What if the book “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle or a children’s version of it were taught to children and teenagers?

The average young person today is caught up in downloading their favorite songs on their ipods, playing video games, and, of course, all the other stuff that kids have always done such as oohing and aahing over their romantic fantasies.

What if they became interested in the concepts that this book, “The New Earth” describes?  Instead of meandering through life and making so many wrong choices, they got it right early on.  They would, no doubt, discover their interests, skills, and passions to light their fire.  Then their natural fearlessness would be grounded in self-knowledge, inspiration and purpose instead of risk taking dangerous behaviors.

Discovering their potential and their purpose and using their dynamic energy of their youth, they would be inspired and led to creations that would lift up our society.  Because they would be on purpose and relate to oneness, their ideas and energetic creative energy would indeed propel their generation and ours into a new earth.

Everyone can relate to those annoyances when someone pushes your buttons.  They instinctively know just the right things to say or do that will irritate you to no end.  You react and suddenly find yourself embroiled in an unexpected argument or conflict.  It happens so quickly that you later ask yourself, “how did this happen?”

It happens because we all have sensitive painful areas in our emotions that are stimulated by certain words and/or influences.  We all have these emotions that are part of our human ego.  For some the pain is deeper and closer to the surface, and pushing their buttons can erupt violently and dangerously.

For most of us, we do not become a violent, volcanic and dangerous person, but rather, we feel an uncomfortable disturbance that causes our psyche to feel threatened or personally attacked so we become defensive and often react with anger.  Unfortunately, our reaction only magnifies the situation, and this is how little disturbances can escalate into sudden passionate domestic violence situations.

Clearly, it is not in your best interests to automatically react to someone who pushes your buttons.  In order to develop new habits and stop reacting when your buttons are pushed requires awareness and commitment.    You cannot change another person or make them stop doing the button pushing activity.  All you can do is change yourself and how you react to the situation.

So start from there.  Remember the last time it happened.  What words were uttered?  What were you doing?  What were you thinking?  What body language was taking place?  By asking yourself these types of questions, you can identify the emotional origin that caused the distress.  As you become aware of it, you can consciously begin to let go, forgive, find the humor in it, or in some way develop the strength, resolve, and peace within yourself to change your reactions so that you can withstand the pressure of having your buttons pushed.

What if more of us made it a point to stop reacting when someone pushes our buttons?  Consider the implications to this one small shift in thinking.

Almost everyone has a little bit of good earth upon which a little garden can grow.  What if everyone who has a little space available put that space to work.  Hundreds and thousands of backyards are sitting idle, blank canvases, upon which to start growing a little garden.  To successfully grow a few plants does not require a huge garden space.  Plants can be grown in little spaces.  They just need some good soil with drainage, the proper amount of sunlight, some watering, and you have become a part of going green.

If you don’t have a little plot of good earth, buy some garden soil at your local gardening or nursery store.  They will have just the right type for the plants you want to grow in your particular location.

Growing a few plants can have many benefits, a few of which are listed below.

1)  A healthy food source  — growing some lettuce, a tomato plant, a few peppers or onions can be a nice little source of extra nourishment.  Picking and eating fresh vegetables from your backyard or patio garden is a tasty experience that everyone should have.

2)  Growing even just a single plant is a therapeutic activity.  Taking care of and enjoying the growth and changes of the plant is relaxing and just makes you feel good.

3)  Brighten up your world with some beautiful colorful flowers.  There is no one who doesn’t enjoy pretty flowers.

4)  Growing plants is an opportunity to learn many new practical lessons about the local environment where you live.

5)  Having a few houseplants will also help to deliver a healthier air supply in your home.

6)  Growing healthy plants is satisfying and rewarding.

What if everyone grew a little garden, and this little garden were to give them pause for a little bit more happiness.

The blame game is very counterproductive to achievement and success in any area of life.  Blaming someone or something else simply makes one a powerless victim and empowers resentment and all manner of negative forces.  Unless or until someone is able to break this cycle of blame, it can easily “take on a life of its own”. 

Children begin this cycle very early, and as children grow, they will often use the blame game to excuse their own mistakes.  Adults can easily recognize this behavior in the interaction of children with each other.  It seems an easy way out of many problems, just to blame someone else, and is often easily justified in the child’s mind. 

If we mature into adults and continue feeding the blaming habit and continue using this way of thinking to blame someone or something else for our situation. disfunctional adults are the end result who are quick to absolve themselves from taking responsibility to resolve challenges in a positive way.  We choose our own happiness or unhappiness by succumbing to victimhood through the blame game in relationships.

After all, it is so comforting to sit back and feel righteous about our situation if we can justify that someone or something else is really the problem.  But how real is that, really?  Blaming others for our problems on a massive scale is the reason for the minor and major human conflicts that continue to proliferate in every corner of the globe, in every city, on every street, and in every home. 

What if everyone suddenly became conscious of the heartache that we each are personally choosing to inflict on ourselves and others by choosing to settle our problems and differences by blaming others for our problems?  What if a light suddenly came on in our minds so that we saw the silliness and bizarre mindset of the blaming attitude.  It is somewhat puzzling to understand why it is difficult to see this.  After all, we can easily see this behavior in children, and most parents take steps to teach children that their own behaviors have contributed to a conflict.

And yet adults have become so quick to sue someone else for a perceived injustice that the court system has become so clogged with lawyers, procedures, and cases that it is far more costly that it should be and is far less effective than it could be.  This idea of blaming others for our problems exists in all life situations that includes domestic relationships, business relationships and social relationships. 

What if each person were able to observe their own participation in the conflict and recognize that they were not blameless, and instead an active participant in the circumstances.  Though things often seem onesided, it may be determined that this onesidedness is grossly overrated.  But that can only be recognized when each person decides to take full responsibility for themselves and chooses to adjust their own behavior that caused the rift that has taken place.  In other words, as one see things differently, the situation will change. 

This requires being honest with ourselves as well as with others.  Are we, as adults, willing to take a good look at out own participation in our situations as we expect our children to do?  We truly can create our own happiness and stop the hurt and sorrows in all of our relationships if we are willing to take responsibility for our own selves and stop blaming others for our problems.

What if everyone loved their work? What if every day they got up in the morning and were truly happy and joyful to go to do their day’s work?

Every person has unique inborn interests, skills and talents that are just waiting to be developed. Unfortunately, many people live their entire lives without ever satisfying that longing within themselves to be involved in their true passion.

What if they were able to work in their area of interest? It is my belief that the world would be a much better place if everyone loved their work. The positive energy that they would feel and live by would send out massive energies of abundance, love, and peace. The innovative products and services that would be created by such people would bring incredible solutions to our troubled world.

What if we could change the world just by our thoughts? 

Take a few moments to notice and evaluate your thoughts……….

What did you notice?  What sorts of thoughts were prevalent—thoughts of kindness, peace, forgiveness, abundance????   Or were there many thoughts of blame, resentment, anger, scarcity???

Notice how those thoughts make you feel……..

Think about it!

What if, instead of silently judging and critiquing each person we come across in our daily life, we silently honor the love that is in them with the love that is in us?

So instead of creating more division and unseen walls between us, we would create bonds to uplift and encourage one another. What if we begin to practice this simple thought pattern?

What if this simple modification in thinking would be instrumental in impacting the consciousness of us all so that love, kindness, and forgiveness became more prevalent throughout the Earth?

What if you took the time and gave a little of yourself to inspire someone today?

We are like links in a chain. We do influence one another by what we do, say, and the thoughts we think. What if your influence lights a spark of inspiration or enthusiasm that may propel someone to follow their dream, stay the course, help someone else to follow their dream, invent a product that changes the world, heals the sick, ends terrorism, or gives hope to someone somewhere?

The ability to inspire someone else is an easy gift that anyone can give.

Motivate and Inspire Someone Today

“Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.”
- Jack Lemmon

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won if he’d stuck it out.
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are -
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit -
It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.

- Author Unknown

So many of us have heard from time to time, “Well, you only live once, so you better make the best of it” or some variation of the “you only live once” statement.

What if the “you only live once” idea is based on a totally false reality?  What if we do have many many lives on this Earth, coming back here time and time again.  This, of course, is the concept of reincarnation.  There is a long list of famous people who believed in reincarnation.  Some of them were Plato, Walter Whitman, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Wadsworth Longellow, and General Patton.

Is it not a greater motivator to live one’s life the best we can if we do return again and again?

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What if each person contains the seeds of a natural creative genius waiting to be nourished so that it can sprout and take root?  We know deep inside that we all have specific interests that are just natural to us.  No one else has taught us to feel passionately about a particular subject or activity.

What if we allowed and encouraged that passion to grow and expand?  Are there possibilities just beyond our current reach if blockages and perceived impediments are dissolved?  Where does that insistent voice that rises from deep within us somehow come from?  Is it connected to some unseen force that keeps saying, “this is you, you are it–cease your wandering, and come home.”

Are we drawn to certain places, music, people, or events because they represent some deep need of a natural creative genius within us to be fulfilled?  Have we all entered this life plane with a built-in storehouse of yearnings to do, to be, to experience something not yet found?  If we feel out of place, out of sinc, out of step in our current profession or life circumstance, there may be deep seated answers hidden without our souls just waiting to burst out and be discovered?