The Meaning of Life with Dr. Bob

I had thought that everyone knew where happiness and the meaning of life grew. I was terribly mistaken.

The magazine I was reading has this article. There, right in those nicely printed thoughts, for everyone and anyone to observe, was a writer, stating with complete certainty, that if you do activity A, or activity B, you will be happy.

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The author of that original piece had not caught the bus. The bus was labeled “happiness is found within you.”

I had thought that by this time, early in the twenty-first century, all would have caught that bus.
Happiness is housed and nourished within the human being. Then events and circumstances are knit together to reward that happiness.

Even if you don’t believe that happiness is the meaning of life, as I do, still you know that happiness comes from inward spirit. Not from superficial and mental-storage numbing events in the bodily world.

Driving a nice car is a good thing. But the car can be destroyed in many different ways. Owning a good business is a benefit. However, business can down-turn, out of your control.

Oh, yes, may be for a time a feeling of celebration from outside events and things will keep you feeling high. But not for long; it does not last.

And the list of things could go on forever. Then there are episodes with events. Graduation from high school is a fine accomplishment. Getting an MBA is a special event. A promotion on the job may well be cause for celebration. But if you do not have happiness within, there is no lasting satisfaction from outside events.

Why is that? Why don’t events make you feel happy forever? Because happiness and the meaning of life are found only in the inner sanctuary of yourself. Unless you have a center that holds, no matter what is going on outside, you will not know happiness.

Of course, just because you have a calm and happy sanctuary within does not vouch for outside events and things as always being wonderful. Bad things do happen. But with a calm, stable center of happiness protected like a fortress within, nothing that happens outside of you will cause you to lose happiness and, thereby, a sense of the meaning of life.

It is not difficult building that fortress within, which events or things cannot destroy. It only takes some exercise and some patience. You need to spend some time every day when you stop and mull over your inner life. You can do this with your eyes opened or shut. You do not have to follow any one particular practice. But a good place to start is to concentrate on your breathing.

If you would like, you can even imagine a “fortress of solitude” being built within. Imagine the walls going up and the towers being built. The gates are formidable. In the inner most sanctuary of you, you place the idea of eternal happiness and meaning. Warded day and night by your spirit, protecting your happiness and meaning.

If you need more than thinking about your breathing, there are a great assortment of meditation methods available to you. You need only search on the Internet for the term “meditation,” and you will have several from which to choose.

Outside things can and will be destroyed or break down. Happenings in your life, while important, will not last except for the moment in which they occur. Then you have memories. Memories, while important, also dull with time. What remains constant is that “fortress of solitude” within.

Build it.

Preserve it.

Guard it.

Cherish it.

When you have ripened it to maturity, you will be filled with happiness and you will truly know the meaning of your life.

I invite you to claim your Free Instant Access to some of Dr. Bob’s Resources and an occasional “The Force-Source-Resource” newsletter. You will find more about yourself and the meaning of your life. Just Click Here. Remember, one bit of information can give you a lifetime of satisfaction.

One of our grandsons and I were having a conversation. We got on the topic of quantum physics. I told him that it has been discovered that two particles, born at the same, through the Big Bang, though they be at opposite “ends” of the universe, would respond in exactly the same way at the same time. Particle twin Z is at the far end of the universe. Particle twin ZZ is at the antithetical end. When particle twin ZZ is stimulated, say by heat, particle twin Z responds in exactly the same way particle twin ZZ did. This is corresponding reaction over an infinite distance between the two twin particles. The response in both occurs at faster than the speed of light. That is, communication between the two particles happens faster than light can travel. FYI: Einstein thought that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.

Then our grandson said something that I found interesting enough to make a note of. He said, “Well, that doesn’t touch my life. So I won’t bother myself with it.”

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He was correct, as far as he went with his thought.

We are pelted with information day and night from all of the electronic advances and communication devises of our times. (The human brain can process 400 million bits of information per second. But we are only aware of 2,000 of those bits. Dr. Joseph Dispenza.)

So we must make decisions about what affects our lives and what does not. We are talking about the meaning of life for each of us. And since the meaning of life is to be happy, I believe, this concerns us and our meaning and our happiness.
There at least these five ways through which information can affect us or not and thereby affect our quality of life:

1. We receive information but it does not touch of lives. Therefore, we ignore it.

2. A piece of information could change our lives but we are distracted by something else and pass that information by.

3. We apprehend the data but for one of several possible reasons simply do not follow through with it.

4. We do follow through and use new data to change our lives for better – greater meaning in life.

5. We are forced to accept and use the new insight because we have no choice. (Like a tornado destroying our entire neighborhood.)

We can and ever ought to ignore some data that comes to us. If we tried to examine and use all 400 million bits of information that come to us each second, in our present development as humans, we would be hugely overtaken. This would overpower the meaning we are trying to gain for our lives.

Another bit of info might be interesting but not touch our lives strongly enough for us to hold it. We need to let these go as well.
Further, if we are distracted from following through with a bit of knowledge that would help us, we may not be taking the meaning of our lives as seriously as we might. We may have been too lazy at that moment to make a difference to the meaning of our lives.

But when we deliberately and voluntarily grasp a bit of info and mix it into the meaning of our lives, we are enlightened. The meaning we seek may be enhanced as we gather knowledge, when we wish it so.

We hope we are never forced to take on additional data. However, even in that, we may understand something about the meaning of our lives. For example, a flood destroys all our possessions. Yet we are alive and well. That may force us to understand what is really important in life – possessions or people.

Yes, each of us must make the decision as to what touches upon the meaning of one’s life. Choose your information carefully. What you keep and what you ignore will bear upon your happiness. What you render as touching your life will either reinforce the meaning of your life, or detract from that meaning and happiness.

I invite you to claim your Free Instant Access to some of Dr. Bob’s Resources and an occasional “The Force-Source-Resource” newsletter. You will find more about yourself and the meaning of your life. Just Click Here. Remember, one bit of information can give save you a lifetime of frustration.

Many people try to give their lives meaning by comparing themselves to others. If they find someone who appears to be in a worse-off situation than they are, these folks have a tendency to feel good about themselves. They tend to see others’ misfortunes as a way to look at their lives and gloat that they are better.

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Or, if they find someone who is better off than they are, these folks have a tendency to find reasons to believe their own situation is justifiable. They think something like: If I had their money I would be that way too. She is so good-looking but I bet she is a mess on the inside.

It is like a set of children’s building blocks and two columns of these blocks are constructed. These two columns are the same height. When we see someone we feel is less than we are, one block gets knocked off of the second column. The first column remains the original height. It looks to be taller than it was. As if someone who compares himself with others finds someone who is misfortunate. They claim they are better than the other who has lost some height via their misfortune. But, really, the original column is just the same as it was. They make themselves believe they are better off.

Similarly, if someone finds another block and stacks it on column two, adding to its original height, the folks in column one are going to say that column two folks are better off than they. But something must be wrong in column two. They must pay for their higher status in some nasty way.

There is one simple way of getting out of a situation like that. Simply do not compare yourself to others. You cannot make yourself happier by comparing yourself to others. You can make yourself feel like you are less by comparing yourself to others. Your own happiness and, therefore, the meaning of your life, does not depend on how others appear to you.

You can always find someone who appears better than you. You can always find someone who appears worse-off than you.
There will always be those who have greater misfortune than you. There will always be those who will have greater fortune than you.

Instead of comparing yourself to others, build your own standard. Start with your interior life. Why start inside? Because that is where all else begins.

For example, how close do you want to be to whatever you regard as The Higher Power? By your own standard, have you done something recently or today that gets you closer to The One. Use you own standard.

By your standard are you where you want to be physically? Have you done something recently that gets you closer to your criterion?

By your own standard which you create as you examine your life, are you where you want to be academically? What have you done today to bring yourself closer to your standard?

Do you know everything you want to know? How do you measure that excellence?

I am sure you get the point by now. Create a standard in your own mind of who and what you want to be and do. Everyone is connected to everyone else, but we are each unique individuals. Therefore, you have every right and duty to develop the criterion that suits who you are. In other words, you define the meaning of your life by expressing who you are or want to be.

Guess what? I can guarantee that you will be much happier overall when you compare yourself only to yourself.

I invite you to claim your Free Instant Access to some of Dr. Bob’s Resources and an occasional “The Force-Source-Resource” newsletter. You will find more about yourself and the meaning of your life. Just Click Here. Remember, one bit of information can give save you a lifetime of frustration.