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“The toughest battle we face is with our courage. Tough times never last, tough people do. And the strongest love is held by the softest hands. The most resilient toughness comes from the softest soul because the brittle soul will crack at the slightest challenge. And what does a soul need? The soul needs love, purpose and faith - and hope in all three.”
— Mickie Kent
In the United Kingdom at the moment rarely a week seems to pass without some kind of investigation into prices or charging. This week there's been a probe into petrol prices and separate allegations of predatory pricing by utility firms. We are all paying hidden charges, it seems - and that is a fitting allegory for our times.
The world is fast changing, with developments making, breaking and remaking nations of power. We are all feeling the shift turmoil brings in our pockets and our health, linked by a seemingly unrelated series of events. By example: teachers in England and Wales have voted to go on strike over what they are calling the "erosion" of their pay and working conditions, while an AIDS-like disease which attacks the immune system has swept Asia and parts of the U.S. in a bizarre pattern, bewildering doctors and researchers.
We are a species that like to find patterns in things. It can gives us a sense of meaning in a deep expanse of cosmos that we find daunting because there is so little we know. And not just other planets; there are places on our own planet so remote that it could pass for another world. Although it may seem there are few genuine unknowns left to discover on our planet, there is the Arctic world, for example, which can mean many different things: raw nature, untapped geological treasure, essential research into climate change.
Scientists in the Arctic are warning that this summer's record-breaking melt is part of an accelerating trend with profound implications on weather. And as the human footprint has corrupted the climate, some would say, so, too, have our mishandled politics and public policies corrupted our societies. Political back-room dealing has become a time honoured tradition amongst those in power, bartering commodities not theirs to give, or take. In America economy figures are still weak, and big Hollywood names like Brad Pitt are now coming out to say that the era of the huge Hollywood salaries are over.
While on the other side of the pond, we are still in the grip of a long recession in the UK; the economic climate is stagnant (the Olympics did little more than make us feel a little bit better about it the economists say - as shoppers were distracted from buying), but investment in science is more important now than it has ever been. People need to understand what scientific research is doing now, what the potential is and also, importantly, what happens if you stop doing it. If we want to understand how we work, we need the tools science can provide.
We are still a long way from understanding human biology - conventional wisdom is continuously being rewritten. And as little as we understand our selves, we understand the other members of our community of life less (while discovering new ones all the time). But they understand us somewhat better, it seems, with a study revealing that tigers in Nepal seem to be taking night shifts in order to avoid their human neighbours.
And who can blame them? We have set ourselves our apart and above all other living things as superior, but predators know their kind well; we are as quick to kill as we are to condemn. The world can be a violent place, nature is not known for its niceties; and that we as humans can be just as violent along with it - especially when we war. For all our lofty ideals, we have exiled and tortured those who disagreed with us. We have made dissidents disappear and desecrated the remains of the fallen we have seen as the enemy. And then there are those that have risked life and limb so as to escape the calamities of war.
It's often been said that only the dead see the end of war; and that lack of faith in our future has even come out in our creativity. Some fictional escapades are fiercely loyal to a mythological past, while other futuristic visions in literature and cinema are of a dystopia - filled with killer diseases with no known cures, where all hope has long gone of an enlightened world which has sold its rights to rampant commercialism. But to some, science fiction is sounding more like science fact with each passing day.
We are already living in an Orwellian world where "Big Brother" is watching - so used have we become to broadcasting our lives on the internet and being spied upon; we are increasingly being monitored for popular tastes, and our attention is being diverted from our lives to the resident freak show the media makes of its celebrities.
It's undeniable that we are a celebrity-obsessed bunch, and we never even stop to think and ask ourselves why we need to constantly distract ourselves from life's deeper concerns. We even foist celeb-lust on our own children. Take a look at what's trending on Twitter or Yahoo, or any other online service that tracks buzz and you'll notice a trend; whether we love them or loathe them, we can't help talking about the lives of celebrities (rather than their talents or creative output). As the old adage goes, if you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all - but even the online abuse of young pop stars seems to have become a fashion of its own, with social media hate forcing some celebrities to quit social networking sites.
However, are we more attracted to the famous people themselves or simply the idea of fame? It such big business that talent agencies are now snapping up potentials before they are even born, with scouts surfing through images of 3D scans of babies in the womb posted by mothers. It can be addictive, because it's in this theatre of fame that we can gleefully watch aspirations turn into lustful ambitions that cause downfall, self-loathing or self-doubt. Unchecked ambition - especially if our successes fail to make us happy - can be the final curtain for many of us.
What we don't realise is that by getting stage struck, we become as removed from our lives as we do from reality. We begin to live in the shadowy gap between the show and the truth. And as new breeds of software reflect the growing impact of the digital age on all areas and stages of our lives (to bring out the worst in us even in 140 characters of less), some complain the human touch is fast fading; we are becoming ever more disconnected from life to withdraw into the shadows.
In the last century distribution was the major problem in our societies - distribution of wealth, goods, kindness - the people who needed money the most never seemed to get it. While other people like religious preachers, politicians, movie stars, sport players were all taking in big money - and these are not all good people. Some do drugs, some steal, some even lie all the time just to keep their money. But some come by it through hard work, too.
However, in this century it seems as though the major problem with society is not distribution, but disconnectedness. We fear our own feelings, believe in the futility of desire, and reject our own self-worth. And when we lose trust in the higher feelings, we often fall down into the clutches of more baser ones.
Shakespeare wrote that lust is what becomes of an aspiration when it is allowed to grow and become ambition. When this passion called aspiration becomes lust, then aspiration degenerates - becomes vulgar ambition - by which sin, the angels fell. We fear the ridicule it can make us, and so we watch (with somewhat gory delight) when the "angels" of today fall. What can be said when we learn that a talented artist like Michael Jackson came to such a point where he couldn't live with himself that he was using medication to knock himself out not for hours but whole days?
Some would say that the celebrities bring it upon themselves; it's the nature of the beast - if you want fame you have to launch yourself with whatever means necessary - even if that means tweeting your semi-naked bikini pictures to your millions of fans. Critics believe that when the celebs treat us to an endless stream of personal naked pictures, they're telling their young followers that being attractive and sexually available is more important than anything else. But fame-hungry teens need to see a darker side to celebrity, because this is more than just about sex censorship and the social media. It points to a more worrisome trend of how we market ourselves.
We might live in a world in which women can be doctors, astronauts or engineers, but we can't ignore the fact that women are rewarded for trading on their looks and bodies. By focusing too much on outer beauty, and the road to stardom, we lack focus on the more important issues in life. We continue to make the worst aspects of our nature a template with which to live by, rather than use that passion we call aspiration to do what the greatest have done when it flares with a noble flame - to shine its light towards a better future for us all.
Sometimes we call such people "no good dreamers", but it's the absence and abhorrence of dreams that makes people less than their potential. Sometimes simply seeing can be deceiving, and dreaming means believing. Without dreams we work like drones and fight wars to no aim; and there is no place on Earth where superstition and fear cannot reach us, because we take them with us instead of our dreams. Our capacity to do harm is great; but when we allow ourselves to dream we can exceed all capacity. For all of our riches, without dreams we become the worst part of our selves, disconnected from our soul.
And we are as strong as our souls; it's what makes "good" people strong, and "evil" people weak. Our soul is the immune system of our conscience - and we don't even think that there is any other way than the responsible one when our souls are the guiding force in our lives. No challenge will be strong enough to destroy the better part of our selves.
The wealth of our soul is in the power of the dreams that drive us. We will search not for superiority, but for equality; we will help those in need. When someone looks at us as if to say, "Can you help?", we'll respond with the look, "How can I not?" Because we'll realise that everyone is held by the same force which holds us - by strong love and soft hands. Thus through this route, it's not just by the grace of science we'll learn about our own self, but by the grace of our own dreams - championed by deeds and actions and a positive mindset inspired to give value to those in need.
And sharing the burden of giving - with the satisfaction that brings - is the cement that binds hearts and minds to a common cause like the betterment of our fellow living beings. This is the great privilege of giving, and its generosity is not about ostentation. If we make any good act a vulgar display to impress, then we have negated that act.
Ego not only makes a bad show out of sportsmen and women, but highlights the worse of human nature. Taking advantage of someone else's ill luck is no advantage at all; and it's only discouraged where there is mutual respect and understanding for others. That is the true celebration of being human, and provides a glimpse of what we have come to term as our soul.
Create your own template
“It is only moths and men that destroy themselves caught in a flame of their choosing, but not of their understanding.”
— Mickie Kent
The doctoring of your soul is not merely the job of a psychic or a physic - it's a task you must undertake yourself. In these times of transformation and change, it is more important than ever to find solutions for ourselves, our families, our friends and our planet - always remembering that while revolutions are fast, evolution is slow.
Sometimes in our single-minded vision we might lose perspective and fear to step outside of our narrow boundaries, but life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. We view our world through frames of understanding, the boundaries fixed by agreed narrative. If something can alter that frame, its carpentry can be re-worked to fit a different tale.
When we look at the bigger picture of history, we can see that the shifting political and social landscape is not particular to our time. In the past we have been too quick to show our ugly sides; a thoughtless moment can ruin lives - we are quick to rage and slow to calm. We have been fed on immediacy; we want what we want, and we want it NOW. Symbols are important to us, and our most powerful symbols are those we can purchase over the counter for the right price, and our societies are filled with social disparity. We often question the morality of our young, without questioning why we need to question them in the first place.
This summer has reminded us of the values we know lie at the core of human character: tolerance, charity and general goodwill. The 2012 Paralympics will see centuries of street prejudice against those termed as disabilities pushed aside, undoubtedly good news which will be counter-balanced by news that hate crimes have risen against disabled people, too. In the golden shadow of the Games, they are an inspiration, but they have far darker shadows to face than simply apathy. I have seen how hostility and patronising pity can be replaced by respect and empathy - but we can all too easily ruin it.
For it's only when we place respect and trust and the forefront of our societies, then we will no longer need to ask what happened to peace, love and mutual respect, or about considering the feelings of others. Attitudes can change for good. It is up to us.
For instance, have you ever taken the time to really examine your beliefs? A belief is said to be any guiding principal, dictum, faith or passion that can provide direction and meaning in life - but we have turned some beliefs into bigotry. And pushers of those beliefs have become organisations that can control the majority of us into a dogmatic way of thinking and believing. We can hardly expect nations to talk about forgiveness, when geographical nations by their nature have been formed by the massacres of indigenous populations native to the land.
None of us can cast the first stone; no nation is immune. And no nation has really begun to heal its wounds or wrap the bandages across the bloody past of civilisation, which must begin before they can hope to heal the wounds of others across their borders. We look to organised churches that preach forgiveness rather than fundamentalism, but we see them spending millions fighting issues such as gay marriage, for example, when that money could be better spent on helping the homeless than trying to legislate for the heart and mind.
When we trust something is true, that belief delivers a strong command to the brain to visualise what we are convinced will occur while simultaneously changing your subconscious thought patterns. The theory goes that if we can see it, then we believe we can reach it. If we can't see it, then the experts say we should invent it. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying that imagination is more important knowledge - and what he meant was that imagination is our driving force for knowledge. Imagination is that beautiful word to describe the spark which brings knowledge to life.
Thus we visualise what we want to manifest in our lives believing we'll see it; and if we trust in something beneficial, then that's what will manifest for us. When you have a strong belief it can be your most powerful tool in bringing great things into your life. A series of strong beliefs can empower you so you can achieve almost any goal that you set for yourself. Once you set your goal and you truly believe you can accomplish it, your nervous system and brain come into play and make it work. Throughout history people who have had strong beliefs have accomplished things many people thought were previously impossible. Those individuals competing the Paralympics are perfect examples.
Many of us never take the time out to truly analyse our inner beliefs. As a result, we often don't understand why we act the way we do, and many of us have taken on beliefs that may be acting as an "invisible wall" between us and happiness. From the moment we were born, we've been programmed to take on certain beliefs, and some of these will actually be sabotaging our lives.
Read about the power of the subconscious.
We tend to accept that people in authority must be right, creating a culture of impunity for those in power. It's this assumption that the philosopher Socrates wanted us to challenge by urging us to think logically about the injustice offices of power can be guilty of, rather than being struck dumb by their aura of importance and air of suave certainty. Why do so many people go along with the crowd and fail to stand up for what they truly believe? Partly because they are too easily swayed by other people's opinions and partly because they don't know when to have confidence in their own.
The best advice for self-confidence in this context is critical thinking. This means not to accept or refuse anything before it has been filtered through your own mind; not to believe everything you hear, or even everything you see. To always try to reach the truth, or the source of the belief, because if information is power in modern society, then you can only be as powerful as the amount you know. Getting educated is the best way to give yourself options. That is why you should read plenty, listen a lot, learn much, gather and share what you know. Be happy with the knowledge gained. Ignorance isn't really bliss, and what you don't know can really hurt you, because you can't be happy without first understanding what it is to be yourself.
Some will ask at this point, what does happiness have to do with critical thought? Ernest Hemingway believed that happiness in intelligent people was the rarest thing he knew. It's an extension of the belief that Western society is not set up to nurture intelligent children and adults, the way it dotes over athletes and sports figures, especially the outstanding ones (Albert Einstein being a major exception) - but happiness and intelligence is not a rare combination. Again this is an assumption we hold in the West which we would do well to challenge.
Click here for 40 tips to a happier life.
Happiness is part of the good food guide for the soul, and many thinkers who have influenced history, have given their ideas about the pursuit of the happy life. Happiness is subjective, and it will mean different things to all of us. Yet the common ground of all is that it will begin not in the heart or the soul, but in the conduit that binds bodily organs to the spirit - the brain.
Where all streams flow
It's a debatable assertion whether we treat intelligent people as outcasts in our society, and a controversial idea that happiness is grounded on moral values or prioritisation that is assigned by society which is then implemented and disseminated by the educational system. In that what society "values" highly: wealth, sports, etc., is what defines "happiness" or success. But is intelligence antithetical to these values? Some would argue that there is an implicit error that differentiates or dichotomises between reason (intelligence) and emotion (happiness) when there isn't necessarily a gap between the two.
It's thought that children develop along four streams: intellectual, physical, emotional (psychological) and social. In classrooms, the smartest kids tend to be left out of more activities by other children than they are included in. They are "odd", they are the geeks, nerds, they are social outsiders. In other words, they do not develop socially as well as they may develop intellectually or even physically where opportunities may exist for more progress. We are still learning about the brain, and scientific research is constantly revealing new information.
For example the adaptability of the brain has been shown in studies where researchers at University College London and Newcastle University found tuning a piano also tunes the brain. And the potential of brain power is not limited to thought alone: according to research packing an impressive karate punch has more to do with brain power than muscle power.
Therefore, arguably these four "streams" are really just two: mental and physical. And these two streams are really just one: since the brain is a physical organ, and the mental stream encompasses intellect, emotion, and sociology. However by dividing a person into body and mind and the mental into further compartments, on the one hand it may give insight into human motivations, but on the other hand it may also be an excellent excuse for contradictory behaviour.
Consider the following statements:
- Follow your heart instead of your brain.
- Follow society instead of yourself.
- Follow the right path, regardless of how you feel.
- Follow what makes you happy, instead of what makes sense.
Proponents of this theory believe that when the heart and brain work in unison people experience being "in the flow". Moreover - even if it turns out the heart's role in our lives might be a romantic misconception - there is also evidence to suggest that our organs do have mini-brains. For example, new research is revealing the surprising ways in which our guts exert control over our mood and appetite.
Read how to use food as your shield.
The network of neurons that line your stomach and your gut keep in close contact with the brain in your skull, via the vagus nerves, which often influence our emotional state. And whether any of the paired nerves that originate in the brain stem or vagi narrow or stay open is dependent on the corpus synergies of the body. Nevertheless, the theory is that it's the brain that chooses the emotional route instead of the logical one. And arguably, in this case, the emotional route becomes the logical one for the person who chooses it.
Society doesn't choose for an individual, it's the individual who values society that chooses to follow society's dictates. The social need is still in the mind. Right or moral path versus emotion is another version of heart versus brain. In this case by choosing the right path - you are in effect putting morality as part of your logic or reasoning. What was really in conflict are the choices of what morality to value, not a choice between morality and emotion.
So back to happiness - which is an emotion, which is part of the mind. A happy person isn't happy because he or she values certain things (e.g. wealth or the body) above intellect. In reality it is his or her intellect that produces the emotion - his or her intelligence that values those things. A sad person isn't unhappy because he or she chooses intellect above all things, but perhaps those things his or her intelligence values are lacking in their life.
Maybe the proper question is not a dichotomy between the mind and happiness - but what kind of happiness the mind is looking for. Happiness is a celebration of individualism, because it's our individual stories that give us purpose and value. Ancient philosopher Epicurus, who was no epicurean glutton or wanton consumerist, was an advocate of "friends, freedom and thought" as the path to happiness.
On the other hand, the first national well-being survey in the UK says that people who are married, have jobs and own their own homes are the most likely to be satisfied with their lives. Others believe that external factors like sunshine can makes us happier, or discovering the most important thing in life is not how much you've got, but how much you can do without.
Read about the philosophy of happiness.
Can there ever be a comprehensive happiness index? Those with little rarely seem happy with their lot, and when you read those international lists of the happiest countries, top of the league tend to be places like Norway, Sweden, Canada, Denmark and Finland. There is no correlation between well-being and warm weather there - if anything it looks like the opposite. Moreover the UK's well-being survey found that good health was not a factor to happiness, but can you enjoy a good mood in bad health?
Although what will make us happy will be unique to us, conversely it's a myth that we know what will make us happy. In some cases we haven't a clue. We routinely overestimate how happy something will make us, whether it's a birthday, free pizza, a new car, a victory for our favourite sports team or political candidate, winning the lottery or raising children. Money does make people happier, but only to a point - poor people are less happy than the middle class, but the middle class are just as happy as the rich. We overestimate the pleasures of solitude and leisure and underestimate how much happiness we get from social relationships.
On the flip side, the things we dread don't make us as unhappy as expected. Monday mornings aren't as unpleasant as people predict. Seemingly unendurable tragedies - paralysis, the death of a loved one - cause grief and despair, but the unhappiness doesn't last as long as people think it will. People are remarkably resilient. And are there more important things in life than happiness? For example, love can bring happiness, but is love more important than happiness? Nineteenth century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer believed that love was the most important thing in life because of its powerful impulse towards "the will-to-life". However in modern times, relationships have become so tricky to maintain that some are advising women that the key to a lasting relationship is picking a man that loves you a little bit more than you love them.
Such rationale for a healthy relationship hardly seems credible, as it still focuses on loving relationships as ones of "domination-power" rather than love. When this is the case, then what we perceive to be the darker side to love is in reality the result of the absence of true love. A relationship might need rules, but it needs no rulers.
A question of love
“Let's talk about dreams for a moment. Dreams where there is no limit to what you can accomplish. Let's imagine that in your dreams there are no boundaries, no fear, but then what happens? You wake up and the dream is gone. What I'm talking about is dreaming the possible dream. Inventing your dream life and finding it manifest into your waking one. Where life is so great, you just won't want to close your eyes in case you miss a single moment of it. But first ask yourself: What is your dream? Then ask yourself: What's stopping you? Then tell yourself: The only person standing in the way of your dreams is you. It's a question of belief, and belief is a question of who or what you love.”
— Mickie Kent
Love touches on that other controversial dichotomy: that of the body (which includes the brain and the mind), and the spirit/soul. The unified theory is that there should be no segregation; the key is a balanced synergy of mind, body and soul - as this series advocates. When we are more in tune with this powerful triumvirate, then we have more clarity with which to understand our emotions - which some suggest is one of the reasons we are here. Life is our sandbox in which to discover and test our our feelings, because learning how they work will make us understand how we work.
Take anger for example. As violent protests rage across the Middle East and beyond over an anti-Islamic film, I ask myself: How is it that people can hate like that? No professor of philosophy has yet come up with a comprehensive answer, but Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the most famous and popular philosopher of his day, took the subject of anger seriously enough to dedicate a whole book to the subject. Seneca refused to see anger as an irrational outburst over which we have no control. Instead he saw it as a philosophical problem and amenable to treatment by philosophical argument. Likewise 16th Century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne gave his perspective on low self-esteem. Montaigne singled out three main reasons for feeling bad about yourself - sexual inadequacy, failure to live up to social norms, and intellectual inferiority - and then offered practical solutions for overcoming them.
Meanwhile Friedrich Nietzsche's dictum that any worthwhile achievements in life come from the experience of overcoming hardship meant that for him, any existence too comfortable is worthless, as are the twin refugees of drink or religion. Thus a rainy summer can produce a golden autumn; hard times can force us to slimline our diets and make us healthier.
Arguably, what unite these great thinkers on their thoughts across the wide spectrum of human experience is that instead of suffering from these emotions, you can actually use them to experience more love and happiness in your life. Another theory is that once we understand where our emotions come from, we can feel every emotion as love - thus turning your negative feelings into your greatest allies. All emotions have a purpose, and trying to "get rid of them" is missing their important message. Our focus must be on the positive, but we mustn't just bury away the negative. Understanding our anger can help clear it, and open the way for forgiveness, and can help us leave the past where it belongs, and move unhindered into a brighter future. The past only exists when we look back at it.
If this approach sounds applicable to you, then to change our behaviours we must start with our own belief systems. First, some experts suggest that it's essential to find the people who have done what you want to accomplish. Study the belief systems of the great thinkers of human history, and incorporate them into your own emerging belief structure. As the saying goes, success (in whatever area of life - even if just to be happy) leaves clues. And getting to grip with our feelings is probably one if the hardest - and lifelong - tasks we'll ever have to manage. Setbacks will be inevitable. Notice I don't use the word "failure" - failures only exist in your old belief system. In your new template, past "failures" are lessons in growth.
There is a story about Thomas Edison that talks about his beliefs and his ability to deal with failure after failure. Most people fail a couple of times and give up. Edison, who took more than ten years and twenty thousand experiments to invent a light, durable, efficient battery, tells of someone questioning his route. "Mr. Edison you have failed twenty thousand times, what makes you think you will get results?" To which Edison replied, "Results? Why, I've got a lot of results. I know twenty thousand things that don't work". It's all about belief.
Beliefs come from different events in your life. We all have experiences that we won't forget and will be in our brain for a long time. We each have events in our own lives that create or alter the perceptions we have of our own world. A good way to reconstruct or bolster a belief structure is through seeking additional knowledge. By reading books on how others have achieved incredible accomplishments you will help shift your belief system relating to what is possible and eventually help you succeed. In addition, talking to anyone you can find who has accomplished what you wish to accomplish adds to your knowledge base. Learn as much as you can from others experiences. Most people enjoy talking about their successes and sharing the knowledge they have gained.
If you want to succeed it is important to choose what beliefs you wish to change first, and to seek out those who can help you with your undertaking. It is critical in establishing your revised belief system that you surround yourself with as many positive and motivating people and books as possible, and continually work toward being involved in events that will bolster your new way of perceiving the world. This will help filter out all the negatives that might come your way.
Your belief system doesn't differentiate or judge, it simply accepts as truth what you feed it. Keep in mind that the power of belief works just as efficiently on your thoughts of self-doubt and limitations as it does on success and achievement. The question then is, how do you change your belief system of negative thoughts?
One technique that is helpful when you come across negative thoughts is to say "Cancel". As Earl Nightingale said "you become what you think about." This is why it is so important to guard the thoughts of your mind, or at least understand where they come from. Remember that our belief system is brought on by repetitions of thoughts and by past experiences. There is also no stronger tool you can harness to enhance the belief in yourself than the power of affirmations.
There are many techniques out there, and you will need to discover the one right for you - and that in itself is part of the process, a path on the journey towards the real YOU. But the template you create for your life must be your own, tailored to your own unique self - that triumvirate of mind, body and soul harmonised to the energy of life.
Yours in love,
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