Many years ago I had a powerful insight that shifted the direction of my life. I thought I would share it with you. Perhaps it may inform your life as well.

In my mid twenties I was an aspiring actor working at Alberta Theatre Projects, a repertory company in Calgary. As an actor I was trained to willingly suspend my disbelief in the fact that I was on a stage and to totally believe I was the person in the role I was in as a part of the reality of the play. The more immersed and real I was in that role the better the actor I could become.

I thought that acting was the purpose of my life.

Then one day in a scene on stage during a period of time when I had no lines, I heard someone cough in the auditorium. My attention was drawn to him....

There's one tendency in human nature that's responsible for much of our unhappiness and lack of success in life. I see it over and over again in peoples' relationships, careers and personal growth. It often deeply saddens me. It is called "Giving Up".

I often see people inspired, motivated and passionate at the beginning a project, following their inner their direction for a better life only to give up when barriers come up.
The tragedy is this...they often give up just before they are going to make a breakthrough. If they had only stuck with their course a little while longer they could have achieved what they wanted.

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I see this more and more...an epidemic of people that hate their lives.

Many of us are stuck in looking at the aspects of our existence that we dislike.

We hate our jobs,  co-workers,  bills,  relationships,  neighbourhoods, government, clothes, weight, weather, hairdos, etc  You name it. Anything comes under fire.  Anything is fair game: the street person, the guy with the 13 weird facial piercings on the subway, the colour of your walls, the squirrel that ate your lunch, the speed limit on the 401, the Toronto Maple Leafs, your crazy esoteric friend who tells you have a good life, etc. Its endless.

Its like we have a  mantra that we say

A few days ago I was talking with a friend of mine Jon Kramer who facilitates a wonderful seminar called Dynamind. We were musing on the subject of aging. He jokingly told me of woman who, when asked her age, she said "I'm  33 plus HST." (I guess this could be one evaluation)This got me to thinking of how we determine our own age.

I just turned 60 this year and sometimes I look in the mirror and I am surprised. I see the lines on my forehead and my thinning hair and sometimes I am taken aback. I see the guy in mirror and ask "Who is that guy?". It takes me a few moments and I recognize that its me! But my appearance doesn't feel like me. I feel different inside. I actually feel a lot younger.

Then an interesting question occurs: "How old are we if we don't have a mirror to look into?"

Once again in the news, we have heard of allegations of sexual abuse by priests. This is a long outstanding issue and many people have felt that the church in the past has not taken a clear and strong enough stand against this. Child sexual abuse is particularly a heinous crime but what makes it even worse is that it is committed by respected religious leaders who lead young children to believe that the painful sexual interaction is blessed by God.

I personally had a friend in Thunder Bay whose parents sent her to a priest for religious instruction during which she was sexually molested. Even though she told her parents about it,

Dogma-free zone

I think we should all have a dogma-free zone.

Somewhere in our world.