There is nothing wrong with setting out to create something meaningful in this world, using one's life as the means, material, and way to succeed. But when we want to "become" something in this life -- for the sake of satisfying what we imagine will make us happy, i.e., position, possessions, or some kind of social power -- should we achieve that desired end -- then we become the slave of that creation, instead of being liberated by it. We must be good householders; we need work, a place of our own to live in, food, clothing, and ideally transportation, but...our minds are tortured with ideals created by a culture that has no clue about the true nature of success. The sense of failure most men and women suffer from isn't because they can't get a job and provide for themselves, but because their conditioned minds are convinced that success is measured by how others value their worth. Real success in this life is not something achieved through winning the good opinion of others about us, but rather is freedom from any concern at all over how others see us. Persist with your wish to know this order of freedom even as you persist with your wish and work to find a task to do that satisfies your heart. And, if needed, while you wait for "doors" to open, take whatever work you can that puts food on the table and clothes on your back.

It is not your past that has shaped your future, but the fact that you are clinging to the past in the present moment to tell you who you are and what your possibilities are. Self-pity not only kills anyone's chance for starting over in a real way, but it slowly slays whatever love we have left in our heart as well.

All growth, no exceptions, is through the release, or transcendence of some perceived limitation. In truth, the whole idea of "spiritual growth" is the product of an illusion born of another misperception: there is someone, somehow, created incomplete. No such "self" exists -- except for the activity of a mind divided in itself that creates limitations by imagining it needs to achieve some goal in order to know the goodness it seeks. This makes all seeking based in illusion as well. So, the perception is the illusion, as it is one and the same with the condition seen as being in our way. This means that there is no failure for us, but -- and it is a paradox -- this only becomes true for us as individuals as we awaken to realize directly that God has created the universe for us to transcend our presently limited view of it. We are called to see it as it is in reality: one with our own True Self -- a timeless nature created unlimited, but that has walked through itself to be conscious of this sublime Truth.

Try to understand the difference between living from something within yourself whose nature is contentment itself, and living from those parts of yourself that are forever seeking contentment. For those who persist with their wish of self-discovery -- who will put this love of the Light first in their lives -- there really is no such thing as failure. Why? Because every event -- regardless of its "apparent" outcome, reveals to these sincere seekers what was formerly unknown to them...about themselves. That's the key! The only thing that stands between us and the higher self we all strive to be, is what we don't understand about the nature of the "barrier" before us. And all such barriers, all, are constructed out of what we've yet to learn about ourselves. This means that self-discovery is self-success, and that for the self-studying man or women, failure simply ceases to exist!