The Secret. What Would Jung, Aristotle, Jesus Or Moses Say?

I can remember having several debates with a former girlfriend who is a high-profile attorney on the west coast. The fact that she was a high-profile attorney, though impressive, was not her lure. For me, the fact that she started from scratch, actually on a park bench, worked her way through one of the most prestigious law schools in the country, and has offices in Beverly Hills and beyond, was a lure. The fact that she is a good person didn't hurt. She looked at the struggle as part of the dream, not something to complain about. The way she thought was the way I wished to think. The way she worked was the way I wished to work. She has discipline and organizational skills; business elements of which I am still but nubile and shall be for awhile.

I am the better marketer of the two, she says, but the jury is still out. She never advertises, does not even have a website, and her waiting room is always full of people waiting to pay her and pay her well.

I, on the other hand, though a bit clumsy and not as organized, have managed to create some exciting things on the Internet. But, if not for the Internet, I do not think they would exist. One, for instance is the largest cartoon website which lures about 4000 visitors per hour or 4.5 million people per year. From that I've expanded it into 5 different e-stores with my cartoon products (over 80,000 of them in 23 different categories). I invented and have a patent pending on the world's first fully-automated medical device. I did not get rich (but I do make a lot more money than I did before I took action, conjured a little confidence and started from ground zero. (I was working out of an abandoned warehouse in rural Ms. but that's a whole other story).

She drives a new Mercedes. I drove an '89 Buick Regal until I got a heart condition and stopped driving. She has a big home in the Valley. I have a modest studio apartment on a mountaintop in Arkansas. I now have a 2000 Saturn and I'm prefectly satisfied with it.

I live in the Ouachata Mountains in Arkansas. She says we "think small" and work too hard for too little. I wish Sam Walton could hear our conversations regarding "small-thinking people from Arkansas".

We differ in our opinions of "New Age". I have lived in Southern California so I realize all that is a way of life. But I also, hopefully, am savvy enough to realize that the majority of it is ancient biblical history, reworded ever so carefully, and packaged beautifully to make the new guru rich. And it works. And hopefully Oprah will endorse it, and the guru will live happily ever after.

Now there is nothing wrong with attracting wealth and good things for you and/or your family by praye and meditation. But there is nothing "New" about it. It is in both the Jewish and Christian Bibles and mentioned numerous times regarding the labors of attraction, prayer, and "ACTION". What seems to be left of a lot of the new age laws of attraction is the action part. If you've met someone who has sat on an easy chair for weeks, months or years, without moving a muscle, and suddenly his BVD Tee turned into an Armani Suit, his '57 Chevy Pickup into a new Lexus, please do let me know about it and I shall gladly edit or remove this article. The Kaballah (hardly New Age) but the mystical intrpretation of the Torah, still considered a bit controversial even in Judaism, has all the information in that is in the slick new age packaged goods. The big difference is that it is available for free. And the information is more precise and based on real spiritual dynamics, not on a spiritual guru's bank balance.

Life is what it is. I can't debate with her about income. If I want to make more, I will promote my business more, go to law school, or both. A good lawyer, historically, makes a better income than a good cartoonist and e-tailer. But I don't like law. Grew up with plenty of lawyers in my family and though they made a great living, very few of them enjoyed it. In fact several quit and one never even practiced after daddy paid for law school. So it goes.

Some of these new age gurus telling me to "live the dream" and "just imagine it" frankly makes me want to hurl (can I say that in print?), just speaking my mind. I live my reality. When I start living "my dream", I am out of focus and act in a manic way, as do most people who do their best to escape reality. I believe the secret is to live in one's reality, and keep your "eyes on the prize", that is, taking a glimpse of what that dream will be at the end a very hard work day. Hard work. That is what creates the dream. I wish it was not true. It is. Sorry.

But I have an ally. He's long gone now but his words live on in his writings; Carl Jung that is. Many people do not understand Jung's message and that's okay. I think it was because he was so interested in the spiritual and metaphysical side of things. So am I. But he, like I, am also interested in living in the now, enjoying the now, appreciating the struggle. For if not to appreciate the struggle, once the dream "happens", what's next? I don't want to keep living for "new dreams". I want to enjoy the ones I am living and gradually evolve into other ways of life, if they look health and positive for me.

He purveys the caveat that it will never be utopia no matter how "pristine the dream". So, what to do?

In our culture, we correlate happiness and success with our bank account. We were taught that in our formal education, and its a big mistake. Yes having a big bank account is wonderful, but that's not all there is to it. One has to do what one loves to do, to build one's own happiness, not let anyone else do it; not a boss, a spouse or anyone else. They can add to it like we can add to theirs, but they are not THE SOURCE.

I worked in corporate America for two decades chasing the almighty dollar. I made a lot of them. I can assure you they did not buy me happiness, and, in retrospect, because I hated what I was doing for a living.

My dream is to do just what I love to do, and the money will come. Will it come immediately? I don't think so. Bill Gates money took years to compile as did Warren Buffet. The captains of industry stories are filled with failures and missteps before living the dream.

I go with the person or company who is trying to provide me with the best product or service, not the wealthiest. They can be here today, gone tomorrow in today's economy. Look at Enron, MCI, even Gateway to a certain degree (just bought out by a much smaller company). Go with your heart, like-minded people. And you'll have a much better time, and probably make a much larger income.

Each of us have different dreams.

Whatever your dreams and goals, try to forget some of the things our parents taught us. We now live in a "live and let live world". No more sales tactics. The ultra-sales gurus are old news.

Big thinking? I like to think that I think big. But I act small. I love the term, "Think globally, act locally". If all I did was think big, I think that would requre a lot of energy and I would not get much legwork done. I don't mind working in the trenches. You shouldn't either if you have a true entrepreneurial spirit. That will change. But we have to start somewhwere.

"To thine own self be true", Shakespeare said. It was a short sentence but a most memorable one, and memorable for a good reason. If we learn nothing else about life, that statement describes life. If we are not who we really are, we are the walking-dead, striving to be someone else. It is not a fun way to live, though way too many buy into it.

If you are true to yourself, you will be happy, rich or not.

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