(This is Part 7 of a series. Go back to Part 6.)
Let's take another problem:
—I don't have enough money.
How can love solve this problem? In my opinion, the wise course is to proceed indirectly here rather than directly. That is, instead of setting money itself as a goal, we want to set a goal towards something else and let money flow as a pleasurable by-product.
What is that something else? It is developing a love for doing something, something that you can feel a real interest in, something that you would probably do anyway even if you weren't paid for it—and then "wobbling" how we look at that activity until we can see how to create it as a paying occupation.
When we really love to do something, that love informs all of our activities in that area. We feel enthusiasm, passion; we experience a willingness to work long hours if necessary; we experience a willingness to do those parts of the job that seem boring or repetitive.
In other words, we're willing to do those things that tend to greatly increase our chance of success. In turn, our success in that area strongly tends to increase our income.
As a metaphor, consider a website: The more "hits" a website receives, the more its income tends to rise, even if the primary goal of the website is not income. Similarly, when we love to do something we're in effect creating a lot of "hits" in that area, which has a powerful tendency to produce income as a by-product—and an income which we can enjoy making.
To produce an income by doing something that we don't enjoy is to cheat the world of a chance to find out what we could contribute if we followed our love. On the other hand, when we do something we love and let money flow out of that as a by-product, not only do we benefit but the world-around-us tends to do so also.
This doesn't mean that there won't be challenges. Indeed, sometimes the challenges will be extreme. However, deep down we'll feel like we're aligned in some way with the flow of existence, and that is the greatest "success" of all.
How do find our calling? Again, by looking at what we love. What do we already love to do? Where's our interest: What kind of magazines or books do we read? What kinds of websites do we visit? What kinds of groups do we join? What do we like to talk about?
Then, whatever that direction is, we just start putting more energy in that direction and then more...and our true occupation begins to develop organically, by itself.
(This is the end of Part 7. Go to Part 8.)
—jim sloman, 8.27.04 for Jul 23
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