Why is it that we will challenge and then work to change the world's opinions as they concern us, but we never question our own beliefs no matter how much personal pressure, stress and anxiety they may produce? For example, we wouldn't dream of diving for sunken treasure in our bathtub because we know that the best we can hope to find there are a few plastic pearls. And yet we still dive headlong into this world every day to try and become Someone. Over and over again we sink ourselves into some new scheme that promises greater self-confirmation in spite of the fact that the best we have ever realized so far is a temporary kind of self-elevation that has never failed to turn into its painful opposite of self-doubt. Here's the point. It is our belief that we must be Someone that punishes us, not the world that won't confirm our beliefs.

With patient self-study and the help of Truthful ideas we can learn to lead an entirely New Life. The Truth is not something impractical and hopelessly distant from us. It is as close and immediate as our wish to understand why it is that we keep hurting ourselves and others. With this right intention to guide us, let's look at this wish that we all have to become Someone. And during our investigation let's work to keep in mind that it is what we can see about this world that is our Real Safety and not what we can win from it.

Everybody wants to be a Someone. Why? Just ask anyone and they will tell you in so many words: Somebody who is Someone has power. Power is necessary; without it we can't isolate and protect ourselves from a crushing world of others who want at all cost what we want -- which is to become Someone. In short, the idea of becoming someone contains the unquestioned and pervasive belief that whatever measure of safety, security and happiness we may win in this life depends directly upon just how much of a Someone we can succeed at becoming. This is, whether spoken or not, how almost everyone on earth believes. And it is this very belief, this treasure hunt in the tub, that holds the seed of sorrow for all of mankind.

Neatly hidden within this false belief, not unlike the too-tempting poison apple offered to Snow White by the evil witch, is this belief's opposite -- an opposite which lurks and shouts within the psychic system of each unsuspecting believer just outside his ability to see and hear its message -- but well within his capacity to feel its presence. And this feeling is fear, because this opposite clearly implies that if we don't become Someone we will never know safety and security. Fear's powerful, almost unshakable, silent implication is that if we don't become Someone in our own eyes or in the eyes of others, we will have no power; and being powerless we will perish and vanish. This is what drives men and women to the point of collapse. It is not the promise of being Someone who is ceaselessly pleased but rather the threat of unceasing unhappiness that compels us to succeed no matter what the personal or global cost. Let's put it this way: We have not been running to something, that goal or that dream, we have been running from something. We have been running from the fear of being no one.

This is an unresolvable race because we are tied to whatever we avoid. That's right. So far, fear has set the course and the pace. This explanation sheds some light on why it is so hard for us to relax, even when it is the time for it. The facts are the more we try to become Someone, or even seem to succeed at the task, the more in jeopardy we feel. The good news is that this problem is nothing new nor is it its real solution.

You can cut yourself loose from all of your fears and worries. There is no question that this new kind of self-work will take a special effort on your part. But you are not alone. The Truth wants you to succeed. Once you understand that nothing real is threatening you, where is your need to anxiously protect yourself? Once you know that you have already been given an independent, timeless identity, you need never worry again about making yourself into Someone. This is real success.