Suppose there was no outside source of punishment? We would only have the consequences of our actions and words. What happens to us because of what we say or do, is up to us. It is up to us because we have power over what we say and do. Suppose you are not paying attention to what you are doing and accidentally place your palm on a hot burner; you will get burned. The burn is not a punishment; it is a natural consequence of putting your palm in the wrong place.

Here is the video version of this blog/vlog. If you prefer only text, then skip this pane (pain?) and continue below it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCeLQjOI3Rs

Whatever you do or say will have natural consequences. Your palm burned on the hot range top. But you immediately can vow within yourself never to be so careless again. The consequences of any action can immediately help you start over again. Start over at being a more careful person, a better acting person, a good person. You are not stuck in what caused the adverse consequences of any situation.

You have to get away from believing there is a force that punishes you for wrong actions. I believe that there is no such force. This is where you need to shift your belief system. Change your world-view.

I believe, and am not alone in this belief, that what we name God has made the Universe free. In other words, God does not worry about you doing anything in particular. Yes. Yes. Religions have taught us that God is keeping track of our every wrong move. Those religions have taught that we will be punished for our sins. But if the Universe is free, then actions are actions. In a free Universe there is no judgment, there is only natural consequences, like a burnt hand.

So, what do you do? You do what you believe needs doing in the moment. You are the one who needs to weigh the consequences against your contemplated action. Doing your best in this moment is all you ever need expect of yourself. Considering the consequences, you act as you think best. Will you make mistakes? Yes. Because of those mistakes, will there be negative consequences? Possibly. But you will have done nothing wrong or evil. You did the best you could. That is all you need ever ask of yourself. Did I do the best I could? If the answer is yes, then you are a good person. You can relax. You may have to live with consequences, but you need never feel or believe you are being punished.

Here is my definition of a “good person”: acting as best you can in this moment. The meaning of life, to be happy, is also acting as best you can in this moment.

And I invite you to know a lot more about being a good person. Sign up for Free Instant Access to some of my Force-Source-Resources. Pick out the one that says Two Life Phrases for Self Development – “I Am My True Self” and “I Am Conscious” or any or all of the other freebies. Remember, one bit of information can give you a lifetime of self actualization.  Just click here and you’ll be on your way. I believe these resources will change your life.

• 5 Ways A Good Credit Report Can Enhance Your Quality Of Life Many people do not understand how important a good credit report can be to your future happiness.  A credit report is one of the first things that many lenders and creditors look at when trying to determine whether or not to give you whatever items you have requested and has......
• All Is Available Plato attributes the rise of misanthropy (hatred for humanity) first to trust of humanity. An inclination in the individual to see all human beings as entirely virtuous. Then as their faith in humanity proves untenable, they developed first the disconnection, then an active avoidance of human community. In a sense,......
• How Do You Market Fear? With so many awful and fearful events happening in the world I am amazed at the number of people who PAY their hard earned money to go and be scared.  Seriously, think about it for just a second.  Here is the scenario: A husband and wife come home late one......
• MoneyEnergy: The Energy of Money - Integrity and Personal Power This post will be the first part of a series of posts I'm going to write on one very amazing and overlooked book that happens to nicely express my own intuitions on moneyenergy which helped me form the idea for this site. The author is a psychologist, and no doubt......
• Kiss the Rat Race Good-Bye There have been several popular releases in the "early retirement" genre recently, but I found this book hidden amongst the personal finance books at a local library. It was written in 1992, which made me a little skeptical as to its relevancy today. Great books can hold up to the......

www.youtube.com/watch?v=unNZN0BS6wA

Shawna sort of bounced through the door to my office. Her blonde curls flouncing after her. She was maybe 27 or 28 at the time. Big smile on her facing while wearing a summer type dress of bright colors.

I thought to myself, she doesn’t present, that is, give off the vibe of having a problem. She settled herself primly in the interview chair. She chatted about the weather and how nice spring was moving along.

Then she came to her point. “Dr. Bob, I can’t figure out tomorrow. I know that sounds a bit strange. I think I’ve got this thing of living in the moment. But what if I want tomorrow to be different from today? How do I live in this moment and still make the next as I want it to be?”

I happen to have a ready answer for her. “You live now as if it will be your tomorrow. For your future is in your consciousness now. What you think and do, as you live in this moment, sets you up for what your tomorrow will be. Even sets you up for the next moment of your life.”

I had her think of the last time she was crying, either for sorrow or for joy. I showed that she just didn’t shut off the tears. They sort of had to run their course. Each moment one is in the act of crying, a certain emotional state is playing itself out. That emotional state cannot usually be turned off like a faucet. It takes time to subside.

Or like a runner who has just finished his race. He is gasping for breath and it takes time for his breathing to recover to normal.

But even more so in excited feelings. For in our consciousness tomorrow already exists. Now there is a full quantum insight to help explain this, but it was not necessary for Shawna. She wanted an answer to take with her within a few minutes, as most of us do. Suffice it to say that I showed that life is one continuous flow, though we can only really be in this moment. But whatever is happening in the flow of this moment, most often gets carried into the next.

So, be now what you want to be tomorrow. If you are down in this moment, resolve to change that by willing yourself, in this moment to be upbeat. If you are inattentive right now, decide right now to pay better attention and do so in this moment. If you are tired of mourning (feeling sad over a death) in this moment, determine to put away mourning right now. This kind of thing you do in each moment until your next moment, or your tomorrow, is the way you want it to be.

Shawna seemed to get the idea, especially after she suggested that is why kids can’t simply turn of the tears. They have worked themselves into a state and need time to change states.

I believe it is easy to make the connection between your consciousness and the future and being happy and knowing the meaning of your life. If you are not happy in this moment, you need to consciously do the things that will bring you happiness beginning now and continuing into the future. The future is already contained within your consciousness. You need only apply what you are aware of now with what you want to be aware in the next moment, or tomorrow.

And I invite you to know a lot more about your and your happiness. Sign up for Free Instant Access to some of my Force-Source-Resources. Pick out the one that says Two Life Phrases for Self Development – “I Am My True Self” and “I Am Conscious” or any or all of the other freebies. Remember, one bit of information can give you a lifetime of actualization. Just click here and you’ll be on your way. These resources will change your life.

• Does Your Financial Future Look Gloomy? While no one can look into a crystal ball and determine where they will be financially in twenty, thirty or forty years, there are some early warning signs that may indicate that the future might be a bit gloomy. The key to successfully preparing for your future is to avoid......
• Wealth Creation Using the Law of Attraction How can we use the Law of Attraction to create wealth in our lives? How do we attract abundance? These are important questions, and it is time to set them to rest. First, let’s define the term “wealth”. Wealth, generally spoken of in terms of money, is defined as......
• What is Financial Literacy? Part 3 This is the third part of a four part series on the consultation document for the Task Force on Literacy. Remember that you have a voice on the future of financial education and literacy in Canada.  Starting April 6th, the task force is going to cities across the country to......
• Open To Synergy Suffering (as Buddha put it) is to not be in synergy? Exactly. You won’t feel attachment anxiety when your mind is clear and you see the synergy in life. If you aren’t seeing life’s synergy, it’s not because of any failure of life or even because of any personal failure.......
• Renting A Hybrid Instead Of Taking My Own Car. (*Edit - Since I wrote this a few days ago, gas has gone up to $4.59 a gallon here) Last weekend I was up in San Francisco visiting my best friend and his family before we move away. It was very important that I get up there to visit, as......

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX6RxjyRm7E

“I just finished reading another self-help book, doc, and I am nowhere further along than I was before I started reading it.”

Rita, not her real name, had just uttered what so many people discover about self-help books and CDs and DVDs. They expect that they will be changed people the moment they close the back cover of the book or listen to the last words of the CD. It usually doesn’t happen. Sometimes the authors and presenters of these products do not do the consumers any justice either, because they never say that change takes pace, patience and practice. In other words, changes usually do not take place over night.

Please do not get me wrong here. I am in the business of self-help or self-development too. So I need to be careful that I am not simply dispensing shelf-help as opposed to self-help. (Shelf-help means the books are read then they sit on shelves gathering dust for an indeterminate length of time.) I applaud the many folks who try to help others change their lives. It is not an easy task.

I asked Rita, “Now, how long have you been noticing that you wanted to change?”

She answered, “About 40 years.” That will give you the correct idea that she was in her 60s, grandmother of 7, mother of 3, wife to 1. (The need-of-change in her life will not be mentioned because it is irrelevant to this blog post.) I said, “Then how did you expect to change in reading one book that, say, took you 4 hours to complete?”

“Never thought of it that way.”  Most people have never been told that bad habits are not easy to break and may take long periods of pace, patience and practice to change. Let me explain for you now.

Pace: What else is going on in your life? Hundreds of things. Can you devote full time to the change you want? Probably not. Therefore, you have got to pace yourself. Just as a race horse jockey must pace the horse as it runs the track so it has some strength left to finish the race, so you have got to give yourself the luxury of pace in your life. Set a goal to change. But set it realistically – somewhere down the track.

Patience: I know you want this new and brilliant habit in your life today. What has been is so detestable that you want rid of it now. Even when a surgeon removes a growth from one’s body, the healing process after surgery is sometimes a lengthy one. (My back surgeon said to me “two years” before I was healed from the surgery. Incredible.) You have got to give yourself permission to take the time that is needed.

Practice: It has recently been put forward that to master anything, the violin, skiing, boxing, singing, being the Beatles, being Bill Gates, takes 10,000 hours of practice. This seems to be true for everyone about everything. In other words, you have got to be ready to invest many, many hours in changing. This is not a sentence as if you have committed a crime. Rather, it is the way things seems to be. Yes, truly, there have been a few quick fixes. But in 99% of the lives of humans, practice has got to be put in.

Do not see this a bleak and dreary picture. Do not defeat yourself before you get started. Give yourself the permission you need to change by allowing, I repeat, allowing yourself pace, patience and practice.

Rita let out a sigh of relief. She looked over her shoulder as she left the office and said, “I feel a lot better.”

And I invite you to feel a lot better about your life. Sign up for Free Instant Access to some of my Force-Source-Resources. Pick out the one that says “All The Best -- You Deserve It,” or any or all of the other freebies. Remember, one bit of information can give you a superior point of activation. Just click here and you’ll be on your way. These resources will change your life.

• Climate Change: Global hoax? Lucid and realistic as carryover. The environmentalism of the left has failed. To save the earth are liberal solutions Thirty-eight years ago exactly, about twenty million Americans participated in the first Earth Day in New York, Fifth Avenue was closed to traffic to allow a hundred thousand people to......
• Review: A Match for Mary Bennet by Eucharista Ward, O.S.F. by Isabel G., guest reviewer The main character, Mary Bennet, is not the most interesting person and the story was slow to develop. With that said, I am not sure this book would have mass appeal. The author does not reveal if she chooses to marry until the last......
• Reality Is Role Play Role playing in your metaphysical practice. What are you skilled at? Anyone want to offer something? I am good at solving puzzles. Art. Organization. Art, music, dance, literature, language, telepathy, and the disciplines required in each. You have your skills despite the fact that the world is so complex we......
• Take This Life How to reconcile interpersonal frustrations? How do we live with a world that still believes in frustration? Any ideas? Communication. Meaningful communication. Yes, and there are many levels of that, but what are we going to communicate of meaning? Our actions / reactions in relationship. You can talk until you're......
• Mind Your Manners: Diplomacy Kyle Bernstein There is an old joke that goes something like this: Three women are swapping stories about their wonderful husbands.  The first announces that for their first anniversary, her husband took her on a cruise around the world.  One listener “oohs” and “aahs” and the other says:  “Well, that’s......