Question Everything - an interview with Barry B. Longyear

A life enhancing interview with author Barry B. Longyear

I was recently re-reading a wonderful book 'The Enemy Papers' by author Barry B. Longyear, one of my favourite science fiction writers, and I came across this quote:

"Instead believe this: question everything, accept the wholeness of no truth nor the absolute rightness of any Path. Make this your creed... for in this creed stands your right to freedom."

Now, this is a life enhancing creed I've lived all my adult life, passionately and assiduously, and I truly believe it is important and life enhancing.  So, Barry's words struck such a major chord, that I was immediately motivated to interview and ask him to share his thoughts on happiness, freedom and questioning everything...

About Barry B. Longyear

Barry B. Longyear is the first writer to win the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer all in the same year. In addition to his acclaimed Enemy Mine Series, his works include the Circus World and Infinity Hold series, SF & fantasy novels, recovery and writing instruction works, and numerous short stories. Barry's multiple award winning novella 'Enemy Mine' was also made into a movie and is well worth a watch.

Writing is obviously a life enhancing activity for Barry.  According to his online bio, "My reason for writing these days is the ride. I love it. Once a story grabs me, I am literally transported elsewhere, and the eyes I get to look through, and the scenes I get to see, are always captivating and are frequently sustaining."

And I can attest that reading Barry's books is equally captivating and grabbing and for me life enhancing as they provide more than just entertainment.  Barry's writing explores important values and ideas.  For example his Infinity Hold series is about justice and morality:

"They found a planet no one wanted and upon it created an unsupervised gravity well for unwanted human debris: political activists, terrorists, the criminally insane, and the insanely criminal. It was a dump in the middle of a lethal desert with no support facilities, authority, control, or law... What does a society of rejects and criminals dropped into a crucible of horror and desperation come up with as a legal system?" As the wikipedia entry on Barry says: "The Infinity Hold series... is more a work of sociology than science fiction."

What I can also definitely say, is that reading a Barry B. Longyear book provides a fascinating ride through idea space.  And personally, I find that incredibly life enhancing :-)

So without further ado, here's Barry, with his take on Happiness, Freedom and Questioning Everything.

"My goal, often reflected in my writing, is to maximize happiness. Being alive is usually, but not always, an aid to that. Freedom is nearly always an aid to that."

 Barry B. Longyear

Q. How do you define freedom? What is freedom for you? Why do you think its life enhancing and important?

How do I define "freedom?"  Freedom is choice. To increase an individual's freedom that person's choices must be increased. As far as political freedom goes, I support the libertarian concept of freedom to be, do, and act anywhere and in any manner up to but not including restricting the choices of others. Freedom is happiness enhancing simply because doing what I want to do makes me happier than having that taken away from me by force.  For that reason, freedom is important to me personally. For things I value, such as the USA, creativity, prosperity, intelligence, information, and many other things, freedom works better than any of the statist/interventionist schemes that have been devised.


Q. Your books often involve scenarios that presuppose or are based on the ideas of 'freedom from' and 'freedom to', for example in 'Enemy Mine' the two principle characters need to gain freedom from their societal prejudices and stereotypes in order to create the freedom to work, live and survive together. What motivates you to explore these concepts?

When I write stories, I do not  "explore concepts." Stories (mine, at any rate) are not about ideas, gimmicks, hardware, trends, or scientific discoveries. Stories are about people. Everything else is  what the people in the story are experiencing. In the case of the two main characters in "Enemy Mine," to survive they needed to work together, and to do that, they needed to change. In other words, they needed to grow up. In the context you put it in your question, they needed to let go of self-imposed limitations to increase the number of their choices. In other words, they needed to grow up.


Q. Why do you think it's important and life enhancing to 'question everything' and how do you support yourself to do that in your own life? What advice do you have to help people achieve that in their own lives?

The closer we are to truth, the better chance we have of understanding and utilizing reality and what's in it. Questioning dogmas of all kinds has brought us everything from the light bulb to string theory and made it possible to support billions of persons on this planet, as well as the ability to wipe out all of them. Unquestioning obedience to dogmas brought us the Inquisition, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, every benighted idiot who believes that blowing up a bus full of school children is something God wants, and has crippled most of the world's economies.

As for my own life, I am a recovering alcoholic and prescription drug addict, clean and sober for the past 28 years. I have described what was necessary for me to question and then change in my novel Saint Mary Blue.

Advice is dangerous to give; there is always the danger that someone might actually take it. The following is from a speech I never gave:

. . . Unaware that I was doing so, I've been guided by what in school I thought was an old-fashioned cornball slogan: "Truth, Duty, Honor."+

Truth. That's an important value I picked up at SMA (Staunton Military Academy).  Truth. "the property of being in accord with fact or reality." Truth isn't what we hope is real. Truth isn't what we want to be real. Truth is not what we feel is real. Truth is what is in fact real.

Duty. This is the value that keeps me up some nights and then helps me sleep once I've done my best to do what I know needs to be done. Dictionary definitions of "duty" are filled with words such as "obligation" and "conduct," but don't seem to carry the weight of the word as I learned it at SMA. "Duty" is doing what "Truth" has shown needs to be done, whether those changes involve the world, my country, my fellow humans, or myself.

Honor, as I learned it here, is the quality of doing one's duty by the light of truth.

Q. Who are your role models for 'life-enhancing'? Are there any exemplars that live enhanced lives that you look to for inspiration in your own life?

The only "life enhancing" role model I ever had was a famous jogger who dropped dead during a run. Role models for raising my freedom and pursuit-of-happiness index, however, are too many to list. They include soldiers, sailors, airmen, scientists, politicians, civil rights leaders, men and women of business, writers, actors, philosophers, artists, and anyone who overcame insurmountable obstacles to achieve worthwhile goals. At the top of my personal list are George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.


Q. What books do you feel have inspired you the most or have enhanced your life by either the writing of them, or reading them?

Of books by others, there are simply too many list. I thought to list authors, but that would be rather extensive, as well. Of my own works, certain of them were meaningful to me in that I was either working out necessary personal issues, world problems, or both. In particular I would include The Enemy Papers, Infinity Hold\3, The God Box, Saint Mary Blue, Yesterday's Tomorrow, and especially Sea of Glass.

Barry B. Longyear

http://www.barryblongyear.com

The Enemy Papers

Infinity Hold³

Manifest Destiny

 

Freedom from vs Freedom to

This week's blog post continues our exploration of freedom.

An important distinction

In exploring freedom it's useful to note the distinction between 'freedom from' versus 'freedom to'.

"freedom from anger, fear, want, hunger, pain, disease, stress, depression, debt, poverty, necessity, violence, war, advertising, addiction, etc."

"freedom to live, love, think, believe, talk, share, travel, buy, sell, act, create, share etc."

Freedom from

Freedom from oppression in its many forms is vital for living a great life. Whether it's freedom from addiction, from coercion, from co-dependency or from grasping after desire, the freedom to do as you choose and to create your own destiny relies on throwing off the shackles that bind and limit your freedom to think, feel and act.

Freedom to

Freedom to make up your own mind. Freedom to choose what you want. Freedom to live in whatever life enhancing way you desire. This is what you must fight for in your life.

A balancing act

Of course, as Sully pointed out in his thought provoking blog interview on Freedom, we all choose to give up certain social freedoms in order to gain other freedoms in exchange: "...we all give up some freedom/choice to gain security. Laws are just such a social contract (e.g. I'll give up my freedom to rob you for the security that you won't rob me)."  There is always a trade and a balance.

Maintain your freedom

But for you to maintain as much 'freedom to' you need to ensure you have and continuously keep your 'freedom from'. Watch this carefully.

If you allow yourself to become addicted to any substance, thing or behaviour you have given away your freedom. This is a trade that is not balanced. It's a one way street to misery and is ultimately life denying.

If you give away choice or lock yourself into double-binds, then you have taken away more of your precious freedom.

So I encourage you to watch for and guard assiduously your 'freedom from' and in that way you'll keep your choices open and maximise your flexibility - your 'freedom to'.

It's a subtle distinction this difference between freedom from and to. But it's a life enhancingly crucial one.

"He is free who knows how to keep in his own hands the power to decide."

Salvador de Madariaga

wishing you life enhancing choices,
Grant


Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life

Beyond Freedom & Dignity - B. F. Skinner

Freedom - part 2

Interview with Thomas Sullivan

Today's blog entry continues our exploration of 'Freedom' and its importance for enhancing a person's life by engendering attitudes that support it and beliefs that motivate it.

In this entry, I've interviewed Pulitzer prize nominated author Thomas 'Sully' Sullivan for his thoughts and advice about freedom.


Sully represents a wonderful exemplar of someone who has transcended the norm, is creative, generative, and lives a life of choice and empowerment, both through his actions in life and through his many and varied writings.

As noted in a recent online review of Sully's work: "His writings celebrate the individual and freedom".

 

The Phases of Harry Moon

To back this up, I recently finished reading the awesome 'The Phases of Harry Moon', the opus for which Sully received the Pulitzer nomination. In Sully's own words:

"TPOHM, is very much about rendering impossible things possible, first in inner space, and then in one's performance on the stage of life."

Whether you are reading Sully's wonderfully crafted stories, his lyrical monthly 'Sullygram' newsletter [http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com/News.htm], or his daily tweets [http://twitter.com/thomassullivan], you'll often find him x-country skiing at midnight, amongst a moon-light reflected field of snow crystals, or paddling on a nearby lake, revelling in the freedom of life and nature. Sully makes the most of life, living it with passion and sharing freely with those of us who appreciate these values.


So I'll leave you now in the capable hands of Sully as he contemplates the questions I proposed about freedom, what it is and how best to create it in your own life.



Q. How do you define freedom? What is freedom for you? Why do you think its life enhancing and important?

At this point in my life I define freedom as having choices, top to bottom.  Not just choices in what I do, how I use my time, where I go, how much I spend, what I eat, what I wear, the car I drive and so forth; but choices in how I think and who I spend time with and what is worth my attention.

It is a much more nuanced state now than, say, when I was a teenager, because I am much more aware of prerogatives now.  In fact, I have become more of an existentialist in this regard -- existentialism being defined (or mis-defined) by me as an awareness of prerogatives.

Another critical aspect of freedom/choice for me is that I'm relatively free of fear and guilt.  I don't mean the fundamental kind of fears that secure our physical well-being, or the healthy guilt that gives us empathy for our species.  I mean the utterly useless and cowardly fears and guilt that drive us toward conformity, make us serve the opinions of others, and force us underground in conflict with ourselves.  Those are the enemies of freedom.

For me, freedom is almost too central to be called life enhancing as if it is a mere add-on to one's fundamental state.  It is a core need, and the tolerance for freedom and the degree of need are distinguishing differences among people.  Can one exist under total control and virtually no choice?  Yes… but that's tantamount to being on life support with no brain waves.  Freedom is the difference between living and just existing.


Q. How do you motivate yourself to stay free and overcome the limitations and expectations of society that attempt to constrain your freedom?

Wow.  Life's dynamite question.

But how to answer in less than a book?

Okay.  A little perspective 101 here: we all give up some freedom/choice to gain security.  Laws are just such a social contract (e.g. I'll give up my freedom to rob you for the security that you won't rob me).  So that's a given.  What I want to focus on here aren't the constraints on freedom that protect body or property.  Rather they have to do with one's personal control, movements, expressions and the interactions of relationships.

When we make mental, emotional or spiritual representations by our words or lifestyle choices they carry implications for the society or individuals around us that can range from threatening to affirming.  They can create bonds or alienations, friends or enemies, the beginnings or endings of love.  And, since those words and lifestyle choices are indicators of our thoughts and feelings, they are subject to interpretation and appearances.  Hence, our complex psychological interactions based on social pressure, mores, values, intimidation, manipulation, denial, façades, etc.  It is impossible to live completely free of that.  (Come up for air, Sully!)

Like I said, all of this is just context for framing an answer here.  So when you ask how I stay free, the reply is that I dodge most of the part that is social/relationship pressure and hypocrisy by daily re-connecting with what I think is honest in life.

Yeah, nature is a huge source for me -- a model for truths.  Not just crazy things I do with recreation, but what is there to be discovered, analyzed and celebrated.  Nothing helps me sort through the vanities and ulterior motives of man better than the cycles and strategies for survival in nature.  I also believe that when you stand true to your own heart/mind/soul you get the best outcomes long-term for yourself and the world around you.  You can't get that by living lies with no escape, no sanctuary.

Many people suffer lives of quiet desperation, sincerely believing that sacrificing who they are for appearances that fit their circumstances is the correct and noble thing to do.  It never honors their circumstances, and it seldom fools anyone in the long run.  And if it does the latter, well, then you’ve fooled someone, but you've also fooled yourself.  Maybe that's all right in a comfortable existence.  It's not all right for me.

The truth will set you free, as they say, and truth is very emancipating to me.  Being fooled is antithetical to that.  So I'm constantly struggling for personal honesty and greater insight.  Self-honesty is ever a work in progress, but I think I do relatively well with it.  We can do that within ourselves because we have absolute control.  Not so with the externals.  There you have virtually no control.

I have less tolerance for being fooled than most people.  I have a greater need for control of my life but I absolutely don't want to control anyone else's, because controlling someone else exposes me to being fooled.  In fact, my first reflex when trust is demanded of me is to give the other party every opportunity to betray it, because I’d rather know up front that I lost something than find out in slow motion over lost time that I never really had it.  I guess that's just an acid test -- a way to simplify and make that part of life I can't control self-regulating.

If you have to ask for something that comes from the emotional bonding part of social interaction, you will probably never truly get it, because you have just cued that person(s) to give it to you.  Demands, soft or implied, are never as satisfying as what comes to you intuitively or voluntarily.  Hey, is that an effective way to handle insecurity or what?  (Or maybe it's just a way to intensify the best things in life…shhh, just sayin’.)

Intensifying passions really is my conscious motive and has been since I was a teenager.  Another way to put it is that I place a very high priority on honesty for anything seriously close to me (but shameless dishonesty from anything that is not close to me is no problem!).  So you see how freedom depends on control for me and control, in practice, depends on keeping things simple (yeah, right), and the whole thing depends on honesty.  Honesty is sort of the nutrient.  Without it, even the potential for growth is not possible.  (Say goodbye, Sully.)

Okay.  I’ve snuck up on a conclusion.  I try to live as honestly as I can.  There.  A simple answer with a lot of complex premises!

[Note to self: if Grant Soosalu ever asks a question like this again, feign amnesia.]


Q. What advice do you have for people with regards to freedom, choice and flexibility?

Hurry up and outgrow your crippling fears and guilt.  The sooner you get there, the more fulfilling and happy your life will be (and the less unhappiness will become ingrained).  Wait too long and you may find yourself old and enslaved by the habit of negative thinking.  It takes a little courage.  But the end result will be that you'll have shed two things that controlled you -- fear and guilt -- and those, my friends, are the two biggest steps toward freedom you'll ever take.

Whether or not you let the world see your self-honesty doesn't really matter.  It's always nice if you can find relationships and environments where you can be your honest self, but if you can't, at least find a private sanctuary with no façades.  Every day.  Control, honesty, choice: all related and all essential to freedom.  Eat your heart out, if you think I'm going to say more than that.  I went long on the last question.

Q. What beliefs, attitudes and values do you live and embody that support you being free and allow you to live the wonderful life that you do?

This is going to sound like a contradiction, but the most enhancing thing I get out of freedom is the potential to sacrifice it for some cause or someone.  That is not so much altruism as it is romanticism.  I am a romantic idealist.  This is my yellow brick road to the most perfect world I can have.  Whether or not I actually get to exercise that romantic potential, doing so would be the ultimate free choice.  So the more free I am, the more I have to offer by such a sacrifice.

I've given myself heart-and-soul to causes several times in my life; I've taken a child wholly into my life twice; I've found true love once.  Those were ultimates.  But if none of those things had happened, I would still want to be a person who could have done them.  That kind of enhancement is what my life is all about.

Depth of feeling is my drug.  Such Uber-Passion kickstarts energy and imagination.  It's not for everyone; but maybe it should be.  And again, it doesn't necessarily have to be exercised in order to yield rewards.  It's having your thoughts and your feelings honed that matters.

I think most people yearn to be more honest in their thoughts, to be fearlessly open and free, but are afraid of what they might lose.  Their secret dread is that the truth will expose them as unworthy.  I see this every day in the way that people react.  And I don't mean this as something I should get credit for, but strangers open up to me almost instantly.  It’s as if I’m a non-person, some not quite human free spirit who spouts poetic fantasies and therefore doesn’t count.  I don’t know how to explain that except that maybe they see the freedom in my thoughts and want desperately to believe it will allow me to understand them without judgments or shock or disrespect.


Q. In your writing, how does the leitmotif of freedom inform your work and the characters and themes in your books and stories? And how is this reflected in your own life?

It is almost always there in my work, implicit in an abundance of free-spirited characters who search for truth, but the market is driven by mostly thing & event plots rather than idea & emotion characters.  So my thrillers tend to run on adrenaline in physical situations.

But for the reader who wants deeper internal conflicts, I like to think my characters fill the bill, particularly in that they are often struggling for control of their lives and with self-honesty -- truth seekers, if you will, reaching for the courage to live their convictions.  Control and self-honesty, as indicated in my prior answers, are the bedrock of freedom for me.

Other than my Pulitzer Prize-nommed THE PHASES OF HARRY MOON, most of the mainstream/contemporary/literary fiction I’ve written remains unpublished.  But in that languishing body of work you would find the subject of freedom/control/self-honesty to be front and center.

Perhaps my magnum opus in that regard is a book titled H.E.R.S. & H.I.M.S., which almost went directly to film after it failed to attract a publisher.  Its political incorrectness made it ultimately too risky at the time when a major Hollywood producer (who had 18 films, including one blockbuster to his credits) was interested.  The novel’s candid assessment of modern marriage would probably still offend either gender.

And another unpublished novel of mine, very much in the free-spirited theme, is DRUMMERS ON GLASS, which E. P. Dutton once purchased for hardcover.  When they demised their entire trade division temporarily, the contract got caught up between two imprints for a couple of years until I finally asked for and received a reversion of rights.  I have not gone back to market with that one because I’ve been publishing thrillers, but its unfettered and eccentric characters are very much what we’re talking about here.


PostScript: What a diabolic interview!  That man behind the curtain is Grant Soosalu, who concocts the most telling inquiries into the most intriguing (and relevant) subjects.  Thanks for that, Grant, and for having the courage and insight to chase down the elusive keys to positive living.  You enlarge the available world.

best wishes, Sully


And for those interested in reading some of Sully's books:

Freedom - part 1

"He is free who knows how to keep in his own hands the power to decide."

Salvador de Madariaga

It is life denying to diminish your world through limited choice and flexibility.

Freedom and choice are important and life enhancing values and you want to hold on to them with all your heart.

This is the first of a multi-part focus on freedom in this blog. In it I'll introduce some of the key ideas and distinctions around freedom to get you attuned and thinking about the subject. We'll then follow this up in the next blog entry with an interview with Pulitzer prize nominated author Thomas Sullivan as he discusses and shares his insights on freedom, its importance and how to create more of it in your life.

For now, let's get started on our explorations into the ideas that underpin freedom.

Never give away choice

There is an old Estonian proverb, full of wisdom that says “never leave yourself with only one pair of shoes” because if they get too tight and start to hurt, your life can end a painful misery. This maxim or learning tool refers to the idea that if you give away choice and only allow yourself one option in life, and if that option becomes problematic, you’ll end up with a life of unhappiness.

Thinking Tool: Freedom and Choice

Never leave yourself with only one pair of shoes!

Requisite Variety

There is also a provable mathematical theorem from Systems Theory that supports this. Known as the ‘Law of Requisite Variety’ it suggests that in any system the element that has the most choice, flexibility or requisite variety will be the controlling element. The corollary to this is that to gain more freedom or control in any system, you need to give yourself more choice or flexibility.

NLP Success Formula

Remember the NLP Success Formula:

1. Clearly know your outcome
2. Take congruent action
3. Learn from feedback
4. Change and adjust your behaviour until you achieve your outcome

The fourth step is about flexibility and is supported by the ideas from the Law of Requisite Variety. A simple way to remember this law is ‘Choice = Control’. Always give yourself more choice and flexibility and never give away your control. As often as possible in life always give yourself more choice (within reason) rather than less.

The Bliss Point of choice

Of course, choice and the number of options needs to be balanced. Research in cognitive psychology has shown that too many choices can also lead to stress and decreased happiness. The optimal number of choices appears to be somewhere between 3 to 6. More or less than this can be problematic. I'll blog soon about the difference between choice and freedom and how they are related. For now, note that there is a 'bliss point' to choice and that if you need more freedom or control in a situation, then it's often because you have limited your choice, flexibility or requisite variety.

Thinking Tool: Choice and Control

Choice = Control

"If you don’t take control of your life, someone else will.”

Paul McKenna

The power of Generative Questions

One way to encourage yourself and directionalise your mind towards freedom and choice is to ask yourself generative questions - questions that open your mind to new possibilities and new directions. Questions have the power to shape your thoughts, your Reticular Activating System, your head, heart and gut brains and ultimately your life. Use the following example questions to increase awareness around freedom and flexibility in your life.

Awareness Questions:

Ask Yourself -

• In what situations or contexts do I need more choice and control?
• In what areas of my life do I lack flexibility?
• How can I create more choice and freedom in my life?

"Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose."

Viktor Frankl

Types of freedom

Note that freedom is not a single, unitary and amorphous entity. Freedom comes in a number of flavours -- there are many types and forms of freedom. For example:

• Financial freedom
• Relationship freedom
• Intellectual freedom
• Emotional freedom
• Beliefs and Identity freedom
• etc.

Every one of them is life enhancing and has skills and techniques for maintaining and maximising your choice and freedom in that domain. In up-coming blogs I'll explore these with you. We'll look at how dis-empowering and irrational beliefs rob you of freedom. We'll drill into the skills and insights needed for financial freedom. We'll play with ideas for intellectual freedom and the ability to question all the false assumptions that society swamps you with. Importantly, we'll also learn about how to do relationship freedom and how to create exquisite relatings in your life.

For now, during this following week, make some time to reflect on the various contexts of your life and whether you are truly free and have real choice. Or are you constrained by the expectations of others? Have you given away your choice and power to decide? Are you truly living the life enhancing destiny you desire? Are you dreaming BIG dreams and putting them into action? Or are you living a join the dots life of mundane mediocrity and following rules foist upon you by society and the ignorance of previous generations?

All big and life enhancing questions. Have a play with them. And look forward to some stimulating responses from author Thomas 'Sully' Sullivan in next week's interesting and inspiring installment, as Sully ponders upon these crucial questions on the life enhancing topic of freedom.


Want to learn more, get a copy of my book: Avoiding the Enemies to HAPPINESS!

life enhancing great wishes
Grant

And if you are interested...

Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life - Judith Orloff M.D.

A superbly written series of psychological strategies for maximizing positive emotions and minimizing toxic ones. A practicing psychiatrist, the author straddles the worlds of mainstream medicine and alternative healing.

Beyond Freedom & Dignity - B. F. Skinner

In this profound and profoundly controversial work, a landmark of 20th-century thought originally published in 1971, B. F. Skinner makes his definitive statement about humankind and society. Insisting that the problems of the world today can be solved only by dealing much more effectively with human behavior, Skinner argues that our traditional concepts of freedom and dignity must be sharply revised. Beyond Freedom and Dignity urges us to reexamine the ideals we have taken for granted and to consider the possibility of a radically behaviorist approach to human problems. It is the environment rather than humankind itself that must be changed if the traditional goals of the struggle for freedom and dignity are to be reached.

A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency

In this short yet ambitious work, Philip Pettit offers a single, unified, and overarching theory of freedom. A puzzling topic, freedom extends from the individual and the metaphysical (i.e. free will) to the social and the political, yet a theory connecting these two realms has yet to be devised. In an elegant, accessible manner, Pettit presents a survey of available theories of freedom, then develops his own--one that manages to straddle the personal and political spheres. The view he develops--which includes the seemingly paradoxical notion that we are free to the extent that we are capable of being held responsible

Choice, freedom & respect

Here's a short rant I wrote some time ago, that describes a little of my thinking behind why I believe focusing on Life Enhancing is so useful and important...

Life is an adventure!

You wake up one day and there you are...

Alive and wondering what it's all about. And you know, no one can really tell you.

Sure, you'll find lots of people who have their own beliefs, but no one really knows or can prove their beliefs about the 'true' meaning of life to you. So who and what do you believe?

Believe me, its a challenging question! :-)

Right Now!

And as far as we know we only get one life. It's this one. Right Now!

So you want to make the most of your time, right now, on this planet. And how are you going to do that? How will you know what to do to live a great life?

Look around you. Look at all the people you know. Is there anyone who inspires you? Is there anyone whose life you really really respect? Is there someone who is an exemplar of life enhancing?

Or like me, do you look around and go "hmmm, I don't want to live most of the lives I see. I don't respect the way most of the planet is living or the results they're getting in their lives."

So how would you know?

Here's an important question: What is the life strategy you are going to choose to live by? What are the guiding rules and principles that will ensure that you are living an enhanced and wondrous life? - that will enable you to become a person you can be proud of, to live a life you can respect?

So that on your dying day, when you're throwing off your mortal coils, as you look back over your life, you can be pleased with the life you've lead, with the life you've lived.

Interesting isn't it that the etymology of the word 'respect' is 'to look back', 'to look again'.

So... moving into your future, now, looking back on what you are going to have been doing with your life, how are you going to live and think and make decisions in your life so that you are living the sort of excellence you want to have lived.

Fascinating question isn't it! And so incredibly and vitally important to living an enhanced life of choice, freedom and joy and not just a default life served up by the place and time you are living in history right now.

Enhancing your Life

You know, deep in the sparkling places of our minds, there is wondrous opportunity and choice.

WE need to bring it forth to our consciousness so that we can review it and refine it and make it a sparkling gem of a life. Life really is like a diamond or gem, dredged up from the soil of mother earth, all rough and rock like, but with appropriate conscious working and attention it can be cut and shaped to a beautiful crystal clear gem, filled with gleaming beauty and value.

That's the way to make life worthwhile. It's through conscious attending to the unconscious patterns and processes of our creative intuition; focusing on the fruits of our evolving desires and through the conscious filters of what we decide and design to be our evoking passions. It's about what we decide to believe and make happen in intelligent ways. It's about consciously choosing to focus on and do life enhancing!

What are you going to do?

How are you going to live your life? What are you going to do to express your joy of living? What choices are you making? Where is your self-control? What life are you designing for yourself now?


How are you enhancing your life?

Make the most of your time on this planet! You only get one chance, make it count!

LIFE – Living In Full Enhancing!