Make a List: 5 Things You Want to Have, Be or Do.

I like my horoscope today because it goes along with something I was saying yesterday:”Your thinking takes a philosophical turn today and you may decide that it’s time to re-evaluate your goals or ambitions for the next few years. It’s all positive, so face it with an open heart.”

I was teaching A Course in Miracles on Paltalk yesterday, and I asked everyone listening to go get a sheet of paper and a pen.

I asked them to date the sheet of paper – so if you are doing this now, go get a sheet of paper and date it November 12, 2007 – and I asked them to write down:

TODAY IS A NEW BEGINNING
SETTING THE GOAL

I asked everyone to take some time during the day to write down 5 things you wish for, desire, want to be. 5 Things you want to have, be or do.
You don’t want to get to the end of your life and find there are regrets. You want to become fully alive, and to GO FOR IT. Stop waiting for the time to be right, or for circumstances to improve, or to settle for what is thrown to you like scraps to a dog.

The point of this exercise is to move you into action, from being a spectator to being an active participant in your own transformation.

You need to know where you are going, in order to get there. You need a map. You need to set the goal. You need to know what direction you are heading, otherwise you will just float along aimlessly waiting for a “miracle” to happen to you. But what “miracle” could happen to you, if you don’t even know what you want????

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Many people, once they find a spiritual path, get a little lazy in the concepts. They think they are “above” doing things now because they are “holy.” They spend their time meditating, or listening to other spiritual teachers, or teaching their spiritual ideas. Their whole life is suddenly about helping other people “wake up.”

I am laughing how everyone has a blog nowadays, and how everyone is a self-help teacher, and believe me … it does not escape my attention that I have written a book that falls into this category … along with a blog, a clip on youtube, and my own MySpace.

haha.

I cannot believe how many spiritual teachers are out there now, all with advice on how you can improve your life.

It is a little overwhelming to see the sheer number of bloggers. I think it’s also funny see how much time they spend on DESIGN and APPEARANCE, but there is NO real content. We used to make our bodies look good to make people like us – pretty packaging with nothing inside – and now we make our blogs look good to make people like us, but there is nothing inside. No real content.

Also annoying is the overload on links. In order to be a successful blog nowadays you need tons of links. You need tons of friends. You scratch their back and they will scratch yours. Blah. So I click on links on beautifully designed blogs, which lead me to other BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED blogs with tons of links, but again … with very little interesting content. So I click on the links on that blog … HOPING TO FIND SOMETHING WITH A LITTLE SUBSTANCE … and I could spend all day long clicking on links.

It’s gotten a little ridiculous.

I’ve realized the best place for real substance is in my own mind. If I want fresh content or to read something interesting, I realize I have to write it myself.
(or I e-mail my friend Evan, who is pure inspiration and his writing flies off the charts – 5 STARS – but he doesn’t have a blog, so I have to e-mail him direct to read his stuff).

I don’t care about how to make this a more succesful blog. When I see “delicious” or “digg-it” on a site, I know the site was thrown together to draw traffic, and not necessarily because there is a “GREAT NEED” to write.

I need to write.

If I wasn’t here on this blog on the computer, I’d be sitting over there on the couch with my pen and journal. I need to write, like an athlete needs to move his muscles. I really don’t care how many people show up here. I don’t want advertisers. I don’t want links I don’t care about.

I don’t care about being successful.

I simply want to be an inspiration – to myself and to you who is reading this.

In Field of Dreams, there is a great line “if you build it, they will come.”

It was a baseball field!!! not something fancy. Not something based on what was hip and cool. Not the latest fad. Not some big technological advanced spectacular thing that the world had never seen.

It was a baseball field out in the middle of nowhere.

And if you have seen the movie (you should!), you realize he built it thinking it was for other people to come, but in the end it was only for him.

He built a baseball field, because HE needed to build it, because the spirit was moving him to do it. He didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

He wasn’t thinking how to be successful. He was simply out there building a damn baseball field like Noah building an ark.

Do you see?

That’s the value of the sheet of paper and pen today. You stop being spiritual. You look squarely at what desires, wishes and needs you have in your own mind. Be honest. You can say “oh, I am above wanting things in the world” and “there is no world” … but I am finding there is a whole lot more energy in CREATION. Of actually allowing your mind to be totally present.

There is no energy in trying to be ethereal.

So, today is the new beginning. Draw yourself a map. Have fun with this list. It’s okay to write things like “I want the peace of God” and “I want to be happy” but also put some worldly things on that list too. Okay? Shoot for the stars. If you want to write a book, or travel to Europe, or live in a big house, or win an Academy Award … just put that down there, okay?

The other reason you need to re-evaluate your goals is because everything is changing all the time. The last time you wrote down a list of things you want … that was a totally different time. You have changed. Your priorities have changed. Most likely you have accomplished some of your prior goals.

So today, we are erasing all our old ideas. Coming squarely into the present moment. Forgetting all of our failures. Forgetting all of our mistakes, and we are letting ourselves SHOOT FOR THE STARS.

Have fun.

ps: my list is gooooooood. I put it off till last night, but it’s really good. It’s got me all excited and fired up.