By Nehlan Thorne

Selfishness
“Only I am in a rush. Only I had a hard life. Nobody else’s problems are as great as mine.”  We need to understand that others have it just as hard and we have to also understand that we are not the only ones on the planet. How does it feel when someone after you shared a difficulty with them says, “You think your life was hard in high school you should see what I had to live through at work.”  When you compare what someone else is experiencing or sharing with you and minimize other people’s issues you are embracing a selfish attitude. What are some consequences spiritually of this type of attitude?  Your true self does not seek to diminish another’s suffering.  Your true self seeks to uplift others. By dwelling with selfish attitudes you push the true self further away from your everyday consciousness and into obscurity until it has been forgotten.

Labeling
Labels are good to help you understand what you are dealing with, they should not be excuses for bad and inappropriate behavior. A label is exactly what it is… it is just a label.  When I trained in the armed services we were told that self-esteem and emotions are civilian handicaps. It doesn’t matter how you feel, you still need to do what needs to be done.  For example, you can’t stop paying your mortgage because you don’t feel good about yourself. You can’t tell the Bank that you can’t pay back the loan because you have low self-esteem. I am not minimizing emotions because we all have them. However, it is not an excuse for inappropriate or destructive behavior. Everything happens for a reason, it might take eight years to find out why.  If you use labels as an excuse you are in a rut, and until you face it and deal with it you will never get out of it.  Tom says that he will never succeed because he was diagnosed with a learning disorder and he was told that studies have shown that on average 77% of people with learning disorders don’t have financially successful careers. Tom had two choices:  Accept that people with learning disorders will never do more than menial jobs, or accept the fact that he had a learning disorder, understand his handicap and how to work with it so he could be successful. What happened to the other 23% of people who did find successful careers?  They have accepted their handicap and learned to work with it. Tom can either use his handicap as his strength or his weakness, so he can fulfill the drama of the role or choose not to. Self-fulfilled prophecy; if you are using your disability as a strength you will move on and out of that negative karma and move up and forward with the positive karma you are creating.

Pleasing Others
Don’t put your self in a situation to please others. You need to please your self first. Don’t obtain material possessions for social status.  Working 18 hours a day, 6 days a week to have a big house and a nice car so that others will see you as successful is futile. Even though you are rich with currency you may be poor morally. True happiness has no dollar amount. You have now created a dysfunctional family with people who don’t love you. Those who chase money will find there will never be enough to end the chase creating a negative cycle where, though you are financially successful, you will not be a spiritually successful human.  You have spent so much time trying to be financially successful you have forgotten how to be spiritually successful. In North America we believe success is the size of our house and the type of vehicle we drive and how many digits we have in our bank account. Unfortunately, the parents who have chased money until they are 80 are now quietly sitting in an old age home with no visitors because their children and other family members feel distant and alienated.

Controlling Others
Rather than control others to our expectations we need to accept people for who they are and what they are. We have to see everyone as a separate entity with unique destination. I have heard parents say, “Because I failed, I never became a famous basketball player, my son needs to obtain the riches that I couldn’t have.”  You will find yourself never happy because what is important to you may not be what is important to others.  We can’t grow spiritually if we are stuck in trying to get people to do things that we weren’t able to do for ourselves.

These are some things I have been able to see that avoiding will prove much more effective for the soul's growth and evolution. We are all doing the best we can, everyday we grow and learn more about our selves and in turn begin to know what it is to be Spirit.

Nehlan Thorne