Access to wisdom

My goal here is to provide a simple gateway to knowledge that expands human consciousness, delivered in bite size chunks with a humorous twist, for people who want to better understand themselves, life, and how to cultivate a fulfilling existence.

~ Dan Brown

Some context first. On my personal journey of Positive Transformation I decided that there are three core components to my life that matter to me. Self Development, Creative Development and Relationship Development.

In terms of why I am writing this, it supports the development of all three, self in learning new skills, my relationships as I want people to know what I am all about, genuinely and authentically. It also really develops the passion I have to be more creative, to do what I enjoy, and I enjoy writing. Am I any good matters not, I enjoy it, and hope to develop myself my skills, and my creativity while sharing ideas and having some fun. It just makes me happy.

This is all more life experimentation for me, a learning experience, a quest to do more and be more, while also making a personal demonstration that you may have to be a fool before you can be a master! So for anyone out there with a dream, a passion, and an underlying feeling for what you need to be, simply engage with you own inner power and JUST GO FOR IT!

So with that in mind over the coming months, years, and my lifetime, I have decided to share ideas from the great thinkers throughout human history that have helped me so much in my experimentation with life and continue to do so. If I live to 100 I have 54 years now left in me and will space out my own little form of crazy, in bite size chucks at various points, hopefully with a humorous twist on something I enjoy that feeds Self, Creativity and Relationships.

The ultimate goal for me is to fuel my own creativity, learn and develop myself, while cultivating a fulfilling existence and helping others do the same. In doing this will also be removing some of the bullshit that negatively impacts my own daily life, while attempting to support better brighter futures for everyone who is on their own journey of Positive Transformation, Growth & Personal Development.

Oh yes, just for clarity, if you don't like it, don't read it, like my hairy friend here I have no shits to give.

If you do however want to read it and I hope you enjoy it, starting at some point in the coming weeks I will ...

Before we get in to all that however, here is an unplanned quick personal anecdote, a tiny little thing that happened which led me to write this introduction during the morning. While small and only for the purposes of demonstration, its often the tiny things that create that negative mental reaction that we all call suffering, and as my initial theme is the art of transforming suffering into happiness, I thought I would share this little note by way of a starting point, a little personal introduction and prelude to some incredible wisdom.

If you are anything like me, I like to try and live a very carefully constructed way of managing my time, and if that careful construct goes out the door like a fart in the wind I am often left with a very simple choice, react negatively and suffer, or just laugh at myself for how ridiculously easy it is to start having a giant mental tantrum!

The wonderful thing here and which is also why I value the wisdom I will be writing about in the years to come, is the quicker I catch these little mental brain farts as they are released, the less likely I am to metaphorically mentally shit my own pants so to speak, ruining my day and suffering through choice, instead of having a wonderful time and getting on with life.

So to my little story. Having got up at 5am which frankly is a nice break from 3.30am during the week, well it is Sunday and after all, and we are all entitled to a lay in.

So, I was excited to get stuck into the day, arrange my partners birthday stuff, make some life adjustments, listen to some positive audio, read some of my book, organise the week, go to the gym and then get to my office so I can finalise some of what I am going to be writing about in the months to follow. Going to the office is not always a Sunday thing, I just seem to have run out of time delivering on my own personal deadlines the last month, and so it was a GET SHIT FINISHED day today.

Ultimately today I could have made a choice to have a very different outlook as this morning didn't exactly pan out as I planned when leaving the house in a very buoyant mood at 7am. Well, shit happens and we can't believe our own bullshit about what we think may happen as I proved this morning, we have no idea what is going to pan out in the day, big or small, good or bad, the best laid plans can disappear like farts, along with all that other shite we think we know anything about. One thing I do know for sure is that nothing is for sure, and like the quantum uncertainty principle, the more I think I know, ultimately the less I actually know.

So having actually done quite a bit by 7am and then being mentally ready to go at the day while planning to be back around lunchtime for my partner and the kids, I am off to the office, lots of creativity flowing through me and like most days, genuinely enjoying the a 30 mile drive to Southend getting some brain space, collecting my thoughts, and being secure in my plans for the day. Very happy.

Well, transformation of happiness to irritation goes like shit through a small dog, quickly! Enjoying my drive and having a coffee, I get to my office, go up the stairs, ready to get my stream of consciousness out of my head using a big screen, which is why I wanted to be in the office. Anyway, some sparky prick has locked the door that is never locked at the top of the stairs and I don't have the code. Oh Joy. No entry. OK. Not a problem. Smile, text the landlord and change the plan, not ideal but I can just pop round the corner to the flat.

Get to the flat and while standing outside in the rain I realise I left my door key to the flat in my jeans 30 miles away in Kent. Awesome. Even better, entering my mind at that moment while soaking wet and having my morning transformed rapidly into a less positive experience, I then have the striking realisation that my office key to the actual door, beyond the coded door locked by the sparky little prick I spoke about a moment ago, actually needs a physical key which is of course with my flat key, in my jeans, in Kent, 30 fucking miles away.

So now I am wet and irritated to be honest, sitting squashed in the front seat of my car, typing at a funny angle with a shit internet connection to WIX via my phone and with every key stroke taking 87 minutes to register on the page while trying to do a mental download, leads me to feeling this is all less than ideal. I had a nice plan, what the absolute fuck?

Oh yeah, and as a bonus I just drove 30 miles for no reason to look at doors I can't open, in a place I now don't need to be, in the rain and with a shitty connection to the internet which just died along with the battery on my headphones, oh, and likely my work that probably didn't save. AMAZING, JOY! GREAT! I LOVE IT SO MUCH. IT'S BETTER THAN HAVING A BITHDAY ... I hope you are sensing the irony alongside my irritation! WONDERFUL!

I won't expand further, the point being here is that there is a decision to make, BY ME, RIGHT NOW!

That being ... Does this little series of inconveniences build into annoyance, irritation and ultimately ineffectiveness?

Or ... do I make a positive choice to eat my own dog food, smile and be grateful that I have a car, a laptop, a brain, a mobile phone and ultimately resources at my finger tips, that 100 years ago would have seemed like witchcraft to every living human being. Perspective matters.

More so, it created an opportunity later in the day, or as it happens to be, NOW, for me to think about how I have quite enjoyed writing this, and after a few minutes of consideration it is all quite amusing. Thus transforming a small degree of irritation and a form of mental suffering into a small form of joy, even happiness.

Wonderful. Who knew that the secret to mental well-being, joy, happiness and a fulfilling life in all things and situations, is a simple choice? As it turns out quite a lot of people, the wise minds I will write about and those happy people who are not taking pills, absorbing the media's bullshit, sucking on the teat of social media, and ultimately feeling like shit through lack of access to real knowledge and wisdom.

So my point being really is that everything is an opportunity that just needs a moment to not react negatively, change the perception of the situation, laugh, smile, be grateful and crack on.

While it would be easy to argue that had my morning today consisted of brain cancer, my leg falling off, and a car crash, it would be a lot harder to transform my suffering into joy and happiness, the principle however remains the same and the fact that life isn't supposed to be easy comes hard into play at this point. Think about all the people that seemingly have everything, yet are not happy and kill themselves. No suffering. No happiness. Human beings need trials, we need hardship, progress, challenges and connections to each other to survive. We do however need to address our mindset, and how we use our own brains.

So here we are, life is a comedy or a tragedy decided by us in every moment, every day, in every way. Consciousness is a powerful tool that can be amazing, it is however a double edged sword, a weapon of mass confusion! Ultimately though, through consciousness, to every human is given the gift of choice, the keys to heaven and the keys to hell all mixed up in a small pile of electrified grey matter, the brain, offering us one core control, CHOICE!

Clearly the bigger the challenges the harder it is to rationalise suffering being a part of happiness, the point however remains, that suffering is a choice and it's our perspective of the situation that is the situation, fundamentally the only thing that can change on any level, big or small at anytime is how we choose to react.

I will now carry on with my day enjoying it all the more knowing that my reaction was positive, and I look forward to getting more involved in my creative endeavours this week.

I will during the coming weeks be giving my personal views and insights into the fundamentals of The Art of Transforming Suffering with No Mud, No Lotus by THICH NHAT HANH, in the meantime I do however hope this has been a good little introduction, prelude if you will, to set the scene for what will follow.

This is all going to be a bit random in the coming decades but ultimately my goal here is to provide a simple gateway to knowledge that expands human consciousness, delivered in bite size chunks with a humorous twist, for people who want to better understand themselves, life, and how to cultivate a fulfilling existence.