THE CORE OF YOUR LIFE
JUST MAINTAIN THIS AND YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES WILL NOT MATTER
tba
"Build the core of life and happiness and satisfaction will come.
Base life on what you can actually build, on a solid foundation that will never let you down. Build it from the core outward and it will always serve you. You will not have to depend on happenstance or other people, you can simply enjoy what happens in life, and be happy no matter what...."
The BuddhaKahuna
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WHAT REALLY MATTERS AND SHOULD BE WELL TAKEN CARE OF
What is "the core of one's life"?
What is it that really matters? Really, really, really matters.
What is completely in your control, that you can cause, create, make happen?
What is it that you can do to not be dependent on something "out there" for my happiness, so that I am non-conditionally deeply happy?
FACTOR 1: CONTROL
Anything you have no control over does not matter to you, as it will happen or not happen. If it's "not good", then it'll have an impact on you that you'll have to handle. You can recover from any circumstances (if you're still alive, that is) and create happiness without lamenting the circumstance. See The Skill Of Fearlessness.
All that matters is that which you can cause, which you can create, that is the most important to you. (And you've got to discern what really doesn't matter, such as "more money" than you need to get by on.)
FACTOR 2; TENDING TO THAT WHICH CREATES THE MOST HAPPINESS CREATING POWER
My core, what is the essential part of me, is all I need attend to. It is the core from which I create a "non-contingent" life where I am not dependent on something or someone else creating it for me. My future and how life will turn out is never something for me to be concerned about, as this is a sure path that I control, where I create my life totally, unconditionally.
In philosophical and spiritual disciplines, they speak of the invulnerable center of your being.
This is that center core that is not dependent on circumstances or other people, that is constant and ever building in power, always in your control - and it is the basis for living a non-contingent happiness.
I urge you to complete the steps necessary to fully develop "the core", to fully understand it, to know its pieces, and to fully implement it into living the life that will guarantee your deep happiness and satisfaction.
If you read this piece and find it "an interesting read" and then do nothing about it, we will have both been involved in experiencing some nice thought for the moment and miss out on the greatest potential effect on what life can be.
Will you join me in going further, in completing the journey?
Scan over the following box to get a sense of what is included, what enables one's core to be effective, and how to maintain and enhance that core. Then read on.
ALL THAT REALLY MATTERS
Matthew Kelly writes: "Life is the spending and replenishing of energy." Indeed, that is the core you need to take care of (energy spent well), for it is the vehicle, the very means of creating a life for yourself. Yet people forget that...and their lives become much less than they can be.
And people get sucked up into the false cultural imperatives and niceties, losing their very center - and expending energy where it does not really matter, even taking it away from where it really does matter. To life of great happiness, I would recommend that you invest no energy in "looking good", getting approval or trying to please, controlling others, and all of the low payoff and/or low control actions you can engage in.
Your job is to discriminate between:
2. What is virtually meaningless in a long term sense, what is a form of believed bullbleep, pure nonsense. If one learns to look deeper, one will see that one does not need approval or to buy into most of the idea that the culture engrains into us. (This site is intended to guide you through what it takes to understand and accomplish this.)
3. And the gradations in between, distinguishing as to what is outside of the essential core of what really matters.
If you go through this process on this site, you will be able to free yourself up from being a slave to false beliefs and hoping that life will turn out, so that you can invest that energy into what really pays off in terms of deep happiness and full satisfaction in life.
The ability to see the difference and then to act on it will totally change your life to what it can be, without worry or stress, and with a core that you can fully rely on.
A VALUE STRUCTURE AND A SET OF PRIORITIES
The core supporting the core: a value structure and a set of priorities around which to live life.
The objective of managing the core: To become the best possible version of a human being you can be.
Or, as Matthew Kelly puts it, to become the best version of our [real] selves.
Part and parcel to this is to gain high clarity about your purpose and to have clarity on what you really want in life - not the crap we've been taught by those who have not refined their beliefs and assertions. ("False targeting" where you keep on aiming for that which does not produce happiness will never produce the results you want in life.)
Somehow we bought into the belief that life is about getting all that we want. As a child, that is what we believed was true. But now we can look and see that life is actually about maintaining and growing what we have and the power that helps us to grow that, rather than depending on what we "get".
What we will focus on is what we have control over, what is a matter of our choosing.
Although we have some things we can affect, we have no choice as to the circumstances and people which and who are beyond our control - and it is senseless to focus on that and/or to try to control it, in some world devoid of reality. Indeed, we have the choice not to try to control the uncontrollable and/or low payoff areas in life - this is part of true wisdom in life. And in realizing this, we free up a tremendous amount of energy that humans tend to waste for naught. Read Effective Control, and follow the truths.
TO BE WHAT I CAN BE, AND WHATEVER THAT IS, TO APPRECIATE IT ALL
Robert Louis Stevenson: "To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life."
Maybe, but that's only part of it...
The reason to "become" is so that we are more and more capable of harvesting life more and more fully. (Some say the purpose is "to grow", but that is not the purpose but a means of achieving the purpose. We must grow in our knowledge and wisdom such that we can do what is needed to create the highest level of deep, enduring happiness.)
One way of stating my intention for life is to "have a life well-lived", which simply means that I will be able to contribute to the happiness of others and to my own happiness...and if I succeed a little or alot, I will have succeeded in having a nice journey where I have treated myself and others well. Whether I am impress another person or not, whether I receive what I believe to mean that I am approved of, whether others validate me or not - all of that is of no true consequence to me. I see that.
As I realize that it is only my core that counts, no one can hurt me (other than perhaps physically) for I exist independent of anyone's opinion of me.
I can choose to have an unwavering commitment to excellence, but I need not be recognized for that by others nor must I succeed at some high level. I will simply live as a person of character, as nothing else matters. I will craft my habits, which I have control over if I use the right methodology, so that I am more and more effective in life. And to do what I believe in, to contribute to others as best I can, that is where my life efforts will be invested.
And (in the following box) this is what I choose to do, from this point of view.
A KEY PRINCIPLE ABOUT FEAR AND COURAGE
Be courageous, they say. Step out there and take risks, they say. Be daring, they say.
"Uh, well, uh, how do I do that?"
A subtle, but obvious set of truths (check it out for yourself):
If one does not have sufficient safety, one is not able to risk well or freely.
One cannot rationally expect oneself to risk that which truly matters.
All we can truly risk is that which does not truly matter.
It is foolish to berate oneself for "lack of courage", for "not being able to risk" and for "not being brave". You can only risk that which you believe is not going to harm you. (Duh!)
The point here is that if one has "core safety", then the rest does not matter. The "rest" can be risked and even lost (or not gained) and the core will remain intact. Surely some losses from taking risks in something that does not really matter are "no problem, mon!" Everything beyond what really matters is all strictly optional - I don't have to have it and if I don't have it, it "don't matter none". I can then be happy, no matter what!
I can "recover", if need be, from anything that is a relative so-what and know that I will devote enough time and effort to filling up my core and having it there for me always. Knowing this and knowing that I have built the core, I am truly Fearless.
I can live my life fearlessly and confidently when I:
1) Center myself and ground myself each day and when I couple that with
2) Taking care of my physical energy producer.
Then I live my day in my full power. I am complete for the day, and I need nothing more.
The rest of my day is simply an opportunity to create bonuses, which I accept and celebrate as extras in my life of abundance.
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HOW A "FOCUSED ON THE CORE" PERSON MIGHT THINK
A somewhat modified version of St. Francis' Prayer of Peace:
Self,
May I be an instrument of peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Great Self,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that I receive what is truly of heart-value.
It is in pardoning that I allow pardoning of myself, and
It is in accepting that I will someday die,
that I allow myself to fully live life,
without fearing needlessly the small trivial "mishappenings" in life.
And so it is that I live powerfully without fear,
Invulnerable to what happens in life,
Fully creating my invulnerable deep happiness
(A "Focused on the core" person, if he/she thinks this is a useful idea or could stimulate an idea, might print this section as a page to put in his/her Reminders Notebook, under Affirmations.)
