The Meaning of Life with Dr. Bob

Chance knocked on the door of my office. He had been away in military service serving in war zones. He was a Marine and looked every ounce of one in his dress blues.

I had not seen Chance in many months. I almost snapped a sincere salute as he walked through the office door. I did jump to my feet, round my desk, and shake his hand as firmly as I could. “Thank you for your service, Chance,” I said. “What can I do for you?” (Lame, I know, but the best I could muster in the moment.)

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“I want to know what to do with my life, Dr. Bob,” he said.

His statement took me aback. As I motioned for him to take a seat and I moved back around to my desk chair, I quickly pondered what was my response to be.

First, a question: “What do you mean, Chance? Are you leaving the Marine Corps?”

“I finish my hitch in another month. Now that I am faced with it, I don’t know what to make of my life. I have seen some heroic things and some horrific things. Both of which made me question my role in this life. What do you think I should do, Dr. Bob?”

I had known Chance since he was twelve years old. Now twenty-four, he was a young man who had had extraordinary experiences. I knew his questions were serious.

I steepled my fingers together and looked at him, straight into the eyes. “I think you have to see your world for what it is. Then with all you being, give yourself away to it.”

He looked me right in the eyes as well. He said, “I know what discipline is. I know what it means to give yourself away. I saw it many times on the battlefield. Some of those who did never rose again. Some came away maimed.”

I saw, then, the Bronze Star among his array of ribbons. I knew he had put his own life on the line, too. He knew what he was talking about.

“But I don’t know in which direction to go,” he said.

“What gives you the best feeling of well-being?” I asked.

He thought for a few seconds and said, “I really felt useful when I was helping to set up a school for the kids over there. To see their faces light up, day by day, as the building went up, was a joy in itself. Maybe I could be a teacher.”

“Well, whatever you choose, here are two pieces of advice. First, find out what your world is all about. You have experienced combat and death and also reconstruction and helping others. You have found happiness and meaning in helping. Your well-being was reinforced when you saw the light in those kids’ eyes.

“Second, give yourself to whatever it is you choose. I cannot give you a choice between two or more things, you have to decide that for yourself. But I do know that anyone who wishes to reinforce their meaning and happiness must give themselves to whatever they do. Give one hundred percent.”

“I remembered your lessons on finding the meaning of life, which is to be happy. I often thought about that, believed it or not, as the rounds whizzed by my head. I have made that connection with The All There Is. It was that link that often kept me going amidst the blood and pain all around me.”

I shuddered within myself. Chance had seen more than anyone ever needs to of war. That he was asking these sensible questions was a real credit to him.

“Discover what gives me a foundation upon which to build my life and then give myself to it. I can do that. Thanks, Dr. Bob.”

He rose from his chair, I rose from mine. I came around the desk and shook his hand and hugged him at the same time. I again thanked him for his service. And he was gone.

Chance continued in the fellowship I led at the time. He indeed went back to college and got his teaching degree. He is now off in a foreign land building schools and teaching kids.

Find what your world is all about. Then give yourself to it, one hundred percent.

This has been Dr. Bob 4 U, and I invite you to change your life for the better by claiming your Free Instant Access to a Force-Source-Resource including a monthly newsletter titled The Force-Source-Resource Newsletter. Just Click Here. Remember, one bit of information can give you a lifetime of satisfaction.

My Vlog: http://themeaningoflifewithdrbob.com/drbobslifephrases

One Person Can Change The World

In the garden of Gethsemane, there is a poignant scene in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is given to agonize over what may be coming next in his life.

He is given to say, “Thy will be done.”

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People have taken that saying to mean that God is going give you what life you are going to live. In other words, you are fated to be and do as some outside force wishes. You have little or no say in what your life will be.

Your happiness is determined by an outside force, so many people believe.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is true that a natural disaster such as a tornado may indeed affect your life. That is an outside force over which you have no control.

However, if you had built or made ready a storm shelter with provisions for a disaster such as food and water, you might have shaped your own outcome. So you have some say-so in the matter.

The point of this article is that you do have a part to play in determining your own meaning and happiness. It is not simply handed to you on a silver platter or imposed upon you as fate.

You are not destined to have this degree of happiness or that degree of meaning. These are not thrust upon you in certain amounts by an outside source, namely God.

You choose how much meaning and happiness you shall have.

How? By the connection you cultivate and maintain between yourself and The All There Is (Tathis).

(Tathis is a word I coined to subtract as much baggage as possible from the term “God.” It is a combination of the first letter of The, the first letter of All, the first two letters of There, and the entire word Is. It is pronounced with a long “a” [as in plate] and the  word “this.”)

You build such a linkage through the use of meditation or prayer. It is a discovery of the totally unconditional acceptance that Tathis extends to you.

Please notice I stated, “extends to you.” Tathis does not give something to you in the conventional sense of the word “give.” You already have everything because you are a division of Tathis. So, Tathis need not give you anything you already possess.

Tathis extends to you unconditional acceptance in that relationship you establish with Tathis. In other words, that acceptance is already there but now it feels like it  is flowing toward you.

You have opened yourself to that confirmation. That confirmation was always moving toward you, you just didn’t realize it.

You always have the choice to turn and move yourself toward a rendezvous with Tathis. “God” does not impose anything on you. You are free.

In this freedom is your great choice. But it is in that choice that you begin to make your own life your own life.

Sounds redundant and ridiculous, doesn’t it? Because Tathis does not impose anything on you, you make your life what it is. By your choices and your intentions you attract to yourself all that you will find in life.

Yes, there will still be those incidents where something will be forced upon you from the outside. Still, you have the rock-solid opportunity to make a choice about how you will react to any happening in your life.

Beyond these forced events, however, you attract to your life that which you are. When you find your meaning and happiness, you will be attracting positive people and happenings to your life.

Why? Because you will be in that mode. What mode is that? The style of fashioning your own tomorrows. Forging what the next minute of your life will be all about. You have the choice, always, of having your life be full of meaning and happiness, or full of sorrow and despair because you believe you are fated in a certain way.

Do not ever let anyone try to convince you that your life is simply planned for you – that you are fated to have or have not … anything.

The choice is always yours. So, it is not “thy will be done,” in the conventional sense. It is done as you will it to be, when you will it to be.

Get to it.

This has been Dr. Bob 4 U, and I invite you to change your life for the better by claiming your Free Instant Access to a Force-Source-Resource including a monthly newsletter titled The Force-Source-Resource Newsletter. Just Click Here. Remember, one bit of information can give you a lifetime of satisfaction.

My Vlog: http://themeaningoflifewithdrbob.com/drbobslifephrases

One Person Can Change The World

Being transparent within yourself will enhance and strengthen your own happiness. Being transparent within your relationships will help you spread happiness.

It is essential that you try to be transparent within yourself. You cannot hide from yourself forever. You make mistakes just as well as the next person. (I make mistakes just as surely as you do.)

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To try to deceive yourself about those mistakes is foolish. Even if you succeed in repressing those mistakes, they will find you out in such things as anxiety or even lower back pain.

To repress feelings caused by hidden mistakes is like stuffing a plastic garbage bag. You can stuff and stuff but eventually the bag will become too full and burst. When it does burst, you will have garbage all over yourself.

The most important place where it is not a good idea to be opaque is in your relationship is with The All There Is (Tathis). As you make contact with and develop a connection between yourself and Tathis, where you find your meaning, which is to be happy, when you try to keep mistakes from Tathis, you mess up that connection.

(Tathis is a word I coined to remove as much baggage as possible from the term “God.” It is a combination of the first letter of The, the first letter of All, the first two letters of There, and the entire word Is. It is pronounced with a long “a” and the te word “this.” I hope you can see that Tathis is a non-baggage participant here.)

In your kinship with Tathis you need to be as transparent as you can be. This is for your own sake, not for the sake of Tathis. Tathis “knows” all there is to know about you anyway. So hiding yourself in any form from Tathis is counterproductive. You cut yourself off.

Notice please that “you cut yourself off.” Tathis is always there, living in the background so to speak, waiting for you to remove your own self-imposed barrier to Tathis. It is you who have distanced yourself from Tathis.

When you go seeking happiness and meaning, you make a connection with Tathis. This linkage is strengthened and expanded over time through the meditative arts. In some form of prayer and or meditation, which suits you, you reinforce this kinship with Tathis on a regular basis.

In that meditation you find that you are completely accepted. Which means that you can be completely transparent with Tathis. You cannot hide anything anyway. So why not be completely transparent? You will be the better for it. I know.

When you bare your spirit in that relationship with The All There Is, you have come clean. It is so good to have completely let it all go. You need hide nothing anymore. (You cannot hide anything, anyway.)

What a great feeling it is to have become completely transparent and still be totally and unconditionally accepted by Tathis. It is completely liberating. It is part of the bliss you can feel in that relationship with Tathis.

But then there is more – you can then be more transparent with other humans in your relationship circle.

I am not saying that you must be completely transparent. Not everyone is going to accept you just as you if you reveal everything. There are those who consider it their duty to criticize others. Revealing yourself to them in too big a way is a mistake.

So you cautiously reveal yourself, a little at a time. See how those around you react or do not react. See who you can trust. You will find a few who you can trust totally with who you really are. These are the ones you need to build long term relationships with.

They need also to trust you when they become transparent to you. You need to keep their confidences. You need to try to accept them just as they are as well.

Truly you may not be able to keep all confidences. You may not be able to accept everyone just as they are. These folks you may need to break off with or distance yourself from. You cannot be super-human in your associations. You need not expect yourself to be.

But so far as is possible and good, try to be transparent within yourself, with Tathis, within your affinities with friends and relatives, and allow others to be transparent with you.

This transparency, all around, will help you have greater happiness and meaning. Begin now to be more transparent.

This has been Dr. Bob 4 U, and I invite you to change your life for the better by claiming your Free Instant Access to a Force-Source-Resource including a monthly newsletter titled The Force-Source-Resource Newsletter. Just Click Here. Remember, one bit of information can give you a lifetime of satisfaction.

My Vlog: http://themeaningoflifewithdrbob.com/drbobslifephrases

One Person Can Change The World