The search: In pursuit of knowledge every day something is added. In the practice of wisdom, every day something is dropped. he initial stage of dissatisfaction

This stage represents the man or woman who still doesn't know their true nature, but one way or another, has started the search. They wish to find it, though they are not even sure what it is, or how to recognize it when it does appear. Sometimes the search is used as an escape from present circumstances that are not pleasant or ideal. Life may be a heavy load and so the seeker asks the most basic question - surely, there must be a better way of living. Most of those that have started the "search" are at this stage.

An master carpenter was ready to retire. He told his boss of his plans to leave the house-building business to live a leisurely life with his wife.

His boss was sorry to see him go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but put no effort into it, and used cheap materials, and did not take good care as he built it. The house was poorly built.

When the master carpenter finished, his boss came to inspect the house. Then he handed the front-door key to the carpenter and said, “This is your house… my gift to you.”

When we honestly ask which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares about us in a deep way.

The interesting thing about people becoming dissatisfied with their lives is that we don’t arrive at it overnight; it’s often a very gradual process but within it, there is one universal ingredient that will always be present.

We ignore our true selves, the voice of our hearts, one little inconsequential moment at a time, but we soon learn that there are no inconsequential moments.

They add up like drops of water slowly filling a barrel.

A truth ignored will always eventually lead to a crisis, which means, within every crisis is a hidden truth that has been suppressed.

“If I dare to hear you

I will feel you like the sun

And grow in your direction.”

― Mark Nepo

The word manifesto has it’s origins from the Italian word manifesto, itself derived from the Latin manifestum, meaning clear or conspicuous. A manifesto is defined as a declaration of one’s beliefs, opinions, motives, and intentions.

It is at it’s heart a living document that a person or an organization creates to declare the guiding principals in which they wish the live inside of.

Destiny is not created in the victory lap. Breakthroughs don't happen at the ribbon cutting ceremony or at the bottom of a champagne glass.

Destiny

When I think of some of the moments in my life where a breakthrough happened for me, I realize they were often forged in the fires of doubt, shaped by the heartbreak of temporary failure or unplanned setbacks.

We create our destiny the moments we arrive at the place we have spent our whole life trying to avoid.

The place where insurmountable puzzles lay sphinx like in front of us, asking to be solved.

Luminous …emitting or reflecting light startling bright, inspiring radiant resplendent stunning splendid.

That sounds kind of nice… doesn’t it?

Luminosity, as I'll use the term, is about both an inner state of being which involves shining your light in a self-directed way with awareness and it’s also a way of choosing how to experience the world in a fully engaged way so that the actions you take and the doing you do are done with grace, in a relaxed yet focused way which gives you access to clarity.

The border you fear to cross holds the treasure that you seek to find

I've often thought that in a strange way, most of us are living with two identities

The safe identity, the mask we wear in daily life, and the secret identity inside of us, the mask we are dying to rip off, the life we yearn to set free, but feel somehow we can't for whatever reason.

Between the two stands what I call the gap.

People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel. The information age is presenting complex, challenging issues, and forcing us to look with new eyes at our world, and more importantly, at ourselves. The information age is the penultimate consumer, and what it consumes is not always obvious to people.

It consumes YOUR TIME AND ATTENTION. But if we don't keep our hearts and minds on the big picture vision for our lives, we can get lost down the rabbit hole of details and swept away by the minutia of a life of speed, endless choices and infinite distractions.

Walking along the coast on a night as dark as black ink, a man lost his footing, slipped down a cliff face, managed to grab hold of a branch and dangled there, desperately hanging on as the branch slowly began to give way.

There are two kinds of change challenges: Technical and adaptive.

How to do open heart surgery is a technical challenge. The skills and training necessary to do this are well known, and there is a direct path of time and training required if you want to become an masterful heart surgeon.

An adaptive challenge would be teaching a doctor how to develop a beside manner or develop the skills of empathy and caring to be able to handle the human elements of illness or disease, and also handle their own ability to manage the stress and difficulties of the job.

There is no exact path for that, and it's a more subtle art. You might have had the experience of how few doctors have developed that particular skill set, which is clearly a very important and often neglected part of our health care system. That requires a mind set and a state of being that is capable of understanding the complexities of the human experience.

To accomplish great things, we must not only dream but act. Not only plan but believe in ourselves.

Is there a simple way to improve our happiness? Yes.

I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly.

Never give up on yourself. When everything seems to oppose you as you are trying to create something new... please don’t give up because this is the exact time and place that the course will change.

Stop yelling at the movie, you ain’t never gonna change it like that. Go change the movie in the projector. You are the projector.

Contentment is possible right now. All we need to do is stop the unstoppable mind, the endless stream of thinking.