Doing so, however, can be a little harder than it sounds. First of all, if you’re not used to being a tender, loving person, it’s not going to come very easily, at least not in my experience. Second, being a generous person means more than simply dropping a dollar into a panhandler’s hat, holding doors for people, or letting a pedestrian cross when you’re driving down the street, although it certainly may involve doing those things.

This is because being kind to others must be accompanied by more than just good deeds. I’ve read from numerous self-help sources that you just have to be generous, and others will return your favors. But I’m finding that’s not always the case. Like a little kid dropping a quarter into a machine hoping to get a candy, I’m finding that the candy gets stuck somewhere and never makes it out of the machine. What is it that I’m missing?

Popular self-help books these days talk about intention-manifestation, and the Law of Attraction. They say that you create every aspect of your life experience with your thoughts, beliefs and expectations. If you expect others to be rude to you, they will be. If you expect the service to suck, it will. And bad things happen to you because on some level, you attracted them with your thoughts.

I’ve seen a lot of evidence from my own life, and from following the lives of people I know, that the Law of Attraction actually works. Like a young child experimenting with the Law of Gravity or the Law of Hot-stoves-will-burn-you, I haven’t played around with this law enough that I no longer question it. But I’m going to see if, in my quest to be a happier person, it might apply.

So, if I had full faith in the Law of Attraction, I would say that I’m not held in high esteem by others because deep down I’m afraid of them. I’m afraid that others won’t like me. I’m afraid that they won’t treat me well, that they may even try to harm me. And while I may perform generous acts, and things that on the surface appear to be considerate, I’m not doing them because I’m a genuinely kind, caring and loving person, but because I’m trying to manipulate others into admiring me and treating me with respect.

Being afraid of others has a number of implications. First, you can’t have a healthy relationship with something you’re afraid of. Any relationship that I have with anyone else is going to be tainted by fear - of ultimate abandonment and rejection. Second, you can’t respect other people if you’re afraid of them, because you don’t trust their intentions and expect them to eventually do something that harms you. Third, a fear of people can make virtually any kind of accomplishment or activity virtually pointless and it can really sap your zest for life. If people admire me, I see it as a threat and think it’s for the wrong reasons - so I fear success. At the same time, I fear failure, because nothing is worse than the thought of drawing the ire of people.

And that, surprisingly, sums up much of my life experience. I have been very much afraid and mistrustful of people, and that has kept me from becoming close to people. I’m not sure I have truly respected many people in my life, nor have I generally felt much of a zest for it. But on the bright side, I’m starting to see evidence that my fear is unfounded.

I’m beginning to realize that in most respects, other people are just like me. We think similar kinds of thoughts, and we all want the same things - to be held in esteem by others, and to generally be happy. Nobody really wants to be dysfunctional, rude, hurtful and unhappy. Everyone wants to be happy and everyone is capable of happiness, and happiness is somewhere inside everyone.

So from this point forth, I’m going to think differently. I’m not going to think that others are out to get me, or that their actions are harmful to me unless I take measures to protect myself from them. That doesn’t mean I’m going make myself a target for anyone wishing to vent their frustration, but it does mean I’m now thinking that the people in my life are polite, caring and generous. And my guess is that generosity is what I’m going to see, and the more generosity I see, the easier it will be for me to be generous.

I seem to be suffering from an ailment. A terrible ailment. Of the most puzzling variety. I would like to call it a “Time-Inconsistency Problem” (the term actually is sometimes used by economists) but such a name wouldn’t capture just how frustrating it is. Instead, I think I’ll go with the label “Alex-always-gets-himself-into-things-that-look-good-at-the-time-but-later-he-realises-he-didn’t-really-want-to-in-the-first-place-and-is-only-fooling-himself-by-thinking-he-does-but-he-doesn’t-know-how-to-get-out-of-them-because-it-would-be-messy”.

A recent example would be graduate school. It looks, on one hand, like I’m really into economics and want to go on in it and make a career in it. Back in the fall I applied to the best places in the country for economics grad school - Western, Toronto, UBC and Calgary (the last one I applied to mainly because it’s home). And a few months later, voila, I get into all of them, and with the exception of Toronto, all gave me funding to boot. A few days after having all these offers sitting on my desk, I get a big government envelope in the mail telling me I’ve got a $17,500 scholarship to do a Master’s program in economics next year.

So, feeling excited, I leap ahead and pick the school with the toughest program and best funding offer - Western - with, on the one hand, a great reputation for having good young profs, great graduate placement record with government and top American schools, and did I mention a total funding package (including the government grant) of over >$30K for what is basically a 10 month program? Well, this is just great, I’m doing something I love and here’s enough money to live comfortably while I’m at it. I’ve been getting around by bus for the last 4 years, so wouldn’t this be a great chance to get a car, a new desk and chair, and… isn’t this going to be wonderful!? I’m being paid to study!

Well, it was a great feeling for a few days until it gradually dawned on me that while I could accept studying for another year, I by no means “loved” it, and had no real intention to launch into an academic career unless I had no other options. Economics is interesting, logical, mathematical, but also very tedious, detailed and mind-numbing. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to pay attention in class, and my interest (and amount of effort I’m willing to exert to study) in the subject has been waning since the end of last school year. My “success” in getting into grad school and getting funding is in large part based on past performance, and not something that I may still be willing to keep up indefintely.

So where does that leave me? If I’m not sure I’m going to be happy going to graduate school, should I just fold my hand right now, throw my cards into the middle of the table and say “I’m out”, or do I continue on into something I probably won’t find enjoyable at all? If I jump ship now, my future becomes a lot less certain, whereas there’s some degree of security if I stay on board, even if the swaying of the ship is making me a little queasy.

I suspect I find myself in dilemmas like these because I’m not sure what I really want in the first place. Plus, (being honest) I tend to be very good at a lot of things, so many things I pick up, whether that be Music, or Science or Economics, I could potentially carry it forward into a successful career. The question generally isn’t IF I could be successful doing it, but would I be happy, and am I willing to exert the effort and make the sacrifices to do it?

A lot of times I feel like I’m leading people on. I act like I’m really interested in something when deep down I’d like to be anywhere else but there. Maybe it’s an addiction to needing someone else’s approval, not wanting to make them unhappy or disappointing them. But along the way, I just haven’t been honest enough, almost been afraid, to find out what I actually want. I don’t even know what I want right now… other than to avoid another dilemma like the one now sitting on my lap.

Earlier today, Steve Pavlina wrote a blog entry on whether we would all starve if everyone were to awaken to their life purpose. He concludes that should mass awareness happen, some combination of automation of menial tasks, the ditching of unnecessary tasks, and self-production (such as growing vegetables in your own garden) would avert any serious consequences and give more people more time and energy to become aware.

A few weeks ago, I was engaged in a lively debate with a friend over whether or not it was possible for everyone in the world to be like Steve Pavlina. Clearly, not everyone can be a blogger, writer or philosopher, pondering full-time about the ways in which we can improve our lives. Someone needs to be out there planting the wheat, shovelling the snow, and fixing the power lines. Someone… or something?

Few people would choose to do menial labour given the choice. But there are plenty of janitors, fast-food workers, maids, cashiers, etc. in the world, and the work they perform is valuable to our society as we know it. It may not be the most valuable work these people could be performing, however.

It is probably safe to say that it is nobody’s life purpose to clean someone else’s living room as an occupation. And even if it was someone’s life purpose, there aren’t enough of those people to perform all the cleaning services we need in this world. It IS someone’s life purpose, however, to invent new machines and technologies that CAN clean someone’s living room. In the last few years, we’ve seen things like automatic lawnmowers and vacuum cleaners on our local Costco store shelves. They may not yet perform the job as well as a human, but over time, they will improve, and if you don’t feel mowing your own lawn is worth your time and effort, such an investment may be worthwhile.

Cleaning a house, mowing a lawn, reparing a power line are all things that, given present technology, require a human being to perform, or at least to be present. It is not enough to program a machine on how to dust a fireplate mantel. Whatever is doing the job needs to use discretion. You can dust around some objects. Other items are more fragile, and you need to pick them up, and dust under them. You also need to dust with a certain technique so as to minimise the amount of dust going into the air, or falling to the floor. At present, a machine simply cannot handle all these technicalities. It doesn’t have that kind of discretion that only a human possesses. But given time, humans will start building machines capable of dusting, vacuuming and lawnmowing as well as humans can, if not better.

You might find it difficult to accept that machines can come anywhere close to possessing human-like intelligence. Maybe you find it scary, but more importantly, doesn’t seem feasible. Well, think about word processors. They’re always had spell-checkers built in, but they weren’t a fool-proof way to make sure your documents were up to scartch. For example, phrases like “I went threw it yesterday” would totally slip under the spell-checker’s radar. Later, grammar checkers appeared on the scene. Then, spell-checkers and grammar checkers became automatic, checking your spelling and grammar on the fly, as you typed (you used to have to finish your document, then manually start the spell checker, and go through every spelling mistake one-by-one). With each version of word processor, these spell and grammar checkers got better, so that now, they catch nearly all the mistakes. They are by no means perfect yet, but just imagine how much farther this technology might go in another 10 years.

Language translation technology is another example of how machines can embody certain aspects of human intelligence. Babelfish can translate most webpages into a whole assortment of languages. The translation isn’t close to being perfect, but it’s good enough that you can get the gist of what a website is about, even though it was written in Russian. Any task that a human can perform can generally be broken down into a system of rules and competencies. To clean a house, you need to know when you should vacuum, or dust, mop or wipe, what cleaning products to use, and what technique to use on different surfaces. You also need to know when to stop - when it’s clean enough. While it appears complicated, given enough time and effort, we can build machines that can embody many, if not most or all of the aspects of human judgement, technique, and competency required to clean a house. It’s just a matter of time (and how much people hate cleaning their houses) before you don’t even have to think about maintaining your house, because a machine gets to it well before it even enters your thoughts.
In fact, nearly every one of our menial tasks can likely one day be automated to such an extent. Our inventions are becoming increasingly intelligent, and their capabilities are ever expanding. There are plenty of people out there with the talent needed to invent and create these machines. Last night, I was at a pizza party where one of the people in attendance was a full-time lawn care professional in the summer, but he invents machines in the winter. He showed me numerous pictures of a small Caterpillar-like crane he invented. It is about the size of a compact car, with a large lever-like arm that can lift loads of up to 2000 pounds, and yet is just the right size that it fits on the back of a pick-up truck. He built it with parts he amassed himself. He also runs a business digging the trenches in which coffins are laid to rest. He invented a machine that does the digging, and yet can manoever gracefully in and around the tombstones at a graveyard, and inflicts minimal damage on the grass.

We all know someone who loves to work with their hands and build machines. A lot of these people are currently tied up doing work that is significantly less valuable than their greatest talent - envisioning and building the machines that, in the future, can automate nearly all the menial tasks we now perform, from cooking, to doing the laundry, to cleaning out the eavestroughs after every winter. So while it is nobody’s life purpose to perform menial labour, it IS someone’s life purpose to invent a machine to automate that menial labour. Our fully automated world might not come into being in the next 10 years, but it’s a definite possibility if more of us woke up to our true life purpose.

I donned my jacket, and walked to the convenience store, grabbed a couple of cans of tomato soup, and placed them on the checkout counter. The cashier and co-owner, a pleasant Korean woman who looked like she was in her forties, entered the prices into the register (99 cents each, for a total of $1.98), and then hit the “TAX” button. Since the sales tax where I live is 14% (6% federal tax, 8% provincial tax), my two cans of soup now cost $2.26, which is 28 cents more than I had planned

Now, being a student of economics, and having read the Canadian and Ontario sales tax codes (hey, I find it interesting), I know that nearly all grocery items, except sweets, chips and pop, are tax exempt. “Is there… tax on tomato soup?” I asked the cashier, my eyebrow raised in a high arch. She peered down at the cans and mumbled “Yes… groceries have tax, except milk and eggs”.

If this was a year ago, I probably would have argued with her on the spot, and if she didn’t relent, I maybe would have called the sales tax offices to report her and get my money back (I needed the soup badly enough to buy them anyways). But sometimes you have to consider what’s at stake, which in this case, is 28 cents. Sure, it’s not right of the cashier to charge tax on something that isn’t taxable, but there are only two reasons I can think of for her doing so:

• She honestly doesn’t know all the tax rules, which are overly complicated anyways. If she’s ever been audited, she knows how stingy the tax people are, so better to overcharge customers slightly than to be dinged for extra taxes by the auditors because she wasn’t careful.

• She needs the money, and I didn’t look like I’d miss 28 cents.

I can’t really blame her for either reason. In reality, I really wouldn’t miss 28 cents. I don’t shop at that convenience store everyday, and even if she ripped me off 28 cents every week, that would hardly add up to $5 by the end of the school year. I’ve definitely blown $5 on things far less worthy than helping out a struggling convenience store.

Earlier this week, I was handed back an assignment on which I should have received a mark 6% higher than I had, because the grader misread what I wrote - which I know for certain was correct, because the professor went over the assignment in class. But before I entertained any thought of appealing it, I reminded myself that this assignment was worth 2.5% of my total term mark, and 6% was a small fraction of a small fraction of my year end average. Besides, you don’t win or lose life based on miniscule margins (and when you do, it’s not a big victory). But I would regret it if at the end of my life, I spent far too much time chasing unimportant causes (like getting back my 28 cents in taxes I shouldn’t have paid), and too little time on what really mattered - my friends, a fulfilling relationship, and work that excited me. The true cost of anything is how much life you give up while pursuing it.

My parents, being Chinese, have always instructed me never to save money on food. That doesn’t mean they want to see me buying caviar every week, but they do want me to be well fed and eating foods that I like. Depending on your circumstances, you may or may not need to keep your grocery bills down, but there’s a good reason to trim your grocery costs regardless of your financial situation - a lot of food that you buy probably sits languishing in the back of your fridge, the bottom of the crisper, or in an obscure corner of a cupboard. Eventually, it might go to the food bank if it’s non-perishable, but a lot of it is simply wasted.

Avoiding waste is a perfectly good reason to try to save some money on your groceries - and so is saving money because you’re simply cash-strapped. Let’s examine how you might go about saving money on food without starving or eating clearance-bin potatoes every night of the week.

First, make sure you’re shopping in the right place for your situation. If you’re buying a lot of food from variety/convenience stores, consider getting the same foods from grocery stores instead whenever possible. I once had a roommate who was worrying everyday about his money situation, yet he made frequent trips to the corner variety store for chips, pop and frozen convenience foods, all of which were available at the grocery store for 30% cheaper.

So imagine you’re shopping at your local grocery store, supermarket, or farmer’s market. You’re finished, and about to go checkout. Your bill might be, say $80 if you checked out. Now, try this: make one quick trip around the store, and lop $5 off your bill without making yourself feel shortchanged.

That might involve putting some things back on the shelf that you wouldn’t miss a whole lot, like a six-pack of pop, the gum or magazine you grabbed near the checkout, or the English muffins you know you won’t eat. But sometimes all you need to do is swap a name-brand jar of pickles for a store brand, or exchange the 3-ply box of tissues for a 2-ply box (do you really need 3 plies of tissue?)

The items that you put back tend to be ones that you only marginally want anyways. It may be nice to have them, but you may not even notice they’re missing. Likewise, if you exchange a name brand item or a generic one, you’re probably indifferent to any variations in quality between the items, if there is one at all.

It helps, when you’re buying groceries, to use the Equimarginal Rule, which comes from Economics. All the Equimarginal Rule says is this: Make sure that the benefit you get from the last dollar you spend on each item is equal. WHAT THE DICKENS DOES THAT MEAN!?

Kindly permit me to foray into Economic Theory for a moment. There is no math, and no graphs are involved. Take a deep breath, and let me explain. Economic Theory suggests that the typical, rational person, let’s call him Jim Bob, spends his money this way: he will spend his income such that he is as well off as possible. Obvious, right? What it also implies, however, is that the last dollar he spends on one item brings him the same amount of well-being as the last dollar he spends on any other item. In other words, if Jim Bob spends $100 on chocolate, and $10 on gum, he enjoys the last dollar’s worth of chocolate exactly as much as he enjoys the last dollar’s worth of gum. Why does it have to be this way? Because if Jim Bob enjoyed the last dollar’s worth of gum more than the last dollar’s worth of chocolate, he should buy more gum and less chocolate, until he enjoys equally the last dollar spent on either one. You might now know why economists call it the “Equimarginal” rule. That’s because at the margin, that is, at the very last dollar you spend on a product, the benefit you get from the last dollar spent on any product should be equal.

Jim Bob should be examining every item that he buys using the same criteria. If the last dollar he spent on concerts didn’t make him as happy as the last dollar he spent on beer, he should buy more beer, and attend less concerts, until he is just as happy spending his last dollar of income on either item. At the point where he has spent all of his income, and enjoys equally the last dollar spent on every item he’s bought, he is as well off as possible, and can’t possibly do any better, unless he increases his income, there are changes in the prices of the products he buys, or he pulls off a jewellery store heist. That’s it for Economic Theory - see, that wasn’t so painful, was it?

Now consider the following example: If you spend $8 on a package of 3-ply tissues, but you could get a 2-ply package for just $6, and you’re indifferent between 2 or 3-ply tissues, then the last dollar (in fact, the last 2 dollars) that you spent on 3-ply tissues didn’t bring you much benefit at all. On the other hand, $2 might buy a pound or two of your favourite fruit. In that case, the last dollar spent on fruit brought you lots of benefit.

Using this principle, you can evaluate your purchases from the point of view of how much benefit the last you spend on each grocery item brings you. If you wouldn’t miss a $1 package of gum, or a $3 six-pack of pop, you’re really not getting all that much benefit from them, and it makes sense to expel them from your cart. That magazine on the rack beside the cashier might look interesting while you’re waiting in line, but if you’re going to throw it onto the backseat of your car and forget about it, don’t bother buying it. If the quality difference between name brand and generic label laundry detergent isn’t significant from your point of view, don’t spend the extra money on the name brand, and buy something else that you’d enjoy with the money you save.

Even with foods that you really enjoy, there are limits you should observe. For instance, peaches are my favourite fruit. But that doesn’t mean I want to eat 10 of them in the next week. I might enjoy 3 peaches this week, but when it came time to eat the 4th before it goes rotten, I might feel like I’m forcing myself to eat it. In that case, I shouldn’t buy any more than 3 peaches, because the 4th peach brings no benefit to me (in fact, it makes me worse off).

By making sure that you get the most of the last dollar you spend on any grocery item, you’ll spend less on your groceries, and waste less food. It all comes down to doing a bit of thinking before putting placing things in your cart. Considering the environmental costs of producing and shipping food to every grocery store, and the millions of underfed people on other continents, it only makes sense to buy only what you can reasonably eat and enjoy in a week. At the very least, you’ll save money for clubbing

It’s gotten to the point where I find sleep to be the number one problem holding back my personal development right now. The reason is simple: how good I feel every day is a dice roll. I might be well-rested, I might not. I hesitate with committing myself to morning activities because I’m not sure I’ll be able to make them. Sleep is an area of my life that I almost dread, which is far from its intended purpose - to help me feel refreshed every morning, to improve my health, and bolster all the other areas of my life. Yes, I am a student, but that is no reason to have a messed up sleep schedule that I’d be better off without.

Sleep generally isn’t a matter of life and death - you won’t die from lack of it - but it can make all the difference to your energy, health and motivation. Having restful, refreshing sleep each night gives a boost to all the things you do during the day. Everything in your life automatically moves up a notch or three when you’re sleeping well.

So how do you go about sleeping better? In my case, I’ve been having trouble sleeping due to a combination of lack of discipline and anxiety. I haven’t been keeping a strict sleep schedule, and I am usually nervous about not being able to fall asleep - a very self-fulfilling prophecy. From all the reading I’ve done on the internet about sleep, I’ve found the following advice to be most sensible:

1. Wake up at the same time everyday. Don’t sleep in on the weekends.

2. Sleep only when you’re tired and you’re confident you can fall asleep quickly - within 15 minutes. In other words, don’t keep a fixed bedtime. You may, however, set a time when you’ll go to bed regardless of whether you’re tired or not (say, 5 hours before waking up).

3. Avoid stimulating activities before bedtime. This includes working, exercising and surfing the internet. Light bedtime reading shouldn’t be a problem.

The philosophy behind this routine is as follows: When your body gets accustomed to waking up at the same time every day, it will automatically get tired each night at just the right time so that you get the right amount of sleep. It will likely take a few days for your body to get adjusted to this sleep routine, but the potential benefits are worth the effort:

• Spend less time in bed, because you’re not fruitlessly trying to sleep when you’re not tired. Saving just half an hour a day in bed adds up to about 180 hours a year (which is equal to four and a half 40-hour workweeks!)
• Feel refreshed and well-rested everyday because you get just the right amount of sleep every night
• Be able to make early morning commitments and be absolutely certain of keeping them

Naturally, I’ve had my share of doubts and fears about this sleep routine. What if I don’t get tired until really late in the night, leaving me even more tired than I am now? What if I still can’t fall asleep even when I’m tired because I’m too nervous or anxious?

I’m dealing with those doubts and fears by thinking that even right now, there are no guarantees that I’d fall asleep when I’m tired - I feel anxious anyways. And when I don’t stick to a fixed sleep schedule, my sleep times shift to become later and later each day, so that sooner or later, I’m waking up just minutes before my classes begin, which is not only a tight for time, but deprives me of breakfast and exercise in the morning, both of which greatly improve my day. I’ve also heard something from my doctor that further strenghtens my confidence: You won’t die from lack of sleep. I suppose she’s right - many people, particularly new parents with young babies, might get 4 hours of sleep each night, and still get by. So worst comes to worst, I end the 30 day experiment feeling tired, and ready to pig out on sleep. I can handle that. So…

For the next 30 days, I will be waking up at 7:00 each and every morning. That may not be considered early for many (if not most) adults, but it’s quite an unusual waking time for a student. I chose 7:00 for the following reasons:

• I would have enough time to eat breakfast and exercise before going to class - a major lift for my energy levels during the day
• It’s relatively early in the morning - many of the most successful people in the world are early risers
• Early risers seem to be the most satisfied with their sleep routine
• Waking up at 7:00 allows me to sleep at 11:00 pm if I need 8 hours of sleep. 11:00 pm is when quiet hours start in my residence hall. If I had to wake up earlier than 7:00, I might to go to bed before 11:00, when the residence may still be too noisy to sleep in

I woke up at 7:00 this morning. Although I didn’t fall asleep until well past 1:00 am, it felt great to be munching down my breakfast as the sun was rising. Over the next few days, I expect to fall asleep earlier as my body adjusts to its new, fixed waking time. I will report regularly on my progress, and how I feel each day during the course of this experiment. It may turn out well, it may not, but one thing’s for sure: this is a problem of mine that hasn’t solved itself for many years, and likely won’t until I take action and do something about it. I’m ready. Let’s go.

Windbag Fart: A nearly noiseless fart emitted at low pressure. When the room is silent, it sounds like a short gasp of wind. The odor, however, is a completely different story. Rotten eggs or fish is the best way to describe it.

Machine-Gun Fart: The second noisiest fart, it creates a sound akin to an automatic machine gun. Can last several seconds. Although it is generally accompanied by little to no odor, it can be nonetheless very embarrassing because the sound is very difficult to muzzle without suppressing the fart altogether.

The Rip-Roar: Like the machine-gun fart, the Rip Roar Fart is notoriously difficult to mute, and produces the loudest, most awkward of noises that can sound like anything from an elephant’s screech to a rapidly deflating balloon. It is often combined with one of the other fart types to create an interesting mix of noise and odor.

Soft Fart: Usually noiseless and on occasion, marked by a short, muted squeal depending on the gas pressure: Beeuuuw! Usually feels like it builds up for a while, until you decide to turn on the valve and release it. The longer you wait, the noisier it gets. Odor varies from harmless to rodenticide strength.

Wet Fart: Most often produced in conjunction with a Rip Roar Fart, but can also accompany any other type of fart, multiplying its misery. You don’t notice the odor, which, due to the nature of a wet fart, is the least of your concerns at this point.

Stubborn Fart: As this fart builds up, it feels much more powerful than it really is. But just as you’re bracing yourself for what you think is a Rip-Roar as this fart reaches the end of the tunnel, it stops suddenly. Feeling frustrated, you may need to give this one a little push. But be careful, because push too hard, and you’ll turn it into a Wet Fart. When not overdone, it sounds like this: pffft.

Have you ever wondered whether anger, stress, frustration and guilt are just an inseparable part of the human condition? That life is a ceaseless, difficult and painful struggle against nature and other people? I once believed that this was what life was. But as I tried to convince myself of these facts, the universe sent me signals that I might be wrong. That there were people who blossomed, no matter how bad the conditions were. These sorts of people are rare, but they exist everywhere, in every country of the world - some of the most famous ones being Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and the Buddha.

Could You and I become more like them? Could You and I start living with more joy, peace and courage? Maybe. It won’t happen overnight, or even in a thousand nights, but we can commit to becoming more Powerful, Conscious people, and by working on our own personal growth, develop ourselves as people and build within ourselves the personality traits that we admire, just as otherwise ordinary child can train to become an Olympic champion. How do we go about this?
Let’s first examine a few of the qualities you will pick up on the path of personal growth. Then, decide if they’re worthy enough for you to pursue them. If they are, the way to get there will slowly become apparent to you.

1. You stop blaming yourself

Sometimes, perhaps oftentimes, you’ll screw up and do something you think is boneheaded. The worst screw ups in life tend to involve relationships with other people. You might feel you were too harsh, or too weak, like you manipulated someone else, or let someone else play you like a harmonica. It’s painful to think that you screwed up, but you’ll do yourself harm by laying blame on yourself, because at this point, there’s nothing wrong with you. You fired an arrow and you missed by a mile. Big deal. You’ve got an unlimited number of arrows in your quill, and your accuracy improves with every arrow that you shoot. The only real mistake you can ever make? Not firing enough arrows and missing opportunities to hit your target because you were too busy wallowing in a tent of self-directed guilt.

2. You stop blaming others

You are, at all times, 100% responsible for your life, your choices, your actions, and the results you get. The only person whose commitment and involvement is absolutely crucial to your cause is… you. When you find yourself blaming others for things going wrong in your life, it’s usually because you put too much responsibility for your life in the hands of others.

3. You stop blaming your past

Your past may have been very poignant or traumatic. You might have been abused by others or raised the wrong way by your parents. The things that you pay attention to tend to expand to fill your whole consciousness, and the things you think about tend to manifest themselves to become your reality. As you think about your past and try to rationalize it as the reason why your life is the way it is today, you put up walls that lock you in with memories of your past. The more and more you blame your past, the higher and higher these walls get until there’s no way out except to start acknowledging your own strength, power and talents, and how no matter what happens to you, no one can take those away from you, and it is up to you to make the choice to put your talents to their best use.

The first three points all focused on the concept of blame. Usually we like to find something to blame when things go wrong. In general, you can eliminate blame from your life by focusing primarily on your actions, not results. Your actions are within your control, and when you consistently take the right actions, results are inevitable.

4. It takes misdeeds of epic proportions in order to anger you.

You can get most people fuming at you with just a few pointed words. These words will differ from person to person, but they’re generally directed at weak spots in your consciousness that light up like a puddle of diesel. If you’re one of these people, think of yourself as walking around with an exposed fuse ready for someone to light.

Every time you’re angry, just remember that you can almost always come up with a more effective, intelligent solution using your reason, understanding and empathy rather than your rage, which always wants to destroy whatever it is that lit you up in the first place. The soft voice quieteth anger, and a few intelligently chosen words can disarm the most unruly of attackers.

5. Your ego disappears. Entirely.

Disposing of your ego is like bursting an enormous dam within you that unleashes a torrential flood of personal growth. You stop being stuck in a state of irrational denial and defensiveness. Your happiness is no longer tied to external circumstances such as money and fame. You no longer get sucked into nationalism, racism, Social Darwinism, and religious fundamentalism. And no longer is an attack on your beliefs equal to an attack on you, because you are no longer so bound up in them.

6. You stop fearing people, and everything else. In fact, fear gives way to a free spirit that chooses powerfully enriching, eye-opening experiences that cut through the monotony of life.

Instead of fearing and mistrusting people in general, your dominant emotions towards other people start consisting of compassion, unconditional love and generosity. This isn’t touchy-feely love. It’s more of an understanding, empathetic kind of love that acknowledges all humans as being part of one, single consciousness.

I took a step towards giving up fear this week. I was backpacking alone in Kananaskis. I was walking along a steep scree slope. I slipped, slid a couple metres - had I slid much farther, I would have fallen down a deep gorge to a certain death. Sure, there are inherent risks to going backpacking alone, and a great responsibility to be careful. There’s also an amazing feeling of solitude you enjoy when you’re perched among the most spectacular mountain scenery around, far from the nearest outpost of civilization. At some point, we must make a choice between trying our best to avoid death, and choosing to live well. Sometimes that means taking risks.

We have just discussed fear and anger - as you become powerful, you dispense of both of them. How is that significant? Consider that in any abusive relationship, you generally see one anger person, coupled with a fear person.

7. You stop seeing your existence as being that of a strictly physical being.

These days, we’ve become so secular that any talk of spirituality has been relegated to the slightly kooky fringe. The majority of people claim to believe in God, but ultimately, most people live as though their existence stops at the end of their physical body, and that their mind and consciousness is housed entirely within the body, and dies with it. Seen this way, you’re just a tiny little speck of stardust in the universe, none of your actions truly matter in the end, because once you die, that’s it. Hence, the biggest contribution you can make to the world lies in leaving behind lots of offspring - the more the better, and the most important thing to you is your safety, because once you die that’s it. It’s not an especially interesting way of looking at reality, in fact, seen from this angle, your life is pretty boring, bordering on meaningless - like a rat. And if you haven’t noticed, the differences between most peoples’ lives and those of rats aren’t terribly significant.

But life gets much more interesting, and you start to experience much more pleasure and joy when you see your body as merely a physical outlet for your inner spirit, which is a separate entity that cannot be harmed no matter what happens to your physical body. I can’t say which view is true, only that in general, more positive, empowering beliefs generate better results.

8. Life feels truly exciting rather than overwhelming.

The world stops being a place full of evil, sloth and danger, and starts to look a lot more like a place where your talents can send humanity forward in great leaps. You find the joy and the humour in almost any situation, you put behind any feelings of insignificance and helplessness and start feeling in control of your destiny.

9. You notice that people start feeling incredible just being around you.

They trust telling you things they wouldn’t ordinarily tell a stranger. Your presence seems to elevate ordinary people into extraordinary spirits that can collectively solve any problem humanity faces. Your intentions are pure, your motives entirely trustworthy, your only motivation the highest good of all.

10. You feel a pervasive, unshakeable happiness.

This is the feeling you might get after having a near-death experience, and you commit to living life to the fullest because you’re committed now to squeezing every last drop of joy out of every moment. This is a characteristic of saints and advanced spiritual teachers. Your life is guided solely by intuition and synchronicity. You exist on an entirely different plane of consciousness than ordinary people.

11. You stop fearing wealth.

What is wealth? First, it’s power. How so? Consider that wealth can put a Porsche on your driveway. A Porsche combines some of the best materials, the rarest minerals on Earth, the most skilled labour, and the very latest technology available. In other words, wealth is the power to make things happen. You must also assume responsibility along with wealth, because greater power allows you to make more things happen that carry greater consequences. So wealth is just power and responsibility. As a highly conscious, powerful person, you have what it takes to use the power of wealth wisely. For you, it can act as an amplifier that distributes your positive influence to the far-flung nooks and crannies you wouldn’t otherwise reach.

You might think you need to be a saint or a God of some sort in order to have characteristics like these, or that living this way is beyond the capabilities of normal people. Most people don’t know, and will never know, their true capabilities because they never muster the courage to develop them. Start with believing that being a powerful, highly conscious person is possible for you. Then hold the genuine intention of improving yourself to get there. You’ll almost certainly succeed. But even if you don’t make it - for example, you die prematurely - life becomes much more interesting, exciting, and worth living the moment you commit yourself to personal growth.