Tag Archives: Ethics

Spiritual

My Shift in Progress

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Understand that there are great gifts that come with getting older , we shift into a new understanding.
Understand that there are great gifts that come with getting older, we shift into a new understanding.

The recent passing of Dr. Wayne Dyer has led me to contemplate some of the thoughts that he provoked in me that led to my own personal growth. One of Dr. Dyer’s projects was called the Shift. The shift was a movie and a book about finding your true purpose in life and doing the things that truly make you happy. It teaches many wonderful lessons, and the project has a lot of layers. You can watch it more than once and something new will jump out at you each time.  The shift is the natural movement in life that we experience as we age and become more experienced.  We shift in personal empowerment. Here are some of the lessons I learned from this wonderful project.

We are Connected You and Me

We start to look at the world and see the connections to everyone and everything. As younger people, most buy into a philosophy of competition and separation.  We are all connected with each other and everything and that is a phenomenon I would never have considered 15 years ago.

Money Doesn’t Matter

The motivations of life change as you move along in life. It isn’t the material possessions and the money that motivates you anymore. Now it is the ethics of a situation and the people we are associating with. It my shiftis also the peace that we find in the quiet moments of life. As younger people, there are no quiet moments of life. That is the way life is. Serenity comes with contemplation and understanding of what makes you truly happy in life.

Miracles Can and Do Happen

One of the greatest shifts is that we move toward accepting the possibility of miracles in our lives.  To believe in this possibility will provide a wonder to your life that will energize you. Not everything can be planned out and you are not responsible for the actions of the Universe. If you let them and look for them, you can see miracles almost every day. Miracles can be a part of your life.

Quiet Times are Valuable

Meditation should and can be pursued as a daily practice. I personally never considered meditation as a practice when I was younger. I saw it as a waste of valuable time. Now I think that there is no more valuable way to spend your time. Looking to make your mind quiet allows you to speak to your soul. That voice is much quieter than your mind but is rarely wrong. I learned to listen.

We are Connected to Everything

Being an individual in the world can be a scary thing. When you realize that there is part of you in all changeBetterthings, you feel much less alone and the fear dissipates. Look at the sky, the trees, the animals or any part of nature and if you look closely you can see yourself. There is a feeling of connection to the world that only humans can experience.

Acceptance is Better than Judgment

Finally, the need to judge everything and everyone lessens and disappears. You realize that all people are fighting their own difficult battles in life and in different circumstances, you could be right where they are. People make a million decisions each and every day and sometimes they do not have positive results. There is no value in a judgment of others, it is only through acceptance that your personal power can grow. Judgment is not hurting those you judge but the one who is doing the judging.

In the end, I am sure that I am not saying anything that others haven’t already learned from Wayne Dyer, but for me, his voice allowed life to make a lot more sense to me. The movie The Shift is available for free online for the next week. I urge you to take the time and watch it.

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The Forty one Year Fight

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Mike Martin and I have been friends for forty one years.  There are not many people in the

41 year fight
Even though Mike is always wrong, he still argues with me all the time. He is so stubborn.

world outside of your family that you have known your entire life, and still call them your friend. I am fortunate to have had a friend for most of my life, who is cantankerous, stubborn and is often not right about anything! He would tell you the same thing about me.  We work together right now and that leads to many conflicts about virtually every subject.  When I started this new Picture Project I was in between two of these conflicts, so it only made sense that the first picture should be a symbol of the fights we have on most days.  These “fights” are more philosophical battles, where we do not agree on much of anything.  But when the chips are down, I know I can count on him and he on me.

The core of our conflict has boiled down to the essence of our philosophies, and all of our conflicts stem from this premise:

My Philosohpy: That there is a right and a wrong, that everyone deep down knows it and that morality is definite and binding.  (he refers to this as black and white)

Mike Martin Philosophy:  That life is lived on a continuum of gray area, sometimes things are right, sometimes wrong depending on the circumstances.  (I refer to this as the whatever way the wind blows philosophy)

I could go into each of he specific debates that we have had over the years but when I write about it I seem to be even more clearly right than when the original argument occurred.  Needless to say that we have argued over philosophy, thought, morals, honesty, choices, how to stop drug addiction, and even judgments of others.

Needless to say these arguments have traveled with us from Belgrade all over the State of Maine as we have gone to different locations for work related stuff.  There are a few things we do agree on though.

*Greenville was a great place to grow up

*Our parents were pretty good people

*The Patriots and Red Sox are awesome

Having had some experience with people that are friendly to you face, but not really a friend it is good to know that even though we argue all the time, it is good to have at least one friend that I can count on, no matter what happens.

So this argument has been going on for 41 years and even though I am always right, it still continues, some day he may even get the last word.

But not today because as usual I am right!!!!!

fortyoneyearfight
Always appreciate your real friends.
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