of the
Judge can allow you to be invigorated instead of invalidated by anger you experience.
And that is true authentic growth.
Now this type of irrationality, most certainly springs forth from the Judge. The parents
noticed their child’s intelligence, and attraction to Law and instead of encouraging this
intellectual pursuit and being proud of their daughter, fear stepped in.
The Judge began saying to them, “If you let your daughter (me) falls in love with
her (my) studies, she won’t be your daughter (son) any more because her new parents
will be the books she enjoys. If you let your daughter pursue an intellectual endeavor, the
parents and teachers will be the subject she pursues and she will not love you anymore.
Because she won’t love you, she won’t be your daughter.” Even the situation is a little
more in-depth, the Judge’s partial validity is obvious. With a new-found passion in Law,
the daughter will focus and learn a great deal from this subject and the book in it.
However, just because the daughter intently focuses and becomes engaged in pursing an
intellectual subject (even as a profession), she will not abandon the love of her parents.
Her affection of the Legal System and Law will not take the place of her parents. She
may be less interested in her parents, and may pursue a relationship with this study much
more adamantly than a relationship with my parents, but my parents must understand in
their own minds, that she will always be their son, by blood! The parents connection
with me was, obviously purely intellectual and mental, so when I began to pursue an
intellectual subject, as with much fervency and admiration as I had pursued a loving
relationship with her parents, my parents felt “booted” out of the picture. It is important
for them to realize that they must let her daughter grow intellectually and have the
certainty to not doubt they profound parenting, and to know that know matter what
intellectual pursuit I follow, despite how little or how much communication takes place
between their son, she will always be her son and they will always be her parents!
(Note: the daughter is “really” me in the above example)
This type of intellectual reluctance, on the parent’s part, can be very dangerous
because a child can spend their whole life in battle between not wanting to disturb their
parents relationship and wanting to (and needing to) find an intellectual passion and
pursue it as a profession. This has been a challenge for me. Basically knowing that
parental love is always existent and indelible, but then choosing to to and wanting to put
love in studies and law and medicine nad health. On the child’s part, there is “Judge
work” to be done as well. Similar to the parents, the Judge is saying to the child, “If you
pursue something intellectually, you will lose the relationship with your parents”. This
partial validity can be dissolved just as with the parents example. It must be dissolved or
else, I’ll just hang around the house, feeding my parents and never study what I want and
never do something meaningful with my life, my body, and my mind, a beautiful service
to the world and feel totally independent a great feeling. It’s okay and natural to feel
scared that independence is mutually exclusive with leaving parents – it’s not --, but you
have to leave your parents for the above reasons discussed in Chapter six (or else you
marry a parental figure to finish the unfinished conversation, or marry the intrinsic self
you never accessed) and put love into your own life. You have to love yourself; its what
the world and your own parents want. They don’t want you to stick around and love
them; they do that for each other. Be considerate of them and share loving words toward
them, but never stick around to love them. But your love into your own life is what they
want and what you must do!
She must simply acknowledge that a strong, extremely time-consuming
relationship with an intellectual passion, and one with your parents may not be able to co-
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exist, simply because of lack of time and energy. However, your parents will always
remain your parents and should encourage you to spring forth into your intellectual
passion. As guardians, they put so much work into parenting to provide you’re the
options, foundation, and support for you to find such a passion so that you could have the
intelligence, confidence, and awareness to go forth and pursue it! However, because so
much energy is put into this preparation, when the time actually arrives, it’s a daunting
presence can be somewhat frightening and may be received as a threat.
The daughter felt she would threaten the relationship she had with her parents
because she would “leaving” their nurturing and flying away from the nest. However, for
the daughter to truly quench her life and grow up being the person she wants to be, she
will have to, not abandon her parents’ nurturing, but understand that allotting more time
for her profession will not nullify her relationship with her parents! She could carve out
time to talk to them, and they could do the same, but the important thing they must both
realize is that their son is finding an intellectual passion and pursuing it, is a mutual goal
between them both, and certainly not a threat. The parents provided travel opportunities,
friend and social opportunities, and educational opportunities so I could find and pursue a
profession.
Similarly, the son had traveled to so many places, and had sought out such a
strong educational and social experience so I, could find such passion to pursue. So I had
done all of this travel and connected with so much studies to make sure I connected with
a grounded passionate intellectual pursuit, and then I felt like my parents weren’t letting
me emotionally connect with what I wanted to pursue! Like the girl in the restaurant
business who had trouble receiving a compliment and recognized shat she had achieved
her “experienced waitress” status, the parents and the daughter had trouble saying it was
intellectually time to move on. They had blinders on to recognizing that finding a
passion in Law (or whatever profession she chose) was their mutual goal that they both
pursued. As usual the Inner Critic supplied these intellectual blinders and thwarted the
growth daughter. For this reason (and the many others discussed), we must constantly be
aware of the Judge’s presence so we can pursue the passions and professions we enjoy.
Another example of the Judge maladaptively carving our life took place during
my Junior year. During this time, I was so interested in addressing my emotional needs
and cultivating my own system to do that, which I felt any one who attempted to aid me
in this process, would become interference, stunting my emotional growth. What I really
realized was that this time was overwhelmingly isolating and led to a positive learning
process of a challenging and crazy-fun roller-coaster time. One of the most influential
feelings I had was not wanting to be like my father. As you will discover from the next
section, Ultra-sensitivity, choosing not to be like my father would have me end up being
unintelligent, unable to balance work, play, and family, financially unsuccessful, and
unable to transform ideas into reality. Intelligence, financial success, and the ability to
transform ideas into reality, and juggle play with work and family reside in the category
of incredible traits. I fell under the “teenage spell” of needing to discover “who I was”
and in doing so, wanted my father out of the picture. I am so thankful that I took the time
to fully analyze this discrepancy and ask myself, What specifically do I not want to
become? Everyone has to do this process, but few people do. I am so gracious that I
took the time and initiative to explore the identity. Because it is certainly not the list of
traits he possess; those are all incredible gifts. I realized that 90% of my father’s lifestyle
7 Elicit Our Faithful Convictions / 131
Section 8: Ultra-Sensitivity
The topic of very sensitive people, referred to as "ultra-sensitive" people by Roger
Easterbrooks, is a very significant source of frustration and emotional misalignment. If
used correctly, though, it is the key to success and profound wealth. There is a very
cyclical, harmful pattern that puts ultra-sensitive men into abusive relationships where
they get abused. Easterbrooks says that with the "blessing/curse of heightened
awareness" an "ultra-sensitive man's reactions to an abusive relationship aren't different,
but they can be more intense. Inside, the ultra-sensitive man is screaming, "Don't you
know what you're doing is killing me?".
Because "ultra-sensitive men" are overly sensitive they feel the little emotions,
like being frustrated because the grocery bill was calculated wrong. “Ultra-sensitive”
pick up these little details and it adds to their possible state of confusion with the
relationship. They intuitively and emotionally see that something is wrong, pick that up,
try to address it and it can cause bumps in the relationship because the partner, if they
aren't very emotionally in touch, will not be aware of, for example, his or her frustration
about a phone bill. Consequentially, the partner will become irritated when the ultra-
sensitive person brings up the issue of her frustration, because it was not even aware to
them! I have experienced this craziness, being an ulta-sensitive, most likely like you,
myself.
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This state of being emotionally battered where the ultra-sensitive man just wants
to scream out "stop!" is an extreme state of over-stimulation called "going into
overwhelm" (Easterbrooks). “Going into overwhelm” can happen a lot to ultra-sensitive
people because they sometimes pick up on emotions that other’s aren’t even aware of,
like the “phone bill” example above. During this period of overwhelm is a time of
distraction and psychological weakness. Naturally, this situation becomes a time when
the Judge attacks very strongly. Just as the Judge cranked up the insults during a time of
success, he will seize the opportunity and incriminate you at an emotional weakness.
Simply do the process of Judge scrutiny, and you will be clear of the Judge. The state of
overwhelm, however, is another issue.
The plus side to going into “over whelm” is that ultra-sensitive people’s
"symptoms", being overly-stimulated, are very visible and can, on a physical level, show
themselves. An ultra-sensitive person might twitch, blush, sweat, shake, or fidget as
minor symptoms – they are just indicators and shouldn’t be stressed out about though --
of going into overwhelm. The cause of being overly-sensitized are products of being
extremely aware of other’s feelings, intuitive bombardment of other’s sensations and
emotions, and an over-sensitivity to one’s own emotions. Simple deep breathing and the
doing the process of Judge Scrutiny will clarify anyone emotionally.
The trick with ultra-sensitivity is to use it as a gift. Remember what Gary Zukav
said about gifts? To not expect compensation for them and to give the greatest gift of
diminishing your own fear. Ultra-sensitivity is the gift you were born to give, but you
can only present it as a gift (and not as an incredibly crippling personal quality) if you
fuse your personality with your soul and generate reactions that are harmonious to your
agenda. For the longest time, my father was tremendously successful giving business
proposals, igniting audience with his speeches, and developing an extremely talented
“knack” (it should really be labeled as an artistic interaction) for knowing what people
want and helping them acquire that. The reason for so much of success? He recognized
his ultra-sensitivity and used it as a spring board for growth, instead of crippling
debilitation. It’s like holding a spider web in your hand. You can be disgusted with how
sticky and difficult it is to interact with people (with the ultra-sensitivity), or transform
that frustrating experience to when where you can enmesh people in your compassionate
web, become attuned to what their desires are, and help them achieve that, and then let
them go. Additionally, you can use the web to snare your own passions and pursue them
vehemently. So this ultrasensitivity can help you pursue and catch great things like
wealth and peace.
In addition to being excruciatingly intelligent, hosting a bizarre with that engages
almost anyone he meets, and being able to juggle the fine balance between work, play,
and family, he is an expert at transforming ideas into reality. My dad’s ingenuity
manufactures a truly remarkable transformation of an idea he has formed into his head, to
inscribing this idea on paper (a difficult task in itself), and then, via work, phone calls,
time contributions, and incredible planning, that idea, which originated in the mind
becomes a reality. Most people can do the daydreaming bit and produce the ideas in their
minds. Very few can turn them into more malleable concepts on paper, and even less
have the incredible gift of being able to complete the cycle and transform ideas into
reality. A perfect example of this is his home in Michigan. What was once a small log-
house surrounded by a weedy, dry, and barren soy bean field underwent a remarkable
7 Elicit Our Faithful Convictions / 133
people didn’t understand my behavior. This infuriated me to the point where she could
no longer understand what was going on with my emotions. The catch was that I had
applied so much of energy and time into being predictable and in control of myself that
when people, through observation, couldn’t recognize it, I was offended by their
unobtrusive questions. There are two kinds of silence – Natural and Constipated. Two
people are peaceful like this – the true zen masters who embrace natural silence, and the
people with repressed emotions who embrace constipated silence. I have embraced
constipated silence for a LONG time and am finally learning to experience Natural, zen
silence.
Too much emotional control can be dangerous. If we leave our emotions and
thoughts locked away, suppressed and denied, thinking we have control over the
situation, we can easily generate an original and unique pattern of self-suffocation, which
is detrimental and we don’t want that. People who don’t say that much have got to be
having chaos, raging torrents of thoughts disturbing their brain and the courage to work
up the need to communicate to the outside world, to jump the link between the internal
and the external realm can be very scary. I’ve felt at times like my brain is a psychotic,
cyclone soup of crazy ideas that I’m afraid to share for fear that they would be sick,
twisted, prevented, rejected, or laughed at. Overcome that fear – it truly helps you breath
and live easier.. Some people just have clear Zen, meditative minds, too – the Natural
silence, which is one of the healthiest mental states.. The best encouragement for these
people is questions, and the best type of relation with them is an unforced one. I (and
other people I have witnessed) communicate on their own time and considering the
tempest-like nature of their brains, not doubt, treat their words with reverence and
respect. I have tried to clarify my mind through meditation, which is great So if you meet
someone who’s brain is like a tornado, just treat them with reverence. It’s vital to focus
on money; wealth and money are not evils with all this good spiritual growth. Money
allows you to solidify your growth. This is not saying to fear the internal thoughts
processes – it is important to have internal thoughts and external articulation – but things
become unbalanced when there are simply too much of one extreme, resulting in
anchorite-introversion or compulsive extroversion; you want to have balance. My
balance is achieved, now, with solid exercise, eating healthy, and making a few bucks to
get in touch with friends through technology, possible.
The tendency for sensitive people to bottle up their emotions instead of
responding to the situation results in a common pattern of alarming yourself to the extent
by which you are afraid of a realistically expressed reaction. Sensivitive are clear and
aware or they are simply afraid to express a reaction for fear of rejection. So often,
people continue to mobilize themselves so that they create an agenda where their
communication is thwarted by steps to create a certain aura about themselves. Many
times their psychological relationship with themselves prevents them from confronting
their relationship with their emotions. When people refuse to resolve situations, they can
become infuriated when a resolve takes place because it deviates from their pattern. I usd
to have huge bouts of rage, where I would suddenly shift into a disposition of fury, anger,
and emotional expressiveness. Unfortunately, this was the only way I expressed my
emotions. I reacted to situations that uplifted me by expressing joy, but subdued
confrontations that produced negative emotions like concern, anger, or frustration.
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Worry is one of the most limiting emotions around. Worry actually worry causes
people to center on the problem and problems resulting from it as if there were no God or
no hope. This is true, but some people go as far to say that worry gives honor and respect
to the power of evil, by standing in terror in awe in front of these dark forces. While
worry possibly could be praising malign, it certainly perpetuates in the absence of faith.
The best remedy for worry is faith. Believing that the universe will provide a solution,
and heeding The Beatle’s famous song “Let it Be” immediately washes away worry. Try
it, faith and worry are like an acid and a base – the two completely nullify each other, but
unlike chemistry, faith always prevails. We can always ameliorate worry and anxious
emotions with staunch and resolute faith.
Another example was when I appeared depressed in the morning, and someone
came out and recognized that I was depressed. But they had always aimed at living such
empowered uplifting lives, that I would feel extremely awkward addressing his concern
for the apparent depression in me. However, the concern was still expressed. I would
end up feeling criticized with someone, saying “Wow, you obviously didn’t sleep well
last night” and “Jeez, it seems like you certainly in a talkative mood this morning”. I, of
course, took offense to that comment because it criticized my actions. However, by
relinquishing your ability to express emotions (which was sacrificed when they felt as
though they needed to lead emotionally upright lives), negates the possibility of
expressing this frustrated reaction to the criticism. Pretty soon I would get mad and so
would my brother and we are screaming and yelling at each other, all because of their
emotional patterns that prevented them from authentically interacting in the first place.
Just flush out and stay clear and in a great attitude zone.
When we restrict certain emotions from being expressed, many times they
inadvertently become expressed with the presence of even more maladaptive vehemence
and with a heightened lack of control. I put so much exertion into how often my brother
felt the need to apprehend negative emotions, that when someone felt concerned for my
depression, they felt as thought she would be violating some kind of tacit, unspoken code
that was arranged between us. But if someone would have simply, and benignly, asked if
I was a little down in the dumps or low, I (or whoever was down) would have quickly
concurred and the entire argument would have been resolved. So here the message to be
polite and, again, the golden rule, treat others how you would like to be treated.
Additionally, emotions are funny things because when we try to conceal a
certain emotion (such as depression, admiration, or frustration), a lot of times, that
very emotion rebounds back and expresses itself with an unrelenting force. How
many times have you had affection for someone, try to conceal it, and only find yourself
bumping into tables, blushing bright red, and stuttering your words? By concealing your
admiration it grows stronger, and instead of smothering it, you make it the powerhouse of
your emotions. Pretty soon, all you can think about is suppressing that emotion of
admiration. Similarly, if you are depressed and try to conceal that sensation of feeling
low by smiling a lot and acting cheerful and uplifting, when you cease displaying that
superficial façade, you realize that the genuine response of curing your depression by
addressing it and expressing it has been canceled by your attempts to hide that emotion,
making you even more depressed. This negative feedback-loop works with any emotion.
The more you suppress them, the more contorted and convoluted the relationship with
that feeling becomes. When you suppress your emotions for the sake of appearing
136 / Validate Your Life
chipper or happy to a group you do yourself and the group a huge disfavor. More of an
insult than a disfavor, you cause the group or the conversational partner to feel a strong
barrier, which can be sometimes, be interpreted as insulting. Additionally, you deny your
ability to be human – experiencing a full spectrum of emotions – and expressing them not
to damage another person, but to cause other people to understand that emotional
expression is something that produces a morally congruent and genuine relationship.
The problem of understanding very little about what we feel is that in the
process of this emotional suffocation, and attempt to appear “normal”, our behavior
becomes extraordinarily abnormal. One thing I have realized, as a testimony for
genuineness, people do not want to change because an external source makes them
change. You always want to change because of some force that is congruent with your
own agenda. The problem with changing due to an outside source is that we end up
feeling probed and prodded by another person, denying our conscious choice and free
will. Even if the suggested change is a positive alternative, these possibilities became
implausible because of the fact that another person suggested it and not us. This type of
erroneous thinking routes us into destructive, uncreative patterns. When we lose our
ability to step out of these patterns, we react as though we are a leaf blowing in the wind,
instead of with a genuine response of purpose and authenticity. So often, people create
situations for themselves where they feel as though they shouldn’t continue speaking for
the sake of harming another person, when many times, this is an opening – an
opportunity for conversational and relationship growth. This is not suggesting that you
should continue a disagreement if someone has “had too much”, but to make sure that an
opportunity for emotional growth is not perturbed and agitated by a misread
conversational gesture or facial grimace, is importante.
When you cause yourself to be limited by other’s reactions that is when you
produce a negative pattern in yourself. This pattern originates with the nascence of
invalidity because you deny your own ability to verify your valid decisions and choices.
Emotional distance is important for the care of other’s and your own emotions, but when
we create a negative pattern of limiting yourself because of other’s responses, we disown
our ability for creativity and imagination, and become and implement of the other
person’s emotional responses. This is certainly not saying that we should care about and
respond to other’s emotions – if someone is upset we should care for them, and if they are
happy, we should rejoice – but, rather, that we should exclude the possibility for other’s
emotional responsiveness to limit ourselves. When we authentically listen to our own
emotions we understand that we truly don’t want to hurt, harm, or injure another person,
but, rather, we want to cause relationships to persevere. This allows us to understand our
intrinsic capacity for compassion, which allows us to connect even more strongly with
other people. Overall, when we liberate our sense of interaction beyond patterned rapport
and congeniality, we understand that we ignite our ability to understand what really
motivates us. When we listen to our authentic conversational motivations, we become
more aligned with ourselves -- a state, altogether, more empowering and exciting. This
allows us to respond with a clarifying situation to be more apt to do favors, understand
each other, and more acutely honor the beautiful work and profound efforts we put into
each day.
One of the best ways to not disown our capacity for intelligence and our ability to
read other people is to use a conversational gimmick that safely distances us from other
7 Elicit Our Faithful Convictions / 137
The
Cultivation of
Excellence
eople who have acquired large amounts of vocational success in finance, sports,
One way to validate inevitable events is to simply cooperate with them and “bear lightly
what needs must be”, while maintaining your passionate integrity.
-- John Kuczmarski
Section 1: Self-Esteem
Before delving into the nature of excellence, I wanted to say a word on self-
esteem and intelligence. Confidence, in the West at least, is primarily based on self-
esteem. But, contrary to popular belief, self-esteem isn’t a universal concept. Instead, it
is a creation by the West used only by Western countries. Countries in the East, for
example, don’t even have a word, or any word synonymous to self-esteem. In America
we devote books upon books upon articles upon thousands of more articles that self-
esteem is a universal given, but, in reality, it is a culturally bound creation, nonexistent in
other cultures. If this is the case, if self-esteem is completely culturally defined and
nonexistent in other areas, could intelligence be a similar creation bound only to certain
circumstances and cultures?
Section 2: Intelligence
What is intelligence? To truly assess, or even define, intelligence, we must
classify what type of intelligence we are talking about. If we are talking about trade or
craft intelligence, memory retention intelligence, or problem-solving intelligence – fine,
we can asses those categories of intelligence. There are other classifications, too,
however. Howard Gardiner created a detailed list of seven such classifications:
linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal
(understanding other people), and intrapersonal (understanding yourself) intelligence.
Intelligence is considered a universal kind of description, based on a reliable
assessment, but, like the “bursting of the bubble” that occurred with self-esteem,
intelligence is very subjective and lacks a reliable form of assessment. Intelligence is
most commonly associated with ones performance on a specific test, called the Stanford-
Binet Test, which was developed by Alfred Binet in 1906 in France, supposedly
measures general intelligence, cognitive processing, and memory retention in individuals
in a multiple-choice format. In addition to being nearly a 100 years out-dated, this
century-old test is foreign, being brought from France to the United States by a Stanford
professor, and its target was children with mental handicaps. The outcome of this widely
used test for intelligence is the Intelligence Quotient, or IQ, which is a calculation based
on the result of the test coupled with your age group through standard deviations. To
avoid complex statistical details, 100 is the average IQ and 50% of people have an IQ
between 90 and 110 and 0.5% of people are genius or new genius (over 140). Doesn’t it
seem a little odd that we use this test geared towards children that was created before the
invention of Television to assess the intelligence of our entire nation, regardless of age?
If intelligence is ability to problem-solve or create a certain craft, then there exist
a wide variety of forms of intelligence. A lot of people say I am intelligent because I
create small computer programs through a programming language, but to me, such
programming is simply applying all these rules, methods, and functions of the language
to a compiler (that writes the program so the computer can understand it) and it doesn’t
seem like an act that requires a lot of intelligence. To me, a sign of true intelligence is
being able to create a realistic real-life portrait – that is intelligent talent. But the artist
who creates such portraits everyday would disagree with painting being an indication of
indication of intelligence and might say, “A mathematician who can calculate the physics
involved in creating a spaceship that can exit our Earth’s atmosphere and return is a sign
of true intelligence. But then the physicist who creates such architecture on a regular
basis says, “Playing a musical piece by Mozart is true intelligence”…. and the part
continues. So intelligence is not a craft because everyone considers the craft or talent that
they can’t perform as intelligent. This definition would make intelligence completely
subjective, so intelligence is not one’s capacity to perform a trade or skill.
Intelligence is also not memory because we have selective memory. Some people
remember their first birthday, but forget where they parked their car 5 minutes ago, while
8 The Cultivation of Excellence / 141
others can remember the periodic table of elements front and back, but forget their own
spouse’s name. Intelligence is not memory retention because the quality of memory
recollections fluctuates. Nor is intelligence problem solving because people that are
“intelligent problem-solvers” buckle under certain situations like time, pressure, or other
factors. So problem-solving is not a universal metric for measuring intelligence either.
Intelligence is not vertical, but horizontal. We have a tendency to rate
intelligence with a vertical scale so that a number – like a 180 IQ – is more intelligent,
superior to, a 120 IQ. Authentic intelligence is not based on a hierarchial ladder quotient,
but just a horizontal categorization of specializations. Even the word genius connotes
intelligence and genius doesn’t exist. Unless everyone is a genius, which is true. So a
math genius who just has a lot of practice with graphs, functions, quadratics, and
formulaic algorithms and equations. A college professor is not more intelligent than
someone who works in a blue-collar factory; they just have different arenas – different
arenas -- of intelligence. I doubt the blue-collar worker could ramble off the 4
Maslowian deficit needs (Physiological, Shelter, Love & Community, and Self-esteem)
of the self-actualization pyramid that a psychology professor could describe, while a
college professor couldn’t describe the detailed steps to solder a complicated new circuit
onto a computer motherboard in the blue-collar factory. Similarly, a 7-11 employee has a
greater intelligence in the location of various merchandise in the store, than the typical
customer, but the typical customer could be an executive on the board of Pepsi’s
assembly line, so he knows exactly how one beverage in the 7-11 is manufactured.
Alternatively, a chemist could zip into the store, who know the details of the molecular
framework of Pepsi, and now you have this incredible diversity of intelligence in a 7-11!
Intelligence is not hierarchal based on a vertical scale, but categorical based on a
horizontal plane. No one is more intelligent than another; we just have varied mental
interests.
The best perspective to take is that objective intelligence is non-existent, so the
bottom-line is that if you ever feel like you have low self-esteem because you think you
aren’t intelligent, simply disregard that comment as ridiculous because self-esteem and
intelligence completely totally, does not exist!
Much of excellence is defined by intelligence; this is wrong. Excellence should
be defined by, primarily, the application of one’s intelligence, enthusiasm, and
motivational passion. Using those values is the key to validating your life. If Einstein
wasn’t motivated to apply his intelligence, science may never have encountered
relativity. The combination of passion and commitment with so-called intelligence is the
true mark of excellence. The passion and the commitment are the key qualities that
validate your life. Einstein used those; geniuses used those; you can use those to validate
your life!
Instead of trying to force on himself intractable things with anguish and frustration, he
uses his wisdom and glides by what he can’t change. That’s what James and I both do,
but my younger brother is the master of this zen peace. To courageously carve out time
for the tasks that we can change and accomplish those is in itself a remarkable task. St.
Thomas Aquinas believed that happiness can only be found in heaven, but by knowing
what we are and are not capable, and when to push ourselves to accelerate beyond
boundaries, we will rarely struggle; we push ourselves and we grow without turmoil. A
little tangent on heaven: As kids, we frequently think of Heaven as up. But as you
grow older and study science, you learn that Up is just atmosphere, solar system, distant
stars, and thousands of networks of stars called galaxies. Up is not a mystery.
If heaven is not up, it could be down. But down is crusts of the earth,
sedimentary layers, and an iron core. Down is not heaven either. If heaven is not Up and
heaven is not Down, where is heaven? Heaven is where you make it. It is right here on
earth.
But back to not worrying. By heeding what we can and cannot change, we will
never delve into the problematic consequences of having “too much on our plate”, and
we will generate happiness on earth. Sure, you can say that planning, and looking “down
the line’ to examine your future, checking your bearings and seeing mistakes you’ve
made (even though mistakes don’t exist) so you don’t capriciously jump into something,
is important. However, if you plan, seize the day and plan your life, don’t squabble with
worthless goals. If you choose to plan your day – which is your entire life – for God’s
sake, plan your dreams! Program your dreams into your life in the morning, pursue them
in the afternoon, and then relish in your accomplishments in the evening. That is the true
key to seizing the magnitude to which your life will encompass.
One way to validate inevitable events is to simply cooperate with them and
“bear lightly what needs must be”, while maintaining your passionate integrity.
performance imaginable, and masters of their intellectual, mental, emotional, and maybe
even spiritual energies.
The fitness levels or athletes are truly incredible. “One out of three Americans get
cancer…and athletes experience only one case of cancer to every seven in average
Americans” (Robbins). The reason for this is they have exceptional health on the cellular
level and are supplying copious amounts of oxygen to their bodies. Not only are athletes
some of the most healthy people -- because of their natural, holistic regimen of fitness,
and endurance – but they are some of the most enlivening people.
Sure, you could say that these athletes are simply men and women who have
mastered control, motivation, and communication of their bodies. But athletes of the
Olympic level are the most developed, mature, passionately expressive people
imaginable. I have met 1976 Olympic Marathon Gold Medalist, Frank Shorter, at a high
school cross country meeting and I can assure you he is one of the most inspirational and
passionately moved individuals I have ever met. Held more than mere awe by the mere
presence of this incredible athlete, I held a huge degree reverence for his ability to teach
and to create discussion that was ignited with inspiration.
Anyone will agree that athletes of the most elite caliber have explored options of
alternative lifestyles – whether it be business, writing, scholarly pursuits, management --
but have stuck with the vigorous pursuit of expressing themselves through swimming,
running, basketball, figure skating, skiing, golfing, or cycling, simply because these
pursuits intellectually challenge, emotionally engage, and physically display, and
spiritually provide so much more meaning and excellence than any other lifestyle.
A businessman appears to have a challenging, meaningful profession. However,
if you analyze each individual task a business man does, they typically accrue to very
fundamental, low-level tasks that can build into high-level, impressive skills, like that of
an athlete. A typical business man will punch a lot of seven-digit numbers on a phone,
use his vocal chords to tell someone to pass a few pieces of paper to some other person,
and tap is fingertips on a keyboard to shove a few of his thoughts on memo.
Occasionally, they will give speech and must engage their audience. Tapping fingers,
using vocal chords, and very rarely engaging an audience? Individually, these are
certainly not elite nor profound accomplishments, just as raising and lowering a few
ligaments and tensing a few muscles is not very impressive, but it is the combination of
these movements that create a masterpiece. There is a masterpiece in business; there is a
masterpiece in acting; there is an acting in art; there is a masterpiece in athleticism. It is
the day-by-day activation of those skills that create a masterpiece. Being able to say
“Poor yorick” is not that impressive, but being able to do the full “Alas, Poor Yorick”
soliloquy with finesse and gust is a sincere accomplishment, just as running a marathon
or doing some gymnastic flips is incredible. While the role of the businessman is not
really a copping-out lifestyle that lacks meaning, intellectually, emotionally, and
physically challenging tasks, or mastery of anything – it actually can be a huge form of
success -- it is rarely compared to be in the same league of life accomplishments as an
Olympic athlete. Both have the potential to be incredibly validated life accomplishments.
Similarly, politicians have to manipulate, connive, and congregate proactive
energy towards movements, policies, and legislative events. These endeavors can be
fairly complex, but, when broken down into minute tasks, the politician, the writer, the
restaurant manager, the businessman, and the stockbroker, use their vocal chords to
8 The Cultivation of Excellence / 145
communicate on the phone and give speeches, tap their fingers on keyboards to put
thoughts on paper, and very rarely use creatively emotional expressions to engage others.
These professions are all very creditable lifestyles; I am not arguing that they are not
worthwhile, great ways to make money, nor unprofessional. They are all very
commendable professions, but when put up aside the profound intellectual, emotional,
and physical mastery, intelligence, and motivation that athletes have cultivated, they are
close to nil examples of excellence and accomplishment; unless at the very high levels of
each profession. The Judge has subdued most of the professionals in these vocations into
conforming with societal norms, where their creativity and passionate energy are almost
always undermined. Except for unique cases, such as talented musicians – Mick Jagger,
Steve Young, and Dave Mathews – or exceptional businessmen – Anthony Robbins,
Thomas and Susan Kuczmarski. Donald Trump, Warren Buffett – or electrifying teachers
– Gandhi, Mother Teresa, or Jesus – most “professionals” are insecure individuals that
lack charisma. Except for the rare ones, they typically are individuals who have been
debilitated by The Judge and have dodged any meaningful challenge in their life,
conforming into a cramped, societal mold. Even the high-achieving businessmen or
politicians may have buckets of green dollars, but they truly lack charisma, and have
evaded meaningful tasks in their lives, copping out on unimportant tasks.
It is not a negative thing that people become immersed in a profession that puts
food on the table, pays the bills, and supports a family; but it is the abandonment of the
creative human spirit, which, unfortunately, is a tacit requirement for most occupations,
that puts their vocation in the category where one of the most crucial – the crux – of our
gifts are sacrificed for material junk. Sure, a house, food, and shelter are all important,
but their certainly exist ways to move beyond just surviving, to the platform where you
can be vivaciously living, creating, and contributing to the human existence with writing
books, creating music, performing athletics, or utilizing an artistic vein – this is truly
living in excellence.
The elite athlete is such profound example of excellence because they must have
mastered the Process of Judge Scrutiny to achieve their level of physical efficiency in
movement. High-achieving musicians, businessmen, or politicians usually have a throng
of people working together to proactively create the result of goal. But with elite
athletes, the entire transformation of goals, passions, and dreams must occur within the
single individual and he or she must cultivate knowledge, awareness, and strength to
overcome obstacles to realize these ambitions and then work with a team and with a
group, while maintaining their independent development.
Additionally, they have cultivated incredible potential in the art of making valid
decisions toward motivation, discipline, and determination. The committed athlete must
individually cultivate the motivational commitment, knowledge, and emotion to propel
themselves through water 50m of water in 21.91 seconds, or having the visualization,
mind mastery, skills of physical prowess to run 26.2 miles in nearly two hours, or cycle
25 miles per hour for hundreds of miles a day. Those are the fruits of cultivating and
harnessing remarkable talent. Those accomplishments are so unique because they are
done by the athlete, and by the athlete alone. The typical profession has a bunch of
people producing results that lead to a profound accomplishment, but the individual
commitment, security, confidence, and emotional awareness that an elite athlete needs is
unsurpassed, except by the profoundly accomplished professionals in other fields.
146 / Validate Your Life
Athletes must be experts in timing their peak states of commitment, as well. Lasse Viren,
A Finnish distance runner, was an expert when it came to peaking. He would always run
his fastest 10000m and 5000 races at the Olympic events, where his efforts would be
internationally recognized. His mastery of timing, commitment, and motivational talent
awarded him a total of four Olympic gold medals in the 5000 and 10000m Olympic
events from 1972-1976.
The 19-year-old Hungarian Alfred Hajos, who won the 1200 meter freestyle at the
first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, said, "My will to live completely
overcame my desire to win." Found in higher concentrations than any other lifestyle, this
desire to live completely is a characteristic trait that permeates the lifestyle of the elite
Olympian. The elite Olympian is truly committed to living completely. This thorough
vivacity to living thoroughly should be honored as a quality that can and should occur in
any professional field. Be the Olympic business athlete. Be the Olympic stokebroker
athlete or the athletic teacher with that level of charisma.
The elite sportsman must acquire knowledge and investigate other professions to
realize that most of them are meaningless portrayals of what not to do with your life.
Indeed, most professions, except for the rare ones discussed above, lack charismatic
challenges or any type of expression. After conquering the barrage of societal pressures,
conformist demands, and Judge criticism to not pursue those professions (because of the
dodged, deficient state of the accomplishments associated with these professions),
athletes must passionate commit to this situation. Only by validating their life, does the
elite athlete posses the initiative to embark on their chosen quest. This validation process
is a passage that only the passionately committed few ever encounter; it is a captivating
trial where only the masters of mind, heart, and soul will triumph. But it is not a test
because there is no winning or losing; it is simply a triumph to commit passionately.
This is just to “get to the gates”, so to speak, of the elite athlete, which you can apply
toward any profession with charisma. The expert of finesse needs knowledge and
awareness of the emotional and spiritual inadequacy of other professions, a mastery of
commitment, and an exceptional understanding of the Inner Critics debilitating and
harmful criticisms. In not cultivating these three skills – knowledge of the inadequacy of
most professions, commitment expertise, and thorough comprehension of The Judge –
one will never reach the qualitative lifestyles of the elite athlete, nor apply that charisma
or life commitment to any profession. They are anything but jocks, brain-dead people,
they are the profoundly rare few who committed themselves to the road of intellectual
achievement, emotional expression, and physical talent that a meager few have attempted
to navigate.
Running is about overcoming your own obstacles, realizing your potential, and
realized that you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it. When I run, I stare at
one object off my horizon, and focus entirely on that one speck in the distance.
Nautically, one might say that I am simply taking my bearings, as though I were guiding
a ship. However, I am really practicing a form of meditation. When I focus on central
point in the distance, all of my sense become acutely focused and in tune. I become more
away of my steady breathing, and it’s soothing rhythm; my eyes seem to open up
peripherally and I see plants, trees, and objects that I had not even been aware of before
as I run by; my olfactory sense become more acute as I suddenly am awakened to the
rush of the aroma of flowers, buds, trees, and earth; my tactile sense of touch becomes
8 The Cultivation of Excellence / 147
more refined and I suddenly feel my toes in my shoe, my ankle touching the heal of my
shoe, my foot’s arch bouncing against the tongue of my shoe, my legs gliding gracefully,
and my arms directing my body, as I feel the wind gliding over it. Running for me is
truly a magical form of rational mediation, awakening my senses, focusing my intellect,
and freeing my mind. And this discussion of the athletic challenge as being a form of
validated living in any profession, brings us to a great story of a noble legend.
(4:36 for girls) by Jeff See; and the 2-mile is 8:47 (10:11 for girls) by Matt Matusak17.
Pre’s National High School record for the 2-mile was 8:41.5 (two consecutive 4:20.7 1-
miles loops). Even though Prefontaine’s National High school record is 30 years older
than the most recent 2005 8:47 2-mile record, it is still 6 seconds faster! Great men
create great acts that stand out as enormous accomplishments decades later.
In college, for the five-year span from 1970 to his sudden death on May 30,
1975, no American runner could beat him in any distance longer than the mile because he
held all the records from the two to the ten thousand meters! He won NCAA titles
across the board -- three in cross-country in 1970, 1971, and 1973, and four in track in
1970, 1971, 1972, and 1973, with a 12:51 3-mile and 14:01 5k record. At one time he
held eight collegiate records and broke his own or other American records 14 times. He
set high school records in the 800, 1500, 3000, and 2-mile. His 8:41.5 2-mile record
from Marshfield high school was the National High School record for many years. His
personal records are as follows:
• 1600m (1-mile) of 3:54.6 (4 consecutive 58.5 400m laps)
• 2000m in 5:06 (4:06 1-mile followed by a 60s 400m lap)
• 3200m (2-mile) of 8:19 (2 consecutive 4:09.5 1-mile loops, 18 seconds
faster than his 5k pace)
• 5000m of 13:22 (3 consecutive 4:27 1-mile laps, a pace only 4 seconds
faster than his 6-mile pace)
• 9600m (6-mile) in 27:09 (6 consecutive 4:31 1-mile laps)
Many of those records are incredible achievements today, thirty years later.
17
http://www.dyestat.com/3us/season05/nikelist.htm.
8 The Cultivation of Excellence / 149
had “followers” (almost as a religious figure would) shows the profound leadership
qualities that Prefontaine possessed. But he created leaders through his charisma. His
fans, followers, and fellow runners were inspired by his charismatic energy, moved by his
profound running talent, and enthused by his overwhelmingly unwavering determination
for excellence.
His endeared followers found him so incredible that they carved on his tombstone
words of gratitude: "For your dedication and loyalty, For your principles and beliefs, For
your family and friends, You are missed by so many, And you will never be forgotten...".
What a powerful tribute! Prefontaine had a tremendous impact on people.
This type of blindly passionate commitment is the crucial element to authentic
leaders. People are drawn to this type of overwhelmingly strong commitment because
the leader’s goals must be profoundly important to require such a commitment. In his
determined, unwavering pursuit of running, he became an inspirational leader.
Prefontaine realized that everyone was born with some talent: “To give anything less than
your best is to sacrifice the Gift”. Prefontaine knew that whatever their talent was, you
were expected and obligated to relinquish it and share it. He cultivated his talent of
running and conveyed it through a holistic experience. In his adamant quest for
excellence in mind, body, and spirit, Prefontaine became a national icon for leadership
and determination.
Luther King “had a dream”, Prefontaine had a dream: “Some people create with words or
with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I
like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more
than just a race; it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being
creative." We should take this approach to everything we do; our palette could be the
words we use to consult clients, the diagrams we refer to instruct others, or every action
we take.
"A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways
they’re capable of understanding”. Prefontaine wanted to have his running be “more than
just a race”. He transformed the running experience, which is sometimes transcribed as a
militant, brain-dead endeavor, into a artistic masterpiece. I am certain that he achieved
his results and transformed the running experience and nation’s enthusiasm on an elite
scale because of his passionate commitment he applied on a day-by-day basis, his ability
to honor his categorical intelligence, and to transcend self-esteem to acquire authentic
passion to truly validate his life. Being the elite athletic is something we all can do to our
own vocations.
Chapter 9
A World of
Instruction:
How
Instruction
Incites
Inherent
Potential
ow do teachers relate to us on an intuitively on cue level of instruction? This
comprehensive analysis of our greatest teacher’s virtuous values, illustrates that you hold
the capacity for learning, listening, and leniently teaching at any given moment.
Practicing interaction with your environment from this empowering role of being a
teacher and a learner truly unlocks the scientifically-charged transformation for
empowerment.
experiences. A set of guidelines motivating our worth and wealth with intuitive and
igniting passion. This passion should breath out over our existence and help us continue
to climb the metamorphic chairs to the buffet of learning.
We reach this buffet by learning and applying our lessons; by creating our own
lessons, and helping others scramble up the precipice; and by recognizing that it is a
collective entity that produces our own environment. We must contribute to that entity
with productive teaching and active learning from each individual. There must not be a
space of control nor leniency toward preservation. Instead, we must interact with an
unregimented system of compassion.
A lot of the time our system can over-compensate problems that lead to a genuine
account of abusive authority. A perfect example is a run-in I had with the Police officers
of Colorado Springs and a very selfish and misdirected woman.
Now before I get off on that, let’s talk about compensation. Compensation is all
about a pendulum swinging back and forth. You do something extreme and then do
something equally as extreme on the other side of the spectrum to be more aware of the
target, the middle ground. Say you want to be an actor. Write a book (which is an
extreme form of not acting) then swing to the other extreme of being an athlete – using
your typing skills and mind and then using just your body are very extreme forms of
over-compensation, but that overcompensation creates a scope of acting – the original
pursuit -- so you can experience it with more holistic awareness. Now back to the story.
to take a slight detour and tour down a street that I hadn’t ventured down before. It
formed a Y-formation with two-way streets in both of the stems. The leg of the Y-
formation, however, idiotically transforms into a one way street, freaking out drivers like
no other. So there I am, a first year college student pedaling off the safety bubble of his
campus into the jungle-like unknown of downtown Colorado Springs.
I pedaled down the first leg of that Y-formation street (called Boulder) and
immediately after I coasted past a grove of trees I saw a red flash dart out in front of me.
The next thing I remember was a someone helping my scarred, injured body off the street
cement and asking if I needed medical attention. A barrage of lights, ambulances, and
police cars followed this. A red sports car, being wielded (I phrase this as thought it were
a weapon, because that is seriously what felt like hit me – a weapon) by a fellow
Colorado Springs resident, had exploded out of an unseen driveway and slammed into
me, the biker.
Now before I reveal the conclusion to this story, let’s just clarify the parties
involved: a biker and a car driver. One person transports themselves with their body on
top of a petite framework of aluminum, by manually forcing gears into motion, which
rotate a crank that turns a set of two wheels. The other traveler transports themselves in a
death vehicle equipped with slamming bumpers, 4-wheel drive, “0-60 in 20 second”
collision damage, and metal casing, protecting the driver but making the ultimate death
patrol vehicle ideal for inducing fear in all bicyclists. As you can probably tell, I am
more of a bicycling enthusiast than an automobile aficionado. Mainly because you cause
less pollution, create an opportunity for you to get exercise, and help the environment.
Anyways, now that I’ve advertised my environmental platform, back to the important
stuff. So there is the powerhouse, metal muscular pedestrian-killing machine, that really
looked like a “Rest In Peace”, mortality-fatality vehicle, and there was me, the simple
pedestrian transporting myself on a petite framework of metal.
What had happened at the collision was the car jaunted out of the driveway like a
bat out of hell before she stopped, with the car jutting out in the middle of the road. My
bike’s fork (the skinny, fragile piece of metal that holds the front tire in place) had
slammed into the hood, becoming distorted and damaged beyond repair, as my bike
launched up onto the death-transport’s butcher-block table (the car hood), while my
delicate skeleton was catapulted over the car, shooting a good 7-8 feet and smacking into
the pavement, but only after receiving a blow from the red death-traps hood, leaving me
temporarily unconscious.
After the experience of the crashing into the car, was where the real chaos began
to occur. Getting up was the hardest part, because I must have had bucket loads of
adrenaline surging I hadn’t felt any injuries during the collision, but pealing my body off
the rough pavement brought upon an assault of excruciating pain; my head was swollen,
and ached like a knife stabbing into it; my eye was cut, knee bruised and hurt; my leg
looked and felt as though it had gone through a meat-grinder and because of all the
abrasions; and finally, elbows scraped and wrist sprained. In short was massacred by the
death vehicle.
Now the important thing to remember at this climactic point in the story is not my
severe injuries, although that is a crucial component to the saga of the downtown
Colorado Springs bike experience, but, rather the two vehicles involved – death vehicle
and fragile bicyclist.
9 A World of Instruction / 155
So I then the cops strolled up in their own blue death vehicle (you can tell by my
incredible bias towards cars, that I am either an avid environmentalist or I was severely
emotionally scarred by this experience – I guarantee you the answer is a bit of both).
They then proceeded to lock me in their car. Yes that’s right, somehow the situation was
transformed into one of pain, injury, alarm, and pavement horror, and incredible
stupidity. I would prefer to use a much more uplifting vocabulary word to not encumber
the rich diction of this story, but, alas, I am forced, out of all the glorious and
magnificently illustrative words in the English language, to portray the situation with a
common, simply, bi-syllabic word – stupid.
It was a though I, during my 20-30 second bout of unconsciousness, had suddenly
undergone a massive transition. It felt as though I had been teleported via telekinesis to
an entirely different planet with entirely different beings hosting entirely different minds
with ludicrously strange though patterns. I bet your expecting I am going to say I saw the
notorious light at the end of the tunnel, but that would be to realistic.
This was insanity. So in this crazy world that I had been magically abducted into
I found myself locked --like a prisoner, a criminal or a belligerent person (when in reality
I was just an intellectual person on a fragile bicycle) -- in the cop car. My bike was taken
out of my possession to be used as “evidence”, apparently so when the medics arrived,
they could determine which way my body flew into the hood of the car, so they could re-
align my spinal vertebras. This was not the case, for this would be far too rational and
realistic, and in this weird alien world that I had been transported to, I couldn’t interact
with these people on realistic level. Instead, they had temporarily confiscated my bike
(keeping it out of my hands on the pavement) and my body (locking me inside the police
squad car) to write me a ticket. Blink. Blink. Oh, I bet your thinking I miswrote that,
that instead I meant to say write the woman behind the red death vehicle a ticket (because
she after all slammed into my body almost putting me into a coma death-sleep), however,
you read correctly. The hill-billy, idiotic, Neanderthal officer, “just doing his duty”,
designed to “protect and to serve”, was protecting the wrong person, and must have been
serving a devilishly dim-witted creed because the dumb bloke wrote me -- the bicyclist,
not the careening mad car lady – a ticket for entering the one way street. Had he not been
aware that I had just been smacked by the hood of the car, flew -- literally, flew – over
the automobile, and was tossed into the pavement and was lucky to be coherently
speaking at that moment? Did he have some kind of brain damage that prevented him
from putting basic facts together in a coherent sequence? Didn’t he see the simple
equation that “car + car hit bike = severely injured bicyclist = write ticket for
pugnaciously careless automobile driver” makes sense, and not “car + car hit bike =
severely injured bicyclist = write ticket for seriously injured and painfully damaged
bicyclist” is a logical fallacy?
I was so disorientated at the time (after all, a 30-second black out preceded by a
near-death car collision wouldn’t really put me in the most assertive mood) that I barely
realized the complete lunacy of the half-brained, oinker writing me a ticket. Just to point
out something: I don’t have a thing against cops in general, just people who lack
compassion and common sense. I guess this guy was thinking he needed to sacrifice
logical care of an injured person for the laws of a bureaucracy. If there was a law that
said to shoot jay-walkers, I am certain this officer would have set up a sniper gun to
assault any pedestrian that stepped out of the white, street-crossing paint. I couldn’t
156 / Validate Your Life
believe the events that had unfolded, and just when I had determined that it was just a few
weird events mixed in from some misaligned overly-bureaucratic schmucks, and that I
had not been transported to some planet full of dim-witted apes, it got even more
incredible idiotic. It always gets worse before it gets better, right? Well, in this case, a
few conservative Colorado Spring residents always become more obtuse before they
grow half a brain.
The woman -- it sounds like I am making this up, but I am not – who brutally
slammed into me with her car was trying to sue me for damages! Now apparently, you
see, when my skeleton ricocheted into the hood of her car, it scratched some very
sensitive paint and incurred a microscopically small dent in the fresh top of her
automobile. It all makes sense in a primitive alien world of lunatic monkeys: car hit
biker; biker, a human being, gets severe injuries to his head and body parts; inanimate car
gets minute scratch; sue biker for damages! Wow, what a learning experience. The story
came to a conclusion by calling a Chicago-based lawyer, having him basically laugh the
law suit into the books of “Dumbest Law Suits of All-time”, and close the case. So I
survived the car wreck by only having to pay a $75.00 one-way street fine.
Bottom line of the story is not to not ride bikes in Colorado Springs, nor is it to
avoid listening to dim-witted half-brains, nor is it even to recognize bureaucratic losers
when you see them. Rather, the message behind this story is to look at it as a lesson.
Who were the teachers in this story? Who were the students? Well I certainly
was not the student nor teacher, I was just a biker pulverized by an abuse of bureaucracy,
the legal system, and a car. The officer was in charge of abusing his authority, while the
woman driver was the one nearly killing people with her death machine and manipulating
a crazy set of protocols that we call the “legal” system. It sounds like their were no
defined teachers and students. That is correct, there was only the lesson and what we all
took from it and how it changed our perspective by brining in different interpretations. I
learned that the legal system has flaws and we must abide by it certainly, but mustn’t
abuse one’s authority. Hopefully, the officer and the woman learned that humans are
fragile and not objects to smack their cars with and the that the legal system is supposed
to support, and not handicap or cripple, its followers.
The point of this story is to illustrate that you can find teachers in even the most
ridiculously stupid scenarios. You can draw meaning from situations, even where you
feel like you gut gypped, and draw yourself up further toward that magically teaching-
learning buffet. Similarly, you can aid in other people’s awareness of the table or even
help them up a few steps, no matter how “close to the floor” they are.
Additionally this shows us the importance of relinquishing doubts of the power of
our brain and actually using them. I am not saying I had a superior view of the bike
collision situation, nor that I was even inaccurately assigned a ticket, but what I am
saying is that some people, it seems like men more often, seem to have a Saran wrap, or
sticky wrap around their brains, preventing them from using it. I’ve experienced this
around my brain. I’ve had a shrink-wrapped brain. I am not saying that getting hit by
cars is productive, but choosing to learn from this situation (and any situation despite the
amount of ridiculousness associated with it) is making the valid decision. Most of the
time we over-compartmentalize and encapsulating our learning into a classroom. This
makes way for encumbering material that is produced by celebrity conglomeration,
groupthink, and cookie-cutting discussed in Chapter 6 and 7 because most classrooms
9 A World of Instruction / 157
mediate the discussion, learning, and social communicating that takes place for remaining
10% of the time. By breaking down the hackneyed, static, and teacher-based interface
existent in most schools, we can begin to build a new interface that is student-based,
where the teachers act as routers for the students activity and communication, not as
barriers for it.
Currently, student’s are left with a Hobson’s choice to follow the teacher’s
curriculum or fail. I am not saying classrooms should abolish curriculum’s or else no
focused learning would not take place. However, the curriculum should set contexts for
the students’ discussions not deadlines for their contributions. A curriculum should not
tell students when they must write a 5000-word essay. Instead it should set the mood for
the days discussion so an active learning takes place by prepared, knowledge-equipped
students.
Additionally, in more and more classrooms I see the curriculum encouraging
superficial learning rather than authentic appreciation. Most classrooms assign 100-page
nightly readings for a great novel. I once experienced a Dostoevsky, Great World Novels
class, where the entire text of “Crime and Punishment” was read, discussed, and analyzed
in a week! The pace of the reading and analysis had to be ridiculously superficial
because you can’t appreciate a novel of the psychological depth of Dostoevsky by
reading 100 pages a night! Student’s should be given a month to read such a novel on
their own time, and then a discussion should be instigated by the teacher. This falls into
the category of slowing down and multi-tasking our sense, reading my books instead of
watching more movies, and actually using our own creativity and imagination in actions,
instead of simply getting them done. We must appreciate great novels, savor classroom
discussions, and not fly through material because this simply teaches the art of
bullshitting! We must be scholars and creative inspirationalists, not conniving students
of academia that can rush through material and analyze quickly. That fast-paced analysis
and neglect of creative relish, however, is what most institutions teach. Cultivating
critical thinking and accelerated analysis skills certainly isn’t negative, but these skills
must be encompassed in a learning environment where creativity and appreciation of
actual texts of English or postulates of Newton or formulas of great mathematical
algorithms can be accepted, thoroughly analyzed, and fully appreciated. I constantly see
the goal of schools and their classrooms to be to instill their students with an awareness
of these great English texts, scientific concepts, and/or mathematical formulas so they can
bullshit their way into a profession or conversation! This superficial teaching leads only
to a shallow and worthless understanding of the material, and teaching’s real purpose –
experience of learning in a mediated environment – is lost. We must radically alter the
strict, fast-paced teaching system to a dynamic protocol where the time is student-based,
and teacher-mediated.
fit back into my old non-existant mold, but now I realize that my Junior year person is the
real me and the one that thrives and survives. Not depressed and doing drugs, but
vivacious and exploring and playing a game as well.
produce a "thespian-like" roll call for class, but that’s exactly what you want for an acting
professor, you don’t want some one who has a huge amount of control, so in a way he
was an exceptional acting prof. He didn’t do too much motivating, possibly, because we
were already motivated. The best teacher is one who sits back and subtley directs or
facilitates when students are motivated and motivates them when they aren’t. So we
spent all of our renowned and praiseworthy acting days doing roll call! Nuts, definitely
nuts! But great. It was an incredibly rich atmosphere that is difficult to find elsewhere.
We did some performing art games like walking around in circles, and waiting for your
timing to speak, and some breathing exercises, but most of it felt certainly like mumbo-
jumbo, but in the long-range, was incredibly clarifying! It, I guess could be applied to
running, which is what I tend to apply what normally would be considered useless bits of
knowledge to, just for the sake of getting "something" out of the experience. But Lincoln
Park was the future; it was the future very early. It was a remarkable placement in my
life because it was a view of things to come, that rich diversity is the future, so it was a
rupture that was profoundly positive in every dimension. And not staying there was not a
mistake (because there are no mistakes), but it made my life more problematic because
my soul was interested in the future, which is why I commit to from now on. Not going
to LP would’ve been a major, terrible flaw in my life. Connect with certainty for truthful
knowing.
So bottom line about acting was that it was roll-call, breathing, and walking
around in circles. My advice - don't take performing arts at Lincoln Park, but go there if
you want a rich ,academic, seriously sincere academic experience with a strong student
body not just of able-bodied seamen but intellectual captains! To read about the
“Bondage Party” Story, you’ll have to look at my autobiographical writings under 2002!
A little in-book advertising. This calls for a refreshing reminder and a pivotal source for
good, new thinking.
man at the table would pay for the check. Astonished at this huge assumption, I played
along with it for the rest of the night.
Whenever I took a bill to a table from then on, I looked the man at the table in the
eye, assuming he was paying. It seemed as though I was taken to this different level of
agreement. I felt appalled. What the heck is with people needing to assume that the man
takes the women out to dinner and pays? It is this culture that should change – our
assumptions should not alter our agenda, and these gender stereotypes are crippling our
validations.
If you see a person that’s a celebrity conglomeration, simply react and interact
with that person’s projection of whatever role model they’re after. Dancing with their
restricted mental thinking is how we can free ourselves from our own mental inhibitions
and ignorance because we unite our minds to one common source – clarity and
movement up towards the “buffet ladder”. Choosing to play and frolic with people’s
mental Saran wrap is the valid decision because it leaves you relinquished in social
liberation and the other person is helped and accessed. You aren’t obligated to alter
people’s thinking, because e you don’t have all the answers. Instead, you should be able
to relate to people’s mental Saran wrap, whether it be a celebrity conglomeration,
constrained group think, cookie-cutting, or some other form of mental limitation, so that
they can relate to yours. Even if you think you have an entirely uninhibited,
unconstrained mind, you need some mental framework to structure you goals and actions.
Having the ability to take off this mental cap and pursue realistic goals, interact and find
joy in interacting with other people, despite their constrained or liberating mental
framework, and to dynamically alter, taking on or off, your own mental Saran wrap, you
can create a magnificent agenda full of passion. This is the trick to beginning a
profession of validation, but it’s not a magic show – it’s reality. You must simply remind
yourself to choose the correct decision of validation to pursue your destiny.
sources of satisfactions such as monetary rewards or the alleviation of fears about various
kinds of insecurity” (Harvard 103). This type of leadership is far more unproductive and
detrimental than having a group not achieve its goals. This type of leadership inhibits the
human spirit because it equates humanity on the level of rats in rat positive and negative
reinforcement tests. Leadership of this nature is in serious need of multiple developments
an clarification of what exactly leadership is, on psychological, physical, and managerial
levels.
The problem with most leadership today is that it is solely comprised of these
primitive forms of motivation and team-building initiative. “Human beings are not
machines with a single set of push buttons,” Prentice points out. However, the majority
of leaders today treat humans as such, resulting in the inhibition of creativity and the
sacrifice of originality for the standards of the organization. When their complex
responses to love, prestige, independence, achievement, and group membership are
unrecognized on the job, people perform at best as automata who bring far less than their
maximum efficiency to the task” (Harvard 103). Prentice also points out that when such
a puerile, “rat-experiment” method of leadership is used, employees or group members
are left with no alternative but to abandon the group’s objectives. When leaders give
group members a frightening dilemma – of buoyantly bobbing in and out of
unpredictable fear or flat-out unemployment – they become inhibited of their maximum
potential for original unique contributions and act “at worst as rebellious slaves who
consciously or unconsciously sabotage the activities they are supposed to be furthering”
(Harvard 103).
This type of leadership is ridiculously unfair to its employees. It not only
produces maladaptive and unproductive leadership results, but it undermines the creative
potential of all of its members, stifling the momentum of the entire group. “Rewards and
threats – [the carrots and sticks, the coercion] -- may help each player to carry out this
assignment, but in the long run if success is to be continuing and if morale is to survive,
each player must not only fully understand his part and its relation to the group effort; he
must also want to carry it out” (Harvard 103). By making each individual group member
want to carry out their role, the leader transfers over the role of leadership to the members
and the group interacts in a dynamic harmony of contributions, where creativity and
originality are not negated nor sacrificed, but encouraged. “The problem of every leader
is to create these wants and to find ways to channel existing wants into effective
cooperation” (Harvard 103). By being socially aware of a group member’s admirations
and inclinations, an effective leader can design a seamless interface between the group’s
goal and its members motivations to further that agenda without using force or
manipulation; by using people skills (and not manipulation of power or exploitation
“skills”) the successful leader simply harnesses the already existent passions of his
members or employees to a cultivated and progressive environment towards that goal.
This approach has no problems for alleviating fear, nor illusions of positive
reinforcement; it is the most directly-validated form of leadership.
Because people do have so many different reactions to and relationships with
concepts such as love, prestige, achievement, and independence, they are different and
complex. The truly successful leader will understand and acknowledge these differences
an actually utilized each employee’s uniqueness to a tactical advantage to motivate them
in their work. Within the hierarchy of leadership, it is most important for there to be
9 A World of Instruction / 163
personal opportunities for emotional rapport and dynamic relationships where interests
are exchanged between all members. Prentice points out: “An ideal organization should
have workers at every level reporting to someone whose dominion is small enough to
enable him to know as human beings those who report to him” (Harvard 103). Prentice
does a dandy job of uniting humans to humans, but you can still cultivate a spiritual
presence in the work place. This type of interface -- a construct where group members
interact as validated, genuine, emotional members of humanity, rather than some
automaton functioned output of a “rat-experiment” reinforcement program – is a the ideal
framework for establishing productive and dynamic leadership because the members of
the group offer the opportunity to craft and contribute to the holistic goal, rather simply
fuel its production.
Leadership is subtle majesty. It allows one to create a formulized repertoire of
change, adaptation, and cooperation. This repertoire, or portfolio, becomes the leader’s
tools in governing, guiding and giving advice to the supreme leader – the group. In the
beginning of The Politics of Aristotle, Aristotle begins to describe politics by defining its
integral components – “the monarch of a kingdom, the manager of a household”, the
three right governments (monarchy, aristocracy, and polity), the three wrong
governments (tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy), the master/slave relationship,
parenthood, marriage, and the community, yada-yada (Aristotle 1). Politics has changed
Aristotle! The three right governments now are democracy, limited governments, and
people-run governments, wrong governments are tyranny, aristocracy, and excessive
monarchy. Some of the greatest American writers in our brief history, Thoreau and
Emerson both reference limited government: “That government is best which governs
least” (Thoreau 227) 18. Thoreau takes this a step further not towards anarchy, but away
from too much control saying, “That government is best which governs not at all”
(Thoreau 227). Politics is indeed all of these things, but the leadership component steps
in and controls the binding of these political elements. Leadership can be passive or
active, and while politics remains mainly an engaging activity, leadership can actually
define the integration of politics or the political process itself. What truly creates the
compromise between leadership and what is actually being lead is what determines the
quality of leadership. The meaning, determination, and hard, crucial decision-making is
what ultimately determines “how good a leader is”. But why have criteria? Jean-Jacque
Rousseau said, “Man is born free, and yet everywhere he is in chains", and through this
statement he defined the quality and the condition of mankind. By making mankind
aware of their enchained position. Rousseau developed a dichotomy between leading and
making people lead for themselves for the betterment of mankind. Through his subtle
mastery of the English language, Rousseau developed what truly needed to be accepted
during his time. Amidst the French Revolution in 1889, Rousseau kept the role of a
political leader truly a confidential or passive role. Through his plethora of writings
including “Emile”, “Confessions”, and the “Social Contract”, he lead people through a
design that, although subtle, was extremely engaging and resulted in exponential effects.
While the Rousseau figure was qualified as a distinguished literary and political leader of
his time, the more typical leader from the American context to examine is the wise and
18
Thoreau, Henry David. Resistance to Civil Government. London: Norton & Norton,
1992.
164 / Validate Your Life
honest, Abe Lincoln. Lincoln was an expert at arousing support when it was needed and
truly had understanding humanitarian people skills. “A great leader’s unique
achievement is a human and social one which stems from his understanding of his fellow
workers”. This relationship is the powerful one that allows excellent leaders to relate to
their employers so they are not followers, but, rather, agenda-makers. Leaders who tap in
to their employees’ needs allow the employee to make agendas of their own to achieve
the group’s goals. This type of relationship is incredibly powerful because it allows
people that report to the leader of the group to be leaders themselves, which, in turn,
allows for a greater understanding of the collective enterprise of the groups dynamic
motivations.
Take the presidential sequence as an example of how a hierarchy affects the chain
of leadership. The Vice President, is obviously, the first to receive the office in the case
of an assassination or inability to perform his duty on the president’s parts. Next in line
is the Speaker of the House, followed by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the
Secretary of State, and the Secretary of the Treasury, all the way down to the 16th
successor, the Secretary of Education. If these 16 people were unable to perform the
duties of the president, their would have to be some kind of modifying election where the
“next in line” would be determined. By creating a space for the longevity of the
president’s successors, their isn’t such a dilemma reached. Instead, the overwhelming
production line of the president’s successors looks like a Henry Ford production line.
The language of successor, almost connotes regality or royalty, which certainly isn’t a
milestone of the U.S. Democratic government. However, such a line-up of succession is
necessary to ensure the president’s shoes are filled in case of a mishap. This type of
hierarchy affects the chain of leadership two-fold. First it initiates a gap in the
rearrangement of the presidents successors because the one’s near the bottom of the list,
simply relying on probability, do not expect to be taken up into office because there are
so many successors in front of them. Secondly, the method in which this sequential list
was acquired is irrelevant to the actual order, so the people in that sequence lack the
understanding of its origin, which leads to a disastrous interest in producing
overwhelming pivotal change opportunities. The excellent leader will look above and
beyond the system of hierarchy and not even use it as a crutch, but as a desensitized
framework for utilizing the blooming possibilities in the high appointed office,
sometimes. But radio personalities and TV and movies freqeuently have more sway over
politics than actual politicians, at times. Many define Rush Limbaugh as dangerous
because of how much sway he had over politics with his voice. I ascribe to someone like
Bill O’Reilly simply because he doesn’t have problems with pain killers, but they are
both paramount leaders in American movements.
When leadership blooms it is a superfluous act because the leader’s actions,
framework, and execution of his means are what truly make a leadership successful. If
the typical leader, which utilizes the expectations of a hierarchy steps into the framework
a “pitfall of perception” occurs (Harvard 105). Prentice points out that “so much of what
we understand in the world around is colored by the conceptions and prejudices we start
with. My view of my employer of superior may be so colored by expectations based on
the behavior of other bosses that facts may not appear in the same way to him and to me”.
Just the diction of “superior” sets up a superior/inferior, best/better hierarchy that
provokes a problematic reaction in the person relating to a person in the upper hierarchy
9 A World of Instruction / 165
Partial
Validity to
Collective
Compassion
ur inner critic, the Ego or Judge, uses a convincing system of criticisms,
O depressing remarks, and insults that covertly smash our confidence and self-
esteem. Learn how he tricks us into believe these criticisms by becoming aware
of, and, most importantly, unraveling his trick of partial validity. Partial validity
is the Judge’s way of using the “grain of truth” theory in is disparaging criticisms.
The more he criticizes, the subdued your conscious gets. Learn how to revolutionize
your thought patterns to rejuvenate and awaken your conscious by instilling compassion
and dismantling the Judge with the Process of Judge Scrutiny.
thwart your patterns of invalidity and make the active change to begin pursuing your
ambitions successfully. Another blockade to the fulfillment of one’s desires is internal
disparagements sparked by tactics of an inner parasite, which will be investigated later.
For now, let’s examine the house-desire scenario as an example for making the
validating changes to one’s life.
You may notice a lot of things with these statements. Firstly, I used quotations when
writing these doubts. I acknowledge this subtle inquiry. The answer, quite simply, is that
you wouldn’t put quotations around your thoughts. The reason quotations were used
around these seven statements is because these self-criticisms – which, if you recall, are
the reasons the sample group has not begun to pursue their dream house – are invalid.
Not only are they invalid, but also these seven criticisms are not their own ideas.
The sample group produced these ideas, and articulately conveyed that they were
reasons (or excuses, depending on how you look at it, which is exactly the essence of this
example) that supported the lack of pursuit in their ambitions. However, these excuses
originated not from their intellect, but rather from an inner parasite that initiates criticism
to provoke fear.
This inner criticism is creating these doubts and hesitancies. The internal parasite is
coercively whispering these ideas to these volunteers. But, wait, you say, how can this be
possible, how can those statements be anything other than their own logical ideas? I am
going to take you through the process of scrutinizing these inner criticisms by showing
*
The sample group was taken from home-owners residing in houses appraised between
$75,000 and $105,000.
10 Partial Validity to Collective Compassion / 171
you how they originate from an internal critic and not from your own logic. This internal
critic exploits your weaknesses and depresses, cramps, and invalidates your life.
Who is this manipulative conniver that has been causing my life to be immensely
restricted -- preventing me from getting the house of my dreams, for example? Who
would be such a terribly dark-hearted person to try to convince me that I am not strong,
talented, smart, nor motivated enough to pursue and achieve my goals? Who is this
extremely emotionally dangerous person whom generates massive amounts of emotional
damage, insecurity, doubt, and fear in myself? Who is this culprit that should be brought
to justice and condemned for his or her wrongful acts? This individual, my friends, is
none other than the one, the only, the notoriously dangerous and emotionally
manipulative (drum roll, please) – The Judge, aka The Inner Critic or The Inner Judge.
Many psychologists and empowerment professionals refer to the Judge as Ego,
Survival System or, sometimes, even Intellect. Using the label, Judge, for such a
manipulative inner demon allows you to personify its image, which allows you to have
more control in conquering it. The problem with referring to the inner critic as Ego, is
that Ego is simply too abstract and is not a focused, tangible entity. But the affects of the
inner critic manifest themselves in excruciatingly real ramifications. For this reason – of
mere tangibility – the Ego or the Survival System – becomes more productively referred
to as the Judge.
I will take your through the process of dismantling the Judge, step-by-step, by
illustrating the Judge’s character – who he is – the effectiveness of his invalidity -- how
this inner ego manipulates.
sound of an authority figure’s voice telling you to do something that you shouldn’t be
doing, an old teacher that gave your bad grades, or possibly an old girlfriend that spoke to
you in a very harsh voice with brusque emotionally scarring words are all possible
manifestations of the Judge. All of these are possibilities for who The Judge is to you.
Let me provide a personal example of how the Judge negatively affected my
certainty and invaded my conviction to pursue something and my confidence in pursuing
it. In the Autumn of 2003 I decided I wanted to run the Chicago Marathon in my
hometown in the upcoming October of 2004. In order to complete the 26.2 mile haul you
need to have a very organized, strictly followed, and complete training program so you
can build yourself up towards the mileage necessary to finish the race. I had competed in
track in High school and done some running on the soccer team, by the decision to pursue
this endeavor would be an action I would start, pursue, endure, and finish entirely on my
own. That is the cool thing about the marathon – its an accomplishment you, and only
you, can achieve, making it all the more personally poignant and meaningful in the sense
of self-achievement.
So I developed an 8-month training program where I arduously committed myself
to getting in runs nearly every day, so I was ready in October for the 26.2-mile marathon.
I assiduously followed my training program all through the winter and spring, but when
summer hit, the Judge clicked on and nearly completely derailed me from the training
program. Around early July (about three months before the marathon), I began to think
(or, rather, the Judge began to deceptively convince me) that I didn’t need to train very
hard anymore; I erroneously thought that I had already achieved top marathon
performance shape and had acquired the dexterous physique necessary to complete the
grueling 26.2 mile-long haul. As a result of this drastically incorrect thinking, I began to
eat less carefully and nutritiously, go to sleep later, and even unproductively cut down on
mileage. After nearly a month of nearly completely deterring off my carefully planned
and precise training schedule it hit me that the Judge had been affecting my life; the
Judge was attempting to get me out of tip-top shape by instilling my with unfounded
negligence that I didn’t need a training schedule. Luckily, however, my light went on
and I was aware of the disingenuous guise being pulled by the Judge’s trickery.
I got back on track – began to eat nutritiously, establish regular sleep patterns, and
to get my necessary mileage in, but it was much more difficult than back when I first
started the program because I had to consciously subdue and negate the criticism of the
Judge. At first, my inner critic was convincing me that I didn’t need to train, and by the
time I was a month and half away from the race (late August of 2004), I was seriously
doubting myself and was overwhelmed with negative feelings of “I can’t do this” or
“Why did I put myself through this painfully crazy training program to run this stupid
race?” I was able to distance myself from these questions of criticism because of my
understanding that they all originated from the Judge. The awareness of the Judge
allowed me to ignore the interrogations that would test my confidence and question my
conviction to continue with the training program. All I new I had to do was follow my
mileage regimen and eat selectively for nutritiously health and I would be fine.
Guess what? It worked. I ran the Chicago Lake Shore Marathon in 3 hours 42
minutes (beating President Bush by two minutes). At mile 24 I hit a wall, I remember
seeing the mileage indicator slowly approaching in the distance. I was expecting it to be
the grand finale – 26 miles – and their would just by a couple hundred meters to go after
10 Partial Validity to Collective Compassion / 173
that. But when I saw the 4, instead of the 6, on the roadside indicator, I nearly collapsed.
I felt my physiological body react to this – my upper quads cramped, my stomach felt
smashed, and I thought my legs were going to detach themselves from my hip. But, for
the second time, I caught myself and realized the Judge was giving his last breath, trying
out one final laugh. Fortunately, I recognized the ridiculousness of training for 8-months,
staying committed to a very demanding, arduous programming to finish I race that I had
91.6% completed would be not just illogical but crushing to my entire motivational
momentum and would crush my initiative to commit to large projects ever again. The
wash and rush of negative, debilitating emotions activated my inner sensor; I new the
Judge was producing this doubt. My inner critic used the partial validity that I had gone
24 miles and needed to stop. I accepted this as a suggestion and then nullified the
Judge’s presence in my mind. Instantly, my legs felt lighter, my chest filled with fresh
oxygen, and it seemed like I floated on a delicate cushion of smiling achievement. I felt
so fresh and confident as I pulled into the last 400 meters one of the fans cheering on the
runners shouted out to me, “Hey, you’ve got another 10 miles in you!” I smiled back and
surged on to finish the race, enjoy and embrace the overwhelming sense of
accomplishment and elation, and, once again, confirm my belief that by conquering and
eliminating the Judge, anything is truly possible in life. But the fact that I almost quit and
abandoned my training program and threatening my ability to even partake in the race,
and then during the race that I nearly gave up when I had just 2 pathetic, teeny, tiny miles
to go shows how genuinely real, viciously deceptive, and exploitatively controlling the
presence of the Judge is. Learning how to overcome his barriers and obstacles will alter
your perspective of possibility – it certainly has radically transformed my conception of
ingenuity and enlarged the awareness of my own capacity. After successfully casting
aside the Judge twice in the midst of my ambition to train and complete the marathon, I
knew the impossible could be possible, if you only set greater goals for yourself and
denounce the Judge!
Our ego provokes and sways us is large-scale patterns which lead to career
changes, personality shifts, and general adherences to things that draw us away from fear
and toward the safety of comfort. Our ego influences us to be special and unique,
shielding from us the reality of being a component part of a grand entity. The inner ego
works in benignly deceptive matters, while the Judge is the implementation of the ego on
a very specific, very harsh reality. It is the most prominent destructive device utilized by
our ego because it directly and destructively puts us into discouraged states of insecurity
and nervousness using the trigger of fear.
If the Judge isn’t activated – if he is dismantled – we will achieve incredible
results. When successful people engage in whatever area they pursue – politics, athletics,
education, or science, for example – they plan to be the best. Why not? If you pursue
politics, why not shoot for presidency? If you’re committed to science, why not create an
incredibly revolutionary invention? The reason that the “highest level achievement” isn’t
achieved whenever we enter an area of academia or professionalism is that the Judge gets
in the way. I have a tendency to always shoot for the best – the fastest runner in track,
the most inventive science, or the most creative writer. These high ambitions have their
own defects as well. If a high-achiever doesn’t create the results he or she wants (which
is likely with high-achievements) they can easily end up in a situation where they are
winning, and aren’t aware they are, because they aren’t keeping score. These high
174 / Validate Your Life
achievers must make sure the Judge doesn’t tell them that they aren’t successful by
attaining their goals. High-achievers must realize that their Judge becomes activated by
constantly “concealing” their prolific production and results from them. No matter how
hard they try, it won’t be enough. The Judge can alter one’s judgment of success. We
must learn to dismantle the Judge so that we can pursue success and then actively gauge
and measure those results.
The Judge’s personality revolves around creating harsh inner criticism that crushes
your confidence and stabs you in the back. When you feel nervous about giving a
speech, or insecure about a hot date, or feel inadequate to write an intelligent paper, or
doubtful about selling to a client, or scared, frightened, hesitant, doubtful, fearful, afraid,
anxious, or worried about anything even in the slightest, most miniscule way, The Judge
is the cause. The Judge is the culprit for any negative emotion. He is the internal
mastermind who puppeteers all the inner demons, unleashes your worst fears, and sparks
the anxious and doubtful reaction within you. He is the most damaging, insulting,
incriminating, and disparaging individual you will ever encounter and you must
discriminate against him by learning how he manipulates, or else, risk never validating
your life.
edge. The culprit for such “flash in the pan” behavior, obviously is our notorious Judge.
We so often hear of new breakthrough technology in computer chips, or medicine. We
frequently hear new ideas for health or science, but no one runs with these ideas. These
hesitancies of success are because of the Judge.
doesn’t just attack the weak-hearted, he fills the lives of the confident and successful with
doubt and insecurity as well.
How does the Judge manipulate with such precise ferocity? The secret ingredient
to The Judge’s powerful manipulation strategy is partial validity. The Judge creates
doubt and insults your confidence with seemingly-true statements; these statements are so
powerful because they are based on partial validity. Let me say that one more time:
partial validity.
Partial validity is a very powerful manipulation technique used in advertising,
marketing, MORE places. It draws in the consumer, buyer, listener, reader, or viewer,
and uses partial truths to make them believe that what they are experiencing is of
authentic origin. The elusion becomes very dangerous very quickly.
How do you silence The Judge – this omni-present attacker on my emotional
well-being – who utilizes partial validity to his advantage? To control The Judge and
disprove his insults and doubts, you must understand how he operates.
Judge, and investigated how The Inner Critic uses manipulation techniques to control its
victims.
Just as Edison gave the name “light bulb” to his glowing contraption, Cooper
gave the name “The Judge” or the “Inner Critic” to the internal manipulator and conniver.
If, for five years, you worked interactively with the genius, Thomas Edison – the “Father
of Light” who, after all, created the light bulb -- you would, no doubt, certainly be a
topmost authority on electricity, chemistry, and wavelengths. At the least, you would
have acquired a profound wealth of knowledge on the subject of electricity and light. On
the same level of apprenticeship, I have acquired an incredible wealth of knowledge on
the manipulation, criticism, and partial validity of The Judge by working with John
Cooper, The “Father of the Judge”
John Cooper understood, entirely comprehended, and inspirationally taught
everything about The Judge’s manipulation and confidence-destroying techniques. He
grasped the electricity, physics, chemistry, and psychological of The Judge as intricately
as Edison understood science. Fortunately, John Cooper shared his invaluable
knowledge, and taught me The Judge’s tricks of the trade. I consulted with John Cooper
for 4 years, where he delved into my personal psychological issues and educated my on
how the Judge operates. After being blessed enough to learn from the topmost “wizard”
on the Judge, I can tell you from my own experience that The Judge is omni-present.
help authors, specialists and psychologists have, no doubt, experienced this type of
awakening. For awhile, I thought this perspective would be an edge above people – a
super power, if you will. However, I realized that I have my own Judge to deal with just
as everyone else. And at the time of thinking that I had “Judge-seeing superpowers”, the
Judge was most certainly, working a number on me, by externally creating a state of
superficial satisfaction. In doing so, he was preventing me from writing these very
words.
Even when you become more aware of the Judge’s crippling impact, he is still at
work within you. Saying you are free of the Judge because you can witness it in other
people would be like wearing a chef’s hat and making fun of the culinary arts. Everyone
always has Judge work to do. I am not saying you can never take a break, and must
always be asking yourself 24/7 “What is the Judge criticizing”, “What is the Judge saying
to me now?”, of course not. What I am saying, however, is that you can let your guard
down on the Judge after practicing these exercise of controlling and manipulating the
Judge, but he will just be subdued.
I am also not saying that we are in a constant, never-ending battle with the Inner
Critic. We are, however, affected by his criticism on multiple levels and must address
these psychological wounds, long after he has been at work. So even if the Judge is
“fully subdued”, a state in which, one will rarely themselves, there is still work to be
done after The Judge triggers emotional pressure points with his criticism. The
destruction brought about by the Judge’s tactics, regarding the unsettling gashes and
disturbing, psychological injuries, must be mended. You will learn the process of Judge
Scrutiny (dissolving the Judge) and judge maintenance (staying on top of the Judge and
mending wounds caused by his disruption) will be second nature.
Fear is an extremely interesting concept because it can be beneficial or
incapacitating. In the third grade, I remember about half way through the year my
teacher made announcement that cameras were to be installed in the classrooms for
monitoring our activity for “research-related academic study purposes”. Now, this
“study” and the existence of cameras were entirely spurious and was created just to put us
into a state of fear. I remember this teacher, especially, out of all the other teachers I had
ever encountered had an enormous interest in control. She used fear tactics to do it. This
was the first external projection of the Judge I experienced.
This “teacher” was the inner Critic externalized. She used fear to debilitate our
young minds, and alter our behavior to appear civilized, orderly, and obedient to the
“cameras”, which, unbeknownst to us, were nonexistent. She made us feel locked into
behavioral patterns with her fabrication of the “study”. Just as the Judge uses partial
validity to create such a mood of disillusioned ambiguity and fearful obedience, this
teacher was putting us in patterned behaviors routed by apprehension and fear, as well.
External projections of the Judge can be electrifyingly unsettling experiences.
This third grader teacher, known as the “Battle Axe”, used fear to transform what she
thought to be disunity – the state of the third grade classroom at that time – into unity.
Her vehicle for creating this common bond, however, was a poor choice of tools.
By using fear, my third grade teacher’s altruistic goal of being the good-hearted
teacher of a integrated and unified third grade classroom, she disowned her benevolent
goal. In other words, using fear destroyed the benevolence in her acts because the means
she chose to create the justified end was a wrongful purpose of procedure.
180 / Validate Your Life
condemn his criticism, and carve the way to your inner verisimilitudes by opening up
opportunities for productive change to engage all the forms of communication.
The
Discovery of
Validation
Expereince authentic revelation in your essence. Create a snapshot of your authentic life pattern, personal
religion, customized style, and intuitive practice. You can then use that snapshot as a prescient beacon to
gracefully navigate toward your fascinating and exciting future.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.” --Emerson
Chapter 11
Construct
Your Personal
Religion
our personal religion initiates the inner bond with you spiritual agenda by
“Throw away holiness and wisdom and people will be a hundred times happier. Throw away morality and
justice, and people will do the right thing”
--Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching
above quote, Lao Tzu, in regards to religion, encourages us to generate our own diagram
of faith and to “throw away” the holiness that we have been taught and use that wisdom
to generate our own manifestation and existence of holiness. This wisdom of Lao Tzu’s
certainly is not encouraging us to “not have faith” or to “not have government”; such a
philosophy would only lead to hopeless anarchy. Instead, Lao Tzu inspires us to have
faith in our own spirit and morality and to use these personal entities as beacons for
government and religion.
This is one of my most meaningful quotes. It shows that material pleasures, like a
house and opulent luxuries for example, are not the way of the seekers, the reformers, the
believers, the thoughtful, the creators. The truly passionate people do not delight in an
abode; they do not take pleasure in the worldly embellishments of house and home,
consequentially, they exert themselves and simply leave, abandoning the connection with
irrelevant materialism to pursue their own swan-lake of fulfillment and this occurs around
people; this is not isolated from people. That is their peace. Cultivating your personal
religion expresses the next step of this quote’s essence and generates more essence. It
illustrates the core ways to truly make your spiritual presence, your home. You can make
“home” wherever you are if you have the right state of mind, acquiring a personal
religion will provide you with that incredible skill of adaptation. An example of this is
the Tibetan monks that sit for days in sub-zero weather, meditating and completely
content, and actually radiating heat, causing the snow to melt around them, while only
wearing a robe! I have practiced this act of making my mental state affect my body
temperature, revealing the power of the mind. While living in Colorado, where I, to the
astonished bewilderment of fellow colleagues, would dash around in a T-shirt and shorts
during 20°F winter snow season. I simply continued to live in a “California” mental state
of warmth and I never got cold, rarely even shivered. I was astonished at how, by
making myself mentally conscious of this transformation, I debilitated it. This was no
where even near the caliber of mental focus that the Tibetan monks exhibit, but it was
atleast a form of –albeit a miniscule one – mental focus, altogether. Similar, to paralysis
by analysis, as discussed by Bruce Lee, where you cramp a productive action by over-
analyzing it or becoming to focused on the details of its execution.
If you ever have felt uncertain in a new environment (be it physical discomfort
with cold, for example, or emotional discomfort), nervous about unknowns, or disturbed
by uncommon variables, this chapter will teach you how to create a practice where all the
doubts caused by a negative environment will vanish because you will how to plant the
seeds for nurturing your internal religion which will house, shelter, and nourish yourself
and others wherever you are because it resides within you.
11 Construct Your Personal Religion / 187
One interesting thing about poignant and paramount religious figures like
Muhammad, Jesus, and Buddha, is some people think they are predictable and boring.
Many people think that always giving to the poor, turning the other cheek, loving thy
neighbor, and being a benevolent, good-natured human being is too predictable and
boring. This deterrent couldn’t reside in a more false assumed state of corrosive error.
The people who truly believe in natural capacity for greatness are capable of doing
profoundly unimaginable things. These things are only capable through the help of love
and compassion. They are never fueled by malign or unpredictable destruction. Being
good doesn’t mean “being predictable and drab”. Jesus turned many heads when he
impetuously performed some of his miracles. The people who think that being erratic
and disobedient is more appealing than being proper and well-behaved because it is more
exciting are dangerously deluded. Such behaviors only result in pathetic loops of
unproductive activity fueled by corrosive and counterfeit emotional patterns. The true
joy, excitement, rewards, and consummations are experienced by those who live in the
state of strong adherence to genuine convictions. These convictions are not for the sake
of stability or immutability, but to set the stage for incredible emotional treasures and
mental achievements.
But everything is reflective of the beholder. Embracing a religion that upholds
morality and virtue doesn’t make you good. Everything is interpretative and dependent
on how your utilize beliefs. Terrorists, for example, use the September 11 bombings as
placation for religious qualms. They erroneously connected Islam as proof to support the
terrible destruction and death they incurred. This erroneous alignment was given so
much fuel because it was aligned with one of the world’s major religions. This just
shows how much impact relies on the utilization of good, enlightening ideas and words.
We must have good, enlightening words. Despite their inherent nature, enlightened
beliefs can be used for malign, perpetuating evil or for devout veneration promoting the
endurance of benevolence and compassion. We must adhere ourselves to pacts and
religions that not only sponsor benevolent and altruistically compassionate beliefs, but to
interpret, and follow these beliefs with the intent of promoting what they intend to
prolong – harmonious accord and munificence.
The validation that can arise from authenticating our pleasures leads to
passion.
“The spiritual path doesn’t make you otherworldly, it makes you very much this
worldly.”
--Gary Zukav
Divinity relinquishes a prepared mind from patterned responses and formulized patterns.
When you become a spiritual being, you “don’t escape this world, you go into this world,
but with awareness, not with attachment to all that you are struggling with, that is where
the spiritual ticket will take you. Athletic excellence, contemporary essence mastery, and
spiritual commitment all cultivate validation in your life. Zukav writes, “The need to
validate your self through what you can accomplish…you become worldly; you go into
your life, you don’t escape it.” As you acn see, to the contrary of popular belief, being
spiritual puts our feet on the ground with direction, awareness, and most importantly
validation. A spiritual person isn’t someone floating above the earth, they are an active
188 / Validate Your Life
player in the earth school, understand its curriculum, adapt with his or her emotions, and
challenge their agendas to arrive at illumination. Being spiritual is the antithesis of being
“out there” it is the epitome of authentically “being there” in emotion, spirit, and body. A
planned approach to something is an incredible way to accomplish a specific task, but
sometimes this approach can lack solitude and grace. By replacing generic complacency
with sage grace and the fortitude of wisdom, we can have at a more transient lifestyle.
This transformation may compel us to be like nomadic wanderers from adjacent place to
place. Not that we will lack direction, but that our personal religions will guide us to
discoveries, and allow us to create discoveries, where we will persistently find incredible
forms of release, certainty, conviction, truth, beauty, wisdom, and joyful happiness. All
of those are the result of using the validation concepts of inner voice, childhood self,
contemporary essence; that is the result of self-validation. In such findings, we will
relinquish the cavernous embellishments of our kind. So many people over-indulge and
embellish their lifestyles to unhealthy extremes. By pursuing such authenticated
discoveries, crafted by our personal religions, we relinquish superficial indulges in
exchange for authentic concreteness.
I can provide understanding, listening, advice, enthusiasm, commitment, devotion
, passion, understanding, brilliance, love, compassion, companionship, cooking, and
strength and sincerity. People have the power to be compassionate and controlling
simultaneously. It is all about timing, and balance between being in balance and focused
and being able to venture out into new territory. The territory ahead is what we must
constantly seek, but never venture too far from our centered state of equilibrium.
Have you ever determined your plans for the following day by considering what
needs to be done and what you want to do? Anthony Robbins attributes a label of
“mastery” and “pleasure”, using a ranking of 1 to 5, with every activity to help ensure our
time is going to worthwhile sources. An activity with a high amount of mastery, a 5, for
example, would bring one incredible sense of success and accomplishment. Usually a
task with a mastery of 5 is similar to selling an incredible business proposal or
overcoming cancer or something. Whereas a “pleasure” label would be something that
leaves you very pleased and fulfilled and with good energy. Going surfing for example
may be a pleasure of 5 for some people. The real issue at hand here is simply that we
must cultivate a higher degree of mastery and a greater magnitude of pleasure (more
“fives”, in other words) in all of our actions. The key to acquiring this satisfaction is
following the process of authenticating your pleasures, which produces a passionate
essence.
A huge trick of validation is to acknowledge our pleasures not as pleasures, but
simply with the objective stance of tasks that we do The failure to acknowledge our
pleasures results in diffidence because we end up losing trust in our own powers and
potential. This way we don’t have a positive bias towards pleasurable tasks, nor a
negative bias toward unpleasant endeavors or tasks that lead to suffering. By looking at
everything without a bias we lose the maladaptive inclination to be drawn to the
temptation of abusing pleasurable activities and avoiding the few necessary unpleasant
activities that must be done. When we authenticate our tasks, we level the playing field
because our pleasures will lead to us feeling uplifted on a more spiritual, rather than a
materialistic, level.
11 Construct Your Personal Religion / 189
to not believe unless we truly understand. In other words, we must stop accepting things
as is, and begin to analyze our beliefs so that we can authentically integrate them into our
lives.
Accepting things just because other people accept them is jumping off a bridge
because everyone else is. This type of “following the leader” ideology doesn’t work with
something as poignant as a belief. You must intrinsically understand beliefs and feel the
powerful connection of a belief resonating through your very skin to interpret its full
impact. Ask yourself “Does this belief contradict my internal reasoning or does it justify
it?” By not believing and undergoing in-depth analysis of belief, we don’t take doctrines
on superficial acceptance. Consequentially, we develop a deeper, more strongly
understood faith. So this quote is showing that by not believing we learn how to truly
believe. Now that is a cool evolution and Buddhist thinking. Truly believing in your
agenda and honoring your happiness is the backbone of validating your life.
You must strive for the clarity provided by truly believing something, rather
than accepting it because other people do.
Beliefs have customized and personalized resonating energy, to connect with it
you must interpret the poignancy of a belief using your own standards with your own
perceptive window.
Definition of religion:
1. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
2. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
3. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
By describing to myself what exactly my intuition was communicating, I
developed a process that simply let go of problems and obstacles and create solutions.
The state of clarity that one can experience without so many obstacles in the way,
impeding our vision, is profoundly illuminating. This is the time where those the artifacts
of the soul are discovered. It is as though you were driving on a road scattered with trees,
dust gravel, and without headlights at night. Suddenly, by harnessing the curative
process of using your inherent intuition, you find yourself coasting with the cruise control
engaged on an open road in broad daylight. The clarifying transformation that results
from relinquishing our ambiguities is truly a revelation - the road obstacles become
illuminated and hardly obstacles or obstructions exist at all!
By following my intuition, I have developed ceremonies of running, writing, and
surfing. It is incredibly awakening to understand that anything that you can vividly
envision in your mind can and does become reality. Actually, any experience of a
successful reality has to be first envisioned in the mind. If you can’t mentally picture
something, it can never be realized.
in a verbal fight with my parents or needed to burn off some steam. During these short
treks in a short plot of the Michigan backwoods, I pictured myself writing a book. I
usually sought solitude in the wilderness because frustration of not being able to
communicate with myself and others unable to understand me got the best of my
emotions. To make up for this communicational barrier, I pictured myself writing a book
called “Untitled 1”. I wanted this piece of nonfiction to be a spectacular success. I
planned on it being a best-seller in multiple bookstores. At the time, multiple bookstores
was a huge scope, but now, obviously, local bookstores is large sights. Heck, multiple
countries. The author’s name and age, however, I planned on keeping secret. So I would
mystify, awe, and engage readers in a best-selling book, and then release the secret
identity of the author as being a 12-year-old kid! I planned on releasing a “sequel”,
called “Untitled 2”, which matched my interest in computers, with all the pages entirely
blank except for a single page. This page, immersed in a binding of blank pages, would
say that “’Untitled 1’ was written by John Thomas Kuczmarski, a 12-year-old”. I loved
that idea. I wanted it – the production, writing process, and publication – to be an entire
surprise. And I planned on actually digging a hole in the soil, with a trowel, and creating
a secret hidden compartment for this book. I, of course at the time, had no conception of
publishers, book proposals, literary rights, and editing, so I actually envisioned myself
writing this best-seller in the backwoods and literally, hiding it in a box buried in the dirt
near some horse pasture! This is a remarkable example of how the mind can transform
these ambitions – any ambition – into reality. Although I didn’t actually covertly craft a
book that had it’s title “Untitled 1”, playing on the computer idea, and hide it in a buried
box in the dirt, but I did end up writing in this kind of covert stop-and-go process, as an
after affect of the “Untitled 1” ambition. I would write a lot in journals and then
metaphorically, bury the ideas. I would resurrect them again and then create connection
to them. But I, in way, wrote this book in a process of covertly going into the
backwoods, jotting down best-selling words, and then burying it. Of course I didn’t
actually dig a hole and bury the journal in the ground, but I wrote in bouts, where a lot of
my previous ideas where ideological “buried” in other activities. It was only in realizing
the impact my “book from the hole in the ground” vision was having on my current
writing – I was still following it! Realizing this showed me that the methods used to
envision a goal powerfully create a framework for that goal.
My intuition gave me the power to recollect my ventures into the Michigan back-
woods. I certainly wasn’t a Thoreau that retreated up in the mountains for huge amounts
of time; my “backwoods” was just a few acres of trees amidst a pretty flat farming area.
However, I loved nature – the feeling of being immersed in flora – and pursued it as a
sanctuary for clarity and self-awareness. Recollecting my wilderness trots and deep-
seeded ambition to write a book allowed me to put a halt to the stop-and-go writing
process, and relinquish my ambiguity of writing. Simultaneously, I was able to transform
a covert writing goal into an authentic goal and honor my passion for writing a book.
That process of covertly writing a book and depositing it in a earthly burial became a
ceremony that I planned to carry out literally, but later it was a ceremony that had a
subconscious affect on my writing because it was reality.
All of our ceremonies become cultivated into a personal religion where one’s
intuitive process acts as guide.
11 Construct Your Personal Religion / 193
Taking the example of the clandestine writing process of the “Untitled One”
book, you can see how this became a ceremony which evolved into a personal religion.
The writing process became a faithful process – a principled religion – that I
subconsciously carried out. On a different level, most of the time in high school I hung
out with a small clique of friends after school and goofed around at each other’s house.
We never did serious drugs, but we did occasionally consume alcohol, smoke marijuana,
and party in the high school years, which I strongly disapprove of now. Let me jump
ahead a little bit to high school – High school was definitely a crazy time for me.
Running around not knowing what I was getting into in relation to academia, students,
friends, teachers, drugs, girls - the whole she-bang. Definitely a chaotic, but very
defining time for me and my friends!
Specifically, I want to talk about this crazy story of this one "bondage party" that
my friends and I ended up at. Let me clarify my social, political, and sexual positions. I
am not a sex freak. I have no interested in taboo, bondage, craziness that I consider to be
going to far and simply “system weird all fouled up (snafu) beyond all recognition. I had
never fantasized about bondage, dressed in bondage, nor, in the slightest manner, did I
ever desire interaction with people involved in this type of social communion. However,
I am always open to new types of social gatherings because these are in a way,
ceremonies that contribute the greater religion we personally cultivate. I maybe should
have drawn the line here, but it turned out to be meaningful experience in rupturing my
concept of how extremely wild parties can get.
Now, my close friends and I - Mikey, Jimbo, Matt C (or M.C. as we called him)
were not into outlandish,to bawdy types of social gatherings. No, we were the guys who
looked for an opportunity kick back, have a small social gathering, and at most, a few
beers or white Russians (which was the idea we absconded from one of our revered
movies, "The Big Lebowski"), that was back in the day when I was drinking, which I
currently do not do.
We were the type of clique who didn’t exactly craft friendships around
Hollywood movies, but had a movie be a keystone element to initiating good laughs and
components of friendship. Our senior year "official" movie was "Zoolander" - you know
the cookie flick about the male model who does this internal introspection and ends up
creating a "School for the Children Who Can't Read Good". Anyways, we all could
pretty much quote the entire movie by the end of senior year, we had seen it so many
times. We thought it was incredibly hysterical - and it was. But our relationship to the
film was even more hysterical. I, for instance, ended up purchasing the movie three
times! The same frickin' movie! So ridiculous, it was actually a bit that should have
been in a farce. I think I lost my first copy; I did think I lost it mentally after buying a
third copy as well, too. Enjoyed it so much that I had to buy it again, and then I lost
"that" copy! Crazy stuff! Well, I ended up buying a lot of the same movie over and over
again. We all joked about how if there was a sequel to Zoolander, the advertising
comments on the back should read "I bought this movie twice!" because it would go
match the half-brained humor of the movie! Anyways, the point I am making is that we
were more of the preppy, yuppie, frat-boy group of guys, and certainly not taboo bondage
partiers .
After revealing our Zoolander fetish, I should return back to the whole bondage
194 / Validate Your Life
party thing. Let's see. Mikey, Matt C., Jimbo, and my self contacted this girl Jocelyn –
now Jimmy just graduated from Harvard, Matt is going to Harvard Grad school, Mikey is
going for his Phd, and I am on my 12th book so we’re, you know, sophisticated chaps.
We’ve got our books and our schooling and a crazy party is kind of a jolt for us so this is
a funny story. Jocelyn told us about and directed us to the house that has left an
emotional scar on my soul to this day. This suburban party was apparently supposed to
made up of older people; and older people, indeed, it was composed of, but of a social
background that we had never experienced. The older-age incentive was a huge plus for
us for a lot of reason – the members had easier access to alcohol (I’m not interested in
drinking now, but I was then), so their would more likely be more of it; it usually met the
girls were more attractive, and the social atmosphere would be more mature. So we were
psyched and enthused about venturing the long trek out to the suburbs, us city kids. On
the downside, however, the older people thing, meant that we could also be a tad out of
our league. And with this party, were we ever! We didn't even know a "league" like this
existed! So after listening to a bunch of music while driving the long haul to the suburbs,
we made our way up to the Christmas-light decorated suburban abode.
It looked pretty normal on the outside. There were lights flickering, a collage of
shadows moving in the upper-story windows, and a low hum of music trailed out of the
house. We all looked at each other, shrugged, and just all kind of agreed upon a
communal, unspoken "okay" to approach the house. When we got to the front porch, I
remember it looking a little different than other parties I had attended because of the
rickety "design", if you could call it that, of the staircase. An extremely homosexual man
opened the screen door. Now, I don't have anything against homosexuality -- guys with
guys, girls with girls, whatever makes the world go round -- but when a man shows up in
nothing but leather underpants and spiked wristbands - you can only think of a limited list
of stereotypes, but also on that list of stereotypes, he could’ve been some dude just trying
out a different type of clothing fashion. That could be, too.. After this jarring welcome,
my friends and I kind of gave each other weird glances, but Jocelyn, our contact for this
party, astonishingly enough, new the host. This rapport should have been our first signal
to stop, drop, and roll away from the house as quickly as possible! Instead of having the
fact that Jocelyn, our party contact, new the (to say the least) ostentatiously-dressed host,
thwart our hopes in the party, this tidbit of information renewed our hopes; our faith in
this being a "sane" party was erroneously reaffirmed.
After the jolting introduction, we paraded upstairs to the drone of the party music.
I remember climbing up the stairs very distinctly -- our party hormones were spawning,
and we all were just getting psyched to see what it would be like; the same anticipatory
vibe for every party.. When I reached the top of the stairs, the sight I saw put an
immediate halt, stamping a huge “Caution !” on all my emotions, and rain-checking all of
those party-positive juices flowing in me. This was not like any "party" I had ever been
to - Everyone was walking around in leather. Not just leather jackets or pants, but
leather bondage!
Jimbo (a Harvard student), Mikey, Matt, and myself - a bunch of goofy yuppie
kids - were standing there in our Gap clothes or our Abercrombie and Fitch pants (I
actually wear surfer brands), but neither of us were wearing anything remotely like
bondage, and private school education in the midst of leather-studded, socializing
dominatrixes and bondage pimps, who were wearing butt-chaps and spiked necklaces on
11 Construct Your Personal Religion / 195
the second floor of one of the craziest, most painfully (is that good or bad at a bondage
party?) dark bondage parties ever. We didn't even know things like this existed. The
booze seemed to be the least engaging attraction, which differed greatly from most of the
typical high school parties we attended. Typically, the beer and keg was the epicenter of
high school party activity. You could anthropologically observe parties, and with the
right theological bias see that "Thou who worked thy keg" was pretty much God of the
party. He couldn’t set up Ten Commandments, or anything, but controlling and
prohibiting the use of the container of alcohol left him or her with a lot of power. This
type of focus didn’t exist at this gathering because this party had a much atypically
singular "theme".
We stayed huddled, obviously, conforming back to primal instincts of staying in a
pack for protection. as we migrated through the swamp of spiky, rubber leather, bondage
people, toward the kitchen. That’s how awkward we felt; like an alien on an unknown
planet, we all de-evolved back to our primitive homo sapiens characteristic of pack-like
hunting and gathering. This type of degeneration was important for helping us cope with
what we saw in the kitchen.
What we saw back there you wouldn't believe -- the gathering got even more
frightening! I thought I could would never see anything as outrageously out-of-place and
experience anything as astonishing as I felt as I had in the living room of this bondage
party just a few minutes earlier. However, my “unbeatable” feeling of embarrassment
and astonishment was topped when my friends and I entered the kitchen of the bondage
party.
It seriously feels like some twisted dark-humored nightmare to this day. It wasn't
that we felt endangered, just horribly astonished at how much exposure we were
receiving to this entirely different style of partying of which a lot of people were in to. In
the kitchen there were people chained up, (yes, with chains -- iron, metallic, linked,
clinking prisoner chains) getting whipped -- and they were enjoying it! This wasn't some
magician's side-show prank or gimmick, nor was it some theatrical re-enactment of
Rousseauian philosophy (man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains). These were
real masochists chained up in the kitchen. I can't believe that actually occurred, but they
were really truly getting flogged with a real truly real whip. They were getting frickin'
slave, Amistad, 10 flogs for your bad deed, whipped! Not only that, but we found out
later, that the guy who was doing the whipping (suited in this pretty flashy tux, was a
"professional bondage whipper - if there is such a thing!) This we couldn't believe. I
remember Jimbo asked him how long he had been whipping and was given a scoffed
response. Jimbo commented, "Whoops, I guess I must have violated the correct bondage
etiquette!" We all cracked up and could have used the relief. Outside, there was another
crazy event - oil wrestling. Somebody had put gallons and gallons of oil (vegetable oil)
in a child's swimming pool planning to spawn off an oil wrestling contest! Actually, I
forgot to mention that when we first entered the party I was "exclusively" invited to oil
wrestle. This woman, upon my entrance, put her hand around my throat, strangling me,
and said declaratively, "Are you going to oil wrestle? You're going to oil wrestle!". I
took her hand off my throat, stared wide-eyed at this berserk girl, and told her as calmly
as possible that "No, I am not going to oil wrestle", and proceeded back into the kitchen
with my buds to let my "flight or fight" response chill out. You know, with hindsight, it
might have been a crazy enough event to try the oil wrestling thing. Whatever…as my
196 / Validate Your Life
uncomfortable at bondage parties, but we also new that, after this domestic experience,
we were awkward in our own social setting because it was so ill-defined. Using our
intuition a guide, we collectively created more of an environment for our social
interactions thereafter, and this lead to a greater sense of individual clarity because we
understood where our personal values stood in a group. It may sound like the “bondage
party” incident was told like a cheesy veteran war story, because of impact it had. But
it’s complete exposure produce a large positive impact with a subtle and gradual
alteration in the combining efforts of our behavior toward incredibly alive social
interactions.
19
Hicks,John D. Republican Ascendancy: 1921-1933 New York:
Harper & Row, 1960. p 113.
This page simply gave some figures from the roaring twenties.
20
Hicks,John D. Republican Ascendancy: 1921-1933 New York:
Harper & Row, 1960. p 114.
This page simply gave some figures from the roaring twenties.
11 Construct Your Personal Religion / 201
term. This can be accomplished with diversified portfolios, long-term savings, and
balanced investments, but that’s a different form of financial validity.
One reason why the cause of the great depression is so hazy is because many are
unclear on the reasons for the business cycle. The business cycle is one of the biggest
problems in economics. The Keynesian model of economics uses the concept of “sticky
wages” to describe the occurrence of the cycles. Under this model, “prices and wages
change in accordance to the scarcity of goods and labor relative to the amount of money
that is available to buy them” (Bordo 43). But, you know, depression does not always
have to follow high times of prosperity. Ride those high times with gratitude and they’ll
always continue. In other words, the Federal Board increasing the nation’s supply of
money will cause prices and wages to go up. If the supply of money goes down,
compared to the amount of goods and labor, then the price of goods and labor will go
down in the long run. The catch is that, while the prices of goods and wages are
decreasing, the prices or labor and goods can “stick” at a higher level than the market
clearing price. Hence the name “sticky wages”. When the wages stick less goods are
bought and less jobs are filled. Overall, the economy plummets. There are many reasons
for why the wages would “stick”. On reason deals with the fact that changing the price of
something in itself costs something. An example “is a restaurant that has to print new
menus every time the prices change” (Nordeen 6). The restaurant example is perfect
because it shows that in attempting to lower the price of a menu item, one could actually
cause the prices to “stick” due to the need for menu reprinting.
So that lowering the menu item printing cost may cost enough to make it so the
item could not even be lowered -- making it “stuck”, in a way.
Another economic theory is upheld by the Austrian School. The Austrian School
explains that all business cycles are the result of government intervention in the
economy. Basically, in trying to alter the economy, the government causes a boom and
bust cycle. The Federal Reserve Bank would lower the interest rate and cause mass
amounts of money to flood the economy. The interest, which was lowered artificially,
cannot be maintained so the Federal Reserve must inflate. To produce inflation, interest
rates must be raised. “When this happens, the investments that were “justified” under a
lower interest rate must be liquidated” (Nordeen 6). If the government intervenes any
more, the investment will take forever to recover from the drastic rate change. This is
like moving a pencil 10 feet with a rocket. It’s going to shoot miles over the designated
mark and keep flip-flopping all over the place. It’s too much momentum for such a
delicate adjustment. The boom of the low interest rates leads to the bust of the economy.
On a larger scale, the boom of the roaring twenties what lead to the giant bust of the
Great Depression.
A common misconception of the Great Depression is that the stock market crash
of 1929 caused it. This is not true. “[The stock market] was itself a symptom of wildly
erratic shifts in the nation’s money supply” (Reed 2). The stock price for a particular
company merely reflects the current information about the future income for that specific
company. The change in a stock price is due to the change in the information available of
certain company. The real culprit working behind the scenes of the Great Depression was
the Federal Reserve System.
The Federal Reserve Board was, ironically, created to prevent bank panics and
Depressions. Again, this illustrates that panic is NEVER a good thing, again, it was not
202 / Validate Your Life
the sole reason for the depression, but its affects are certainly more than noteworthy.
During the 1920s the Reserves stimulated the boom or the “Roaring Twenties” with dirt-
cheap interest rates and early money. It inflated the money to about 60% during this
affluent time period. This dramatic inflation gave birth to the artificial stock market
boom, and the subsequent cash crash.
Hoarding money proved to be key factor in causing the great depression. To
understand this, the concept of hoarding money must first be understood. Hoarding
money is not saving money. If money is saved, it is put into a savings account, and is
lent out to someone else who spends it. “People hoard money so that they can have a
liquidity preference” (Garrison 596), or so their assets in a readily convertible form -
namely greens. Hoarding money cannot directly cause depression or recession. If prices
and wages drop to reflect the lower amount of money in the economy, hoarding causes no
problems. Actually, from the perspective of “non-hoarders”, hoarding can be beneficial
because their money value will increase due to the decreasing prices and wages. If the
country has a gold standard, however, hoarding can make the money supply drop
dramatically because each monetary unit is based on the fixed amount of gold in the
federal reserve, and it’s not flowing in the economy sitting in someone’s trunk in the
basement and this is fine for that person and on the whole but it has that affect.
During the “Roaring Twenties” America prospered with a feverish speed, maybe
to feverish. The nations total income rose from $74.3 billion in 1923 to $89 billion in
1929 (Hicks 110). According to a study done by the Brooks Institue, in 1929 the top
0.1% of Americans had a combined yearly income equal to that of the bottom
42%(Hicks 110). That same 0.1% controlled 34% of all savings, leaving 80% of all
Americans without savings at all. The rich and poor gap is illustrated in its extreme, with
that example, but also with Henry Ford who made $14 million in one year (which is a
current equivalent of $345 million), while the average worker income was $750! You
can’t get any more distant in the rich and poor than that gap. This extremely fluctuant
and unstable economy of the ‘1920s was partly caused by the the federal government,
economic philosophies, and various imbalances during the explosion of prosperity of the
twenties.
The gastronomical gap between the rich and poor was caused by an increase in
manufacturing of output during the 1920s. From 1923 to 1929 the average output per
worker was 32% (McVaine 39). During that period, the average wages for
manufacturing jobs barely increased at all - only 8% (McVaine 41). So the wages
increased only one fourth the rate as the amount of manufacturing increased. So people
are picking up the pace in their work ethic, but the wages -- their salaries -- aren’t
keeping up with them. The cost of production fell, and, consequentially, the wages rose,
but prices remained the same. The extra money went to the government. From 1923-
1929 “corporate profits rose 62%” (McVaine 42).
The actions taken by the Federal government greatly caused the imbalance in
economy, which led to the Great Depression. During Coolidge’s presidency, businesses
were given priority. The Revenue Act of 1926 clearly exemplifies this. Under the
Revenue act, Andrew Mellon, Coolidge’s Secretary of the Treasury, could lower the
federal taxes on a man who makes a $1 million a year from $600,000 to $200,000. The
rich were certainly getting richer, and the poor , not necessarily getting poorer, but
definitely not getting richer. Even the Supreme Court furthered the socioeconomic gap.
11 Construct Your Personal Religion / 203
It is clear that the industry played a large role in setting the pace for a halting
economy. The radio and automotive industry set up an industrial barrier, preventing
other industries from thriving if these two industries failed. The business gap between
the rich and poor created a similar imbalance. The federal government, to further the
disparate economy favored the prosperous industries and businesses, and paved the way
to economic depression by creating the Revenue Act and systems designed to boost
economy, such as credit. On top of all this, an economic recession, or bust, was expected
according to Keynesian economics after the booming economy during the twenties. The
reason that this bust proved to be so catastrophic was because of the policies taken by the
federal government and the large gap between industries and the rich and poor.
So those gaps, obviously were at the time, “seemingly accurate”, but were really just
precise -- imprecise to be exact. After all, the Decade was only a decade. To perpetuate
prosperity, profound gratitude and tremendously accurate internal sincerity is vital.
When we’ve got that, we’ve got it made.
Realizing that we were not – and never are – in a permanent depression (we’re, in
reality, never in a depression when we have validity) opened awareness to a beautiful
absence of problems. The lack of problems allows us to cultivate more passion because
relinquished difficulties awaken passion, which gives rise to the authentication of our
pleasures through peaceful commitment. That commitment revolves around all the
powerful envisioning we done and in utilizing our intuition to relinquish ambiguities
through powerfully positive and fervent connotations of language. The construction of a
personal religion in motion with ocean, but surfing the artistic style of validity. This
brings us to something even more crucial to our intrinsic happiness – the intuitive
practice and how to utilize it.
Chapter 12
Utilize the
Intuitive
Practice to
Relinquish
Doubt
his is where the intuitive technology for bettering your life is accessed on a deeply
T profound level. By relating to your inner beacons, your intuition becomes your
most reliable source of essential direction, especially when aligned with your
intellect.
Intuition is one of our most powerful tools. In order to examine what we
truly wish to pursue, we must persevere from a clear position exoneration. In order to
pursue what we innately desire, we must have a passionate essence. In order to maintain
a patient and passionate essence, we must cultivate our personal religions. In order to
achieve these states and utilize these tools we must gain more understanding of our
intuition. Let’s learn how to achieve clarity, reside in a passionate essence, and maintain
our personal religions by investigating the powerful feature of intuitive living.
In other words, once we taste the flavor of that happiness, it will always be in our
life pursuits. If we trust in our hearts and search there first and foremost before any other
place, we will always find our treasure of happiness. The best way to begin finding
happiness is to assume clarity in our intuition. After assuming a position of clarity by
using our intuitive practices to create uplifting ceremonies, we thrive. We surge
ahead, emotionally burgeon, and truly realize our thriving potential when we have
clarified what our intuition is telling us. We are not part of an internal battle amongst our
collective conscious. We collectively have an internal agenda that we must integrate with
our reality. The clarity that arrives from relinquishing our problems allows us to take the
leap into a transport for our destiny. This realization of our destiny arises from utilizing
our intuitive practices because actions of the intuitive process establish a distance from
other’s values, which can obscure our focus. By focusing on our clarity, we escape the
negative problems associated with group conformity. Let’s remember that we always get
what we look for. If we are searching for something, we will always be searching for it.
If we are finding something, eventually, we will always find it. By simply changing the
phrasing of our actions (still doing the same thing) we arrive at completely different
results. I remember when learning Spanish I was always stumbling, and pausing mid-
sentence about when to use the word to find (encontrar) and to look for (buscar). I
realized I kind of stuttered at this linguistic juncture because there shouldn’t be a word
for “look for”, it is pessimistic. If you continue to seek, you will always be looking for
something, but if you initiative is finding, you will certainly get what you seek because
you will discover! Examples of this are in the Matrix: “Stop trying to hit me, and hit
me…Don’t think you can, know you can.” And many other pop-culture messages. The
point is to look into your heart for happiness and find the joy there, and to cease “looking
for it”.
The most direct pathway to creating this joy is through our intuition. Intuition is
one of the must substantively profound sources imagineable. Reason and logic is a
procedural one-step-at-a-time process building off each previous step. Author Frances
Wickes discusses how intuition allows conclusions to be met before premises and the
intermediary steps (of which reason is based) are not omitted, but “are taken by the
unconscious” (Nachmanovitch 36). This connection with the ends allows an intuitive
person to see the means, or steps to the conclusion, on an unconscious level. If you ever
thought up the answer to a math problem, or realized the solution to a problem, or just
began making huge philosophical connections between events that interest you but seem
12 Utilize the Intuitive Practice to Relinquish Doubt / 207
to “move too far, too fast” for your logics sake, you have tapped into this intuitive power.
If you ever say to yourself , “How did I just do that?” or “How did I reach that
conclusion? I think I covered too much, too quickly” you have tapped into the amazingly
potent power of the intuition. The most effective way to go about something is to
approach it – whether it be writing a story, driving a car, organizing a project, or planning
a vacation – with inuition to create the general schematic and end result and then retrace
your steps with reason, filling in the intermediary steps that you unconsciously already
know, intuition always works. This retracing with logic and reason can help you tap into
the patterns of your intution, but this seemingly magical force – with the ability to
produce answers seemingly out of “thin air” – cannot be understood by logic. Wickes
said, “To the rationally minded, the mental processes of the intuitive appear to work
backwards” (Wickes 1). Indeed, even Pascal points out that “the heart has its reasons,
which reason cannot know”. Despite the inability for reason and logic to decipher
intuition, we must not look at it at some voodoo witchcraft force. Intuition is a force
more advanced than the slow, outdated logic and reason, in some instances. It is a
modern and contemporary force that taps into what is going on in the past, present, and
future with remarkable accuracy. The ability for intuition to calculate the importance of
historical events, current trends, and future plans to generate a well-guided, incredibly
relevant resolution or conclusion is something reason could never accomplish on a purely
emotional level. If reason is “letters” from our world to our mind and vice versa,
intuition is “phone calls” – a much faster, quicker, and more adaptive process. The step-
by-step process of reason is practical in some situations, just like letters have their place;
it’s a stalwart, adaptive force. But the ability to dial in, switch connections and tap into
various sources in a matter of seconds (like placing phone calls) reveals the adaptive
powerful connections of intuition.
Intuition is much more sophisticated in its intellectual and creative process than
logic. While reason is a boring, slow, and cumbersome process, it can certainly be
electrically quick and genuine at other times, too, intuition is the pathway, linking us to
creativity and our personal convictions through its circular nature. Intuition is
converging and circular in the way it “skips” certain steps that logic would maladaptively
cling to: “It’s like computation; but while computation is a linear process, going from A
to B to C, intuition computes concentrically. All the steps and variables converge on the
central decision-point at once, which is the present moment” (Nachmanovitch 40). So
intuition is living the present. It’s like a direct conduit – a VIP pass – to now. This highly
developed convergence is much more intellectually advanced than the sequentially bland,
and static process of reason. Intuition is dynamically alive and, simultaneously,
scientifically precise and accurate. Reason only proceeds from the previous step, a very
myopic place for all things concerned. Intuition proceeds from a much more expansively
aware and resourceful place, "Intuition proceeds from everything we know and
everything we are” (Nachmanovitch 40). Clearly, intuition is not only more developed
than the clunky logic, but, contrary to public opinion, it is also more accurate and precise,
drawing from a larger reservoir of resources than logic.
Clarity initiates the profound destiny residing at a distance far outside our
conformity. When we are immersed in a group, our own values can be compromised.
Sometimes we interact with a group by copying or mimicking the group’s signals and
signs. This is great for nonmembers to become members, but it leaves many of the
208 / Validate Your Life
group’s affiliates disenchanted and unclear of their own values. Very scary, very
dangerous stuff, losing your values.
According to Values-Based Leadership author, Kuczmarski, this negative process
“of becoming assimilated into a culture by practicing the group’s norms again and again
so that eventually they become automatic and habitual behavior” is known as
culterbation. Culterbation “enables the culture of a group to be perpetuated over time”
(Kuczmarski 171). The sacrifice with this process, where “nongroup members watch
insightfully and listen intently to the unspoken signals and signs that group members use
to communicate and interact”, occurs in the intuitive clarity of the employee – in short,
employees of businesses or members of groups, where culterbation occurs, are extremely
disillusioned (Kuczmarski 171). “When people culterbate, they replicate what they see
and hear without changing the culture, adding to it, enriching it, making it better, or
improving upon it. They simple imitate” (Kuczmarski 171). This “monkey-see-monkey-
do” behavior is equivalent to the complexity of the brain functioning of a single-celled
amoeba. We must relinquish our bonds from a groups’ desire to linearly perpetuate their
cultural values, and begin to advance beyond culterbation. We must contribute our own
talent to “acquire, filter, enrich ,and interact with cultural information received”
(Kuczmarski 171). This will provide us with the clarity to advance our life.
Clarity truly sets in motion the substances needed to create an incredible life.
From this stance we provide for ourselves. By choosing not to culterbate, we can
simultaneously exist in a group, but not be immersed in a suffocating system where we
are disillusioned.
Abandoning your community, society, country, or whichever of the many groups
we are a part of, creates a situation of doubt because we are so used to the customs,
conventionalities, and traditional conformity in that group. Completely abolishing a
connection with a group by eradicating all conventionalities or traditions would, no
doubt, be a mistake resulting in anarchy and, to say the least, lack of direction. However,
by choosing to simply avoid culterbation, we make the valid decision to remain an
affiliate of community, society, nation, and any group, but hold the temperament and
awareness of adaptive changes within the group environment to cultivate an enriching
atmosphere. Kuczmarski points out, “The sad fact is that most of us have never learned
to go beyond culterbation” (Kuczmarski 171). By practicing intuitive engagement, we
introduce ourselves to our illuminating destiny.
We must embrace our intuitive practice, that ultimately leads us to our destiny.
We will acquire a providence where we will live in an instructive atmosphere where we
trust the conventionalities that will allow us to remain a member of our group, but do not
mimic and assimilate them in a brain-dead, culterbating process. The disillusionment
produced by culterbation and groupthink starts very early on: “Unfortunately, adult
workers in organizations have learned to culterbate from their earliest years – in a school
setting. Most educational systems expect and demand children to culterbate. Most
‘traditional’ teachers want children to act and behave in a way in ways that respond to the
teacher’s desired behavior” (Kuczmarski 170). This desired behavior phenomenon
creates a breeding ground for negative culterbation. There is little opportunity for free-
play in this environment. Ever since we were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic,
most educational systems had us ingrained in patterns of culterbation. “Children are
asked daily to recall, imitate, and replicate words, facts, computations, and bits of
12 Utilize the Intuitive Practice to Relinquish Doubt / 209
What we really ignite in this process, of changing our malleable ideas into
productive and successful entities, is our ability to cultivate our inner guidelines nurtured
by intuition. By clarifying to myself that it is not the class, nor the authority figure, nor
the system, but my relation to the process of how I would observe, mimic, and emulate
(essentially groupthink), I learned a lot. I discovered that I had a problem with myself,
and my relation to the problem. Investigating my ideas with malleable creativity, I was
able transform a once frustrating endeavor into a productive experience. Constantly
practicing these transformations, constructed awareness and the presence of my intuitive
guidelines. The core manifestation of our inner guidelines reach their potential when
they are personified in personal religions.
the nature of the self, the world, the meaning of life, and deity appear over and over
again, regardless of the belief system and only differ in the how the external culture
depicts these truths, and this belief was collectively known as perennial philosophy.
Take the three main religions, for example, Christianity, Muslim, and Judaism -- they all
have one deity, one prophet, and a text that arranges followers of those faith around
similar truths of providing charity, being compassionate, and helping others. The truth,
or end result is the same. All religions try to reach the top of the mountain. For this
reason, cultivating your own religion (especially if it helps you tackle the mountain more
quickly) leaves you with a place of certainty and freedom that is merited by perennial
philosophy.
So, regardless if one believes we are derived from a specific religion
(Creationism) or evolved through the Darwinian process of evolution, examining
perennial philosophy will cause us to create certainties. These certainties provide
intrapersonal understanding because we will understand the underlying agendas of
religion and be able to create incredible truths from that practice. I, for example, think it
is incredible to have four different consciousness in the Om symbol and a deity that
destroys obstacles of ignorance in the Hindu religion; a benevolent and rebelliously
healing figure like Christ, and an enlightened, placid figure such as Buddha, tying in
Christianity and Buddhism. This Dalai Lama class I took in college under the amazing
instruction of a professor Gardiner --who traveled to the Orient, lived with monks for
seven years, and met the Dalai Lama himself – provided incredible insights into
alternative faiths.. One could say that combining ideas of different faiths could easily
produce uncertainties and lack of cohesive integration, but it just illuminates and proves
the existence of one divine fact – one equal, truth, and those different concepts from
different religions allow me to move towards that incredibly unifying truth.
Creating a personal religion doesn’t offer us the alternative of bypassing the
inherent meaning in faithful values because we must create the very foundation of the
faithful belief. We can choose to validate our participation by asking ourselves: What is
meaningful to me about this group (whether it be a classroom, religion, society, etc)?
This will allow us to customize our relationship with the group. Additionally, a valid
decision would be to question our intuition (a huge source of wisdom) and ask: “How can
I apply what is meaningful to me in the other group to my own rituals and practices?
This powerful question allows one to ignite their inner passion because they would
cultivate, not copy, their own practices.
By asking our intuition what we really enjoy in our life and creating a promise to
pursue and relish that joy without attachment, truly ignites our passion because we no
longer are immersed in groupthink and maladaptive culterbation. “Once [individuals]
have observed the cultural “rituals” of the organization, they begin to culterbate. They
imitate the group’s observed actions without really thinking any longer of what they are
saying or how they are behaving in the group” (Kuczmarski 171). This is not saying we
should refrain from observing cultural rituals; it is important to discover the practices and
principles of a group so we understand its underworkings interactions and mechanics.
However, mustn’t become consumed by the invalid practice of culterbating and
robotically copying group rituals. By distinguishing our own meaningful practices and
rituals, we acquire the opportunity to create our individual religions.
12 Utilize the Intuitive Practice to Relinquish Doubt / 213
“You have to leave behind a large part of yourself there, so you can take an even
larger part back with you.”
--Kenyan Proverb, “The Air Up There”
This is certainly not saying you should try to scratch your elbow a lot or cause
yourself to bleed to death, but it is saying that by truly exhausting ourselves and exerting
our best in any environment, we are endowed with the privilege to take a larger chunk of
that thriving experience back with us. The Kenya proverb was referring to climbing a
mountain. The large part of you – sweat, cuts, bruises, exhaustion, effort, stamina,
endurance, and exertion – that was “left behind” in the act of climbing this mountain was
to be later filled with the profound and spiritually redeeming sense of accomplishment in
conquering such a mountainous and magnificent crag. Additionally, after leaving behind
an older, stale, more antiquated part of yourself, you have the potential to fill that void
with the tranquility of the mountain, and the perspective of climbing the peak and
observing the remarkable countryside.
We don’t have to climb mountainsides to take meaning from this proverb. The
mountain can become any endeavor or challenge we attempt. When we truly give our
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best and exert our effort, we have the opportunity to fill the void with tranquility of the
accomplishment and the perspective of gracefully completing our task. I trust my
intuition because it led me to cultivate my personal religion of running. Every time I run,
I feel a part of myself left behind, for the greater, more paramount instilment of
accomplishment, tranquility, and spiritual perspective.
Later on, my personal religions drew me to writing and actually surfing the waves
off the California coast. However, I truly became ignited with these ceremonies because
of the originally uplifting and clarifying affect they had on me, and the fact that my own
intuition was sparked their instantiation, which led to the idea of risk-taking and fame.
rely consistently on their intuition because they know it is consistent. How else could
Ronald Reagan make all the correct decisions and know all the right people, and speak so
eloquently when he was born from nowhere Illinois, the son of a father with a drinking
problem? How could he transform that humble life into that of a famous Hollywood
actor and then into the Executive President of the United States of America? How could
Lance Armstrong train so consistently and make all the right moves in every race to win
6 international Tour de France bike competitions? These people only turned to their
intuition. Because they are aware that fame and prestigious are unreliable indicators of
merit and an invalid clarifier of being on the right track, doing the right thing, they were
able to stay on the right professional track and execute the right actions at the right time
by listening to their intuition.
So much of life is timing and you lose that sentient awareness when you rely on
external sources of fame and prestigious for the crucial ingredients to emotional success,
confidence and guidance. Using your intuition is so simple because your intuition knows
you the best, it is always there (unlike prestige), and its guidance and encouragement
originates from a space of authenticity. You must learn to harness the powerfully
encouraging, empowering, and orientating affects of your intuition in order achieve and
to, even more precisely, maintain success.
That is the true strength to intuition, its inherent ability to allow you to persevere
with consistency and reliable results of empowering success. Sure, when you first start
out in anything, you make some errors, have some bloopers, and fiddle-fuddle with some
ideas and initiatives until you get lucky and hit the nail on the head. Here, you may look
externally for success to see your prestige, and even relish in it. However, the most
important thing to keep in mind, and more importantly, integrated into your actions, is
your ability to incessantly keep internal bearings from your intuition. If you area school
teacher and the board of trustees and fellow teachers are telling you not to propose a new
method of teaching to students, but your intuition is, you must go with your intuition.
You have to be resilient, and may interact with external opposition a lot of the time, but
when you look back and examine how on the money and astutely in tune your instinct
was, you will understand its guiding perception and directing instincts for success.
Negative external responses such as disapproval, distaste, “frowning upon” skepticism,
impediments, and out right obstructions should be treated as trivialities if your intuition is
screaming at you to do something with your life. This is not saying that you should break
the law, become an uncomformist, rebel against any form of government, or cast aside
anyone who tells you “no” – this would be creating havoc for the sake of chaos. All this
is suggesting is that if you have equally strong forces – an internal guidance of intuition
and an external source of antagonism – that are in opposition to each other, always go
with your intuitive instinct. Although it may not appear easily authentic and natural at
the time, going with your intuitive response will always produce the innately compliant
and successfully reliable results. The external opposition, if it is equally as strong as the
opposing intuitive guidance, most likely, will not comply with you internal emotional
needs and create a problematic loop for your emotional patterns. What you must do,
then, is to at the least, strongly consider your intuitive, internal source of guidance as
strongly as possible as your source of external direction. Using internal bearings for
external navigation – what choices to make to fulfill dreams, how to go about a
profession, etc – is a very powerful learning and guidance system. Listening to what
216 / Validate Your Life
authorities, peers, and society says can put you in a great place physically or emotionally,
but it will never have the capacity for spiritual and psychological precision inherent in
intuition. Trusting in your intuition is trusting in your vibrant existence because it allows
you to craft such a liberation. This liberation from intuition opens incredible doorways
forms of awareness and unites your impassioned soul with the universe.
Tailor Your
Lifestyle
his chapter teaches you how to apply the wealth of knowledge learned from the
T spring of intuition. After learning how to tap into the guidance of intuition in the
last chapter, this personalized instruction can be applied to your own actions in
order to tailor your own lifestyle. This process of customization leaves you
choosing awareness to resolve a disparate self, and teaches you to avoid
vacillating and ambivalent resolutions by not dodging problems. Additionally, it
instructs you how to slow down and embrace problems in order to choose the valid
decisions, which is, indirectly, choosing success.
of worry, but fill the vacancy left by worry with creative action. This way, a positive
essence fills the space left over, instead of leaving the void of worry as is. Filling this
void with action, is excruciatingly important in order to create our own patterns and not
over-model the habits of our peers.
For the longest time, I modeled my close friend’s habits – from shaving my face
to planning out year-long schedules for school-time, work-time, and play-time. Just
about every method of planning for action, in some way, originated from this friend --
everything. Just recently, however, I realized that this was producing problems for me. I
wasn’t enjoying planning out my time with the system that I had adopted.
I had adopted the systematized planning method of looking ahead to the next big
event (if it was a class 6 months away, or a certain dead-line 9-months away) and that
would be used as my time-marker. Then I had learned to use that 6 or 9-month period as
the destined time span. I should segment that time span and fill it with classes, a job, a
program or excursion, etc. For the longest time I enjoyed the simplicity of planning my
life this way. Years and years of my life were modeled off this system that I learned
when I was very young from my friend. Just recently, however I realized that this was
not my system. It was a system that I had modeled, and my own innate beliefs,
tendencies, and reactions were not congruent with the system anymore. We should be
more interested in creating our own systems, and not copying others, because this way,
we can adapt to our own evolution.
All people evolve, and so had my approach to planning. My friend’s system
lacked the personal “custom-fit” feel, because it wasn’t my system, and had not evolved
with me. The planning system worked great for my friend because he designed it, and he
dynamically crafted it so that it evolved to fit his needs. I realized that I began to function
in ways that were incongruent from the demands and ways of the planning system. The
system did not evolve and adopt my needs (of course not, it’s just a static system), so I
had to undergo the evolution. I had reached such a wall in this process, however, because
I had not realized that it was not my system, and was instead was just a system that I had
naturally adopted and used for so long that it had become a part of me. I didn’t realize
there were an alternative methods to planning time; and this awareness was profoundly
shocking. I had always assumed his system was the only way and never considered
alternatives.
What would you do if you were suddenly freed after being immersed in intense
captivity? Would you even recognize your freedom? Would you even be aware of it or
know what to do with it? Many times we are freed from boundaries and restrictions that
have contained us for so long, that we have fought for such a long time, that we are
clueless about the dissolution of such boundaries because we have ceased "testing the
fences" and have become so entrenched in the rut of living with the security. This type of
lifestyle has lost all hope, and is the acceptance of not finding freedom. What if freedom
comes? You will never know! This is the primary reason to never loose hope and
constantly test your boundaries and limitations. One day they may be removed and you
will realize you are free. In addition to not being aware of our freedom, some people also
fall into the trap of being frightened of freedom and the opportunity it brings. Let's face
it, freedom can be a large risk with so many choices and options, but it's crucial to accept
freedom and use it. Many people are so habituated to their patterns within confinements
that freedom, and the change to adapt to that freedom, frightens them. We must never
220 / Validate Your Life
lose faith in freedom and never loose internal direction for ideas of what to do with
freedom. Finally, we must have the courage to pursue freedom that shows up in our life.
Recognizing it (by never losing faith and always checking your confinements) knowing
what to do with it (applying your dreams and shaping ideas into freedom before it
arrives) and having courage to take action (courage to drop everything from your "captive
life" and fly) allows you to have awesome, incredibly certainty in the expansion of your
life and pursuit of incredible dreams of happiness immersed in freedom. Validity always
ensures the path of awareness and hope for freedom, regardless of the situation. We must
always focus on the situation non-specific nature of validity when dealing with anything
from different time management plans to oppression.
My friend’s system of planning lacks room for spontaneity in plans. It is
extremely organized, systematized, and precise, but lacks room for doing things on whim.
When I realized that this was my friend’s system I was using all along, I figuratively
flipped, and became slightly erratic. I had the opportunity to develop my own system,
after I had been using a stale, trite, hackneyed system that worked wonders for my friend
(that’s why he uses it) but was a conflicting pattern for me. I became aware that this
system was not my own and that I had to craft a “time-management” system based on my
personal agenda and innate tendencies. This way the system would be uniquely
customized, suiting my psychological and mental needs on a regular basis.
The sheer possibility of designing a new time-management, let alone implement
one, opened unimaginable mental doorways and burst through countless psychological
boundaries. I almost panicked with the plethora of opportunities I had. I could, not only
decide what to do with my time, but I could plan out a customized method for allotting
and adjusting what to do with my time, tailored to my own needs, as well. You will be
astonished at how many improvements you can make to your life by realizing that the
methods for all of your behavior are simply patterns; and you can change all of these
patterns to produce a more comfortable, personalized lifestyle.
Such personalized tailoring will just be like getting a pair of pants tailored. You
go to the tailor; they measure your leg length, draw lines on the cuffs, make the waste
adjustments, and draw in the width. A few days later, after some hemming and sewing,
you’ve got yourself a snug pair of pants, allowing you to move more gracefully, and feel
more comfortable. Well, you are going to be your own tailor, and I am going to give you
the power to craft a snug lifestyle, allowing you to live more gracefully, and exist more
comfortably. Not only that, but I will teach you the “tailor’s tricks” to hem your own
system and make yourself snug in form of “situational apparel”
Just the realization that the idea that my friend’s management method was a
system; that it was not the sky-blue, one and only way of planning, hit me as a
tremendous shock. It would be like listening to radio your whole life and suddenly
finding out that the radio broadcasters were waiting for your input. It was the most
expanding feeling ever. At first, I naturally dodged and evaded the problem of feeling
captured and imprisoned in such an organized structure of planning.
It wasn’t that I felt imprisoned because I couldn’t be radical and wild. Instead, I
felt imprisoned because I wasn’t conscious that I had the option to be radical and wild, to
change the organizational methods to incorporate more naturalness, because my friend’s
system –a systematized method of routines, planning, and segmenting time -- was second
13 Tailor Your Lifestyle / 221
nature to me. That system was a part of me, and being relinquished from it; achieving the
awareness of that system of planning was overwhelmingly clarifying.
Of course, this system wasn’t a poorly designed process of looking ahead;
choosing to plan and organize your time is intelligent and wise. Nor was this system
overly compartmentalized. I felt so compartmentalized with it simply because I had
never realized that there are other systems of planning. I wasn’t even aware of the
concept that other people planned time different. I bet your thinking that I must have
lived under a box for much of my life. But I can assure you that you have innately
adopted many of the systems that I describe and turned to them not as systems but as
ingrained, natural patterns of your behavior. Because any maladaptive behavior is almost
always rooted in maladaptive behavior, we must examine these patterns – questioning
them with the intent to dissolve or completely eradicate the intrusively rigid system.
Immediately after realizing that this was a system that was cramping my life from
being more natural and whimsical than I wanted to be with my time, I choose the invalid
decision. I am telling you this so that you don’t, like I did, end up vacillating between
two extremes like I did. In realizing that this was my friend’s system of organization and
systematization, I acted extremely spontaneous and impulsive for a couple of months. I
was so interested in “not planning” that I would be thinking about something, say, soccer
practice, see a stop sign in the middle of my train of thought, and use that as a signal to
stop playing soccer. I was so interested in being impulsive and changing on whim that I
turned externally for signals. You could call this schizophrenic, irrational, or unsound
behavior, and it was. I very simply wanted to be disorganized and irrational. Of course,
after residing in a state of disorganization for so long. I would read a book that had the
main character eating a peach, while listening to the Allman Brother’s Album, “Eat A
Peach”, and this coincidence I would turn into some vastly symbolic sign that I should
buy a peach orchard or something. Being so externally focused on signals for
spontaneity that seeing a “one-way” street sign, would cause me to interpret this
“sighting” as something deeply impacting and serendipitous. Now, if I had seen a UFO
or something, that would be different, but this was “ a street sign”. Naturally, this type
of behavior lead me to writing poetry on street corners, wandering around aimlessly,
taking trains to vacant parking lots, and acting very much like a hobo, or traveling
vagabond.
Naturally, when I became aware of that state, I flipped the switch and went the
other extreme. I began to wake up at exactly 6:44, count my calories to the wrapper,
work out at the exact same time for the exact same distance everyday, drink a single can
of tomato juice in the morning (every morning), and have various odd rituals, like doing a
mountain climb every Friday or having a smoothie every Sunday. In short, I religiously
made my life insane by following an internal system of guidance. When before, I had
looked at billboards, people, and external tokens of advice; now I had decided to looked
only inward and developed a ludicrous system of routine and ritual, based on no external
validity whatsoever.
After vacillating between aimless, hobo-vagabond wandering and militantly-
committed patterns and routines, I suddenly became aware that the entity I needed to
change was not a question of my behavior – spontaneous and impetuous or organized and
precautious – but, rather, my system of behaving. By dodging the work I needed to do in
designing a system of behavior, I fell into the trap of swaying between the two extremes
222 / Validate Your Life
this may not be the best way for me to write. Naturally, I did the “opposite-end-of-
the-spectrum” thing and began writing in the complete opposite manner; sprawling
poetry on poster board, writing cryptic, sometimes illegible words on walls (yes,
literally, walls), intuitively painting emotions with words, on paper. Yes, it was most
certainly, anything but the organized, structure of writing I had before used – no
outline, no structure, just emotion, craziness, and sprawling.
It wasn’t that I suddenly became excruciatingly interested in becoming a
wild, spontaneous person, although it certainly looks like that. Rather, I became
overwhelmingly interested in trying the other end of the spectrum that I had not
experienced. When I had been planned, organized, and concise in my writing my
whole life, and suddenly realizing their was another style, I jumped to the extreme –
spontaneous, whimsical and sprawling. If my time-planning and writing style had
been sprawling, emotional and unorganized, and I was awakened to the possibility
of other styles, I would have, almost certainly, jumped to the extreme of organized,
structured, outlined writing. I attained such a state of goofy behavior (some might
call it craziness or lunacy, but I prefer “state of goofy behavior”, because it is much
more accurate and precise), of jumping from one extreme to the other because I did
not slow down and examine the problem. I was frightened and struck with anxiety
that there was another “writing world” or “planning world” out there, at the other
end of the spectrum that I had not experienced. Instead of embracing the suspense,
excitement and anticipation of such a finding, I, erroneously, kept my momentum,
skimmed over the necessary step of deciding how to move to the other end of the
spectrum, and capriciously danced back and forth between the ends.
Approaching anything with haste, will throw you into a position of shooting
by the fork of validity in the road. We must learn to avoid negating our true
admirations. When we admire someone we should tell them that, if we dislike
something about someone we should express that as well. This type of “Zen
simplicity” are authentic reactions – the root of validity. However, we mustn’t
cripple our own development by eliciting criticism that is un-inspirational for
others. We must embed into our validated patterns to crush criticism with
compassion. After all, the most common form of validity is creatively choosing the
compassionate over the critical angle at an decision.
Let me share with you an example where I wildly flew by the crucial validity
forks and ended up creating an impossibly hectic schedule for myself. This was
during my senior year in high school when I felt that I had taken a mediocre
academic load my junior year and wanted to “compensate” for my sensation of the
lack of academic challenge by piling on a ridiculously high course load. First off, I
should have recognized the my inner Critic was telling me that I needed to
compensate for not taking an advanced enough course load. Any time you feel
inadequate or as though you need to “make up for” your performance, or lack there
of, the Judge is almost always to certainly be in the psychological shadows
somewhere, pulling your emotional strings and pushing you anxious buttons. This
is not the source nor the reasoning you want to draw from to create an agenda.
Instead, when you pick your classes, decide your schedule, or plan your time, you
want to acknowledge the Inner Critic and avoid using his suggestions (which are
always detrimental) at all costs).
224 / Validate Your Life
During my Senior year in high school my Judge was going full blast telling
me to take 4 AP classes along with my cross country practices, along with my school
play that I had the lead role in. Because I wasn’t taking the time to be wary of my
inner critic, I heeded it, instead of telling it to “stuff it” and overloaded on classes
and a schedule that would’ve been hectic for three people, dangerously stressed,
overload busy for two people, and emotionally, physically, and humanly possible for
one person. This was the result of careless mistakes I made under the influence of
the Judge, but I resurrected the problem by slowing down and embracing it to
arrive at a solution. Previously, I would have chucked the situation out the window
by dropping everything and starting from ground zero. “Ground zero” had it’s
place, but I needed to work with something, choosing not to dodge the problem gave
me some pieces to puzzle together a magnificent senior year. It had been an enigma
how I would get by, but by validating the “problem” it became an exuberant
blessing and a tremendous lesson in self-determination..
When we make careless decisions at a fork in the road, opportunities for
validity can be lost. We must strive to make every decision not an option of validity
or invalidity, but cause us to inspirationally arrive at the a decision of one kind of
validity over the other. This way our fork in the road of decision-making is a
validity fork – alternatives where all options further self-growth. Without
embracing your own agenda and at the decision of validity or invalidity, you leave
the state of your resolutions entirely up to chance. This will leave you, according to
probabilities, with half of your resolves being debilitating, invalid resolutions, and
the other half being the productive, valid solutions.
Tim Fannin, an inspirational coach, discusses how champions, leaders, and
successful people enjoy problem-solving. This is the essence of this chapter, “Slow down
and embrace the problem”. Fannin is remarking that we should not simply slow down
and embrace, but also enjoy it. Think about your definition of a problem. Is it something
irritating or something intriguing? Do problems focus you, make you more engaged or
cause you to shirk away in terror? What if your definition of a problem was not
“something frustratingly aggravating that impedes my time” but a fun puzzle to solve!
You would look forward to problems. Champions and successful people actually love
trouble, they look forward to it an embrace it. A problem or a difficult situation shouldn’t
be looked at something to get done quickly, this only produces panic. Instead, a tough
climb in a mountain bike ride, a demanding project in business, or a challenging read
should be embraced and focused on, which causes you to relax, instead of panic.
We want to wipe out the acts of self-denial so you can inspirationally access your
own fortitude. Me must captivate compassion for criticism because when you
unconstructively criticize other people, you debilitate yourself. I have a colleague,
Michael, who, despite all of his intelligence and expertise in the restaurant business,
continually and incessantly criticized people to the point where it crippled them. The
production of this drastically negative effect on his colleagues lead to the lowered morale
of the entire restaurant, but it also undermined Michael’s potential. He felt that his role in
his work should have been more highly paid, more widely recognized, and wanted his
talents more greatly applied. Because of his feelings of inadequacy, Michael tore down
other people by insulting them or telling they weren’t good enough or ready for a
13 Tailor Your Lifestyle / 225
challenge. This crippled his own growth because he was putting all of his time in
crafting problems and disparagements for people instead of designing solutions.
In practicing criticism, instead of compassion, we forget how to be constructive
because we become ingrained in patterns of destruction relying on incapacities rather
than potential. When we focus on other’s weaknesses and breakdown other people’s
confidence we will never be able to build up our own strengths and generate new levels
of our potential because we cannot practice inspiration when we express negativity. Try
to make all of your decisions are valid and productive by remaining positive. The key
way to do this is to acknowledge your own agenda and experience the satisfaction of
compassionate enervation. From this boost, you can embrace the problem so you don’t
skip over it like a bump in the road and run into the same problems over and over again.
Choosing not to embrace the problem and reach the validity fork is great if you
want to live a mediocre “half of a life” and drag the other half around with you. By being
aware that there is always that decision of validity or invalidity, you have the power to
make all of your resolutions powerful, meaning, and successful. By slowing down at the
fork in the road instead of shooting over it, all the options for validity and invalidity will
begin to materialize in front of you, when before, you had been blinded to their existence.
Awareness of these options provides choice and possibility to admonish languid and
listless lifestyles for an illuminating and nurturing existence.
Every decision you make leaves you with the option of a valid or invalid decision,
because you get to make the decision. The valid decision isn’t any harder or more
challenging or more difficult to make than the invalid one – they are just decisions. You
have to take the initiative to not freak out, slow down, and embrace these decisions so
you have the opportunity to decide between invalidity and validity.
That was what I was doing in the example above, where I was vacillating between
extreme spontaneity and extreme organization; I was shooting past and dodging the
choice of making an invalid or a valid decision regarding my system of behavior. By
choosing to slow down and embrace your problem, you will become dramatically more
successful and comfortable because you will be beginning to “tailor” your own lifestyle.
Instead of running around in the same pants that keep ripping at the seem or cause you to
trip over the cuffs, you will, instead, be able to slow down, and make the adjustments you
need to your lifestyle.
-- Choosing to stop, slow down, and embrace the problem will lead you to the
valid decisions. --
validating the state of being sick, I take actions look forward to curing and
nurturing myself while enduring an ailment!
Choosing to validate sickness is another example of how a valid decision
manufactures a more comfortable and more tailored lifestyle. You can actually
relax and savor being sick! Another example is traffic. Everyone, well almost
everyone, invalidates traffic; they get sweaty, frustrated, and annoyed for being
stuck behind a stagnant stream of immobile cars; they fidget, breathe heavily and
become exasperated at the bottle-neck of movement on the road when they cannot
even see what the hold-up is.
When you’re stuck in rush-hour traffic with a proposal deadline in five
minutes, you have reach a validity fork. Now that you are aware of decision by not
dodging over it, make sure you don’t fly by it, embrace, it and simply choose the
valid decision. Easier said than done. I bet you’re asking how can you possibly
embrace, let alone, enjoy being stuck in hot, sticky, stagnant traffic? You simply
validate that time and use the opportunity to practice your proposal, listen to some
tapes, change the radio station, call friends (if you have a cell phone), reflect on your
status of validation, and many other things. Validating your life is all about turning
obstacles into opportunities and then using those opportunities for growth in your
life and as boosts past competition and problems. By simply following the four-step
process of 1)being aware of validity forks; 2)not dodging the problem, which leads
to a vacillating resolve 3)slowing down and embracing the problem at the time of the
decision; and 4)At the validity fork, choosing the valid decision you will realistically
create more pockets of time for yourself. You can look at it mathematically,
psychologically, managerial – by following the four-step process of validity forks,
you create more pockets of productive time that you did not have before. It’s like
suddenly building an extension guest room in your house, or clearing old papers off
your desk – you suddenly have more space, time, and clarity. These chunks of time
do not spontaneously grow out of nothing, however. These extra chunks of time had
always existed; they had just been compartmentalized and buried under our
“intractable schedules”, remember? But validity opens up our schedules,
reminding us that 100% of our time is malleable and for us to use as we like. Just
the simple application of the four-step validity fork process will bubble up new
compartments of time, where you will feel enriched and validated, rather than
fragmented. To apply this process, you must begin to control the Judge and
understand more completely the impact of choosing authenticity by redeeming your
spirituality through simplicity.
One huge characteristic to authenticity is learning that the quality of
nothingness is profoundly meaningful and replenishing. Although this sounds
contradictory, it is unmistakably verifiable. There is a Buddhist quote, and one of the
sentences, that I live by, that says:
"Let us live most happily, possessing nothing; let us feed on joy, like the radiant
gods."
(Dhammapada 15:4)
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And the Christian religion declares a similarity esteem for the freedom of no
possessions:
"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."
--Luke 6:20
These two major religions both reveal the incredibly empowering affects of not
being bound by superfluous possessions. Actually, “empowering affects” is a huge
understatement. Feasting on joy in a god-like state and experience the kingdom of god
are descriptions of probably some of the most uplifting forms of joy imaginable, but it
goes to show that by crafting a lifestyle that envelops and cherishes the pleasures of
simplicity, you will eventually carve the way to jubilant delight.
Relinquishing our possessions for this unforeseen joy, however, is not an easy
process, but a daunting and trying one. In learning how to have faith in the joys of
simplicity resides the compassionate soul derived from our own eccentricity.
The
Nascence of
Style:
Transforming
Dreams into
Realistic
Professions
ather than ridicule society, we should prefer to practice cultivating a structure that
R prevents its collapse. This chapter teaches how to integrate your own personal
style into the societal framework so that you can revive society and live your
dreams. By showing your how to keep your feet on the ground with a practical
and newly-developed style, you can have your dreams filter in and enhance the
effect of your presence, like dancing leaves in a rooted tree. You will learn how to
choose a balanced profession that is not to extremely practical and intellectualized – like
an accountant – but is not to overly wild and intuitive – like a rock star. By choosing the
valid procession you can integrate your applied customized style and truly live your
dreams.
“When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it. You have the
potential to be that genius.”
-- John Kuczmarski
lack passion and merely pursue your agenda because of obligation – you undermining
your own internal agenda. This type of behavior can be emotionally compared to
showing up to a fish-gutting exercise in a business suit.
The method in which we align your emotions to your external agenda is through
our style. Style is how you comb your hair in morning; it is how you cultivate passion,
subscribe to originality, and perform acts of sacrifice with motivation; your style is the
soil in which your branching system of originality growth and poignancy blossoms into
burgeoning reality. Style is the provocateur that causes your dreams to broach reality
because it provides a vessel and a creative conduit for your dreams, fueled by your
inspiration.
If your sentient time is a blank canvas and your life is the painting, then your
unique style is the paint to color your existence. One’s style allows you to cultivate
originality and it allows you to take an optimistic view on life because you act as a
vibrant traveler heading through life with clarity of a destination and awareness of what
you want to do during your travel. Style allows you to apply your ideas, thoughts
awareness, and dreams into reality.
William Wordsworth point out that we are all ephemeral beings breathing for
thought in our life-long journey:
position where politics isn’t meaningful to them anymore because it becomes a “base”
primitive activity practiced by Neanderthals. If grocery clerks felt that they bagged
groceries only because they needed a repetitive, mind-numbing job, there would be no
one to work in grocery stores. If all teachers felt that the only reason they taught was
because they needed a powerfully instructive role to play in order to survive, and they
were passively drawn to teaching as an opportunity to be an authority figure over
students, their would be no teaching, and hence, no learning. This type of passionless
world would be awfully superficial, to say the least, uninvigorating.
I am not suggesting that we create a meaning in our work simply to keep the
entire system moving – that politicians keep debating, grocery clerks keep bagging
merchandise, and teachings keep instructing so we can all remain in a well-fed, well-
educated, and organized democracy – but I am illustrating just how crucial our work is to
the social, cultural, national, and humanitarian puzzle that composes our environment.
So many people get ingrained in their patterns and lose awareness. Consequentially,
people don’t quite understand that what they do on a professional, social, psychological,
emotional, and spiritual level profoundly effects the compassion of humanity. I am not
saying you have to keep a karmic check book, crediting and weighing each compliment
you give or criticism you receive as good or bad, but by simply partaking in a more active
and creatively engaging form of work, you evolve meaning into your agendas.
Doing what you do shouldn’t be an obligation but an active choice that you have
made. We mustn’t let our inner criticism label things that we do as obligations because
this, simply, provokes a superficial relationship with ourselves and our work environment
becomes enervating, rather than rejuvenating. Even if you say that you pursue your
profession because its rejuvenating, we mustn’t assume that we pursue that line of work
solely out of self-interest. By acknowledging to ourselves that the work we do provides
incredibly poignant intuitive guidance our community, society, culture, and nation
obligates us not to perform our duty as an automaton of some system. Rather, such an
acknowledgement instantiates a catalyzing fuel that propels our intuitive energies towards
a compassion resolution where we experience the joy of interconnectedness.
Such interconnectedness is profoundly coercive and can be used on many
different fronts for malign, producing malaise, or for praise, manufacturing growth. We
must be aware that we do have a choice, after applying our style to cultivating an
interconnectness, to use this connection with people to dissuade them or to center. We
must make the active choice to choose to centrally inspire people for two crucial reasons.
One, it turns our powerful connection into a conduit for humanistic compassion.
This compassion benefits you because you become more uplifted when others
surrounding you are more inspired – a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, line of
logic. Secondly, by using our interconnectedness for growth-inspiring expressions of
praise, rather than malignant criticism
Related to the topic of cultivating originality in our work is the notion of
designing philanthropic ideals. So many people pretend to have benevolence by giving
away to charities financially, or by using some other medium they can give away
lavishly, without donating their actual commitments to organizations. People can give
away their dollars and sense to an environmental protection agency if they are very
financially-privileged. They can contribute hours of time for a philanthropic purpose, if
they have already standardized a lot of free time into their schedule. We are free to
14 The Nascence of Style / 233
relinquish what we love the most, in return for the gratitude of being benevolent.
This absurd assumption, undermines our potential for originality and maligns our own
humanity.
By using deceit to instigate a veil of sacrifice – that is, the spurious notion that we
give to the needy and have sacrificed our time or money for that purpose – is ridiculous.
When we donate something to charities we must relate ourselves to that organization. So
many people simply equate benevolence to the quick flick of the wrist on a checkbook,
when, in reality, it is a complex expression of humanity and an opportunity for elevating
your own identity.
By creating a meaningful gesture of benevolence to an organization, group, or
even a single person – be it as big as writing a check for a lot of money or as minute as
opening a door for a disabled person – you allow yourself the opportunity to evoke
meaning and contributions to your own life. These gestures, large or small, complex or
simplistic, are the components that allow you to craft your style. The methods agendas in
which your benevolence, strength, humanity, faith, and commitment becomes displayed
is your intuitive doorway to your own style. However, this opportunity is determined by
the methods and circumstances in which you create a benevolent donation. If you
provide a donation for a large some of money, when your financial future is uncertain, or
you decide on stopping your morning rush to opening the door for a handicapped person,
even when your late – you are making truly risky sacrifices. After all, you could go
bankrupt or be late the meeting, respectively, by making either of monetary or socially-
polite gestures above. These trials are where not only your style is displayed but your
central integrity is tested. But regardless of the lessons we learn from our struggles, the
most nourishing life lessons of experience are most potently didactic in times of peace:
2121
http.quotes.nu/War
234 / Validate Your Life
faster, swing to hit golf balls with more accuracy, or cycle with more finesse. Surfing is
similar to these individual sports because you aren’t part of a team, but rather than having
time, place, or beating the next person being the objective of the sport, surfing is nothing
like any other activity. Golfing is actually (in terms of restrictions and goals, certainly
not equipment!) one of the most similar sports to surfing because it is an individual sport,
it is more individually competitive than the other sports (by individually competitive I
mean that you compete with yourself to get a lower score and not to try to beat someone
else’s time or something), however it doesn’t even come close to the artistic, stylishly
outlet of finesse that surfing can become.
Additionally, surfing is the ultimate form of play, and authentic play doesn’t have
rules. Nachmanovitch clarifies this distinction between play and games: “Play…is the
free spirit of exploration…it is an attitude, a spirit, a way of doing things, whereas game
is a defined activity with rules a playing field and participants” (Nachmanovitch 43). The
free unbound nature of play makes it very different from a game, which could be played
for prestige, to win, instead of a fugue of play. Galumphing, “the seemingly useless,
elabortion and ornamention of activity”, is profligate, excessive, exaggerated,
uneconomical. We galumph when we hopy instead of walk, when we take the scenic
route instead of the efficient one” (Nachmanvitch 44). Yet, galumphing is characterized
as one of the activities that characterize higher life forms, it is an example of the ultimate
play. The act of creating obstacles in our path to then overcome them is of supreme
evolutionary value, and an indication of an advanced species, as well. To play is to free
ourselves from arbitrary restrictions and expand our field of action” (Nachmonivitch 43).
Surfing has no rule book because it is completely connected to the galumphing,
exploring, alive nature of play to the extreme of it being an actual art form.
Surfing is more of an art form because your only “competition” is with the ocean.
Like the artist who carves out ideas and energetically expresses himself on a canvas,
a surfer carves out maneuvers and energetically expresses himself on the liquid
canvas of ocean swells and waves. The only teacher, coach, or set of rules you have is
the ocean’s currents and tides. You have to learn from its swells, tides, wave sets, break
points, and curves. Your only “coach” is the very water that propels you through the
sport. Even with swimming, a somewhat related activity, you have a breathing pattern,
and set of structured movements taught to you by an instructor. Even though surfing is
one of the most technical sports imaginable – with all types of detailed maneuvers needed
to accomplish a basic turn – you do not receive a structured set of movements by an
instructor, as you do with swimming or golf. In addition to its incredible potential for
artistic design and style, surfing is one of the most physically demanding sports. In large
swells, paddling to the “outside” waves can feel like participating in a swim meet, while
getting pummeled by football players. However it hosts very little injuries when
compared to football or other team sports. The importance of just relying on the trial-by-
error experiential method of surfing is that you, in this way, develop your own style. If
you followed a how-to manual to surf, surfer’s styles would be uniform and, simply,
boring. Every surfer has a unique style because his talent would have been crafted by
getting smashed by the ocean waves and learning how to cultivate a balance and
tranquility with the ocean.
Indeed surfing is an incredible balance of rebellion and freedom. Culterbation is
following a set of patterns to fit in without really contributing to the structure of the
236 / Validate Your Life
system. Surfing is all about developing your own individual set of rhythmic patterns,
which is why there exists no manual – in such an absence there exists no opportunity for
culterbation. If running is the ultimate form of excellence, then surfing is the ultimate
antagonist to culterbation; it is the supreme example of crafting your own style and
creating a validated life. The real turn to take in your life is to understand the difficult
and complex challenge of choosing to validate your life. Actually taking the steps to
validate your life is, of course, difficult and complex, changing process, but actually
deciding to leave a validated life and living that existence is even more difficult. The
reason is outside pressure. So many people don’t lead a validated life and, therefore,
there is this nearly-omnipresent pressure to follow a path that is mediocre with ups and
downs and stability, rather than an extraordinarily fantastic existence. Almost everyone’s
concept of a profession is simple wrong! Most people believe that a profession should
make money, support a family and pay the bills, and you should be pretty good at it and
enjoy it. A profession should be the craft of your life’s work. Where money is a small,
minute step in the process of professionalism, and that professionalism isn’t defined by a
complex process of degrees and credentials, but, rather, by a illuminating manifestation
of your spirit in activity. Real “work” is play. So many assume that “work” has to
involve some boring, drab, mundane, repetitive tasks, but it doesn’t. An enormous
component of validating your life is understanding that most people lead a so-so life with
a job that is boring, complacent, and may pay the bills, and then taking the step to
acknowledge that your profession, your work, will be looked at with distaste, most likely
even ridiculed for its immaturity. So many people assume that “real work” is mature,
dry, and repetitive. This is simply the invalidated societal conception of work based on
spurious notions and patterns. Real work, however, is actually dynamic, fun, and
engaging. Work, I think is an incredible misnomer because so many people’s
connotations with work is that it has to be something you’d rather not do, but must, for
the sake of “making a living”. That’s why a validated person’s concept of work changes
entirely.
“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body”
-- C.S. Lewis
It is vitally important to honor the needs and desires of our soul over our body.
Performing the reverse priority would be cleaning your fish tank without feeding the fish
in it. Both are important, just like we must tend to our body and soul, but not feeding our
soul causes our existence to quickly diminish. A person leading a validated life has a
profession that is not identified by the label, “work”, but by a special classification. The
validated refers to their profession as a Vocation of Gratification. A Vocation of
Gratification is one that you are simply grateful for having the opportunity to work in. It
is an environment that causes you to grow, learn about yourself, make money, expand,
and thrive. A Vocation of Gratification is a rejuvenating occupation that your completely
love. A Vocation of Gratification is not:
1. A drab profession that has a routine of which you are stuck because of
financial obligations.
2. An activity neglecting growth and driven by financial reasons.
14 The Nascence of Style / 237
interactions, but they are inclinations. Being inclinations toward the valid decision, the
sensual interactions must be heeded very carefully and used as beacons for sage advice.
The beacon must be overwhelmingly strong to prevent the opportunity for avoiding it and
choosing the invalid decision, but cultivating a responsiveness to validity is part of the
process of interacting with validity forks. This is usually just a useful trick or gimmick to
ensure your decision. The core of the validity fork decision process is to recognize the
fork not as a decision or host of options but simply as an opportunity. It must be
examined as an opportunity for furthering fulfillment, excellence, meaning, and
compassion.
The trick to adjusting one’s sensitivity to validity and becoming more attuned to
the valid route at validity forks is by inquiring the “Validation Query”. You must prod
and probe your intuition and inner knowing to find the valid decision. This is
accomplished by asking yourself a carefully formulated provocative question. One must
ask “Pursing [the alternative] will make my life more fulfilled, right?”. If your eyes light
up and immediately say “yes” to yourself, be sure not to second-guess it, because that is
the valid decision. It is important to intuitively listen for your response. The “Validation
Query” is phrased as a “yes or no” question so you purely have to internally listen for that
single monosyllabic response, rather than some drawn out internally dialogue. If the
method of rationalizing validity forks involved a provocative “Validation Query”, such as
“How would [the alternative] make my life more meaningful?” The answer will be to
drawn-out and complex, involving multiple arguments, pros and cons, and intricate
analyses. Your intuition has those types of answers, but that is not what we’re looking
for with the “Validation Query”. We’re looking for the simply “nay” or “yea” – simple
trying to find out which alternative will lead to validation, not an involved reasoning
behind why an alternative could possibly lead to validation or not. To an untrained,
novice “Validation Query” provocateur, an overly scrutinizing or provocative question
will, most likely, produce an answer that will be lost in the threads of inner dialogue or
not heard at all. So using the “yes or no” question format is crucial to cultivating a
responsiveness to validity at validity forks because of the simplistic and easily
interpretable answer.
Once one’s responsiveness to validity has been cultivated, one can respond much
more sensitively to valid alternatives at validity forks. This responsiveness can acquire
sensitivity towards evoking the presence of validity forks, and then, of course, pursuing
the authentic option. You do this by distilling enigmatic problems from simply, obvious
dilemmas. The enigmatic and complex problems in your life are what almost 99% of the
population tunes into because it seems like if something has an impact large enough to
effect your entire life, it has to be big and complex. So many people target deeply-
enigmatic problems such as their childhood affection or societal upbringing to find
meaning or eliminate vacancy in their life. However, tackling enigmatic, convoluted
problems only produces convoluted answers with cumbersome applications. One’s life is
always impeded by the simple, obvious dilemmas. If you can’t lose weight, don’t waste
time nit-picking calories here and there by altering your diet based on a complex
nutritional rearrangement – that would be enigmatic problem. The simple dilemma is to
simply decide if you should divide you 4 days a week exercise into morning or evening
time. You bypass the nit-picking and enigmatic puzzle of a problem (dieting, in this
case) and slash forward directly to the simply solution that has immediate affects. Doing
14 The Nascence of Style / 239
this “problem slashing” trick is crucial to creating a evocation of a validity. Then one
must simply perform “Validation Query” to continuously arrive at a pattern of validation
and authentication. One of the huge affects of this habituation is that you will find
yourself much more energized when ingrained in this authentic pattern.
o The Infant
o The Schoolboy
o The Lover
o The Soldier
o The Judge
o The Retired Wiseman (or Woman)
o The Withered and Dying Old Man (or Woman)
Apparently, the first and seventh stage involve similar roles. The infant and the
“second childishness” (the age when you’re an old dying man) both involve similar
absences of bodily control; the first role your play – infant – according to this
Shakespearean script, has you burping and unable to walk or keep your food down, while
the last role your play, the cantankerous decrepit old man (or woman), has you unable to
walk just barely being able to see or experience the world, just as the newborn baby.
The inner five roles – those other than the paralleling external roles that bookend
your life – are the most intriguing instances of acting in one’s life. It goes without saying
that someone who is fifty could easily still be the whining schoolboy (2nd role), or the 30
year-old could be the retired wiseman (6th role), and that these roles are not age bound,
but entirely dependent on when you finish the preceding role. After being able to keep
your food down and mobilize yourself, you graduate to the reluctant learner. After you
commit to your school, you take on the passionate role of the lover where you speak
poetry, “woeful ballad”, and have a strong sense of intimacy with your lover. If one
never found that lover, they obviously, would be stuck as the role of the whining school
boy before they could play the subsequent part. After the love’s embers have cooled.
14 The Nascence of Style / 241
Your persona transfers into rugged, feisty role of the soldier with the “beard like a
pard”. This doesn’t necessarily mean you would have to fight in a battle with a gun and
shoot people with bullets, but this the role where you compete in the business, literary,
educational, social, and the political atmosphere and establish a “reputation even in the
cannon’s mouth”. In other words, you will aim to cultivate a “bubble”, superficial
reputation, even if it endangers you. Finally, once you have finished the script of being
immersed in “sudden and quick quarrel” as the soldier, you move on to judging those
confrontations from an intellectually distanced horizon as the round-bellied Judge.
This is where you glance out over the events in your life with analytical “eyes
sever and beard of formal cut”. You are quick to use your knowledge, experience, and
up-to-date inferences (modern instances) with you cunning intellect (wise saws) to
benefit the community and react responsively. After you exonerate the quarrels from a
rational, distanced perspective. You distance yourself even more, keeping your
“spectacle on nose and pouch on side;” as you take on the 6th role of the old wiseman.
This role makes the perfect grandfather because you, don’t necessarily have the
energy to change the world, but have loads of experience and profound sagacity when
asked. You voice is weak, of “childish treble, pipes and whistles”, are what your
vocalizations sound like, but your deep messages are revered adages. Then the cycle is
complete and you slip back into the childish actions of the first role as you take on the
final part in your life the coda of a withered old man.
It is important to note that Shakespeare isn’t the only one with a 7-step longevity
plan. About 340 years after Shakespeare’s death in 1616, the famous psychologist, Erik
Erikson created the seven stages of human psychological growth. Similar to roles that we
play on stage, as designated by the famous playwright, these psychological stages start
off when we are born and progress through our life until death. They include:
The item on the left is always the desired trait, whereas the item on the right is the
result of not performing or “becoming” the item on the left. This weaves in nicely to
Shakespeare because Erikson’s stages are a “to be or not to be” prototype. You either,
for example, become industrious, or become inferior; you either become autonomous or
revert to shamefulness and self-doubt.. Just as Shakespeare was no doubt alluding to the
power of choosing “to be”, Erikson has a similar message over three centuries later.
Let’s return to Shakespeare’s original message of the different roles we play in
life. While these are in chronological order (you can’t be the schoolboy without being
the newborn child), it is possible through life cycles of rebirth to jump back down in the
roles we play. This is why sometimes you feel like the Judge in command of his
rationale and very headstrong one day. The next day, you feel like the schoolboy,
reluctant to get up and go to work. This is not saying that we proverbially reside in a
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shifting would of elusive roles, nor that we must strive to maintain our current level of
life-acting. Instead, Shakespeare is just showing the potential roles that we embrace
throughout the course of our life, and one is not more advanced than the other, the just
evolve in that sequence. It is clear that to lead a full live we must not only act these role,
but have the ability to adapt to the changing professional environments and societal roles
involved in our emotional evolution. All while, of course, keeping our ego and Judge at
check or, preferably, deadened.
A huge culmination in this evolution is when the time arrives that we finally
realize we must pursue a specific lifestyle (and trust me, this time will arrive after
embracing validity forks and undergoing the process of Judge Scrutiny because you will
have more time, awareness, and options) we must ask ourselves certain questions.
Questions of comfort, questions of fame, questions of security, questions of happiness,
and questions of success are a couple of extremely important questions.
These questions are important, but what about the bigger questions, is my
question. In his book, “How to Find the Work You Love, Laurence Boldt” says we must
ask ourselves focusing questions: “What is the purpose of your life? What is your part to
play in making the world a better place?” (Boldt 95). While these questions are
extremely important and the answers to them, will no doubted supply us with the big
picture of what to do with our life, these questions are a little too vague. These questions
will give your life direction, but are too vague for professional guidance -- in a specific
context of a salesman, or a teacher, or business consult, for example.
Great, so you decide that your purpose is to fulfill humanity’s needs. How do you
do that? Should you bee a doctor, a painter, or a writer? Should you provide emotional,
literary artifacts, financially tokens of success, reasoned, educational discussions of
leadership, or artistic displays of talent? Should you be a chef or sheriff? A banker or a
baker? All of these professions serve humanity, but there exists a plethora of options and
finding the one that can be most lucid and engaged can be difficult. And when you
choose a profession, you aren’t uplifted to a superior status nor alter your lifestyle. I
realized that no matter what you do, you still do common everyday things – eat, sleep,
bathroom, etc. I realized this on a trip to D.C. and met a U.S. senator and had brief
conversation with him, in the restroom! I couldn’t believe I had met a senator while
going to a restroom, but it was what happened, because no matter how extraordinary your
profession is, you still lead your life with some amount of normalcy. I am not trying to
demystify the awe and wonder associated with some professions, but, rather reveal that
they are possible and that these lifestyles are quite livable by anyone with enough
motivation. While I think Boldt’s advice on finding the work you love is certainly sage
advice, the ambiguity of his “quest” provides little expansion for clarity.
On the other hand, Boldt’s advice on what to do about emerging into a profession
is quite accurate: “Listen to your conscience, respond to your natural compassion, and
you will never be troubled by feelings of meaninglessness or alienation” (Boldt 94).
What Boldt is saying here is to listen to and recognize your valid decisions, let your inner
voice speak, and never be troubled by the feelings of the Judge. He couldn’t be more
accurate!
We must ask ourselves – our conscience -- if we want one of two alternatives. Do
we want a clarifying, stable, comfortable lifestyle, like an accountant, with very little risk
of being troubled by feelings of alienation, but little possibility of becoming famous? Or
14 The Nascence of Style / 243
do we want to choose a risky, wild, daring lifestyle, like that of a rock star, and have the
opportunity of massive success or massive failure? My answer to this is that we can have
both – success and stability – if we embrace compassionate side to our validity. If we are
truly authentic with our valid decisions, we will be authentic with our compassion.
One of the main things he discusses is the nature of compassion. In his book,
Boldt says that “Compassion cannot be forced or faked, but flows naturally and
spontaneously from the realization of identity” (Boldt 88). This is exactly what happens
when we begin to alter our life so that we are orientated to that valid decisions; our inner
passions and compassion awakes in an essence that is not “forced or faked”, but
extremely authentic.
This authenticity is also arrived at when we deal with the Judge, and counter-act
his criticisms. Boldt says that “Some may object that only a saint can love (identify with)
everyone…but we can all respond with compassion to those with whom we feel a special
sense of identity, and in doing so, find meaning in our lives” (Boldt 88). By acquiring an
identity through the process of utilizing validity forks and Judge Scrutiny we arrive at an
eloquent and responsive space of compassion and meaning. Counter-acting the Judge
and disproving his validity allows us to have the compassionate potential similar to a
saint. Just as Boldt points out, any one is capable of producing profound transitions into
a glorious lifestyle of compassion. The obstacles blocking our path from doing so are the
Judge and Invalid decisions, both of which we have learned to master. Getting around
these fundamental inhibitions to survival places us in close proximity to our essence –
what we were best designed to do, love to do, and others love when we do it. This gift
profession, even without the devastating incriminations of the Judge and the doubts of
invalidity, can be hard to pinpoint . Some people want to have a formal, engaged, and
highly organized and prioritized life, that is freedom for some. For others, freedom is
explosions of creativity and expression. The two types of evolutionary theories in
biology exemplify these types of growth (after all our true Vocation of Gratification is
not a way to make money, but a way to grow) – punctuated and graduated evolution.
Punctuated evolution occurs in explosions, bouts or rapid evolutionary change. If an
archeologist found a bone that could be a part of a wing in one era, and then in the next
five years, found bones for fully-functioning wings, this would be punctuated change.
Graduated evolution is slow, step-by-step adaptation of a species, where, for example,
archeologists would bones of a wing protrusion, then a wing stub, then a longer wing
stub, then something that could pass as a wing, then a nearly functional wing, before,
finally a fully functional wing fossil. The process of graduated evolution would reveal a
gradual, procedural, step-by-step “no surprises” type of growth. Neither of these types
of evolution is better than the other. The are both equally valid forms of evolution. One
isn’t “faster” or “more reliable” than the other; they are simply ways of growing. The
same holds true for types of professions; some people like the pragmatic, procedural,
extremely organized form of vocation – that is their Vocation of Gratification and a
pursuit that is liberating for them, while others like eruptions of their potential in
punctuated expressions of their source. In other words, some people are accountants and
some are rock stars.
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Jim Morrison, additionally, was a more of a poet than a rock star. He was so
embarrassed his first few performances that he wouldn’t even face the audience until the
tail-end of the show. This type of personal forgetfulness (that he forgot his identity of
being a poet) can be very dangerous.
His life became a wash of drugs, over-drinking, confusion, and problematic
situations with his wife because he couldn’t say “no”. Saying no is a very difficult task,
much more challenging than saying “yes” and giving the go ahead for some pre-planned
agenda; saying “no” is denying someone of their agenda for the sake of yours. Morrison
accept drugs and drinking, which lead to confusion. Similarly, he didn’t say “no” to the
problems with his wife, and, instead, continued to accept the difficulties as simple bumps
in the road. Saying “no” is incredibly validating because it allows you shape your own
plan. If you don’t shape it some one else will. Whenever you say yes to something, you
are pursuing someone else’s plan for you. This is not invalidating; it is essential to
pursue incredible opportunities if they are presented to you. However, it is equally, if not
more, important to pursue saying “no”, and instead shape your own path and plan in life.
Jim Morrison failed to shape such a plan and lost his identity of being a simple poet.
By not remembering his identity of a humble poet, and by neglecting to maintain
a sturdy, stable foundation in his life, he justified his music with nothing but a vacant
plunge into the unknown, leading to intense personal problems after a journey through a
rough path of torment.
This is not saying that Morrison didn’t lead a creatively vivacious, impressive,
highly successful and artistic lifestyle; he did all of that. But he failed to validate his
“rock star” impulsive, wild career with his personality, causing to make unsound actions.
He actually scared his band members and wife. By taking them out to the dessert to do
drugs, and by making plunges out of a bedroom window, Jim Morrison became a
recklessly impulsive and capricious lunatic. His personal problems (of lacking stability
and commitment to his work – exemplified by his drinking which figuratively drowned
his performances leading to a stupefying incoherency), were shielded from much of the
outside world because of his incredible success. However, internally, he was a lost,
confused, and trembling soul.
All sources of spontaneity and mercurially wild capriciousness, have their roots in
resounded logic. Similarly, to create a rhythm or an idea of logical orderliness, you have
to first, be creative, spontaneous, and daring to think of the idea in the first place. With a
little bit of commitment to his roots, Jim Morrison could have listened more intently to
his own personal cries for help, and avoided the incessant drinking and abuse that sent his
life down a water-fall like death plunge. Instead of consciously acknowledging, for
example, his respect for Native Americans, he neglected this hobby, transforming his
interest into some voodoo-chanting mess of incoherent mumbo-jumbo about the great
spirit.
He tried to hide his confusion with confusion. Instead of realizing he was a quiet
poet, somewhat scared by the stage, he broke more boundaries, refrained from saying
“No” and continued his wild musical career. His lyrics, messages to the press, and
emotional signals to his friends, were obscure, and “trance-like”. There is a scene in
Bram Stoker’s Dracula, where Stoker describes the first stage of being an Un-dead as
being where the victim resides in a trance. Even Morrison’s drummer and close friend
called Mr. Morrison “death” in one of the acid trips. I am not saying that he was a
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walking vampire, or something, but I am saying, that with his moods, erratic and
irrational behavior, veiled by incoherent trance-like states, he paved the way for his own
death. Despite the nature of his death, he clearly initiated, created, and provided
momentum for some seriously authentic and original musical trends and styles, making
him one of the most revolutionary and pivotal musicians in existence. Ultimately, his
inexperience on the stage and in a band was subdued and shadowed by his commitment
to articulating poetic messages – a gift fervently embodied in his very soul. By evoking
his “soul gift” of articulating poetic messages on a spiritually significant and emotionally
embossed and expansive level, he overcame his fear and generated some of the world’s
greatest music from some of the most illuminating lyrics ever.
When we commit to people and their agendas and even remedies for success, we
relinquish our personal doubts. This is very clear with alternative, Eastern, or
homeopathic medicine. Unlike much of western, or traditional, medicine, which can
barrage one’s delicate biological homeostasis with a harmful array of overly-potent
medicines that simply harm the body’s nervous system, homeopathic medicine has much
more holistic approach.
Homeopathic medicine focuses on going to the root of biological problems and
eliminating the source of a malfunction by returning the body and mind to a balanced
state. A traditional medicine would cut out, or deplete a cancerous tumor, only to have it
grow back. Whereas a homeopathic remedy would fully eradicate the cancer because it
would help re-align the bodies balanced immune system, which has the power to fully
counter-attack any ailment. A homeopathic doesn’t shave off the problem, only to have
the source bite back. Instead it fixes ones biological tools that are used to cure the
problem. In a sense, it cures the natural biological remedies and homeostatic framework
so that problem (bet it headache, flu, cancer, or osteoporosis), essentially renovate itself.
I brought up the concept of homeopathic medicine, because it relies on an
incredible amount of commitment for the remedies to work. The homeopathic remedies
come in extremely diluted forms – sometimes up to 30 million parts of water in one part
of the remedy. The analytical reasoning behind this seemingly magical, voodoo, or
hokey-dokey solution is actually quite scientific. The extremely dilute remedies rely on
delicate vibrations in the cellular level, restoring the body’s most fundamental function –
cells – back to order. Additionally, homeopathic remedies utilize something called the
memory of water, which takes into account chemical vibrations and the minute changes
in cellular syntax that can set in motion a chain of powerful events that may ultimately
cure an ailment or disease. Because the remedies rely on such specific and delicate
changes, one must be truly committed to the product. If one is committed that the
specific homeopathic remedy will work, their body will by able to align itself on the
cellular level to function a solution to the problem.
Additionally, if one’s body has the right cellular vibrations and is compatible with
the specific ambience that the homeopathic remedy initiates, a connection of realignment
will occur. If we are aligned, we don’t have any ailments, problems, or diseases. Rather
than chipping away the disease, or masking the ailment, homeopathic remedies simply
realign the body. An example is traditional treatment vs. homeopathic treatment for the
14 The Nascence of Style / 247
and experience intensely harmonious experiences, but rock stars aim more to express this
harmony, while an accountant stereotype is more apt to cherish and acknowledge
harmonious sensations.
The trick to any type of success, is to make the validating decision to choose a
lifestyle of an accountant with the profession of a rock star, or vice versa. This will allow
you to have compassion with your fellow beings, but maintain the analytical reasoning
and organized planning to maintain your music. Your music could be a metaphor
anything you desire – business, giving lectures, baking pastries, supporting the legal
system, starting your own restaurant. You must make the valid decision to combine the
fueling compassion with scrutiny, just as you must combine the process of Judge Scrutiny
with the process of acknowledging validity forks and valid decisions.
To end this Chapter, and book, I will turn to Laurence Boldt’s analysis of great
achievers: “If you study the lives of the so-called greats of history, you will see time and
time again that these people had a sense of destiny about them” (Boldt 118). This destiny
is what we have been cultivating, by learning how to control, manipulate and dissolve the
Judge you have learned the encompassing impact of your potential, and have unleashed
powerful talents you had not even known existed. By learning to validate your life, slow
down embrace validity forks and valid decisions, you create the time for you destiny.
Because you, and only you, are the only person to create time for your destiny, it
becomes vitally significant to carve out time specifically for your destiny. Make an
“appointment” to ask yourself about your destiny for 10 minutes a couple times a week.
Ask “Am I aware of my destiny?” How is the pursuit of my destiny going?” Am I
frustrated, satisfied, or neutral with my success in achieving my destiny?” “When I
envisioned my destiny, am I close to living in that reality?” “How can I allow myself to
love my destiny and my process even more?”. These questions of validity encourage
motivation and open up entirely new doors by evoking new angles and perspectives for
looking at your destiny.
that is genuine and straight-forward. The third and fourth agreements -- 3) Don’t make
assumptions; 4) Don’t take things personally. – are about relating to your external would
and accepting and interacting with it with objectivity, prudence, and a clear conscience.
So many people interpret their world by having it checkered with assumptions and
personal fixations. Take Iraq, for example, many people are taking it personally that the
war has gone on longer than it should have. This is an assumption that eradicates any
type of positive message. Additionally, the first two agreements allow one to cogently
expressive oneself. By giving your impeccable best, you are guaranteed a sensation of
completion regardless of the outcome because you did everything your could. The
acceptance of your experience and the expression of your experience agreements are truly
remarkable enhancements to validating your life and opening new doorways of authentic
clarity.. Channeling validation through your life to focus, cultivate, and redirect your
validation towards creating a Vocation of Gratification (this is something that must be
created not found, remember), opening up the nascence of your own unique style, and
engaging in the best balance between the “rock star” or “accountant” stereotypes is
incredibly challenging. Luckily, there exist, luckily, a handful of tools that allow you to
authentically engage validation and vigorously the utilization of your intuition and
genuine resources.
Chapter 15
Evolve Our
Soul With
Religion,
Intuition, and
Validation
Tools
he elements of empowerment – inner verisimilitudes, inner voice, contemporary
T essence, passion, and validity – energize, personalize, and authenticate our life.
But applying them to everyday tasks such as giving a speech, working in an office,
writing a book, becoming a manager, or actively listening is not very easy. This
chapter introduces five empowering tools of validation that will not only help you
remember the importance of validation, but will remind you how to integrate success into
your workplace, home life, relationships, personality, and even community. Love always
spreads like ripples in a pond spanning outward; learn how to “drop the rock” that causes
these ripples to flow. By resonating with your soul after learning to dismantle the
egotistical Judge, grasping ephemeral time, having cohesive commitment, utilizing
directly-aligned intuition, and by applying the clarity of computational problem-solving,
15 Evolve Our Soul with Religion, Intuition, and Validation Tools / 251
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you can generate this love. Finally, this chapter teaches you how to intrinsically validate
your divine self by relinquishing maladaptive lifestyles, especially poor eating lifestyles.
“Of two equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the
simpler one is to be preferred.” (i.e.. Occam’s Razor).
-- William of Ockham
4. Food Combining – Lose weight with food combinations of 70% Fruit and
Vegetable, 30% Animal Protein
5. Beverly Hills – Emphasis eating certain foods alone – fruit alone, carbs
and protein never together
6. Pritikin – Originally for heart disease, but used for weight loss,
emphasizes no processed foods and high fruits, vegetables, and whole
grains
The very fact of trying to lose weight and manage your complex physiology,
which incorporates seven of the most amazingly intricate biological systems (including
the circulatory, digestive, lymphatic, nervous, respiratory, muscular, and skeletal), on a
fad is ridiculous. This would be trying to cure a specific, rare form of heart disease with
a daily multi-vitamin. A lot of the diets certainly make sense, but they are too choppy for
them to have an efficient physiological effect. The Pritikin, for example, makes sense to
have unprocessed foods, the balanced intake of the Zone diet, and even the fact that carbs
and proteins are absorbed differently, at different speeds of digestion, and are stored in
distinct areas of the human body makes the Beverly Hills diet plausible. However, these
diets are far too sliced-and-diced to mold it to your distinct, sensitive, and unique
physiology. Tap into how your body responds to certain foods, and mindfully eat (being
sure not to consume) foods that healthfully nourish your own body. Simple nutrients is
the answer. Take zinc, for example. It aids in liver detoxification (ensuring a cleaner
body), helps bind phosphorus to bone matrix (ensuring stronger bones), combined with
vitamin A, zinc aids on vision (helping the sensory systems of the body) and it is vital in
cellular reproduction, growth, and repair (ensuring a well-maintained body). Because
zinc cleans, strengthens, maintains, and aids in the visual processes of your body, should
you have a “Zinc Diet”? Of course not, zinc is an example of one of the many nutrients
needed for health leaves an enormous impact. Focus on a balanced diet of nutrients and
exercise and dietary health will be inevitable!
The bizarre concept of the diet is that it is an invalid approach to life and people
don’t see this. People cannot see that dieting and specific diets were crafted by one
person and only worked for that one person because everyone’s physiology, like
personality, are different and unique. All of the previous diets ideas only worked for that
one their creator and a few sparse instances of people with similar physiologies and
exercise patterns, Atkins or the South Beach diet guy, but won’t work for anyone else
because you don’t leave the same lifestyle as the creator’s of the diets. Trying to follow
someone else’s dieting success is the road to frustration and poor results. What you eat
and how you look, feel, even digest food reflects your lifestyle. Which is why, by
creating a more authentic relationship with yourself by eliminating The Judge, you can
alter your lifestyle and create the results you want in dieting.
Take bicyclists, for example, the guys who do the Tour De France consume over
10,000 (yes, that is 4 zeros) calories a day (yes that does say day) - talk about dieting
tactics. And these guys are some of the fittest people in the world. To them food is fuel,
and they don’t even worry about nit-picking about a “ Lite strawberry fruit smoothie” or
a “low protein power plus shake”, getting the calories they need is serious and they need
it whether its a bucket of veggies or 2 pounds of chocolate. So you’re saying, great, I
don’t bike 100 miles a day. I’m saying you don’t need to; this is just an example of how
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the lifestyle of bikers reflects their eating lifestyle and how you, similarly, must mesh
your eating style with your professional lifestyle.
Most of the problem with a people’s maladaptive eating lifestyles is that they
have a relationship with food. This relationship has been destructively nurtured for years
and years ever since they were young. People form emotional relationships with food to
help them feel emotionally freer and more content with their emotional patterns. You
should not have this type of intimacy with food! It’s fine to get involved with a person on
this level of intimacy and love, yes, but not with food. People love and are passionate
about eating in ways that produce incredible amounts of neglect in their life. This neglect
and excessive emphasis on food detrimentally prevents them from being themselves by
inducing problematic patterns of negation into their life.
Have you seen an overweight Asian person? They are rare because most Asian’s
eat incredibly healthily and rarely wind up their emotional turmoil in a Big Mac and try
to “eat their problems away” . Turning to food in emotional distress is purely an
American occurrence. As of 2003 61% of Americans were overweight.22. The fact that
this excessively eating lifestyle is actually taking us to our grave is shown by the fact that
coronary artery disease (the result of eating excess fatty foods) is the leading killer in all
of America. In 1998, Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) claimed almost 500,000 deaths, or
1 out of every 4.9 deaths. Currently, it is estimated that 1.1 million Americans will have
a CAD attack. We have got to stop over-eating simply because it is killing us. In
addition to being extremely detrimental to our biological health, overeating denigrates
our emotional health as well.
They negate dealing with the actual problem, and, instead, seal it up with the
indulgence of food. Food should be a tool used for our physical bodies, not an emotional
handicap to resort to when you’re depressed. The problem with these destructive patterns
of food is that people have been – for decades of their life – using food as an emotional
survival system. Most people that have tried all the diets across the board don’t take a
hint; they don’t realize that their nutritional dilemmas cannot be solved with a diet.
Constantly trying to diet over and over again – burying its effectiveness into the ground –
is ridiculous if you don’t make productive adjustments. This is similar to driving your
car through stop signs every intersection. Consequentially, you accumulate a lot of
tickets and even a couple of minor collisions. Take a hint – stop driving through stop
signs; stop trying to maneuver your entire eating lifestyle with a pathetic little diet!
Instead choose the decision of emotionally halting and examine your eating your
lifestyle.
Ask yourself, “Do I have an emotional relationship with food?” “Do I have
extremely alleviating satisfaction when I indulge in food, particularly unhealthy food?”
If so, you need to rewire you’re emotional relationship with food. Such a relationship
produces a very detrimental consequence upon your conscience – emotional attachment
to food undermines your conscious processing by setting up an internal blockade. Instead
of seeing out an emotional dilemma through to a resolution, you turn to cookies or ice
cream or complacent satiation of over-consuming. This forms an internally buried
blockade in your conscious ability to resolve emotional conflicts.
22
Consumer Freedom. www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/2185
15 Evolve Our Soul with Religion, Intuition, and Validation Tools / 255
Resolving such conflicts are crucial necessities -- beyond a jovial element to spice
up your day – to function with external challenges. If you can’t resolve your own,
internal conflicts, how will you be able to consciously find resolutions and compromises
to external dilemmas? How can the car drive without the proper functioning of internal
mechanics and electricity? Well, you emotional fluidity is stymied when you resort to
food to solve your problems; you impede the internal circuitry by establishing a negative
feedback loop. This loop bypasses your ability to analyze internal troubles because you
aren’t aware of them.
Take this example: a man gets fired from his job and resorts to over-eating and
consuming more than necessary to “fill his professional void”. He moves onto another
profession and nearly gets fired from that vocation as well. Again, he destructively falls
into the trap of his negative feedback loop, and, instead of creating a new solution by
attempting to understand why he is on the verge of losing his job, he negates this
important motion and seals up the opportunity for resolve by propagating his eating
problems and consuming unhealthy amounts of food. This leads him to a dieting
problem and further and further away from the original problem of being unaware of why
he was constantly taking actions that threaten the stability of his job. He may not like the
work environment; he may need a vacation; he may be having personal problems on the
home front, but the fact is that such understandings will never be resolved because he
would veil the problem with the illusive shroud of contentment generated by eating to
much.
You must eliminate eating unhealthy food from you options of things to do. Just simply
say, you can’t do it. Like flying, you can’t fly; just like you shouldn’t be able to eat
unhealthy food. Make unhealthy eating a physical impossibility for you. Consuming
unhealthy foods or trying to mold a generalized diet onto your specific physiology is like
trying to fly without wings. Respect yourself by expecting nothing from diets, but
everything from balanced exercise and nutitional foods. Dieting applies to Occam’s
Razor, which is “Of two equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal,
the simpler one is to be preferred.” or“We are to admit no more causes of natural things
than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.”. In other words,
the simplest answer – exercise and nutricion and not creating a percentage of protein,
carbs, and fats or eating just carbs – is the most effective explanation and pathway to
healthy eating.
By sectoring of invalid nutritional habits you endow yourself with something
that is far more than a simple favor, you bless your body and physiology with
rejuvenation. You give your gastronomic stomach juices a break, free your liver fro
being overworked, lighten up on how hard you heart has to pump blood, and clear the
chemistry in your brain because your body can spend time nourishing itself with the
minerals, nutrients and energy of food. Instead of spending energy eradicating “junk
food” (food that does nothing for your body’s nourishment, like snacks, cookies, ice
cream, and fast food), your body can use your food consumption as an opportunity to
build strength and replenish your physiological needs. The business world is especially
affected by dieting problems because many times, their lifestyle promotes nutritional
answers in dieting regimens, instead of exercising balance in general health.
If you’re in the business world, your “eating lifestyle” revolves around looking up
diet books, fidgeting around with a diet, struggling not to eat the foods you’re supposed
256 / Validate Your Life
to eat, and then abandoning the diet. It’s sad, but a true fact. So many of the people in
the business world I see struggling and following this same pattern. In the world of
authors, the “eating lifestyle” is usually trying to remember to eat enough – regular
meals. Most authors seem to have weird, idiosyncratic eating habits or tastes. The
“eating lifestyle” of a teenager is the most candy, chips and goodies they can get their
hands on without making themselves sick. The only kind of people that draws struggle in
their “eating lifestyle” is the business culture because most people with this setting are
habituated and patterned to relying on diet books as a solution for the unsuccessful and
maladaptive eating habits. That is why this is not a diet book, because so many people
from the business culture maladaptively rely on diet books. What really allows us to elicit
our strength of commitment? Control over your lifestyle, awareness of the Judge, and
knowing the Process of Judge Scrutiny (PJS). Being fit is fantastic, but becoming overly
obsessed with fitness and health to the degree where it owns your life, inhibiting your
from accessing your personal resources and potential, just like you were inhibited when
overweight, is just as bad as having extra fat on you. The point is to not have eating own
your life – avoiding excess fit focus and excess eating – so you can genuinely cultivate
the benign clarity and variety of strengths within you by dissolving a crippling lifestyle
with the PJS, lifestyle, control, and Judge awareness. With these three components,
powerful control of eating healthily and maintaining emotional clarity is learned.
It doesn’t matter if you an encyclopedia of diets (like my friend described above)
altering your unsuccessful “eating lifestyle” by reading about how someone else modified
the foods they ate will not give you the real-life results you are seeking. We are
constantly enmeshed in health standards that are simply always below par. Bioethicist,
Daniel Callahan says: “I am struck by the fact that no matter how much our health is
improved in this country, it is never enough” (Naisbitt 180). We constantly are in a state
of being “not enough” when it comes to health and are always craving improvements.
Instead of constantly being under par, we must radically change your lifestyle to
fit your health needs. Anthony Robbins, a writer and speaker on success, says “that the
quality of your health is really the quality of the life of your cells” (Unlimited Power). In
other words, you have to start from you most base, fundamental, building blocks – your
cells – and create fitness on the cellular level to develop holistic health.
I know a friend who has been on so many different diets – yo-yoing on and off for
years – that he is an expert on all of them and could easily write a book about the
different diets. He has tried Atkins, Low Protein, and Vegan -- any diet imaginable. But
he still struggles and has weighed the same weight for the past ten years, and is still, after
ten years of trying, attempting to lose that golden 20 pounds. Why can’t he master his
weight with such a wealth of dieting and diet books? Because all of those diets worked
for the authors and don’t work for other people. If Atkins does work for someone (other
than Atkins), it’s because they are overwhelmingly good at modifying the diet and
integrating it with their lifestyle, or their physiology just happens to be, coincidentally,
remarkably similar to Dr. Robert Atkins! We must honor the unique components of
physiology and create a customized eating lifestyle to avoid crippling our reactions by
eating things that aren’t compatible with our biology. The bottom line -- to lose weight
you change your lifestyle. Running, Biking, or Swimming every other day is enough to
dramatically change your lifestyle. Even if it is just 15 minutes a time, 4 days a week,
you will physiologically alter your body. This will give you the space to create
15 Evolve Our Soul with Religion, Intuition, and Validation Tools / 257
perspective of your poor eating habits and transform your “eating lifestyle” into a
successful one and produce the results you want.
recognition of your own agenda, so you never feel restricted, but always connected with
the person to whom you are speaking. Conversations always end with one person saying,
“I’ve got to run because of X” or “I’ve to go because I have Y”. Generate your own
reasons for leaving and share your plan with the person at the other end of the
conversation, this way your day will be perpetually linked with people and you won’t fall
into a void. Falling into a void occurs when you passively end the conversation. “The
conversation that I was involved in was terminated” is passive, “I ended (we ended) the
conversation” is active. Choosing to share with the person what your next thing to do is –
whether it be swimming, doing homework, having dinner, reading a book, or going to a
meeting – you invite connection and alacrity into your life because you will never be
hiding. You will always be the person calling the shots, making the decisions about your
own life, but you will always be connected with other people, other forms of certainty. I
remember being in countless conversations with people where they said they “needed to
go because of x” and I said “Goodbye” without stating something I had to do. This
invalidated my entire plan because I either 1)Because I didn’t share my plan, I questioned
my agenda or 2)simply couldn’t decide anything to do and remained in a state of inert,
problematic inefficiency. Trust in your plan, share it with others during the process of
the agenda, and realize it is the best plan possible, regardless of other distractions!
The more you associate yourself with connection and authenticity the more
genuine you will feel about your tasks. If you tell atleast one person what you are going
to do, you will feel sincerely tethered and focused in that endeavor. If a lot of people
know/expect you will do something, you have much more drive and motivation to
endeavor that task. Say, catching an airplane flight verse buying a donut. The airlines,
your family, your co-workers and loved ones all know about the airplane flight, but no
one except (usually) your stomach knows about buying a donut. Things we share that are
part of our agenda to other people, tend to almost always have more validity because we
take upon that action as a human generating the connection of our soul with reality.
Lesson 2: Soul’s Connection to Reality – Tapping Into What We Really Feel, Instead of
What We Should Feel
So many emotions that invade and pervasively own our existence are debacles that come
from an inauthentic source. I remember countless times where I didn’t necessarily feel
sad, mad, or glad, but I felt that way because my inner critic – using partial validity – felt
I should, expected I should feel that way, when I never authentically had any of those
sensations at all. I remember heading to my school cafeteria right when it opened and
seeing to guys who I really admired, respected, and thought were awesome people that
were best of friends. I tried talking to them, but they showed know interest in
conversation. In the cafeteria they announced they were going outside and I probably
should’ve sat with them, but chose to sat alone, thinking they would exclude me from the
conversation. When I sat down alone for my quick meal, I felt like I should be feeling
isolated, lonely, and depressed, but I didn’t. I was shocked that my actual feelings were
“hey this is great, you aren’t eating that much, you can have dinner in a few minutes, and
you didn’t really want to sit out there either. All these emotions that I felt a normal
person should feel, didn’t apply. We must truly tap into what our emotional palette is
painting and enjoy our emotional painting – our sensual experience – for what it really is,
15 Evolve Our Soul with Religion, Intuition, and Validation Tools / 259
dealing with our emotions. This is more involved and efficient than simply listening to
them, avoiding them, and then having the consequential ramifications overwhelm and
frustrate us into some form of over-involvement. Like a predator that stalks its prey, the
over-eater prowls around for some excuse to consume more than necessary. This excuse
needs to be more acclimated to an event where the pedestal of their environment,
certainly creates a structure whereby they can coexist with their habits and produce a
lifestyle that is merited in their mind. That is the problem with the majority of a lot of
dieters, they produce a structure that allows them to survive via over-eating. This
structure is self-sufficient in supplying the mental framework for excusing their
consumption habits, and is not necessary for the sake of describing some lifestyle, but
merely for the sake of stabilizing it. Dismantling this structure of its well-protected
pedestal is crucial to creating a peaceful, and more nurturing environment where the
ability to create a balanced eating lifestyle, co-exists with the ability to understand their
authentic needs and provide for them efficiently.
In conclusion, can captivate your essence by creating a perseverance and a
tendency toward validation, compassion, and happiness. This extremely beneficial
tendency produces clarity and enchants our lives with hope!
Part 4
Relinquish
Your
Restraints
Radically Alter Your Relationship to Ego and Experience Engaged Success and Compassionate Love.
Learn the Five Validation Utensils of Judge Scrutiny, Ephemeral Time, Cohesive Commitment, Directly-
Aligned Intuition, and Computational Problem-Solving.
The Unfathomable
Validation Uten sil s
The preceding components to the book were primarily theoretical; they instructed you on how to
tailor your life and introduced you to your potentially creative power by examining and investigating the
five elements of empowerment. You have successfully unearthed the illuminating artifacts of the soul and
have integrated them into your lifestyle, environment, and passion. However, this part prepares you for the
true embarking; you are ready to set off on the voyage of the emotional spirit by trusting in your
embodiment.
To do so, you will need five tools to battle criticism, inauthentic opposition, and confusing emotions. The
Process of Judge Scrutiny is a clarifying practice that allows you to disarm and dissolve the egotistical
Judge, by comprehending and applying the Mechanism of Ephemeral Time, you will be able to avoid the
disease of hesitation and never by ailed by doubt because you simply won’t have time for it. By integrating
a Cohesive Commitment and utilizing a Directly-Aligned Intuition, you will be able to vehemently hone
in on the creative aspects of your life to pursue a more commanding alignment with a greater sense of
control in your life.
Finally, to dissolve disparity and the disillusionment that can arise when undergoing complex
problems where complex emotional reactions occur, apply the clarity of Computational Problem-Solving.
These five tools will provide you with the initiative to apply the energizing knowledge of empowerment
that you have learned in all the previous chapters. Get ready to embark on the practical journey of realistic
empowerment.
Chapter 16
The
Egotistical
Judge
he ego is psychologically omnipresent, but your true self is the only omniscient
T
consciousness. By examining the debilitating emotional affects of the Inner
Critic, or Judge, we learn to eradicate his psychological presence by denouncing
his partial validity. Additionally, this chapter initiates an emotional exchange in
the reader by evoking a radically different approach to accessing their genuine
self – the Process of Judge Scrutiny. Chapter sixteen details the Process of Judge
Scrutiny by showing you the powerfully liberating affects of using disarming the Judge
from his discoloring and deadly inner criticisms by using the reasoned process of
conscious inquiry. We will investigate questions – the right type of questions – and
unravel the Ego’s web of illusion and liberate your soul from the chains of anxiety,
doubt, and fear.
being who your truly are, and preventing any pursuits of goals. I will give the tools and
the knowledge to stop this monster and move on with your life. Join me now in this
radical alteration of you mind, body, and spirit.
psychological eras”. Using the most modern cognitive-behavioral therapy, you can
transform your negative emotional and psychological patterns into resilient habits that
merit your intrinsic self, without examining your history or become unproductively
trapped in an analysis of your past.
Instead, I will teach you the psychological techniques to become “mental martial”
artist. Just as “the [martial artist] man’s movements are like flashed of lightning or like
the mirror reflecting an image” (Bruce Lee), I will teach you psychologically control your
mind so there are no illusions and no obstruction to your movements. By learning how to
deal with the Judge, you will truly by “just as you are”, and in that state, you will be able
be able to “keep [your] mind in a state of fluidity” (Bruce Lee).
So let’s commence to stop insinuating our own longevity, and, instead create the
proposal for the nascence of burgeoning eloquence. By elating our passionate reverence
we accumulate renown, respect, and honesty from a majestic gesture of gratitude and
warming relevance. This despondency subjects us to further states of self-ridicule,
denial, and depressing languish states. We must stop our pursuit for the sake of pure
satiability, elongating our life with happiness, warmth and creative malign. Malign not
towards grace, but towards self-ridicule itself. That is what conquering the judge is about
– composing yourself so ineptitude is admonished and self-preservation is replaced with
rejuvenation comprehension of your own despondency, allowing you to permanently
dismantle it. This awareness cultivates the opposite effect of enervation; it uplifts your
very creative acts.
We must never forgive indifference. Indifference must be loved and dealt with in
a compassionate demeanor. Forgiving apathy is a step in the right direction, but it simply
disowns the indifference and creates more of it. Ellie Wiesel said the greatest enemy to
the human race (in regards not just to the Holocaust) was indifference. When you forgive
indifference, you allow it to not affect you, but it still runs its course. Looking at
indifference with more indifference actually exacerbates the problem. A person who
exudes apathy needs love and connection; they need to be healed with compassion.
When you allow that compassion to ring true and express itself with veracity, you create
a centered connecting of truth and certainty. Anthony Robbins says, "Most of us
have created numerous ways to feel bad, and only a few ways to feel truly feel good"
(376). For the sake of our happiness, we should rearrange this equation to have a paltry
number of ways to feel bad and copious methods of experiencing joy. The most efficient,
fastest, and comprehensive way to switch this "equation" around is through compassion.
Compassion helps others, but it also frees you from the overwhelming Judge and Inner
critic, that I spoke about in Validate Your Life. Anthony Robbins even points out the
existence of the Judge: "Everything in our lives, from work to play, is presided over by
this judge-and-jury system" (374). The Judge is the source of indifference. It insults
your inner soul and berates any of your attempts at anything. In short, if you recall, it
incapacitates your ability to love yourself and others because you feel so depleted under
its presence. The best remedy, therefore, is compassion. When you show and express
compassion to others, it shows the Judge is not impacting you. When you truly express
compassion, our Inner Critic becomes infuriated and may strike at you more viciously
266 / Validate Your Life?
with its insults. But remember, this is its final kick. If you continue authentically loving
others from your inner soul extended to external humanity, you will have proved to
yourself and the Inner Critic that his insults do not affect you.
Everything is in equilibrium with inner and outer worlds. Showing compassion to
your friends and the external world is showing indifference to the inner judge -- which is
what you want. However, showing indifference to the outer world, is actually feeding the
Judge, falling into his psychological traps and snares, and, indirectly showing the Judge
compassion. Because you have little way to affect your relationship with the Judge, the
surefire way to ensure that you show him nothing but indifference, is by expressing
external compassion -- to your friends, family, enemies, and loved ones. Being
compassionate nullifies the negative effects of the Judge.
William Blake, famous British 18th century poet, tells us that we are under the
power of our inner judge, our "judging specter", until we recognize our humanity: "Each
man in his spectre's power until the arrival of that hour when his humanity awake and
cast his spectre into the lake." This is saying something very similar to the idea of being
compassionate to disown the judge. Blake also referred to the inner critic as "Urizen",
16 The Egotistical Judge / 267
or your reason.
Winston Churchill, British orator, Prime Minister and author during World War
II, discusses the actual importance of criticism: "Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is
necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an
unhealthy state of things." Sure, criticism debilitates and destroys, but looking at it as
something that helps filter out the weeds is one way to tackle the demons of the inner
critic. We must, for sure continue to focus on limiting the debilitating nature of our inner
critic, too, however.
Tyne Daly, actress, reminds us of the nature of a critic: "A critic is one who never
actually goes to battle, yet who afterward comes out shooting the wounded". This
inhuman treatment is exactly the work of the Judge.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, famous 19th century American poet, discusses how we
must always of fortitude and bravery in dealing with our judge: "Whatever you do, you
need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that
you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics
are right." Having the courage to believe yourself, instead of your inner (or external)
criticism secures and solidifies your confidence.
William Faulkner, famous 20th century Nobel Prize winner and American
novelist, reminds us of time's fleeting nature and to make sure that we always never heed
the inner critic: "The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics". Whether you are an
artist, writer, scientist, businessman, or politician -- no one has time for inner criticisms.
Let's abandon these inner problems and create vehement certainty in our lives.
William Hazlitt, 18th century British essayist, directly relates internal judgments
to success: "The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of
ourselves by the same test: for it is on that on which our success in life depend.” That is
how powerful the inner critic is, "our success in life" is entirely reliant on our ability to
dismantle him.
Eric Hoffer, philosopher and American Hoffer, hits the idea of the judge right on
the nose: "No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in
rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book
on our shortcomings and transgressions." Bear witness against the inner judge -- this is a
268 / Validate Your Life?
testimony that truly liberates our minds and reminds us that our shortcomings and
problems are not really present at all, simply creations of the inner judge.
Stephen Nachmanovitch says, "If he gets out of control the inner critic can be
experienced as a harsh and punishing father figure." (Nachmanovitch 133).
Urizen, inner critic, judging specter, judge-and-jury system -- all of these are
synonyms used by a variety of different authors, poets, philosophers, scientists, Prime
ministers, actors, and famous people to acknowledge the inner Judge. His presence is
very real and very debilitating. The more we acknowledge his presence, the more control
we have over our ability to dismantle the just; just like so many of these great minds have
done in the past. Simple awareness of the judge is a major step in opening up your
potential. Why do you think so many famous people know about the judge? It was their
awareness and ability to disown the judge that allowed them to achieve such great
success in the first place. Knowing about the judge is power. It is power that allows
incredible sources of clarity in your agenda. We must have faith in the existence of the
judge, and respect his power -- which is great because he has evoked shortcomings in
even the greatest figureheads of mankind. After respecting his power, we must disown
him and truly exhilarate our life.
Whoa! Slow down. This guy has major insecurity problems, you say. Well,
guess what? His confidence and self esteem is extraordinarily intact, and, yet he still
suffered from an incredible amount of self-criticisms. At any old event like dining out,
giving a meeting, attending a class, riding the bus, or just going to work, having only
eight insults from The Judge is a break for a normal person! That shows you just how
16 The Egotistical Judge / 269
negative the impact of The Judge is for all of us, and how interfering his omnipresence
can be. By permeating you almost every thought and action, the Judge is more
incriminating than Ego because it controls your moods. The Judge uses a high quantity
of depressing, incriminating remarks to destroy your self-confidence.
I told my friend the next time he was at dinner with his folks to internally listen to
The Judge. I told him to patiently wait, and to listen for the critic on his shoulder to pop
up and start telling him all the things he is doing wrong. After that, I told him to not get
frustrated about these insults, but to, instead, simply and formally write them down with
objectivity. This is what he wrote down:
that this emotionally lucrative experience was going to change his life. He stuck with me
and we categorized the criticisms into three categories:
Criticisms of Appearance
I feel really dumb for not wearing my more attractive dinner shirt.
I am going to look fat because I ordered the cheeseburger, instead of a salad.
I am so nervous that girls were looking at him and laughing because he is with his family.
Just by categorizing these criticisms we can begin to laugh at their invalidity. The
mere act of putting them into categories makes the process of dismantling The Judge so
much more effective and easy. I told him to examine the categories. He noted that he
was criticizing himself on where he went with his family, how he looked, and how he
talked. I told him that was as incorrect assessment. It was true that he was being
criticized in these areas, but it was not him that was doing it. Rather, it was The Judge.
He looked inquisitively at me, frowned, and said, “But don’t I have deeply-seeded
emotional problems and insecurities of my self-esteem or something?” It may look that
way, but I told him very plainly, “No, It’s all The Judge”. I saw his eyes flair as he
grimaced with frustration at how devastating this Judge was to his self-esteem. He
cursed and struggled with the Judge, but, eventually mastered process of internal validity
(dismantling the Judge’s “grain of truth” statements) and has clear, lucid,
“disparagement-free” conscience. He is a now a proud, expressive, very intimate person,
but at the time of our consultation, he was being pinned down and restrained by The
Judge. Before the Scrutiny workshop I had with him, he was unraveled in self-torment,
afterwards he was one of the most charming people to be around because he cultivated
methods to truly and authentically love his inner self. Authentically nourishing the inner
soul and emotional body is nearly impossible when you have this antagonizer on your
shoulder shouting criticisms at you. This would be like trying to do a formal, elegant
dance ballet to foul vulgar music, or trying to read a scholarly article with construction
blaring in the background. The Judge sets the mood for personal failure because of the
intense “noise” he creates. Because of his detrimental ramifications, we must not only
mute him out, but also completely dissolve his tactics, removing him from any power
positions he has with us.
How can we eliminate this skepticism from our lives? I told my friend that The
Judge uses partial validities. We are now ready, after writing down and beginning to
rationalize these partial validities, to begin to truly unravel the impartiality and
fabrication of The Judge’s criticisms. The trick is to start with a category and one-by-one
16 The Egotistical Judge / 271
cool”, is, in itself “un cool” an unstylish and not even a word in the
English language! You may feel “uncool” wearing a pink polka-dotted
blazer and swimming trunks on, and you may feel somewhat “uncool” and
uncomfortable when your family gets really silly and a family member
farts or belches in a fancy restaurant, or something, but these two
situations are mutually exclusive; relating them is irrational. The Inner
Critic used the sensations of goofiness with the family as the reference to
the partial validity trying to support the criticism of “uncool”. The
association of “family making your feel uncomfortable and uncool” with
“you not being cool” is fallacious and an illegitimate equation (where did
the Judge learn how to relate, anyways? A flea market?). The way the
Judge manipulatively associates a sensation of criticism” feeling dorky or
not cool” with an actual emotions is infuriating, but recognizing this crafty
association is a prime example of invalidity, and the Inner Critic is proven
wrong again!
Next, I went through the criticism that fell under the category of Criticism of
Appearance. Before going into these steps I just needed to say that it still shocks and
astonishes me how omni-present The Judge is. I am bewildered at how so few people
know about his control tactics and how much of a quantitatively debilitating affect he has
on our population. The fact that his actions are covert makes the criticisms, partial
validity, and references to partial validity extremely affective. Here is how I dismantled
the criticisms of the Inner Critic and made my friend realize that he is an attractive, cool,
enlivening person:
because a piece of fabric that covers your upper torso has nothing to do
with your mental capacity. They are not even on the same area of the
body. Saying the forgotten “hat”, which covers the head, makes my
colleague look stupid, would even be better than the shirt because at least
its is around the same anatomical area, but this is still an inane invalidity.
The fact of the matter is, however, that The Judge tried to partially
validate “feeling dumb” to not wearing a cool shirt. This erroneous action
illustrates, once again, the powerfully belittling and negatively devastating
impact of partial validity
is very difficult to suddenly stop this pattern and tune out the Judge
because he has “always been there”. Such an abrupt shift in our
psychology (even if it is incredibly restoring) could be frightening for
some people; it would be too much of a new pattern too quickly. Kind of
like a bank that always charges you extra fees for debts you never
occurred. If you used to paying those small fees for such a long time, you
might thing something “was wrong” if they suddenly went disappeared!
The same is true for the Judge. Secondly, of course, is the scientific
trickery of partial validity. Fear of breaking the pattern and the illusion
sparked by partial validity, make the Judge extremely difficult to spot, and
is precisely why we “believe such bogus incriminations”, we either are so
used to them that change would be frightening or don’t have an awareness
of these denigrating vilifications.
arising from conflict, are important didactic tokens to keep, but the infliction of pain on
another person is intensely invalid. The Dalai Lama says that it is the state of desiring to
inflict injury as the single-most quality that defines an enemy: “Even if the state of
liberation does not have a wish to help, it also does not want to harm; an enemy,
however, wants to harm. An enemy does not have a motivation to help and should thus
not be respected” (Dalai Lama 102). It was awkward for me, hearing a person of such
deep spirituality and compassion to discuss not respecting someone. However, after
analyzing the Dalai Lama’s wisdom, and clarifying his ideas of enemies with greater
scrutiny, you realize that the enemy doesn’t have the desire to contribute, and, thus,
should not be scolded, but simply avoided. This is entirely different of the Christian
viewpoint of “turning the other cheek”. It appears the Dalai Lama takes the view point to
not stay and get wailed on by the enemy, but simply to use the enemy as a catalyst for
cultivating one’s own patience: “Because a person has a wish to harm, that person gets
the name ‘enemy’, and you need an enemy in order to cultivate patience” (Dalai Lama
102). I feel this approach is more rejuvenating than taking the hits and turning the other
cheek, as the Christian dogma suggest because it transforms a malicious act into a
positive one by channeling harmful intentions into the cultivation of patience. To me,
this transformative talent, needed to transform pugnacity into patience, is a truly
remarkable gift because it does not simply neutralize or eradicate negative aggression
(which is better than retaliation) but it actually reroutes it into the pool of a more
harmonious lifestyle with more replenishing emotions. This turning a negative into a
positive is a remarkable act of association, as opposed to discarding the quality, which
would be dissociation. Associating constantly envelops our good virtues and bad virtues,
and by embracing them, transforms something that would be considered detrimental, into
a positive. This brilliant transformation causes intense rejoicing from our inner
emotional body because we don’t become fragmented. Fragmented emotions occur when
we deny ourselves from feeling a certain emotion because of the fear that that specific
emotion, if it’s hate, fear, jealousy, or wrath, for example, is wrong or bad. I touched on
this much more deeply in Part 2, Chapter 7: Addressing our Emotional Relationships.
The importance of ceasing activities that fragment our spectrum of emotions and
associating our collection of temperaments is always a peaceful activity that nourishes the
grace of human beings. We never have a nimiety of love and association because life is a
process of constantly relating with graceful gestures of eloquence and sincerity.
Remembering this will prevent any incipient deteriorating of our emotional spectrum,
always ensuring connection with a divine source.
After scrutinizing The Judge’s insults, it is clear that he is flawed, and that all of
these insults are invalid. Just by showing my friend these inadequacies, he immediately
realized that there is no reason to feel weird being out to dinner with his family, awkward
about his appearance, or hesitant in his social skills. After undergoing the scrutiny of The
Judge he reach profound levels of self-security and self-esteem. He now, actually, is a
host in a restaurant and lives completely in the moment. With or without his family
present, he is self-sufficiently completely passionate, engaged, earnest, and enthusiastic
about his self-concept. He thanks the incredible affects of this newfound energy and
authenticity in his life to the Process of Judge Scrutiny.
You must honor yourself by applying the process of Judge Scrutiny. This process
empowers you to make validated decisions by not encapsulating your predicaments. One
of the many problems that we have is that we encapsulate things. That is, we define
things in categories, even if they are things that daunt us or cause us problems. This type
of organization can be very valuable when dealing with complex tasks, but at times it
simply limits our initiative by mitigating the amount of control we have. By categorizing
problems, we can understand them better, but we then set-up a framework that supports
their longevity. The problem with encapsulating problems is that you can’t simply pitch
the issue because it now has a category – a place – and actually exists with more
intractable stability than if you originally pursued the issue by solving it. The bottom-
line here is to make sure we acknowledge problems, sure, but not to over-encapsulate
them, so they have more foundation than was originally present. Sure, at certain times
we must certainly, especially if the problem-solving process is too lengthy, categorize or
encapsulate he problem. We must make sure that we don’t negatively invalidate
problems by labeling them when they should just be pitched and not considered heavily.
When the problem is simply and can easily be solved, classifying the dilemma turns it
into a debacle because it gives it something to cling on to. This is similar to “starving a
cold”, a simple problem, like a common cold, you don’t feed with encapsulations and
labels. Similarly, you can ascertain certainty by invigorating your source of conviction
by relinquishing unbearable self-indictments to quickly move towards a solution.
Basically, encapsulating a simple problem gives it more of a presence and makes it
heavier, when it should be simply solved and brushed aside. A larger problem, however,
could quickly and magnificently benefit from encapsulation because classifying and
compartmentalizing a large problem could encapsulate, contain, and even shrink it down
to “solvable size”. In other words, you never want to “super-size” small problems, but
you always want to shrink the problems that are already “super-sized”. The ability to
find reason in our solutions should be the goal and the underlying conclusion between
any problem-solving situations.
Judge Scrutiny is so effective because it never compartmentalize a problem that is
small, and always compartmentalizes a problem that has already been “super-sized”.
Incipient large problems should be quickly challenged and eliminated, but the Process of
Judge Scrutiny goes towards the host of problems; it attacks the source of the criticism –
the Judge. By questioning and scrutinizing the Judge, you undergo a process of Scrutiny
where your criticisms are relinquished instead of encapsulated and categorized. The
process of Judge scrutiny eliminates the problem and allows you to undergo a
transformation from internal origins, where long-lasting results of a boosted self-
confidence continue. This isn’t like getting a booster shot at the Doctor, that has a 2
278 / Validate Your Life?
second process of receiving your shot and everything is clear afterwards. Instead, the
process of Judge Scrutiny must be maintained and continued and adaptively utilized as
you undergo more problems and/or issues.
By undergoing the process of Judge Scrutiny, you truly give yourself awareness
and more options. You become aware of how incredibly talented, smart and intelligent
you are, while simultaneously becoming aware of the incredible amount of skills and
creative energy you possess. Additionally, you are provided with more options because
you simply know you are capable of so many other things because, having relinquished
the Judge, he won’t be there weighing down on you and limiting your opportunities. If
you combine this with the process of choosing validity by analyzing by slowing down
and embracing the problem to discover validity forks, discussed in Chapter 13, Tailoring
Your Lifestyle, you will have much more time (which is one of the incredibly helpful
“side affects” of discovering validity fork), options, and awareness on your hands.
Dynamically changing with the dramatic interludes that dance with your everyday
existence is the key to finding inner peace. Learning how to consciously and effortlessly
do Judge scrutiny will take you down a path of certainty, sincerity, authenticity and joy!
Now that you have had a full sampler of what the Judge is capable of and have
mastered some of the most crucial techniques in dispelling his harsh criticism, let’s move
on to the process of tailoring your lifestyle. Next you will learn to tailor your life by
stopping and being aware of validity forks. This process simply produces (almost
magically) more time in your day. With that time, you will, after the Process of Judge
Scrutiny, have so much more awareness, opportunities, and time!
Let’s move on to the process of applying your knowledge of the power of valid
decisions, eradication your negative thoughts, and building a confident, customized
lifestyle to suit your powerfully intrinsic needs.
Chapter 17
Grasp
Ephemeral
Time
he concept of Ephemeral time allows us to live each day as though it was our last.
T
We become invigorated with new-found determination, motivation, and strength
by applying concepts of dethroning the ego and living each moment of our
existence ephemerally. The ephemeral time concept originates directly from our
natural tenacity. By allowing ourselves to be resilient in our pursuit of excellence
we admonish any fixation with worry or nervousness because we simply don’t
care about those invalid concerns and focus on the facilitating emotions.
, “It is up to you to decide what to do with the time that is given to us”
--J.R.R. Tolkein
a “horizon” person, you're on the right path. If you’re a “newspaper” person you need to
revision your focus to listen and look towards the natural engagement of our planet. I
refer to these two dichotomies as seafarers and land-farers, simply because the land farers
never need to examine the sky to check for whether like seafarers do.
Enhance your life, become a seafarer and listen to the birds, observe the sky, “Are
their clouds? Is it clear and blue? Develop the habit of not noting not what the headlines
are, (these are important intellectually) but by enhancing your intention by enjoying
simple things like sunrises, clear blue skies, dewy mist in the morning, wind dancing
through leaves hanging off majestic trees, and the sun dusting off it’s luminescence as it
sets behind a high rise or mountainside after a day of brilliance.
I once had a very dear colleague who spent a lot of her time worrying about how
she could help others. She was financially, corporately, and socially very successful.
However, whenever I was around her, I was overwhelmed with a subtle and hidden, but
powerful, heaviness – a depression that was buried for the sake of appearing chipper.
Not being her shrink, but a close friend, I found myself taking on the obligation and duty
of consoling this person and being her emotional kickstand. The problem with this was
that it all had to be covert, making the emotional support I provided very complicated and
debilitating for me. If the person would’ve done themselves the favor of telling
themselves that they are depressed, admitting it to themselves, and then actively took the
conscious effort to ask me for advice, I would have gladly and sincerely provided my
most sound advice. But this person did not such thing, and, instead, deliberately
concealed her depression, but still tried to get the same kind of advice and psychological
aid from me. This made me feel as though the positive, cultivated harmonious energy
that I had just spend time trying to generate, was being drained, leeched out of my body
by this person, and replaced with a sticky artificial stagnant gu. I always felt as though I
needed to emotionally cleanse and flush out myself after interacting with this person.
The person evoked my natural response of healing, but manipulated it by deteriorating
my emotional integrity for the sake of the temporary emotional boost. It was like I was
the salt shaker and she used me to add flavor to her meals; my impact on her was short-
lived and temporary; the “relationship” depleted my emotional sources, but never left too
big of a dent. However, I still felt chipped away at, and it was anything but productive,
and yet I needed to interact with this person on a regular basis, despite her disingenuous
attempts to conceal the vacancies and depression in her life.
I solved this problem by providing myself with three resolutions. First, I would
disown my ability to heal people emotionally. For the longest time, I felt that my calling
was to use my emotional intelligence and intuition, to understand people and heal them. I
made a commitment not to stop doing this (because it certainly, in addition to a
humanitarian deed, is a very benevolent gesture), but to stop obligating myself to do this.
This way I could turn it on or off under my own control. This way, if I ceased the
emotional healing, this person would be less inclined to try to leech it out of me.
My second resolution was to stop looking at the interaction as though this person
were sucking out positive energy and shoving in her negative depression – using me as a
kind of emotional wastebasket. Even though that is what I felt like (with her very subtle
mannerisms), I realized that by liberating myself from this idea of what was occurring, I
also relinquished any agitation that would arise from me, and only produce negative
friction in the relationship. If you can’t help someone, and they continually want help,
there is no point in saying that you can help them. So I simply recognized to myself that
I could not help this person unless they willingly took the conscious efforts. This may
17 Grasp Ephemeral Time / 283
sound like I make myself vulnerable to by utilized and exploited by saying that this isn’t
happened, but, it makes the situation more tangible, because I don’t look at it as a
negative event – which carries so much dubious baggage with it. Instead, I looked at the
event as a symbiotic relationship. There are three types of these special relationships in
nature. The most common is a mutual symbiotic relationship, where the two interacting
parties help each other out. An example is a specific species of fish that swim attached to
turtles. The small fish have the turtle transporting and protecting them, and the certain
fish species return this favor by eating all the algae of the turtles. It’s a balanced
exchange – transportation and security for cleanliness. However, I was experiencing a
parisitistic symbiotic relationship, where a host species (which would be me) benefits the
life of another species, sometimes draining the host, without that species returning the
favor. By looking at the situation as a somewhat uneven, but common occurrence in
nation, it didn’t cease the problem from occurring, but it transformed it from a problem
into a natural biological occurrence for survival. We must always strive for the creation
of a mutualistic symbiotic relationship.
Finally, after allowing myself to de-activate my healing and accept this person’s
actions as natural, I took advantage of ephemeral time and chose not to compromise my
time with the unwavering utility of authentic judgment. Using my judgment in situations
pacifies any worries, because I always trust my actions and feel as though my thoughts
and words are more certified. Just by accepting that this person was going to try to
emotional cling and survive off me, I evoked my judgment, instead of defense
mechanism, to kick in. This allowed me to rise above my emotions. Instead of
continually saying “God, this person shoves all this negative emotions in me” and then
feel disgruntled and irritated after an interaction with her, I rationalized the event with
judgment instead of emotional reactionary impulses. I said to myself, “Yes, this person is
depressed. No, I cannot directly help them because they don’t admit it to themselves.
Yes, I truly care for them, but, no, I will not make my positive mood undergo some
transformation where I feel depleted afterwards. I have an eclectic solution for her
problem, but I cannot express it, if she continues to be specious. Until she incites
creativity and moves beyond the development of mere emotional grasping, I will talk
with her, but I will not emotionally support her.” These statements altered my actions
and behavior around her, so that she was unable to use me as an emotional trashbag. I
recognized that this might frustrate her, but I said to myself, “Should it frustrate a person
if their front lawn is used by their neighbor as a garbage dump? Of course!” Looking at
the situation this way – which is an accurate analogy of the situation – I became
ridiculously perturbed with my own generosity and willingness (up to the degree where I
would be picking off the garbage from my lawn everyday, not telling the neighbor, and
worrying what they are going to do with their garbage) that I handled the situation. I
wasn’t going to shout at the person to stop chucking garbage on my lawn (which would
bring in emotional friction, exacerbating the problem), but I was going use judgment to
prevent her from discarding her emotional negativity on to me. The combination of
using the ephemeral time to think judgmentally, looking at the problem as a biological
instinct, and removing myself from a healing obligation, allowed me to co-exist with this
person, share laughs, and I could harmoniously enjoy my time without feeling emotional
ravaged and depleted afterwards. The key ingredient for instilling this harmony was
utilizing the concept of ephemeral time – living in the moment – as a mechanism for
284 / Validate Your Life?
responsiveness. The selection process is the critical element. Knowing when you and
others will benefit most from you withdrawing (because you will be too depleted,
humiliated at an inability to help, or simply are not ready) or from you applying
(engaging yourself fully to reap the emotional rewards of helping others by becoming
more benevolent and communicative), is a very challenging balance. Mastering it,
however, will always put you in the right place at the right time with exactly the right
resources and talents. In other words, you will become emotionally engineered for
success, and deliberate happiness and compassion.
advantage of the information presented to you? Have more balance, or less? Would you
simply care less and awaken your inner strengths?
I found that I simply try to share my passionate energy and create a values-based
and personally intimate environment for all of my interactions.
By telling yourself that you won’t see the people you are with ever again (even if
that might be true) is so powerful because it eliminates anxiety and worry. It eradicates
these fears and problem-causing states because you won’t worry about what they’ll think.
You will not even be curious about what people will say, if you do something – no matter
how embarrassment, unprepared, or unkind -- because you will never see those people
again.
This theory of having ephemeral time is even supported by the brilliant, Albert
Einstein. His theory of relativity noted that as objects move away from earth (near the
speed of light), the time on that object actually “contracts”. That is, one hour on earth,
may be the equivalent of 20 minutes on that extremely quickly moving object. This is
exactly similar to applying the “saying good-bye” state because you are, in a sense, on a
similar plane as that object moving away from earth. Just as that object is moving away,
you have the mentality of moving away. Applying Einstein’s relativity, when you create
the “saying good-bye’ state, you will have said and done things that your would have
done in twenty minutes, but it will appear as much longer time has passed for other
people. The end result? You get the result of filling other’s time more efficiently.
Simultaneously, you are more efficient in reserving and utilizing your time because what
would take one hour, takes 20 minutes – or faster!
Do you know how powerful it is to transform your perception of time? That is an
incredible skill! By applying the relative ephemeral time state to your life, you can
transform what would take years to accomplish into a week-long task. My brother is an
expert at living with ephemeral time. His first year at Princeton he developed a webpage
for his campaign for class president in four weeks. For me, it would have taken 2 years
to realize the problems he had put on the site, a year to realize I should make a website
suggesting the solutions to the problems, and another year to actually make the site. By
embracing ephemeral time, he turned what would take me 4 years into a 4 week event –
imagine how much time you waste, and could save! Your time will be more efficient and
you will understand how to use your time more efficiently because you will know where
you time goes with a greater respect of time.
In America, we currently live in a society where everything occurs quicker, faster,
and more efficiently, so things that take less time are considered to be “time savers”, or
just simply better pursuits than something “time consuming”. This, however, causes us
to miss out on so many incredible experiences that may take more time. Being obsessed
with “time savers” (or any obsession, for that matter) creates a fixated, and intractably
myopic perspective; we become blinded to other alternatives -- alternatives that we could
be craving and needing in our life. When was the last time you checked out a book from
the library, instead of renting a movie from Blockbuster? When you check out a book
you allotted 3-weeks time before returning the book, and the cost of checking out that
source of entertainment – free! However, movies allot you with, usually 1 to 2 days time
and charge you about $4.00 for the movie, if you return it on time. And yet, libraries are
nearly an antiquated thing of the past, but movie stores are nearly omnipresent in today’s
society. Why would you choose something that allows you less time to use it for much
17 Grasp Ephemeral Time / 287
higher cost? To save time. Movies can be viewed in 2 hours, whereas the era needed for
reading a book is usually much more elongated time span and can linger on, creating the
need to carve out a temporal space for their book reading time. We lack the time to use
our brain’s creativity and our purchasing and consumer patterns show it. A library book
is free, can be check out for over 20 times longer, and can lead to more vivid pictures and
“animation details” than a movie if we take the initiative to use our imagination. A
book’s mental imagery can be ten times more vivid and vibrant than a movies repetitive
frames and colors. We are copping out on our the powerfully creative affects of our own
mental imagery for societal demands to speed up, move faster, and do more. Instead of
buying into this rat-race, we must validate our life and respect our own pace; we must
slow down, move less rapidly, and take on less so we can savor the moments and fully
utilize our sensations to achieve a more fulfilling existence.
So many people talk about the crucial need to multi-task as a new business
necessity. Multi-tasking is certainly important, but society’s view of multi-tasking is
certainly construed. The distorted perspective that so many hold today is that multi-
tasking is taking various events -- going to get coffee, meeting a client, calling your
friend, finishing a proposal, and mailing a letter – all of these seemingly separate tasks –
and encapsulating them into one full swoop to save time. It’s great to juggle things and
kill more birds than planned with one stone, but we must create an opportunity to multi-
task our senses. What I mean by this is to fully listen to our intuition and observe the
sights around us; to fully utilize our audition and absorb the sounds around us; to use our
tactile sense to, simultaneously, feel the textures and pressures of tasks we interact with.
I am not saying that we shouldn’t juggle multiple tasks at a time, but that we should,
rather, transform our idea of multi-tasking from simply juggling more than one task, to
being able to juggle multiple tasks while fully absorbing the sensual experience.
From this heightened arena of sensual engagement, we can more fully seize
opportunities around us. This is similar to, in programming, being aware of what is in the
computer’s memory, and simultaneously calling different objects and functions.
Utilizing Ephemeral time allows us to do this.
Whenever I am saying good-bye to people I become emphatic, compassionate,
caring, responsive, elated, and positive. By telling yourself that you will never see the
people you are interacting with any scenario, you create a constant “saying good-bye”
state. This experience makes your unfulfilled life more meaningful, your time more
resourceful, and makes your developing personality manufacture much more of an
impact. Your burgeoning personality will be able to communicate the messages you
want to resonate with in profoundly talented, openly genuine mannerisms by utilizing a
directly-allied intuition.
Because the only element of the relationship that will continue is the memories,
the most important thing that you’ll won’t to provide is a remarkable impact and
reputation. Now, overly focusing on reputation and appearances can deny your true self,
because you are so worried about expectations – so be careful of that and to discriminate
leaving profound meaningful and insightful memories from trying to have a cool “rep”.
However, because these sage memories will be the only remnants of the current
relationship, you’ll want to make the memories quality ones.
Additionally, you won’t ask yourself the “what ifs” because you simply won’t
worry about asking them; you’ll just commence to passionately ask them in case you
288 / Validate Your Life?
don’t have the time or truly never get to interact with this person again. It is logical that,
if you will never see certain people again, you will ask them more important and direct
questions because you will want to employ the most superb management of your
intensely limited time. Finally, there will be an incredibly mitigation of worry. In a
relationship where “not seeing them again” is a strong possibility, you are forced to
investigate the unknowns because you know that this could be your last chance to ask a
person that you have been reluctant to communicate or you may never discover what the
relationship would have evolved into.
By using the trick of “knowing you will never see these people again” makes the
experience so much more meaningful. One thing I have been practicing is instilling
values in the workplace. This elicits the power that people possess and allows them to
start to subdue The Judge. It doesn’t teach them how to do it, but eliminating anomie
discussed by Thomas and Susan Kuczmarski, my profound parents, teachers, friends, and
mentors an mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional growth, survival, and understanding
who provided me with unaccountable amount of opportunities in my life. Mr. And Ms.
Kuczmarski described anomie as, “Alienation. It results from individuals and groups not
having values and norms. Anomie leaves individual feeling isolated, disillusioned, and
disjointed. It leaves organizations dysfunctional, divided, and disrupted.” When
“individuals are not in some way connected as a group”, anomie forms. This is why I am
so interested in battling The Judge. Because The Judge creates barriers of disruption,
division, and dysfunctional states, he leaves people feeling disparately alone and isolated
because they are insecure due to all of his criticisms. Most importantly, people’s values
cannot be accessed and harnessed into a magnetic expression with The Judge’s criticisms
present.
By instilling value we can lead ourselves to a greater sense of control over the
Judge. We can put the Judge in a subdued and temporarily silenced state. The greater
sense of control over you life without the Judge present can lead to profoundly
electrifying results; I have seen disgruntled employs rejuvenate into spirited beings; I
have witnessed tyrannical and dismal employers instantly evolve into smiling, warm,
kind-hearted, humoring people. Psychological walls have been broken down and
exceptional metamorphoses have taken place in remarkably proactive methods – such as
instilling values or boosting self-esteem, or thinking positively – but the goal of “tearing
down and rebuilding up” process is the acquisition of knowledge, awareness, and
intuitive understanding of The Judge. However, you don’t have to go through that
process of tearing down your life support systems – friends, family, home, possessions,
etc – and then building them up again just to learn about The Judge. Instead, from all of
my experience of psychological “remodeling”, I can intuitively teach and cogently
educate you about The Judge.
Chapter 18
Cohesive
Commitment
ommitment is the first step to unraveling any resolve, to solving any problem,
C
and eliminating any dilemma. By choosing the crucial choice of commitment
you begin to emotionally rewire your negative patterns of invalidity into
illuminating patterns of validated liberation. By exercising your committed role
in life, you can apply the process of Judge Scrutiny to reprimand the ego and
relinquish your true authentic self more actively.
“Anyone can dabble, but once you’ve made that commitment, your blood has that particular thing
in it, and it’s very hard for people to stop you.”
--Bill Cosby
Abraham Maslow, who lived to be the ripe old age of 62 from 1908 to 1970, as a
Jewish immigrant from Russia, became one of the foremost psychologists of the 20th
century by developing his widely recognized theory of “hierarchy of needs”. Maslow
believed that there were five distinct needs required of humans, and like a pyramid, the
first needs needed to be fulfilled in order to acquire the higher layers; you can’t build a
house without a strong foundation. The first set of needs --Physiological Needs –
Maslow encapsulated as all the bodily needs for oxygen, minerals, and nutrients,
including the need to maintain a stable pH (acidity) balance in the body, to create a
constant temperature of 98.6 degrees, to remove wastes effectively, and to acquire
adequate amounts of sleep and rest.
After the Physiological Needs were satiated, one could work on cultivating the
Safety and Security Needs, which include finding stability, structure and protection.
More specifically, the details of the Safety and Security Needs would be finding a stable
job, having a reliable retirement plan, a safe neighborhood, and a reliable social and
family structure.
Beyond the Safety and Security Needs are the Love and Belonging Needs, which
fulfill the third tier of Maslow’s hierarchy. This tier inculcates a strong longings for
friends, an intimate partner, children, affectionate relationships, to be part of a club or
group, marriage, and a strong sense of community. If these needs are not fulfilled, a
strongly negatively social anxiety and reaction to loneliness will develop. This set of
needs is not saying, however, that if someone gets married at a young age, they are more
advanced than the unmarried person. Rather, this set of needs merely outlined the crucial
elements needed to be satiated before moving on to the next stage. You can certainly
have an accomplished level of love and belongings without, for example, marriage or a
children, if you have a strong relationship with professional colleagues and family. It is
the general sense of feeling loved and loving others that Maslow is trying to epitomize
with this tier. Being an extremely complex and emotionally altruistic tier, this
hierarchical level of necessary growth is one that must be constantly supplied by because
if the fuel for loving compassion ever degenerates, the soul and that person’s potential for
emotional regeneration strongly will be inhibited. However, if the person keeps a
constant awareness of what they can do for mankind, and what their purpose is with
people, many times they become naturally compelled to love other beings. However, it
goes without saying that the compassionate and emotional relationship of belonging to a
community or specific place must occur for the next stages of hierarchy to occur.
Personally, I feel that this level should be higher up on the list of self-actualization
because we must spend out entire life being compassionate, we must focus on being
loved by, and transforming our relationship to love with other human beings throughout
our spiritual longevity.
The next tier of Maslow’s hierarchy – the Esteem Needs -- is the fourth and final
tier of what he calls deficit needs. The Esteem Needs, broken down into lower and
higher subcomponents. The lower subcomponent includes external sources of esteem –
respect from authors, dominance, fame, glory, and external recognition – and is
considered to be a “lower” form of satisfying the self esteem needs because, very simply,
the “higher” form of the Esteem Need is much more difficult to lose. When we look
externally for sources of approval, these unstable sources of emotional stability can
change like the wind and easily become teetering towers of unreliability. The “higher”
form of the Esteem Needs is considered to be the “true” form of self esteem because its
internal origin – self-respect and feelings of mastery, confidence, competence, freedom,
and independence – ensures a much more solid and stable presence of esteem. The first
four tiers of the hierarchy – the physiological needs, the safety and security needs, the
loving and belong needs, and the esteem needs – all compromise the deficit needs (or D-
Needs) because they create the extensive platform and foundation for the true goal of
filling in the emotional cement and creating the necessary transformational girders -- self-
actualization.
According to Maslow, you will not be able to work in the area of self-
actualization unless these four deficit needs are met. However, once you have adequate
18 Cohesive Commitment / 291
food, water, and bodily homeostasis; have created a stable career, retirement plan, and
reliable protection shelter; are compassionate towards others and have a congregation of
affectionate relationships with community or individual persons, and are revered and
respected by others (lower Esteem Need) or have acquired a plethora of self-respect, you
automatically begin to do your work in actualizing your self. This what Buddhists would
call enlightenment, Zen masters would refer to as finding the Way (called Tao in Zen
terminology) or your Path, being in touch with God or God’s voice in most religions, or
moving beyond the famous psychologist Erik Erikson’s stage of growth and development
– identity.
The four deficit needs, according to Maslow are registered instinctively and are
called instinctoids. While, I feel that the Love and Belonging Needs are on par with the
level of self-actualization, it goes without saying that the ability actualize your true
identity and create a name for yourself, other than a silly job title or other form of
material, social nomenclature, and to pursue this identified passion with loving purpose
produces the supreme form of acclimation and endows us with the highest form of
transformational accolade.
Before being able to comfortable reside in the realm of the Being Needs of Self-
Actualization one must completely eradicate any salient needs on any of the levels of
growth. This shows that a person could certainly not have fulfilled the Safety and
Security Needs (if they were constantly moved from city to city as a kid and don’t feel
“stable in any location or home-like situation), but may have attained the full spectrum of
Love and Belonging Needs by having a loving marriage, kids, and a generous and
compassionate community. The need to go back and relinquish this disparity, or in
Maslowian terms, fixation, with the unfilled level is crucial before moving on to self-
actualization. I can personally relate to this concept of being fixated, or having missed
fulfilling a level of fixation (having left a gap in the hierarchical growth) when I was 17
years old. During this time, I become obsessed with Buddhist religion, enlightenment,
personal freedom, and non-attachment to spiritual needs. I was so interested in self-
actualization and spiritual clarity that I “emptied my cup” (a Zen phrase symbolizing
getting rid of extraneous mental material so new, higher forms of learning could be
acquired) to the extreme. I, literally, “emptied my cup” by empting my desk, my room,
my entire living situation out of my habitation. I threw out my bed and discarded my
desk, my old books, and saved school paper, and began to spontaneously engage myself
in therapeutic painting (something I had never pursued before), while writing spurts of
poetry wherever I went. In addition to reading about some of the world major religions, I
altered my eating habits (including fasting and eating all fruits and vegetables at the
time), home situation, emotional environment (by dating types girls that I had never
interacted with), academic environment (by switching from a small, private school to an
enormous, public school) sleeping arrangements (by meditatively sleeping on the floor),
clothes, hair style, and general appearance all in an attempt to attain spiritual elevation
and emotional freedom. I was so blinded by my desire to pursue and achieve this
unrealized form of spiritual clarity, which I seemed to shoot by the essential platform of
Love and Belonging Needs. I became withdrawn, focused on my own spiritual pursuit of
my path, or self-actualization, and in the process, isolated myself from friends and cut off
compassionate correspondence with loved ones for the sake of discovering my Way.
You could say that this is selfish, because I appended my communicational spectrum with
292 / Validate Your Life?
people during this time of self-introspection, however, it ended up hindering me the most
because I developed a fixation with the Love and Belonging Needs and had to go back
and mend a lot of friendships.
It is puerile to examine this pursuit of mine as selfish because it was just simply a
choice of growth in the many plausible patterns of attaining self-actualization. There are
many roads to the top of the mountain, and none of them are “wrong” or “selfish”,
although some may be more deleterious and less direct than others, but the important goal
is to reach the treasure of the quest, to gaze out from the highest peak of self-
actualization. Labeling my sincere attempt to pursue self-actualization is subduing your
own involvement in the process because you admonish the attempt of self-growth and
transformational. Considering that such change and expansion is the only means to
achieve any form of actualized, higher, enlightened form of understanding, any
denouncement of it (regardless of the form or timing it was taken) limits your ability to
engage in productive change. If you don’ hurt other people, which never occurred in my
direct pursuit of self-actualization, then any form of self-transformation should be
honored and revered with inadmissible accolade because it is a valiant and selfless
attempt to achieve one’s self-actualized state. From this state your every action engages
passionate benevolence and guarantees the furthering of the entire human race.
A very small portion of the human race -- only 2% according to Maslow --
actually cultivates the Self-actualized Needs, or “B-Need”. This means that 98% of
human beings are struggling to get enough food, have unsatisfied safety and security
needs, are longing for affectionate relationships while immersed in loneliness, or are
squabbling for respect and self esteem. In other words, the large majority of us are
engaged in acquiring the deficit needs, instead of instantiating the pursuit of urging
ourselves to “be the most spectacular person imaginable. Some people who have
achieved self-actualization are scientist Albert Einstein, president Abraham Lincoln,
Olympian Carl Lewis, poet Walt Whitman, religious figure Mother Teresa, and of course
the major religious figureheads – Jesus Christ, Siddhartha Gautama, and Muhammad.
The path to acquiring self-actualization is, at first a series of balance and maintenance
steps to satisfy the first four needs, but after the deficit is paid, you can began to achieve
your highest form of existence. Because you would have nourished your current state,
providing all the necessities and will cherish your personality. While, some of the
hierarchical needs, such as the Love and Belonging Needs, are a bit out of place, and
should be considered a “B-Need” because you reveal your true potential through your
relationship of compassion towards humanity, the idea of satisfying primary needs, and
building off of a psychological platform as a necessary pretense for higher forms of
clarity is an idea that holds a lot of merit. One, however, must remain committed to
achieving this clarity, because only through commitment, one of our greatest tools to
achieving self-awareness, will we be able to relish and savor the copious examples of
how much of an improved life you will lead once you actualize your passionate state of
existence.
For the longest time, I constantly seek out people that could help me with
problems I had. Whether the problem was wanting to be happier or needing more clarity
or something simple, like wanting to have an abdominal six-pack, I always sought out
“gurus” or “guides” that could provide me with those things. I soon learned, however,
that those answers are never from other people. Some people do incredible award
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winning attempts at appearing as though they have all these answers, or actually supply
one or two of answers to our questions, but these people usually are inauthentic or far and
few in between. The best way to find these truths that we seek, obviously, is to realize
that the person, the “guru” who has all the answers is the person asking the questions –
yourself. You always are the person who has all the answers you seek. For the longest
time I realized I was searching for a person who was intensely intelligent socially – some
one that would blow me away socially. I never found such a person, except in myself. I
soon realized that I had been searching, all alone, simply for a friend. The more we learn
to associate ourselves with the recognition of the need for friendship, the more we can
certify our entire existence. More importantly, the sooner we commit ourselves to
generating (instead of hopelessly seeking out clarity) we can promote intensely focused
epicenters of truth and passion.
with the restaurant culture. After the restaurant business, the nephew professionally
tested out his trade at starting his own night club, only to have it be a failure and go
bankrupt.
So the son had difficulty starting out. Success and failure are related to each
other. Failure actually is a crucial component of success. By maintaining perseverance
and the understanding the art of overcoming the obstacles, you create an environment for
success. After all, Abraham Lincoln, one of the nation’s most revered presidents, failed
seventeen consecutive times before winning a public office but then he succeeded, and
that’s all that matters. Failure is a powerful learning experience. If you remain
committed to an endeavor, you are bound to hit gold sooner or later; it is just a matter of
when success arrives and how many obstacles through which you must persevere.
The mother, however, didn’t have this idea of her son trying out different
professions as a necessary component to professional experimentation. She should have
looked at her son’s attempts as worthwhile lessons into shaping and defining the contours
of his burgeoning profession. Learning that the restaurant business may not be his thing
at that moment is valuable knowledge, and examining the lack of success not as a failure,
but as a powerfully defining variable, is the validating approach. Instead of choosing this
approach, the grandmother chose to take the professional success of her nephew
personally by correlating his professional achievement directly as an indicator of the
quality of parenting she administered. The grandmother had been like a second mother to
her nephew because of the high work hours her mother held at the hospital, and when the
nephew repetitively failed in finding a profession that matched his brilliant talents, the
grandmother couldn’t handle it. Her view of the situation was entirely myopic and
linearly focused on the personal correlation with her parenting. Her parenting has nothing
to do after her son’s professional success after a specific point, and that point has long
been reached considering the her nephew had completed graduate school.
Because the grandmother erroneously correlated her evaluation of parenting with
the togetherness of her family, she wouldn’t allow any minute display of dysfunctional
states to occur in the family. She dominated the entire family’s emotional freedom. An
argument or dispute around the household would irresolutely extinguished with ferocious
haste. This irresolution produce catastrophic impediments to her family’s ability to live
in emotional liberation. She held such a high degree of worth on the togetherness of her
family, that she, literally, had her son’s acting congenial and happy, when things were
internally awry, unsettling, and very emotionally disturbing. Like the spider that buries
its prey in a cobwebs, the grandmother buried any disagreement, disparity, or opposition
(even if it was as petty as differences on choices for where to go to dinner) in a emotional
cobwebs of suffocation. By instantly dousing any emotional argument in the family, she
prevented a lot of the positive nourishment that can arise from emotions by negating their
effectiveness.
Emotions are not positive or negative. They are merely indicators. If you
experience an emotion of frustration or anger, this isn’t a negative emotion, but simply an
indicator that something is wrong or something needs to be changed. What we are so
used to calling “negative emotions” should, in reality, be important and authentic
indicators of action that needs to be taken. Take a look at some of these examples of how
“negative” emotions are crucial necessities for inciting action:
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• Let’s say you go to work, get your suit splashed on by the bus when it hits a
puddle, you spill coffee on your shirt, and your hair gets frazzled and disheveled by the
wind. When you arrive at work your appearance is atrocious and you are extremely
pissed. This is where you have the choice to choose to look at all emotions as positive –
transforming your situation as something extremely great for people skills, or to immerse
yourself in problems:
Choosing to frown on “negative emotions”: This causes you to feel
ashamed of being pissed, to hide your face, spend 30 minutes fixing your
clothes in the bathroom, being late to the meeting. Your lack of
punctuality sends you on a guilt trip for the next week, and your lingering
guilt produces anger for the next month. Whenever you see your fellow
employees your are overwhelmed with a surge of emotions causing you to
re-experience guilt for being late, anger at your self, and embarrassment
form anyone who saw you come in looking so “trashed” from the wind,
puddle, and coffee. The result of choosing to look at some emotions as
“bad” and others as “good” is clearly problematic, producing residual
emotions, excess anger, and downwardly spirally rut of isolation and more
irritation.
Choosing to accept and honor all emotions: This causes you to laugh at
your predicament. You honor your frustration with all these outrageous
events and say to yourself, “I am frustrated. I am frustrated for good
reasons, and I can’t help it. I am incredibly happy that I am feeling this
irritation. I respect the emotion of frustration; I honor it and deeply
respect it and am happy I am feeling frustrated.” Saying that to yourself
as you breath in and out may appear silly, but the astoundingly clarifying
effect is immensely authenticating and if you actually try it in a similar
situation you will quickly understand why. Saying that little mantra to
yourself, honoring the frustration, validates your emotions and you
become clarified and focused, and most importantly, you get control of
your emotions, instead of your emotions controlling you. Instantly after
saying that you are “happy to be feeling frustrated” (as difficult as that
may be to say) you feel instantly at peace (try this, it really works). This
restored peace gives you a boost of confidence. As you walk into the
office, you head straight to the meeting (still looking like you got coffee
dumped on you after being sloshed by a gigantic puddle, because you did)
and say out loud, beaming, “What are the chances of the wind messing up
your hair, the bus splashing you, and getting coffee poured on you in the
same commute?” Everyone laughs and welcomes you to the meeting.
You feel spectacular for starting the meeting off with a successful joke,
and loosen up about your appearance in general. You still portray a
professional image, but not to the extent where it cripples and inhibits
your growth. Clearly the positive regard of all emotions – including
frustration and humility – creates a magnificent connection of purpose.
• You have been working your butt off at a company and were expected to good a
salary raise and bonus 6 months ago, but continued working at your original starting
salary for the next year with the promise of two salary raises and the equivalent of 5
296 / Validate Your Life?
bonuses. You have been working at the same company for three full years and get your
year-end paycheck. It is the exact same salary you had when it was your first day on the
job. You, understandably, become extremely angry. This isn’t something that should be
monotonously dilly-dallied with. You emotions are telling you some very worthwhile
information – stop putting up with the procrastination of salary increases. Your own
worth and personal involvement is crippled when promises are broken, your anger is a
friend reminding you that this is intolerable and should be dealt with. Instead of
labeling your anger as a “negative emotion”, do yourself a favor and question why you
are actually getting angry. This will solve your problem and reveal the inherent brilliance
in all of our emotions.
Back to the hearing loss story, the grandmother’s over controlling parenting style
was dominating her children’s emotions. She was emotionally suffocating her children,
preventing them from expressing anything but “positives”. The overbearing mother
obliterated half of the children’s expressive spectrum. Discomfort or “negative
emotions”, such as frustration, couldn't be effectively communicated. She wasn’t
intentionally creating detrimentally restrictive emotional patterns in her children, but she
felt it was the only way to save her reputation of being an expert on teams and group
togetherness. You can image how emotionally distorted and inauthentic her nephews
felt; their own grandmother would become infuriatingly insecure and began vilifying
them if they expressed any form of discomfort or “negative” emotion in their life because
she thought this would be reflected as an segregated, problematic family, and damage her
potential team-building reputation. This selfish act subdued her nephews into a listless
interaction of never being able to interact with their true emotions, but to always “act’
like everything was okay, and to bind and seal it up if it wasn’t, instead of productively
getting it out on the table.
This dominating control, in reality, was an illustration of poor esteem on the
grandmother’s part. The most confident person would objectively and openly discuss
their team-building and group bonding skills, regardless if their family was an emotional
mess, lacking cohesion. The only way to get beyond being dysfunctional, obviously, is to
accept it and change it; hiding maladaptive habits only exacerbates them. This would
show that the person’s confidence lied entirely from within, where it should originate.
Because she had set up a emotionally disruptive pattern of turning to her nephew’s
professional success into a qualitative evaluation of her parenting style, her self-esteem
became inertly malnourished. Combined with her feverishly malnourished confidence
and dire efforts to make her family superficially “appear” together -- when, in reality,
they were very emotionally suffocated and immature – any slight failure on her nephew’s
part would send an immediate red flag and emotional warning signal to her parental
confidence
By having such maladaptive and invalid emotional wiring she, jeopardized her
reputation and authenticity. This concerned me and drew my immediate attention
because this debilitating pattern of invalidity was destroying her fragile structure of
evaluative parenting, suffocating her nephew’s emotional breathing room, and crippling
her confidence. Additionally, she had to maintain a spurious disposition and maladroitly
craft a façade of togetherness around her family. Appearances of togetherness are
fantastic because they set the stage for a more cohesive more intimate mood within a
group, team, or family. But when the façade or appearance of togetherness dominates the
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component members emotions, a the once efficient façade transforms into a deadly
impediment for emotional evolution and growth.
By not allowing your emotions to grow and evolve, the grandmother was in a
constant state of uncertainty and distraught. She needed to rely on the actions of her
nephew to positively evaluate the quality of her parenting. There is a correlation of
parenting for awhile - -if the grandmother was parenting a 13-year old nephew and he
continually got into drugs, their might be a slight correlation with the parental attention
being applied to the nephew, drawing attention to the fact that maybe things aren’t
mature or qualitative enough on the home front. However, after her nephew, not even her
own son, was 26 and had finished graduate school, no such correlation can be effectively
and intelligently made. Any correlation thereafter transforms from an extension of
parental compassion into a dangerous anchor sinking the grandmother’s buoyant
livelihood.
The grandmother couldn’t handle that her son wasn’t going to, right of the bat,
find a perfect fit of a profession, so she needed to a counterfeit story to create her a
resolve that would satisfy her enervating overly-personalized needs. Her solution to
personalizing every affect of her nephew’s quest for professionalism was to insecurely
attribute the professional failures to her nephew’s hearing loss. Her nephew had lost
hearing in his right ear at age seven after a firework malfunction that caused an explosion
juxtaposed to the young child’s ear drum. Instead of incriminating herself for poor
parenting, the mother chose to pacify the damage to her personal survival system by
blaming it on something completely unrelated to parenting, something unemotional,
something linear that couldn’t be affected by her parenting in the slightest, something
medical and straight-forward – the hearing loss in the right ear.
Immediately after hearing about her son’s failures, she began to vilify the doctors
they had seen. She was enraged that doctors hadn’t found a solution to the hearing
problem. She coped with this rage by taking it out on her nephew and herself; she
deteriorated her relationship with her nephew by passively disparaging him for not trying
harder to find a cure to the hearing loss. Her dubiousness of her son’s attempts to find a
medical cure tarnished her nephew’s confidence, which, consequentially, began to think
quite poorly of his aunt. Her nephew, emotionally flustered from such a spurious
accusation, lost emotional and personal interest in the weakening relationship with his
grandmother because of unintentional, but lethally destructively criticism of his attempts
to cure his hearing loss. By discoloring the veracity of her son’s commitment to finding a
medical solution, the grandmother discolored the emotional integrity of their relationship,
soiling and muddying the once clearly bonded waters of the intimacy and compassion
into a superficially drab and disparate connection. The grandmother became so
accusatorial of her son and passively and emotionally penalized her nephew because she
was correlating her son’s failure with her parenting quality, and she couldn’t have her
parental façade tarnished or blemished in anyway.
But the correlation between her son’s professional success or failure and the
grandmother’s parenting is completely and entirely fallacious! A situation where her son
became a billionaire, or a situation where he fell into destitution and became a poverty-
stricken vagabond, should not be directly related to parenting; parenting can only do so
much before people “fly the coup” and begin shaping their lives with their own personal
decisions. I told this to her: You nephew’s professional success does not reflect your
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parenting. His failures do not reflect bad parenting because they aren’t directly correlated
with your parenting style or success.” It was important for her to hear this, but
simultaneously drastically sensitized to such awareness. I knew that she would
immediately deny that she had drawn the correlation, because her ego would crave the
perpetuation of the negative and detrimental process. However, by planting this seed of
validity, she was able to authentically have confidence in her parenting. She began to
realize that even if bestowed with the most potent parental gifts, endowing her son with
traits of integrity, confidence, humor, strength, and a good value system, her nephew
could still choose professions that produced failure. She understood that she had done all
that she could on the parenting front and must undergo the essentially complex and
difficult process of letting her son go. Even by 25, the grandmother, after acting the role
of maternity, could not let her son go, and graded the quality of her parenting on his
immediate professional success. This is an example of a habituated pattern with
counterfeit validity that brought the elderly woman hair-pulling distress and nerve-
racking sensations of self-doubt, fear, and inadequacy.
The Judge produced a lot of the fuel involved in this pattern of self-doubt.
Utilizing the malign of partial validity, the Judge used the correlation of parenting quality
of the grandmother to professional failure of the nephew to establish a detrimentally
critical emotional loop that pinned down the grandmother’s confidence and skewered her
emotional rectitude. The paternity-to-professional-failure habituated pattern was wired
by spurious nature of invalidity; the Judge only had to flick the switch of partial validity,
and the sequence of neurological and emotional wiring was set in motion by the
mechanics of invalidity.
The end to this story, however, is not an unhappy resolution. By pursuing
commitment to her invalidated emotional pattern, the grandmother was able to relinquish
her parenting doubts and insecurities by understanding that whatever professionally
happens to her nephew has nothing to do with how good of a parent she was. The long
road to emotional reform and reconstruction is commenced with the most difficult step,
the first step – the step of commitment.
When you are in the psychological court “Witness Box” you feel intensely
psychologically bullied like a witness being cross-referenced by a conning and vicious
lawyer. The aim of those lawyers is not “ask questions and get responses”, but to
“prompt and shape your voice to say something they want to hear”. You have very little
breathing room in intense situations like this. Just as you never have prove your emotions
out the need for protection or survival, you never have to fill rigidly stuck in a
psychological “Witness Testimony Box” – ever. If you feel like you are being forced to
say stuff or feel psychologically bullied to produce information, you can quickly get out
of the situation by validating your emotions. Say, “I feel psychologically bullied”. The
awareness of this state, allows you to feel your emotions. When you actually consciously
feel them, you can control them, by saying, “I don’t have to experience this”, and then
simply make the changes necessary to get out of the psychological court situation! Be
wary of the psychological court – it is always filled with external projections of the Judge
– and deal with it by using validation and carrying an intense focus on respecting your
emotional reactions.
One of the most damaging ways to cause a problem with your spiritual purpose is
to avoid monitoring your own reaction to other’s reactions. When you avoid reacting to
people, you work from a clearly focused realm of growth and will abandon the possibility
of running into spiritual highway “road police” because you will be traveling on a
genuinely authentic pathway toward enlightenment. Like a flower that blooms in Spring
on regularly perennial pattern, you will be able to grow and blossom into a burgeoning
pattern, claiming your individuality through a creative process.
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an emotional flotation device for this person, and made him become plagued with bouts
of depression where he was not able to vicariously live out the friendships of his
emotionally distance peers.
This is not saying that we should avoid complimenting people, compliments are
an incredible source of communally producing equality among people. However, when
you compliment and interact with people to cultivate the “sense” of togetherness and
love, without actually producing it, you seriously undermine your own potential for
emotional clarity and dangerously rely on peers to the point where you try to infringe
your negative emotions on your peers. When you plague your friend with smothering
and depressed emotions, glazed over with a blithe attitude, you, not only appear to be
emotionally weak and fragile, but your over-reliance on other people, automatically
creates your interaction with people puerile and limiting.
A reaction to other people can quickly devolve into something very immature,
when there exists no way of creating a source of self-reliance. For this reason, responses
to our reactions create the filter where we are mindful of our bodily reactions and can,
consequentially, connect with trust and certainty in our life. When you are constantly
engaged in a warm, congenial, manner to try to create a fun, loving environment or mood
between people, you are liked and respected, but you may become excessively reliant on
smiles from the other person for signs of a friendship. A friendship an a relationship is
not all smiles and laughs. Instead, a relationship has its moments of anger, warmth, trust,
faith, negativity, and even jealousy. One friend of mine simply tried to have an “all
smiles” relationship with people and it led to serious problems and flaws in the integrity
of his relationships and his comfort in relationships in general. Hours and hours of his
time went into calling people, just to “check in”, to the point where it was an addiction, to
give him a point of emotional elation that temporarily lasted for about five minutes.
Another problem with his superficial need to return to other’s for emotional buoyancy
was that he couldn’t recognize antagonistic remarks or insults until long after the
conversation, and their crippling affect had sent in. This person could only superficially
relate to people in a very limited, minute spectrum of congeniality. He was always
smiling in the conversation and assuming their was love present. This ideal persona is a
great goal to shoot for, but people need to get irritated and made sometimes (rarely), and
when that need arises, it should be honored. Many times trying to be “all smiles”
suppress necessary expressions of “bad” emotions. Basically the best thing to remember
is that we emotions are positive (or be indifferent to emotional “goodness” or “badness”),
and shoot for being happy and congenial overall, just don’t let it impede your emotional
flow. Many times this person was insulted and he kept smiling and acting like there was
love present, when his confidence was being damaged. This was smart, because love is
always present, underneath even the most devastating attacks; it is always a common
denominator. But he “decided” to feel love, instead of actually feeling it. People
covertly implanted bombs of disparagement in his psyche; he would finish a conversation
feeling awkward and then emotionally confused and heavy. He became a stranger to his
emotions because of his obsession with a need for being congenial. His pursuit of love in
the conversation was a great goal, but the inability to turn this ambition off, blinded him
from the ability to shield himself against insults or emotionally damaging (intentional or
unintentional) damage. He would, consequentially, turn to over-eating to fill the
conversational blows he received that he wasn’t even aware of. To effectively
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communicate with people, preserve your emotional growth, and reside in emotional
actualization, you must, at times, defend against people with disparagements of your own
if they are overly harming you, and avoiding or negating them was ineffective. Never
insulting people as an action, but it may be a necessary step to sidestep an assault or
produce an opening for inducing complimentary growth because it acquires their senses.
This will prevent you from being a victim, while encouraging you to venture out to
develop a full-sized potential of communicational potential – unlimited by your affiliate’s
inclination for insults or compassionate compliments.
Unfortunately, some people act the role of the emotional hunter, and are on a
bounty quest to damage your emotional reaction. Discriminating against these people, by
not limiting your conversational potential by using counter-assaults to nullify their
detrimental attempts, if avoiding interaction doesn’t work. This way you grow and aren’t
stymied by emotional homicidal predators, and you can defend your identity, allowing a
nurtured garden for self-actualization. This way you won’t left in the dark – emotionally
confused and indirectly wounded – like my friend who was open to all interactions, even
ones that damaged is emotional intelligence and confidence.
Being able to communicate with love and eager congeniality is pertinent for
becoming a self-actualized person, but more important is being able to transition from a
loving, compassionate place of respect to a defense mode if people attack you. This way,
you avoid spending your time taking chances with unpredictable people, and won’t waste
time mending unnecessary wounds. You’ll discriminate against the people that
emotionally restrict and deliberately harm you, by disconnecting your engagement with
them. You could even continue talking with them, but it will be from a place of
emotional safety. Being able to distinguish when each of these modes – openly seeking
love and detached emotional safety – is applicable to a relationship is key to emotional
certainty and actualization.
It is incredibly worthwhile to interact with people in a loving manner, but if you
continually create spurious relationships where you laugh and chuckle in superficial love,
but never experience that love, you weigh down your friends with the duty of keeping
yourself emotionally afloat.
I knew a friend whose grand-parents were pretty much overdoing their familial
role. The grandfather would say to his granddaughter that she was going to change the
world. He would say she was going to be the best whatever (and “whatever” was
whatever she was pursuing at the time, hockey, religion, environmental studies, and, then
sociology), and that she would change the world and become a famous person. This type
of encouragement is great when it is used sparingly for potency. The grandfather
overused this encouragement up until the point where every sentence he spoke told her
that she was going to be famous. Not only did this set up huge expectations for the girl
(which are never a good idea – great attitude, but not overly large expectations, so you
aren’t as disappointed) but it limited the way she could free her mind. She always was
the “goody-two-shoe” in her grandfather’s eyes, and his trite system of over, and
exaggerating his compliments frustrated her to the point where she new it was a
mechanism to create a bond between them. You see the grandfather was normally absent
form the girl’s life and had to initiate superficial bonds of intimacy, so he showered her
with exaggerated compliments that, eventually, became cheesy, and certainly, not
meaningful.
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The ended up having a negative reaction because the granddaughter felt that she
needed an incredible amount of respect from people wherever she went. The grandfather
had, idiotically not thought about the ramifications, and through a selfish mechanism of
trying to inculcate a vicarious bond, nearly ruined her social life with the high
expectations set for her. Now you could easily say that it was all in the way the
granddaughter interpreted the situation, and such praise should be heralded. But the
grandfather spewed it from his lips like articles in an English sentence; it lost all of its
poignancy because of the hackneyed usage of the granddaughters. After recognizing
these compliments were an attempt to create a superficially vicarious bond between her
and the grandfather, and not even to necessarily provide praise for the daughter, she felt
insulted by the grandfather. The grandfather had been using compliments as a type of
addictive, formula for making the granddaughter feel temporarily uplifted and high
spirited, when she was around him. It wasn’t because of the relationship nor the
grandfather’s atrociously emotionally unhealthy and depressed personality. Instead it
was due to the addictive, drug-like pattern of compliments he used to try to emotionally
trick her into liking his company. It is similar to having a dog bark and do tricks around
you because you always give him extra treats. She realized that her emotional training
was making her subservient to his depressed mood, and his framework and identity
problems was not a table top she wanted to clear.
If she was a waitress, the grandfather would be the rude customer, knocking over
dishes, cups, and cracking the ceramic, only to ask for more coffee before spilling it on
her shirt, and then not leaving a tip, when he left. As a customer in her restaurant, he
didn’t respect the little things – the care of the wares – leaving huge blemishes on their
interaction but wanted her to affectively create a mood that was congenial and bound
with togetherness. This superficial unity leaked like a sinking boat because the
grandfather attempted to emotional confiscate her freedom. He wanted all emotional
control over the girl. She began to feel insecure when not around him, because of the
lack of unrealistic compliments. Then one day after being told for the fourth time that
she was going to be a world-famous astronaut, the emotional guises, trickery and traps
her grandfather had been pulling to manipulate her emotional sensitivity. Sure, she
could grow up and be the world’s most elegant figure skater or elite astronaut or
smartest scientist, but she realized then, that she didn’t need and, actually wouldn’t
even be able to achieve those attempts, with the presence of her grandfather. By
complimenting her to the extreme her grandfather inhibited her pursuit of any of
these aspirations and ambitions because he constantly placated and subdued her
realistic pursuits with dreamy fantasias. She could never taste the raw, delicious flaws
of occasional failure, nor experience the ups and downs – enduring the challenges and
hardships – of a real pursuit in her life with her grandfather present. He kept her in the
clouds, dreaming, never able to get down to the grit and fulfill her true desires in the
world. Like an abusive drug, the grandfather made her lethargic, unsatisfied, and
provided a transfigured scope of the world because he maliciously made her think that
she had already achieved those dreams (with his incessantly trite compliments) before she
had even stepped out the door in her life. Luckily, she overcame this addiction,
abandoned her grandfather’s abusive emotional manipulation tactics, and began to head
out pursuing dance and ballet. She, of course, met a lot of obstacles and these obstacles
were made so much more poignantly devastating for her because she felt as though she
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was letting her grandfather down, in not immediately being the “World’s best dancer”.
However, she soon realized how wrong her grandfather was. You don’t have someone
become the world’s best something by telling them that over and over again. That sets
them up for emotional outrage and embarrassment because to be the best of the best you
make blunders, fail a lot, and hit tons of obstacles and dead ends. So setting her
granddaughter out of her cocoon into the world thinking she was going to be the best at
anything before she had even tried, is even worse, less respectful, and even more careless
than telling her nothing because it makes the failures she will meet all the more
unconquerable. The problem with excessive compliments is that there is no room to
thrive. There is only the expectation of more compliments, in replace of actual success.
When people become excessively reliant on compliment and look at compliments being
“success”, they will never be successful because accomplishment (the most authentic
“compliment”) would have lost its potency in motivating and rewarding.
Accomplishment, the simple knowing that “I did that”, “I succeeded” is the greatest
compliment because it can never have disingenuous intentions like flattery or anything
off.
This is why the true parent, the best grandfather, doesn’t shower their kids with
compliments to the point where the praise becomes ineffectively incessant babble.
Instead, the ideal parent carefully inserts sparse elements of poignant praise when their
kin has hit a wall or failed in something. This way its affect will be more applicable,
more easily acknowledged with sincerity, and more widely effective.
Another familial situation had to do with the same grandfather who wouldn’t
allow any conflict in the family. It was not as though he didn’t want it, rather, he
wouldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t function with it. This type of restrictive behavior is
great, but not when it inhibits necessary emotional management. Emotional management
can occur in any environment and you can quickly ‘travel” and proceed in advancing to
clearer levels of emotional wealth and certainties. The more we realize that “showerings
of compliments” are maladaptive and that trying to shape emotions leads to dysfunctional
restrictions, the farther we travel on the path of personal validity.
I remember hearing the analogy when I was in California (with all those “wild”
thinkers) that “we are moving right now. We are driving to L.A. in this room” when we
were in a house. This connoted the entire idea of communicational, emotional, and
spiritual travel. Those three forms of transportation certainly exist in the real, but before I
heard this, I was only familiar with physical travel. As I began pursuing writing more
vehemently and reading different types of spiritual books, I began to feel this inner travel.
Sometimes my head would even feel “disembodied from my neck and torso”, but the
main effect was that my spirit, emotional system, and/or mind took a different shape after
doing this “stationary travel”. The stationary travel was incredibly authentic and
nourishing but scary at times, because I had not navigator. When you first come across
the idea of “traveling” without leaving the room, you begin to ask what actually is travel,
then? Is it seeing different geography, different terrain, alternate species of trees that
grow in an indigenous environment, or experiencing what it is like to buy a grapefruit in
an esoteric unfamiliar culture. The dictionary has many definitions or connotations for
“travel”. Some are: “to go about in the company of a particular group; to be transmitted,
as light or sound; to move along a course; to advance”. Your soul could be advancing
within the company of a Sangha (Kurt Vonnegut calls this a karass in Cat's Cradle) and
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your emotions could feel as though they are light or sound advancing to a destination.
But the beauty of loving travel for it’s own sake, is that the journey becomes the
destination. This idea of having faith in a source of something (travel, in this case),
regardless of the destination or what other’s think, is a tremendous source of validation.
One thing I never wanted to be like is the person that needs to express himself to
boast or to infringe ideas instead of share them. Some people have inner lacking where
they only actually trust there own ideas when they are infringing them onto other people.
That is the “test” for validity with them. If they can get others to believe, they’ll believe.
This is loss of personal faith. I want to be the person who has faith in my beliefs and
certainties because of my commitment to those concepts, the empower emotions
associated with them, and the logic I have created providing reason to those beliefs.
Trusting in yourself, regardless of others, is a major step in validation.
navigation to keep us occupied and not focused on the extremely cramped quarters.
Before departing from the Caribbean my captain had warned and prepared us for the
incredible different experience of life onboard the ship by making the analogy to a
different country. He said that the Kramer (the name of the ship) was going to be like a
“Kramer Nation”, with its own language (the seafarer’s jargon), government (I soon
found to be totalitarian), set of laws (conduct on board the ship), and culture. It clearly
felt similar to being a part of an exchange program where I was immersed in an
unfamiliar environment. It certainly took awhile to become fluent in “shipish” and
habituate myself to the pirate-like customs, but, overall, it was an incredibly uplifting
experience of immersion.
Some of the customs, or code of conduct on board the ship, wasn’t really to my liking,
mainly because of these “safety” videos we were shown before the embarking. These
safety videos actually purely horrified all of our land-legged minds and made us queasy
about life at sea because they showed a rescue procedure where a ship at sank, taking
down two people that had been attached to the ship. We saw the two people die and
become immersed by the blue hands of death as the ship plunged beneath the surface.
The fact that this was real footage made me extraordinarily cautiously concerned about
wearing this “harness” throughout the ship, which we were supposed to latch on to the
boat in a storm, because I feared the same fate of the two individuals in the safety video –
being attached and latched to the ship as it goes down.
There were some other issues that plagued my conscience while on board the
ship. For instance, the leisure set of protocols that were upheld in the galley (ship
kitchen), where knives were wielded carelessly with “dash and gusto”, just waiting for
the ship to rock and send someone flying into a blade’s serrated edge or have someone
end up getting skewered by the tip of a simple cutting knife. There was also charting and
navigation imprecision that hung a dark cloud of dubiousness over my mind and my
captain’s “Captain Ron-like” seafaring abilities.
The climax of the ship experience was a zenith like no other. After about a week
of being on board and interacting with no one or no thing that wasn’t on board the 137-
foot rafted, or bubbled to the surface of the crystal blue Caribbean waters, everyone had
seemingly broken down a lot of emotional barriers. Multiple groups of my peers (25 in
all) had experience massive sea-sickness, where they felt overwhelmingly nauseas, and I
had experienced bout of “insomnia”, which some attributed to be more form of sea
sickness (but I attributed it to sheer excitement of being – living, sleeping, eating, and
interacting – permanently floating on the ocean) where I did not sleep for a consecutive
47 hours, the longest bout of sleepless activity I had ever experienced. The zenith of the
ship experience occurred during midday of the 8th day at sea.
As a method in transforming the students into crew, the 9 mates (including the
cook, captain, engineer, 3 scientists, three mates) assigned each of us a sail. This was to
be our sail, which we would learn how to hoist up (set), pull down (strike), and tie down
(furl) by issuing commands to tell people to pull (heave-to) and man specific lines. My
sail was the Jib Sail (or in sailor’s language, the Jib So’l, pronounced like “soul”). And
on this day the third mate, this cool pirate-like dude, told me the individual commands –
like “Man the Jib halyard!” (the line that pulls up the sail) or “Cast off Jib Downhaul!”
(to allow the sail to be struck and brought in if was two windy). Additionally, there were
sides of the sail we had to know – tack, clew, leech, luff, etc – so our seafaring
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during a thick fog. Because I had seen real footage of a ship running aground due to
mechanical failure of the computerized instruments, I knew the single depth sounder was
an genuine threat. Instead of keeping this in the back of my mind as a mental note, I
immediately took action. I told the captain, on deck, almost accusationally, that this map
and the single depth-sounder were unacceptable. I felt threatened by wearing the harness,
too. Although it had the intentions of safety (to prevent us from being launched off the
ship in the midst of a horrendous storm), the notion of being attached to the ship when it
sank was a very real and frightening possibility to me (especially after seeing the videos
of footage where people actually did sink), and was a risk that I felt certainly didn’t’ need
to be taken.
The captain, apparently, felt his authority, reputation, and command of the ship
was threatened as I pointed out these detrimental points. He told me in a reprimanding
tone to come down below into the captain’s quarters. Feeling like I was being punished
or grounded, I immediately said “No, I want to stay on deck”. I also simply didn’t
understand why I should be forced to go down below. He kept repeating to me that I
needed to come down into the captain’s cabin (this was to avoid the rest of my classmates
from becoming involved in the argument, mainly because my points were truly valid and
the captain didn’t want anyone else to see holes on his ship’s command). I gave in,
reluctantly, and soon realized that the shiplife’s government was strongly Totalitarian.
The captain recognized my claim that his despotic and tyrannical commands were
anything but a democracy. I held fast and kept pinpointing my concern of the ship’s
inadequate depth measurement and navigational procedures, not for the sake of
debilitating or crippling the captain’s command or reputation, but out of concern for my
personal livelihood and safety. After this, 5-hour long battle of wits and authority, the
captain banished me to my “coffin-like” bunk, shielding me from the celestial on deck
views, until I got sleep. How could I sleep with so many hazardous procedures being
openly conducted on board the ship and after having had my first-ever thorough
confrontation with authority. The confrontation was, certainly, not something I was
proud of, but it was sincere and deliberate, honoring my emotions (before when I had felt
at odd ends about something, instead of addressing the authority figure, I left the situation
or discussed it with my parents. I had no such options being on a boat surrounded by
thousands of miles of water. Looking back at the experience, (I was scared stiff at the
time) I became very proud of my assertiveness, breaking down my own walls and
exonerating my personal limitations.
Soon the captain and crew announced a surprising, and unplanned, stop in the
Bahamas. My classmates and I couldn’t believe this, but were exuberant about the
detour. That was until, of course, I realized that this was merely a pit stop to kick me off
the boat. Did the captain think I was launching a freaking mutiny? Why was he so
focused in getting me off the boat? The captain had called my parents and had arranged
for an escort for me off the boat in the Bahamas! I refused to leave because of the
incredible times I would have on board the ship. I loved surfing, and this felt like
constantly living on a gigantic surfboard, but with 24 of the most talented, intellectual,
and unique people I had ever met, the coolest “pirate” crew, and the constant interaction
with the ocean. But the captain threatened to call the police if I didn’t leave the ship! I
wasn’t acting immoral, abusive, or irrational. I was solely concerned for my safety on
board the ship, and the captain was so interested in his reputation (something I wasn’t
18 Cohesive Commitment / 309
even intentionally attacking) that he needed to remove me from the ship. Now the logic
he provided was that I was thwarting the safety on board the ship by not obeying the
tyrannical commands of the captain, but it was the questioning of his authority and
reputation that he feared the most. Soon, I felt like some fugitive, a prisoner, being
escorted or deported like an object 5-weeks before the sea component ended, back to
Chicago. I knew that none of my friends would be back there, and it would be a swampy
frozen-over, hell hole during the late days of February, so I strongly felt as though my
time was being manipulated and my great experience, mutilated.
We docked, and discussed my impromptu “flight plans” (when they were really
my death sentence off the boat) for the next day. I awoke earlier, and we were docked in
the Bahamas, and sprung off the boat, and couldn’t believe the feel of solid, concrete,
non-aquatic ground under my feet. More astonishing, however, was that none of my 24
peers attempted to get off the boat and experience setting foot in a new country. They
weren’t allowed to, apparently, which is totally ridiculous, because the entire purpose to
traveling is to see and experience cultures, surroundings, and witness environments of
new countries. By never leaving the ship, it was as though they had just landed in a new
country but wouldn’t get off the plane – it didn’t make any sense. For that entire day and
the next (my travel plans were delayed a day, for reasons I’ll soon discuss) they never left
the boat.
So the captain had arranged for my plane to take me back to Chicago at 3:00 pm
and the chief scientist had taken me to the airport at 8:00 am. I was supposed to stay in
the airport, in a country I had never experienced before for seven hours. I hadn’t even
been allowed to go swimming or dip my foot in the ocean at the Bahamas or for the entire
10-day segment of being at sea. I was not going to waste my last chance to experience
this country and its waters sitting in an airport terminal.
I then ended up to meet a surf director after sprinting around the Bahamas,
returning to the boat and then flying back to Chicago the next day. What an adventure.
All true, too!
The captain even called the dean of the Sea Education Association down to the
Bahamas to personally escort me and make sure that I got on board the plane this time.
I felt being weighed down by a person who lacked the ability to keep themselves
emotionally afloat, and it horrendously made me feel as though I was a soldier fighting a
battle of neurons and emotional reactions. This person lost all capabilities of providing
emotional fulfillment, nourishment, and rejuvenation of themselves, so they were forced
to turn to people for encouragement of love. Looking outward towards relationships with
people for loving relationships is great but it outcasts you from feature portions of your
personal talents because you cannot produce premiere sources of self-nourishment. His
life was similar to an uprooted table with only three legs. He always needed the help of
others to keep him emotionally upright. The way I dealt with this was by turning off my
reaction to system to him. Instead of interpretatively picking up on and complying his
strong, underlying grasping for emotional support and guidance, I discarded them. I
forced him to look towards himself for self-encouragement by not fulfilling his
underlying efforts to control the conversational to supply him with implantations of
emotional satisfaction. We endured lots of “blank” conversations, where very little
emotional exchange was occurred, because the bulk of his typical conversations involved
raking positive emotional sensations from the other person. I disallowed this, and he had
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to undergo a strongly introspective time of being angry at me (to the point where he
thought I was pompously turgid) questioning his own belief system, and finally liberating
himself to emotional self-sufficiency.
The
Directly-
Aligned
Intuition
hen our intuition is questioned for spiritual guidance, it is usually right on the
W
money. However, for more practical advice, it’s abstract gestures are
sometimes too vague for general advice or rational, planned out guidance.
Most intuitive advice lacks a concrete strategy, and is, instead a blurry
amalgam of inspirational wisdom that is rejuvenating but not ideal for
developing a long-term initiative for planning. Directly-aligned intuition
solves this problem because it is the convergence of your planning, scrutinizing, question
intellect with you emotionally abstract and genuine intuition. The combination of these
entities stimulates a clarifying internal voice that your can turn to for rational, spiritual,
and emotional guidance.
anyway?”, turn towards the directly-aligned intuition questions for fortitude. When we
ask ourselves directly-aligned intuitive questions, we find ourselves accessing the
planning and organization part of brain, which electrifies our physiology with a host of
chemicals and kinesthetic affects that have physically positive results. This activity
actually occurs in an entirely different lobe, primarily the frontal of the brain. By
accessing the directly-aligned intuitive questions, we activate this distinct region of the
brain, and use more intelligence in our endeavors. By simply asking ourselves the right
question, we, literally become smarter! We don’t even have to give a genius answer, by
inquiring the validating questions, we cause chemicals reactions in an area of our frontal
lobe of our brain, called “Broca’s area” which is used to for speech production. This area
would otherwise not have been activated and can now operate from more highly
stimulated brain functioning. When we activate the cognitive functions of the frontal
lobe, we become more logical. Meanwhile, or amygdala (located in temporal lobe, which
is above the ears) challenges and controls our social emotions. Stimulating our brain
through these empowering questions produces intensely thorough chemical and
physiological stimulations that aid you in the long run!
This shows us the physiological power of “problem solving” questions. More
specifically, directly-aligned questions. Being a tool utilizing your brain, directly-aligned
intuition is one of the most powerful utensils we have in creating an empowered validated
commitment to our life because it allows us to find passionate commitment and
motivation in the most difficult endeavors.
Even though directly-aligned intuition is a concept I have cultivated, it’s
conceptual roots are shared by many experts in the psychological field. Dr. David Burns,
a brilliantly trained and certified psychiatrist, and national best-selling author, who has
committed years of research at the University of Pennsylvania to cures and treatments for
depression, has a barrage and host of mechanisms that are intertwined with the concept of
directly-allied intuition.
One of these mechanisms focuses on aligning your internal reactions with their
external catalysts. Dr. Burns, in his self-help book, “Feeling Good: The New Mood
Therapy”, writes, “It can be very confusing when someone obnoxiously insists you do
something that actually would be to your advantage. This puts you in a ‘can’t win’
situation because if you refuse to do what the person tells you, you end up defeating
yourself just to spite her. In contrast, if you do what the person tells you to do, you feel
had”23. What this shows us is the inner conflict that can suddenly emerge just upon being
given good advice. In other words, if someone gives you soundly directed advice on
validating your life, you are inclined to reject this for ‘spite’, as Dr. Burns put it, which
forces you to disown the good advice. Disowning good advice isn’t authenticating at all.
However, if you utilize your intuition to create and acknowledge your own advice, you
initiate a resolution and avoid conflict. This is the crux of directly-aligned intuition. By
validating your own opinions and encouragements you initiate an internal alignment
where your intuition is directly harnessed for productive advice. This intuition can be
crucial to supplying the fuel for motivational endurance. Additionally using one’s
intuition is the most empowering solution because you don’t run into the problem of
taking up someone else’s good advice because you create the advice yourself. By
23
Burns, David. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. New York: Avon Books, 1980.
314 / Validate Your Life?
utilizing the validity acquired from a directly-aligned intuition, you are taken out of a
frustrating dilemma, and put in a ‘can’t lose” situation. Apply your intuition by asking
yourself deeply, “How can I make this situation better?” Then ask “How can I make that
solution even better?”, and finally ask “How can a effectively remedy this situation with
the best solution possible?”. Your intuition will chime in and provide a brilliant solution.
Dr. Burns also discusses self-fulfilling prophecy situation called the “fortune
teller error”. Where a person tells themselves that “If I continue working in this firm, I
will become depressed”, by continuing to work there they produce symptoms of
depression. Dr. Burns describes this misery as if someone is looking into a crystal ball
where “you imagine something bad is about to happen, and you take this prediction as a
fact -- even though it is unrealistic”. This type of behavior is exactly the type of
performance The Judge wants because it transforms unrealistic predictions into realistic
insults based on a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, the negative and detrimentally
harmful handiwork of the Judge can be countered by aligning one’s intuition by asking:
“Is thinking what I am thinking a valid or invalid thought?” If it is invalid, toss it. Such
a dismissal will free you of the Judge.
Choosing to not heed attention to fortune-teller errors and rejecting sound advice
could lead, inevitably, to the tarnishing of your experience. Such a bad reputation
happened to the famous Italian political theorist, Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavelli
became so poorly respected before and after his death at 58 years of age -- to the point
where a corrupt government became known as a Machiavellian government – not
because of who he was, which was a political genius and brilliant patriot, but because of
his reputation. Machiavelli’s life-long goal was to have the Florentines unite Italy, which
is why he worked for Cesare Borgia (whom Machiavelli thought to be corrupt). He
sacrificed his own values for the sake of the possibility of furthering Florentine unity,
which seriously illustrates his patriotism. Machiavelli was a diplomat for 18 years, but
the Medici’s, an extremely rich family, temporarily lost power in 1494. Spanish troops
helped the Medici’s regain power in 1512 (right after Martin Luther’s 95 Theses), and the
Florentine unity that he had hoped for didn’t occur. To get his hand back in the political
game, over 500 years ago, Machiavelli wrote “The Prince” in a fashion that he thought he
could subscribe himself to the Medici’s and they would respect him. The book stated that
princes must maintain absolute control over their territories even if this meant that they
must use deceit in their means, and was condemned by Pope Clement VIII. Jeez, how
corrupt do you have to get to have your writing condemned by the Pope!
The Prince said that a prince must have some vices to survive, when some virtues
could actually lead to his downfall. Other “Prince” tenets were that is more important to
be feared, but not hated (or risk being overthrown), than loved, stingy is better than
generosity, and being deceitful may be necessary. Avoiding hatred is simply
accomplished by not taking away people’s property. Machiavelli points out that people
will soon forget a death (a fear-inducing event) but hold grudges against the loss of
property (a hatred-producing event). Five virtues must always be displayed by the
successful prince, however, mercy, honesty, uprightness, humaneness, and religiousness.
These five qualities fill the social gaps and appease almost any social group that may
complain that he doesn’t have faith, humanity, rationale, loyalty, or compassion. If he
upholds all this, he will appear to be a supremely trustworthy being worthy of ruling. It
is important to note that what the prince shows and displays are preferably virtues, but he
19 The Directly-Aligned Intuition / 315
may need to carry out vices (such as inducing fear) to maintain power. The Medicis,
unfortunately, didn’t buy it, and Machiavelli’s reputation was erroneously tainted after
the malicious and corrupt logic of the “Prince” got out into the open, even though
Machiavelli himself didn’t abide by that manuscript. Nevertheless, it is a an important
piece of literature. The crucial point here is that Machiavelli’s reputation exiled him and
hid the important goals of Florentine Unity that he sought. For this reason, reputation
must be a upheld by heeding sound advice from any front.
Additionally, this will reveal more manipulation tactics of the Judge because you
would have side-stepped his negative use of self-fulfilling prophecies by validating your
directly-aligned intuition. After learning about the manipulation tactics of The Judge,
and how to stop, them you will be instantly cured of “Do-Nothingism”, a miserably
stagnant state described by the renowned Dr. Burns as an episode where inaction prevents
proactive results from occurring. “Do-Nothingism”, according to Dr. Burns, is a serious
self-fulfilling prophecy, where your intuition is put on mute and you simply do nothing.
The more you avoid taking action in anything, the higher likelihood of avoiding action in
the future. Do-Nothingism is a state created by invalid decisions (of not taking action, in
something as simple as even making dinner or walking the dog), which turn into self-
fulfilling prophecies but are guided by basic physics. This may sound outrageously
complex, but, in reality, it is simply good ‘ol Newton’s (remember the apple dude) first
law: An object in motion stays in motion; and an object at rest stays at rest. “Do-
Nothingism” restates the same thing as Newton’s first fundamental law of physics. I am
not pointing out some childish translation of an age-old principle on Dr. Burns part,
because most likely there are some fundamentals of physics and tenets of science that
overlap with validity, inner criticisms, validity forks, and the like. Science , however, is
not dismantling these concepts, but rather supporting them with a solid base of reasoning
and analytical proof. By learning the manipulation tactics of the Judge, you dismantle his
platform and create a more fundamental understanding of the fallacies and falsities of that
self-criticism and can simply obliterate it. You can take the valid decision, which is
learning how he programs you into depressed, inefficient, and useless states, and rewire
you thinking into a more perspective. bribe
Ronald Reagan was an expert at cultivating his authentic spirit by disowning Ego,
or the Judge. The Judge and Ego, you must remember, are distinct entities that subscribe
themselves to your emotional harmony by disrupting it. The social response to Reagan
was overwhelmingly wide-spread. He was said by President Bush to be a man that had
“grace from humility, confidence from conviction, strength from character, and humor
from wisdom”. I was elated when President Bush recognized these attributes in former
President Reagan because those four attributes are precisely the same magnificent results
what occurs when you disown the Judge. By relinquishing the depressing and criticizing
restraints of the Judge, you will be more aware of your own wisdom because the Judge
won’t be frustrated when you feel embarrassed, confused, or uncertain, because you will
simply make fun of it. Humor is a very powerful tool for giving yourself break,
relinquishing heaviness in a conversation, and producing a longer, more full life (Humor
that makes you laugh, scientifically adds years onto your life because of the reduced
stress levels).
Reagan’s grace was apparent by how easily he showed his errors and moved on,
learning from mistakes by realizing mistakes are non-existant, and elegantly coping with
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conflict. His strength, apparent in how charismatic and engaging his character was, and
his confidence were displayed in the execution of every element of his agenda as
president and as a human being. Admonishing and eradicating the debilitating
consequences of the Judge can only cultivate all of these incredible qualities of strength,
confidence, humor, and grace. With the Judge present, you simply don’t have the
opportunity to have the grace nor confidence nor humorous strength that some of our
greatest leaders and teachers possessed. Let’s relinquish the crippling bonds of the Judge
and soar to a character of memorable excellence. You will be revived by your tact to deal
with any situation – despite how challenging or difficult it is – and your friends and
family will be astonished at your uplifting transformation. People will be drawn to you,
because of your incredible characteristics, but you won’t even worry about this new
attention, because you won’t have the presence of the Judge dooming your freedom and
inhibiting your emotional liberation. You will feel a strong sense of validation when you
eliminate the Inner Critic.
your alignment of passionate goals makes such a pursuit more tangible by allowing your
to think of it as a bike race, long run, or other physical test of one’s self. Using an
“athletic” coaching-like perspective to personal, emotional, and intuitive growth, also
makes our accomplishments much more tangible. We know when we are building
muscle or when or tennis swing has improved or our running time has hastened because
athletics has a visible and tangible assessment of improvement. With emotional
development, it is difficult to find a “timer of our passion”, “scale for our intensity”, or
“strength training for our intuition”. For that reason, simply relating the tangibility of
assessing growth with athletics to emotions produces a nourishing evaluation system
where you can easily observe how much you have emotionally and intuitively grown! I
have found strong parallels between the pursuit of passionate goals and athletic goals
from running two marathons, competing in roughly a hundred running races, and
participating in multiple biathlons and triathlons. The similarities – profoundly
resourceful and to be utilized to the fullest extent – allow oneself to allot time for
passionate endeavors, which relinquish the strength to which you commit yourself to this
benign dance of scheduling enough time for physical, emotional, and spiritual things and
your actual dreams and goals.
Dreams and goals are what keep you fueled and keep you going through any race,
but they don’t allow us to mobilize our strengths. Strength comes from having outlined a
passionate agenda, followed it, and, having utilized a creation, let go of a new passionate
element to fortitude. By letting go of fortitude we can expand beyond our problems.
Take, for example, the conflict in Iraq. We relinquish rational restraint and send
our young Americans into the fighting fray, hoping to help this country that is reluctant to
external aid and conveys their dislike in pugnacious ways – killing many of our own
Americans. This outwardly gestures represent our over-polite attitudes towards the state
of other countries. We must turn off our sensitivity to other country’s struggles, because
when we don’t, we cash in our troops and endanger the livelihood of America, just
because we feel like we must “care for the wounded”. By de-sensitizing ourselves from
other nation’s disorder, discomfort, or overbearing comfort, we can choose to act and
send in troops from a rational decision instead of an erratic emotional response that ends
up killing our troops by thousands when the obligation to a war doesn’t even exist.
Avoiding obligations to fight or immerse our country in a war should be a top
priority, but it seems as though we dance with other country’s problems for the sake of
curing them, healing them, and being this political doctor for handicapped governments
and fraudulent corruption. But this not only isn’t our fight, it isn’t even our game. We
were brought to this land as refugees ourselves, running from the British hand. We didn’t
have some external and enormous superpower lend us arms and give us a hand in our
independence. No, we earned it through toil, blood, war, and finally diplomacy and the
writing of our constitution. However, this was not as important as the internal
contributions made by the collective whole of the nascent Americans. By aligning
ourselves with unity, our passions were brought together, making the genesis of this
country all the more inspirational and collectively driven towards a common goal.
Because all Americans – and only Americans – earned the independence of the United
States were are more American for the endeavor. Our national blood – stronger, more
enriched, and more experienced – ties us together in a national kinship that could only be
produced by overcoming defiance in independence. This belligerence – which was
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endeavored during the breaking of our British bonds in the 18th century – was not
worthwhile for the sake of conflict and battle, but for the sake of the experiential learning
and discover produced by the selfless process of removing anonymity from ourselves.
When we broke free of Britain, and claimed our independence, we gave birth to the
name, American, and abolished slavery from the chains of anonymous conformity in the
British homeland.
When we try to lend our massive military support to other’s endeavors, we not
only disfavor ourselves, but we jeopardize integrity of the country we are supposed to be
supporting by not allowing them to go through the tumultuous, but vital, learning
experience of overcoming poverty, famine, totalitarianism, dependence, and any of the
other crippling states of interaction. When we lend a hand to other countries, they
immediately lose the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, overcome obstacles
together, and uproot an opportunity for harmony. We must savor our own conjugality by
supporting the intrinsic expansion, which arises from removing ourselves from
unsupportive environments and nurturing our own goals and aspirations from an internal
agenda of abolishing curriculum for the sake of independent governance. When such a
hierarchy is gone, the eradication of such a dilemma, as deciding to help another country
or not, will not be present because the issue will never enter our decision-process.
Overall, the affect will be a soothing recognition of our own achievements, combined
with an intrinsic passion to further our own agenda – be it helping another country,
boosting economy, aiding public welfare, etc – but the primary instantiation will be
the creation of a new testimony for superb self-reliance, where we take action not out
of obligation, but out of the sake of personal commitment and collective achievement.
By inducing a fragile infrastructure, simply for the recognition of aiding another
country like Iraq, the internal damage that could, potentially, have affected the country
permeates into an exuding array of unrelenting multitudinous factions that probe and
destroy the countries congruent framework. By eliminating such an apartheid of
problematic deceit, we create the opportunity for congeniality and togetherness with a
realistic framework for creativity and compassionate fortitude beyond unredeemable
boundaries. Stepping beyond these self-implanted parameters allows us to deceive our
fears, and relinquish our hesitancies into a formal and organized structure of congruent
cohesiveness and strength that steps into our intuitive path, designating our life from a
poignant source, constantly spiritual aligned, and always moving towards the greater
good. Like the unmoved mover, that – in its pristine immutable perfection – draws others
forever towards it – this spiritual alignment suffices to supply one with all the direction
needed to cultivate incredible meaning in one’s life. Just as it is explicitly stated in the
“Tao” we must hold on to the core to access that incredible source of direction. To more
easily focus on this center, being aware of the elements (or poisons) that distract us from
that center can be vitally crucial. Let’s look at the many poisonous distractions that rip us
from our revitalizing center: greed, hatred, and delusion.
The three poisons, of greed, (the rooster; lobha), hatred (the snake; dosa), and
delusion (the pig; moha) are fascinating. Avoiding the poisons will provide you with a
neutral state, avoiding bad karma. However, to actually create move from a neutral to a
19 The Directly-Aligned Intuition / 319
positive state and create good karma, allowing one to practice a more “advanced” form of
the four types of rebirth, you have to practice the opposite of the poisons, selflessness (a-
lobha), kindness (a-dosa), and wisdom (a-moha). The simplification of the religion with
the numbering of the four noble truths (suffering, suffering arise from desires, suffering is
ceased by detaching oneself from desires, and freedom from suffering is attained by
following the 8-fold path) makes it seem so organized and tangible. The Christian Bible
is very comprehensive but, in a way, lacks some of the crispness of the numerical
breakdown in Buddhism. One isn’t better than the other, just different ways of
organizing the faith. The almost symmetrical balance of Buddhist ideologies and the fact
that there exist thangkas, which encapsulate most of the entire Buddhist “Bible”,
including three poisons, the six worlds, 12 interdependent cause and effects, the Buddha,
and bodhisattva to name a few, is so comprehensive. Because it kind of shows
similarities between the seven deadly sins. However, these sins seem to be more deadly,
concise, and pertinent because some of the Christian “poisons” are redundant; it seems
like one sin could encapsulate multiple ones. For example, greed and gluttony, and lust
could just be greed, simplifying the description of the poisons. This is not disrespecting
the religion, but just emphasizing the strong and weak points in any organized
denomination of any religion. It is vital to note that those Three Buddhist Poisons and
Christian’s Seven Deadly Sins are, respectively, poisonous and deadly to YOU! You
experience the doubt, the obesity, the depression, and the negative side effects from those
destructive tendencies!
The differences in Western and Eastern concepts of esteem and brain dependency
are fascinating. The idea of low self-esteem may not even exist in Eastern cultures: “for
the Dalai Lama, the very concept of low self-esteem is unknown; Eastern cultures, where
‘self’ is a very different construct than in the individualistic West, there may not be such
a problem” (6). In contrast, there have been countless best sellers in America that
emphasize improving self-esteem, when in some Eastern religions; such a concept doesn't
even exist. The concept of the Western “Mind” is a property of consciousness that
depends on the brain. In contrast, Tibetan theory “postulates a subtle consciousness not
dependent on the brain”. Some of these "super consciousness" states may be attainable
by advanced meditation and can be used for “lucid dreaming or conscious dying”(6).
Could you imagine even advanced Tibetan meditation opened mental doorways to
walkthrough your dreams or die and then be reborn as if a "near-death" experience was as
simple as taking a walk the grocery store. If some of the super consciousness powers
awaken new dimensions of the brain, Tibetan or Eastern thinking could lead to huge
changes in neuroscience.
Regarding the merging of Western and Eastern science, “the bridges that can be
built between Buddhism and modern life science, particularly the neurosciences, are
notoriously difficult to engineer”, says Daniel Goleman. They are “gentle Bridges” as
Jeremy Hayword would undoubtedly refer to them -- gentle bridges between faith and
science. Every bit of “hard core science” has a basis of faith, and vice versa. Even the
most scientific physicists must have a dollop of non-evidence-based belief here and a
smidgen of faith there because some of the components they study, when they get down
to the “Quark” level, are not observable by the human eye. Instead of relying on the
precision of their instruments – electron microscopes, detailed measuring devices – they
must base their calculations of the most miniscule particles on the precision of their faith;
320 / Validate Your Life?
integrity of their belief. From the opposite angle, many of the doctrines of faith require
scientific methodology to express them. The three poisons, four noble truths, and eight-
fold path of Buddhism, for example, exemplify the usage of numerical organization in a
scientific manner to outline fundamental aspects of a Buddhist lifestyle.
The emphasis on anger – productive anger – was extremely interesting and
insightful. Even though he says anger is something generally to be rejected, except when
the motivation for anger is compassion. “The anger may be a component on your
spiritual path, but this is not ordinary anger. In this type of anger, which his aroused by
compassion, the mind does indeed become rough, but it has no malice, no intent to give
harm. In other words, there is no element of hatred” (173). So in a way, an this special
type of anger is a specific – a rough and aggressive -- type of compassion. Compassion
definitely comes in all shapes and sizes! We must ensure that we are compassionate
emphasis is intertwined with directly-aligned intuition. Combining ephemeral time with
directly-aligned intuition always promotes and incredible resolution of peaceful
certainties, bridging the gap between disillusionment and salvation through validation!
Next we’ll learn to examine the world, people, and problems as distinct objects. This
perspective prevents cluttering, “stickiness” of problems, and allows us to use all of our
skills – like creating our style, the PJS, accessing inner verisimilitudes, honing our
contemporary essence, respecting emotional distance and engagement, and cultivating
our personal religion to name a few – in a lucidly clean and direct framework called
“computational problem solving”. This procedure places everything in a bubble that
allows you to access only as much as you want or as much as you can handle – it gives
complete problem-solving control by eliminating complexity of problems that “feed of
each other” or exacerbate each other because it resolutely creates compartments around
problems, placing them in a sterile bubble for effective problem-solving. This chapter is
the perfect closing to all of these skills for validation, empowerment, accessing our
intuition, and emotional management because everything else we have learned involves
deep internal analysis, question, and intuitive personal nourishment. Computational
problem solving places everything in the physical, emotional, and spiritual world in a
tangible framework, so you can easily apply these concepts in a grounded framework for
passionate authenticity.
Chapter 20
Computatio
nal Problem-
solving
his chapter converges the burgeoning technology of computer programming with
T
a unique approach to problem-solving. By integrating problems as objects,
similar to a computer programming interface, the residual emotion is instantly
removed from any problem. Residual frustration, anger, worry, or nervousness is
immediately eradicated and the problem because simply a matter of following a
step-by-step execution of a predetermined process. You can transform any
mystifying or doubt-instilling problem into a clear solution by applying the dynamic
psychological technology of computational problem-solving.
“Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by
weight.”
--Bill Gates
Lesson 1: Objects
Thinking about real-world problems or objects with the mindset of “state” and
“behavior” is so crucial because, it allows you to objectively (sorry about the unintended
pun) break up problems and find solutions by addressing the individual components.
Instance methods are the specific actions, or behavior, that an object, a bicycle in
this case, can use to inspect or change the sate of a particular instance. Most objects are
packaged with their instance variables (state) in the center, like a nucleus, surrounded by
the methods, or behavior. Actually, thinking of an object as a biological cell is fantastic.
The center nucleus contains blueprints and details of the object’s current condition
(state), which is similar to the nucleus. Continuing with the cell analogy, the methods
that change the state, or nature of an object, would be similar to the Golgi complex,
mitochondria, and membranes in the surrounding cytoplast! The cell-like method of
surrounding the state with the behavior is called encapsulation.
Encapsulation is the most ideal representation of an object because it “protects”
the variables. In some instances, you may want to display some of the variables. The
level of access to an object’s variables can be adjusted with four different levels of
security. The access level determines which other objects and classes can access that
variable or method. The encapsulation process of combining methods and variables into
compact bundles aids in modularity and information hiding.
Modularity: Modularity is simply a state of preparedness. If an object is
modular, the source code for an object can be easily passed around the system and can be
independently maintained. Example: A modular bicycle can be repaired without
interactions with other bicycles and can be transported to friend easily. If the object will
“fall apart” if moved, or if it relies on other objects heavily and is “stuck” in the program,
it is not modular. Encapsulation makes your objects modular because it makes the
messages and components of the object less likely to fall apart. Modularity is the
absolute crucially vital key to making problems into objects that are easy to manipulate
not “sticky” and complex (creating more problems or clinging to more problems).
Information Hiding: Information hiding is simply a quality of “needing to know
only what your need to know” for an object to work. An object has a public interface,
what allow other objects to interact with it, and it can maintain private information
without inhibiting other objects that depend on it. An example is you can still pedal your
bike (public behavior) without knowing how the gearshift works (private instance
variable). All in all, objects are crucial to programming and essential to understanding
your life as a more complete, encapsulated, and modular person. Running in the process
of encapsulation requires modularity because this makes the object self-contained, but
information hiding his crucial for revealing states. Some states should remain hidden and
trying to ensure they are concealed unless the time is ripe can be a huge problem-solver
in itself. When people reveal emotions that they didn’t intend to or didn’t want to
express or show, problems can quickly arise. By creating a source of certainty based on
knowing that your are in control of what you want to share makes it less likely for your
feelings to be hurt. Additionally, it is much more empowering to know that you not only
can control and create what you feel, but choose what you want to show you are feeling!
324 / Validate Your Life?
Lesson 2: Classes
Once you understand objects, classes are easy. Classes simply define a type of
object. If a group of similar objects have bunch of similar states and behaviors, and allow
you to apply those default states and behaviors to a new object automatically (saving you
time), they can be partially described by a class. Classes are the blueprints for an object.
To create a bunch of surfboards, you don’t need to create a new blueprint (class) to create
each one. Instead you use a common blueprint (curvature, material, and shaping default)
and add to that standard. Each surfboard is an instance from the “surfboard” class, but
each of these objects’ instance variables (number of fins, tail shape, nose shape, length,
and width) produce different surfboard instances. Applied to bikes, this is what a class
vs. Instance of Class relationship would be like:
This is taken from the Sun web site, and those guys most certainly know their
Java programming – they designed the language. As you can see the common methods,
called class methods, of each bike: breaking, changing gears, and changing cadence and
the common instance variables, called class variables, of each bicycle’s state: number of
gears=18, are carried over (like a blueprint) in each new object instance). Currentgear and
currentspeed, are of course instance variables specific to each bicycle object. Real-world
classes (blue print for a surfboard) are dramatically different from real-world objects (an
actual surfboard), but there is a fine line between software classes and objects, so a
concrete understanding of them is crucial.
Lesson 3: Messages
Messages are the way objects communicate with each other. The way you
develop an amazing program is not with one object but by having multiple objects
sending information to each other. A surfboard, alone, is just a dusty piece of driftwood,
but by sending messages to it (paddle, stand up, turn, etc) you interact with it and can turn
it into an artistic outlet, incredible spectacle, and wave-riding machine.
To properly send messages, you need to supply three components:
1. The name of the recipient object (YourSurfboard)
2. The name of the method to perform (bottomTurn)
3. The name of the parameter needed by the method (rightTurn)
That’s it, supply those three components, and you would have successfully sent a
message to your surfboard! What’s cool about software messages, is that they can
20 Computational Problem-Solving / 325
interact with each other even if the objects are not on the same machine. Now, we
have to try actually getting soaked, beating the waves, and turning a floating piece
of fiberglass on an actual ocean!
Lesson 4: Inheritance
Lesson 1: TCP/IP
The internet is a huge network of computers, organized by routers, and connected
to each other through various telephone lines, cable connections, T1, and T3 lines. To
manage the delivery of data throughout this entire network, an interface was developed.
326 / Validate Your Life?
well and ensures that Internet data (called “packets”, where local computer data are
transmitted as “bytes”) are transmitted and received correctly.
Technology is fantastic, but is it making our relationships to techno-focused?
Author of the High-Tech Touch, John Naisbitt, says that a cell phone or Walkman on the
beach makes hearing the waves a sidebar. A laptop on vacation connects you to work,
but distracts you from the experience of being away from work” (Naisbitt 21). When
technology overwhelms our lives, it is time to take a step back, which is why I only go
into minor detail of these Internet protocols. However, technology is an incredibly
powerful tool, and we should use it as a tool to leverage our success, not debilitate our
vacation!
Lesson 2: IP
Now that the assurance (making sure that data gets sent and backup plans for what
to do if it doesn’t reach a recipient) is set in place thanks to the transmission control
protocol (TCP), described in the above section, the actual business of sending data has to
be addressed. The uninventive misnomer, Internet Protocol, or IP accomplishes the
protocol for this job. The Internet Protocol is responsible for moving packets from node
to node (or from router to host through the wires connecting the Internet). Just as there is
postal code for addressing mail (street address, city, state, zip, and country) used to send
mail anywhere in the world, there is an Internet code for addressing Internet packets.
This Internet packet (just another word for “envelope”) addressing is based on an IP
number, which is “4 byte address” (or 32 bits) for sending information from computer to
computer. This is just a way to identify a computer on a very large (the Internet)
network. On a smaller local network, like a LAN, for example, computers are identified
by a Media Access Control (MAC) address, which is a 6 byte address composed of letters
and numbers found on network to identify any node. The MAC address is found on any
network computer and has nothing to do with Macintosh computers (even though it
should because Macintoshes are fantastic!) For the Internet, however, we are concerned
with IP addresses. Each computer has a unique “4-byte address” or IP number composed
of 4-12 digits. This IP number is globally unique, meaning that there is no other IP
number like it on this earth (makes you feel as though you stand out, huh?). This global
uniqueness ensures a consistent communication between different protocols, routers, and
other transmission barriers. This 4-byte address stuff, might need some explaining.
Just as the ancient Mayans, Aztecs, and Egyptians had different number system
and a base (base-2, base-20, etc), so do computers have different number systems. The
computer uses a base-16, or hexadecimal number system (or a base-2 of 0’s and 1’s on
the bit, most fundamental level) , to count. We, using a base-10 number system, only,
obviously enough have 10 digits. The extra six digits for a computer number system are
letters. A, B, C, D, E, and F become the digits, 11-16, in hexadecimal. So the “four-
byte” address in IP addressing is a series of four digits each with two available “spaces”.
The two spaces are defined by a byte, which only allows two digits. This may be
confusing, but each byte in hexadecimal is really 8 bits. Think of how a single “10” in
our number system is really 10 ones, well, in hexadecimal, a single “byte” is really 8 bits.
It all makes perfect sense if you think, like a computer, in hexadecimal.
328 / Validate Your Life?
Just as the maximum digit in the first tier of a base-10 number system is 99 (or 1-
(10 times the base-number, 10), the maximum digit in a base-16 number system is 255
(or 1-(16 times the base-number, 16). 256 is the start of new, tier, so the highest number
in the preceding tier is 255. So the largest number in a “four byte” addressing system
would be 255.255.255.255.
So each host has a unique four-byte address, which every computer on the internet
has (just as every house has a street, city, state, zip, address), which is used by the
internet protocol. You should think of IP as the UPS. They’re both acronyms for a
delivery system, and they both have protocols. One has stamps, dates, and envelopes, the
other has gateway machines, four-byte addresses, and data packets. A socket would be
equivalent to a post office or mailbox, because they provide all the subroutines and
functions for TCP/IP on almost all systems. You can have delivery system complete with
stamps, postage, and envelopes, but with no way to connect to that system (like a post
office or mailbox) there is no way to send the mail. In the Internet, just remember that
the networking “mailboxes” that hold all of the protocols for delivery are called sockets.
So IP communicates between computers anywhere in the world based on IP
numbers (or “computer” cit-state-zip address). It also does some of the stuff that TCP
can do, like report errors and fragmented (which is just a fancy word for separated)
datagrams (another word for “packets”). Unique to the Internet Protocol is the ability to
reassemble the datagrams and actually route them to computers. TCP is kind of like
postal service system that allows the senders to write mail and mailers to send it, and the
Internet protocol, is kind of like postal truck that actually delivers the mail – it can
reorganize mail on a small level and find errors in the mailing process. The most
important thing, however, is the IP address, which is why I went into so much detail in it
earlier.
The IP address, as you, know is a 4-byte address, but each of these bytes mean
something different. The bytes display one of three parts of the address: the network
address (like the city state, and zip), the subnet address (like the street that the recipient is
on) and the host address (like the actual street number address of the recipient). With
words like network, subnet, and host, the IP address components can be daunting, but just
by thinking them in terms of city, state, zip, street, and street number demystifies the
terminology. This IP address is you new Internet identity. Just as your house has a
global, physical identity, your computer has a global, network electronic identity. It is
much accessed much more often, much more quickly, and much accurately than your
physical, street address. Your computer address (IP number) is accessed by hundreds of
computers a day if you are just, an individual user. It is “pinged” -- kind of like knocking
on the door to see if anyone is home (and to check your response time for answering the
door) – by many other computers in order to communicate with your host.
Now the first part of the IP address, the “city, state, zip” part, or the “network”
part is divided into three parts. I know, the IP guys are really into “threes” when they
designed this protocol, it’s easy to remembering, though, if not boring because of
overuse. The three classes of network address are A, B, and C classes. Gotta love all of
the number/letter, crazy hexadecimal combinations, huh? Let’s dig into each individual
network class.
It is important to know about these classes because in doing so, you will know
which class you fall into, and from that information, know how your IP addressing is
20 Computational Problem-Solving / 329
limited or bounded. Additionally, you will be able to see which network classes other
IP’s and hosts are, enabling you to understand the size of their network location. Mainly,
however, when you send a letter, you want to know the city, state, and zip of where your
sending it! Your computer does all of this addressing behind the scenes using the
Transmission Control and Internet Protocols, but if there is a malfunction, or if you are
simply curious, you will have the knowledge to fix or amend a packet-transferring
problem. Additionally, with knowledge of the different classes, and IP numbers and
general, you, if you are a web designer, will be able to design a JavaScript that could
target only class A hosts (large companies) and have a certain JavaScript send
advertisements for more financially-affordable product to a better financial target --
smaller, or Class C networks, which support a couple hundred computers.
Now it looks like I am dividing the three network classes into financial classes –
of nobility, bourgeoisie, and peasant – but this is not the agenda. The three network
classes, A, B, and C, simply create different size constraints to how many hosts and
unique addresses can be assigned to the subnets and hosts. Think of a Class A network
Major cities: Austin, Texas, Sacramento, California, and Chicago, IL. These three areas
are only large in population – just as a Class A networks reflects a large number hosts –
around 16 million --, or a high population of computers in a certain area – and there high
population does not reflect anything else like economic class, social class, or educational
class, but only population.
The size of Class A, B, or C classes depends on how many bytes are reserved for
individual workstations. Class A networks, the largest class, use only the first byte as the
network address leaving three full bytes – 16 million different options – for assigning the
subnets and street address. This would be like a city with over 16 million homes to be
“assigned to” individual residents. A class A IP has the first byte constant and the next
three spaces as open variables: “network_address.x.x.x,” example “network_address.
203.29.199”.
A class B Network, composed of 64 thousand possible individual computers has the first
two bytes used for the network address and then the last to as subnet or host addresses.
An example of a type B address is “network_address.network_address.x.x,” example
“network_address. network_address.29.199”.
Finally, a Class C address, composed of couple hundred individual workstations,
uses the first three bytes as the network address and only leaves 8 bits, a single byte, for
the individual computers. An example of a Class C address would be “:
“network_address. network_address. network_address.x.”, example “network_address.
network_address. network_address.199”. Well that about sums it up for the three classes
of the network portion of the IP address. We only need to understand what subnets and
hosts are and we are all set. Subnets and hosts are much easier to understand and much
less complex than all of the class intertwined with understanding the network part of the
address, so if you’ve got the network component of the address down, the subnets and
hosts components will be a cinch!
The only network class that cannot have a subnet is Class C because it only has
one byte reserved, and this must be used for the host address. A Class B has one byte
reserved subnets and one for hosts, and a Class A has two bytes reserved for subnets and
one for hosts.
330 / Validate Your Life?
So by knowing the IP number of a host, and its Class you can recognize common
networks and pinpoint an individual host and its composite networks For example, if you
got a hold of a Yale IP address, say 130.132.204.7, you wouldn’t know if all Yale
network addresses were
130.*.*.*, or 130.132.*.*, or 130.132.204.*. However, by knowing that Yale is a Class B
network, you can recognize the network component of its IP number as 130.132. Now
whenever you see an IP number that starts with 130.132, you know it is a Yale
workstation. Subnet hosts are simply gateways from a large internal network to larger
networks or the Internet.
This type of knowledge is extremely useful from a web design point of view
because it will allow you to analyze web-counters with much more detailed feedback.
You will be able to tell who has visited your site, which organization they are from, and
if a certain organization frequents your site.
and the least number of router hops could very easily elapse more time than a path with
more router hops but better faster speed. Because of its indirect approach to transferring
data over the varying line speeds of the Internet, many systems have transferred to BGP.
I could take you through the evolution of EGP to BGP, but just know that EGP takes into
consideration line speeds, but doesn’t take into account router loops. BGP does both of
these – line speed metrics and router loop calculations – and, therefore, is the most
widely used protocol within IP. Just know that when communicating with an
autonomous system (an exterior network) Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Exterior
Gateway Protocol (EGP) are used. All of this know-how about communicating with
networks is great because we can apply to emotional communication. All emotional
communication has its own “protocol” and design, simply design your own and respond
to others. To all the ideas from the section above, of objects, classes, and messages,
together we learn about programming and problem-solving programming
through George W. Simply memorize that Kennedy was in presidency from ’61 to ’63.
Everyone knows that he was assassinated, so you can compartmentalize Kennedy with
his Vice President, LBJ, so you know that LBJ succeeded Kennedy. Then just know that
Nixon and Ford preceded Carter, in 1977, and that Reagan “owned” the 80s from his
two-term 1981-1989 presidency. Then just know the Bush, Clinton, Bush combo and that
Clinton “owned” the 90s with his 2-term presidency. See, it’s easy to compartmentalize
and remember things as objects when using mnemonic devices.
Now look at people as computer objects. This may appear degrading, but, in
actuality, the affect is clarifying. Executing communication between people from a
interface modeled after programming reveals itself as one of the most authentic methods
of communication because assumptions become entirely dissolved in this matter of
expression. You can eliminate problems of taking things personally and quickly
discover solutions to problems. These solutions can be lucidly arrived at with the idea of
objects, classes, messages, states, and behaviors because using a computational problem-
solving flushes out any personal issues. If you interact with people as though they are
computer objects, you do not deny their creative existence; instead, your honor it. When
you look at someone as a programming object with only two attributes – a state and a set
of behavior – you annihilate nuances that can lead to you taking something personally or
assuming something about the person that lacks validity. Everything becomes crystal
clear with computational problem-solving because all of one’s ambitions, personal
convictions, or their emotional moods are acknowledged, enhancing the intimacy of
communication. Most communicational “interfaces” assume too much emotional
baggage. If you meet some one at airport, you assume they’re in a hurry, and therefore
craft your communicational experience to be rushed and terse, rather than a more
meaningful interaction. Sure, you can input meaning into concise interactions, but the
fact that such an interaction, in the airport, is concise because of a possibly erroneous
assumption is an invalid form of communication. Whit this type of communication, you
don’t honor someone’s mood because you don’t ask them how they are feeling. If you
interact with the person as an object, you are forced to inquire about their state, and are
forced to genuinely relate to them in a field of clarity rather than obfuscating
assumptions. Then you can take the approach of learning about their actual feelings and
provide specific and relevant compassion.
I am not saying to relate to people as though they are a chair, or some inanimate
organism. Rather, my suggestion holds that people communications between human
beings should be looked at as interactions between entities that have a specific state and
specific behavior. Just as with computer objects, you can inquire people’s state by
sending a message to them. Now, a person’s state would be their emotional mood, their
motivations, their internal representational system, or their personal convictions modeled
after a role-model or self-inquiry. By looking at something with the simple
communicational interface of a programming language, people become objects with
addressed and unaddressed emotional states. With this compartmentalization,
assumptions and personal issues are completely eradicated. The simplicity from this
“programming” interface radically alters complex communicational problems with
people over sensitive issues into a simply, meaningful protocol for execution.
Take the procedure to effectively send messages to an object. To properly send
messages, you need to supply three components:
20 Computational Problem-Solving / 333
Intrepid paths, lionhearted challenges, and daunting victories are often considered heroic.
He is not a chivalrous hero of nobility, but my deeds are remarkably daunting and his
commitment, fearless. While he did slay the dragons, vanquish the demons, and court the
damsel, he is not a convential hero because he became the dragon, he transformed the
demons, and he was rescued by the princess. Because my treasure was not a potion of
immortality, but a coalescing elixer evoking our immortal spirit, the clearest
interpretation of what he is, is not a knight, but a superstar, devoid of nobility, but fully
nourished by compassionate respect for the energetic confidence of our human soul.
Then he evolved…
know how to read my friends without running from Fear. Fear has to do with belief –
too much of it – producing anxiety. Our malady was thinking we were a biological
machine that had learned to think, when, in reality, we are cognitive spirits that have
constructed a body. As an attempt to ameliorate my sickness of being frightened by a
mediocre, boring relationship, he emulated cookie cutters of successful business leaders
(Anthony Robbins, Breck Costin), well-known politicians, high-performance athletes
(Steve Prefontaine), and eminent actors (Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt) to conceal his
vulnerability and Fear. He feared anomaly and mimicked the prosperous indivuals as a
self-mutiliating reaction to the dissatisfaction toward my relationship with the I world I
percieved as opaque. He erroneously believed there was a single Ultimate Reality. This
encounter with Fear buried my invigorating essence and discombobulated his voice,
ennervated my vitality, kept him focused on the mundane needs but abolished the desires
and the dreams of our cellular network of intelligent consciousness.
Then he evolved…
He was a blind rebel who stressed about my perception of the world, preaching
about the chimera of freedom. Cycling Rage and hackneyed ideas over and over in
my existence, I wrote with resentment, acted from the simuli of pain. Rage is about
inflexible, myopic judgment – too much of it – producing compulsions. After utilizing
Fear, he became obstructed by Rage when he was blinded to see the meaning of an
experience is the experience. His conscience, now embracing anomaly, was ready to
change and had already transformed, but my brain, obstinate and opaque, clung to an
undistilled Ultimate Reality. Being an impersonating patient, turned blind rebel, he was
preoccupied with castigating the fallacies and limitations he witnessed in everyone except
my own self, while my own embodiment was steeped in layered doubt and caked in
superficiality. He inititiated conversations with great hostility without questioning, he
launched insidious and rancorously critical judgments without listening, and concealed
my reaction of equivocating belligerence with an masquerading web of cheerful malaise.
My attempt to be a spiritual savior was corroded with hypocracy, as he totally was
hounded by incessant anxiety and the paroxysmal rancor of Rage. Befriending Rage
blinded us to the suffocation of our own soul, and we understand that my irascibility
towards the world was really enmity towards my own conscience for being so hospitable
to Fear in the first place.