It Begins Today

Think about it.

Everything begins today, right now.

And then it ends, and begins again and then ends.

That's life.

We try to hold on to the moment, to cultivate a feeling of permanence, but the truth is impermanence is the order of the day. Nothing stands still. Nothing is static. Motion cannot be stopped.

So what? How does that affect my life and your life. Who cares?

I care and you should to, because the idea of permanence gets us into trouble. We become attached to things like a child is to his teddy. We become attached to people and places and titles and roles and money and fame and friends and jobs and fans and....we are afraid of the inevitable change that may cause us to lose something we love.

That's understandable. We've all had those moments we wish we could capture in a bottle and keep by our bedsides each night. Maybe it was a feeling of happiness that made time seem to stand still or a moment when we felt so free we swore our feet lifted a few inches above the ground. But the moment did not last. Change came sweeping through like a gust of wind.

How are we to feel secure and hopeful in a world where everything changes moment to moment? Where is peace and happiness in such a world? Where do we go to find undisturbed tranquility? Can there ever be heaven on earth when minds are constantly changing, searching, and restless? And yet the great gurus of history have told us life on earth can be peaceful, that all wars can end, that we can live in perpetual happiness. But how can this be when change is an incontrovertible law of existence?

We must be detached. That can be the only solution to change. Life is a process, a constant flow of reality from one thing to the next. Atoms are indeed restless. Everything is vibrating. The world - the universe! - is one big ball of bustling energy. If you doubt this, try right now to stop something - anything - from changing.

This moment is not this moment; it is indeed the only moment! Whooah, what a strange thing to say. I know. I thought it was strange as soon as I wrote it, but somehow I know it is true. Everything that has happened or will happen is connected to this eternal moment. Everyone and everything is connected to me and you. You and I are connected to every star in the heaven, every distant galaxy and swirling light in the sky. My God, if this is true - which I feel it is - then everything begins and ends NOW!

On a practical level, this can be very helpful. Too often in life we feel trapped like a wild animal who has been caged by his captors. We try something that doesn't work, and then give up. We are inspired to do something meaningful, but put it aside because we fear it will not pan out. But if we truly understood that everything begins and ends NOW, we could live freely without fear of change or failure! Rightly understood, failure is nothing more than giving up and becoming attached to an experience that has ended. The person who keeps on trying can never fail because she will always have the chance to begin anew.

Nothing is permanent anyway so why not flow with the process of change rather than live in fear of what might happen. One thing we know for sure is that everything we become attached to will change.

Live free. Explore your passions. Dance through life as though every sound, every movement and vibration is a melody that rings sweetly in your ear. Change cannot be stopped, but so what! You can be anything you decide to be, can accomplish any goal and achieve any feet. But don't hold on to any of it. Don't become attached. Let if flow, as it must. Enjoy the moment, but keep your gaze fixed forward as the next wave of experience comes your way. The secret to a happy and successful life is to cultivate your inner gifts and then give them away everyday without any sense of attachment. Give your life away and life, in a circular flow of energy, will return those gifts to you ten fold!

Everything begins today!

About the author: Deshon Fox is the author of The Middle Theory, a gifted speaker, businessman and blogger. To learn more about The Middle Theory visit www.themiddletheory.com

How to Transform Your Life in 24 Hours

What's happening to you?

Do you know why you are here, right now, breathing and thinking - living?

Does your life have purpose?

Many of us are surfing aimlessly through life on a wave that pushes us around, that tosses us here and there without our control. Sure, we do what we need to do to survive. But animals do that. There must be more to life than survival, than getting up each day to go to work, than grinding out the day until dinner, then doing it all again the next day. Is that life?

Here's the thing. Life is much bigger than survival.

Life is amazing, creative, immeasurably mysterious. Life is colorful, brilliant, and dazzling. Life is a sea of emotions, a mountain of possibilities. Life is enigmatic and challenging. Life is zestful, spontaneous and full of adventure.

This is life!

But how do we get out of the rut of survival to embrace something bigger, grander and more satisfying?

There is a way. A way that is tried and proven. A way that has been told to us in many languages throughout the ages by poets and gurus, by Messengers and thinkers of all stripes. This "divine wisdom" has many variations, but simply put it is this: "Know Thyself". That's it, you may wonder. That's the way to an incredible life. Indeed it is!

Have you ever driven a car?

Surely you have. You open the door and get in, start the engine, shift the gear into drive, and then gently release the brakes as you push the gas. Like magic, the car takes off. You drive away with ease. Now imagine if you didn't know what a car was. Imagine that your memory is wiped clean of any trace of knowledge about cars or machines of any kind. Imagine what would happen if you tried to drive a car then. First of all, you would have trouble trying to get in. If you figured out how to get in the car, you would be lost; hopelessly lost. No matter how fancy the car is - it could be a 2014 Lamborghini Veneno Roadster - it would be of no use to you. You would struggle to appreciate its worth and purpose.

Life is no different. If we do not understand who we are beyond our name and basic physiology, we are lost; hopelessly lost in our pursuit of living a purposeful life. So we must discover who we truly are. It's that simple and that complex.

You see, you are a phenomenon. You are a conscious being that can imagine anything. You can survey all sides of reality, weigh it in your infinite mind and choose from an ocean of possibilities. "Know thyself!" is an incredible injunction. I use the word "injunction" intentionally. We ignore this wisdom at our peril.

"But how can I know myself?", you may ask. Aha, we are getting somewhere. Questions are lovely things, because they often lead us to solutions. In the remainder of this post, I will share with you 10 effective ways to transform your life today. I could just as well describe these as 10 ways to know yourself. It doesn't matter. Knowing yourself is like unlocking the doors to the eternal Kingdom within. The "Kingdom of God is within you". Remember those words from the Bible? We can spend a lifetime searching on the outside, but inevitably every person who charts the stars to a purposeful life discovers that everything the heart desires is within.

So here goes. Get a pen and pad and write these down. You may want to share them with your friends and loved ones or to commit them to memory. In 24 hours, your life can be moving purposefully with ease, just like our imaginary car!

10 Things to do TODAY to Transform your life in 24 Hours

1. Be grateful - wherever you are, stop right now and pause for a few seconds. You are alive. Your heart is beating. You are breathing. You don't know how any of this is happening, but it's happening. Some mysterious force is keeping you alive, is sustaining you, and apparently wants you to be here. That's amazing! Don't take this for granted. Feel a deep sense of gratitude for your existence.

2. Remove every negative or doubtful thought from your mind - I don't care what your circumstances are right now. I can guarantee that no amount of doubt or negativity will help. So get rid of every negative thought. Throw them out! Say good-bye to them. They are like air pollution. In place of negative thoughts, think "I can", "I must", "I will", "It can be done", "I am good enough", "I am a divine creation,".....brand your brain permanently with the words "No negativity allowed."

3. Take three deep breaths - sounds simple, but there is a scientific reason this is so effective in energizing us. Every living thing needs oxygen to survive and thrive. And how do we get oxygen into our blood cells? We breathe. We are doing it all the time, but when we do it consciously, something amazing happens. We begin to sense our "aliveness". We literally feel the energy of life pulsing through our body.

4. Look at the sky for about 30 seconds (during the day). Do you remember how you felt when you looked at the clouds when you were a child? Was it not exquisite to see the light dancing off of the clouds, to watch the clouds shape-shift right before your eyes? Your imagination ran wild. The vastness of the heavens mesmerized you with its fathomless beauty.

5. Hug a loved one deeply. When was the last time you hugged your child, a spouse, a friend or anyone that you love so tightly and fully that time stood still? Believe it or not, sometimes all we need to feel hopeful and positive about life is a good, lasting hug!

6. Call up an old friend and reconnect - Most of us have a special friend that we have lost touch with. It may be a friend from high-school or university. When we think of this person, we cannot help but smile. This person touched us in ways we cannot describe. They were more than just a friend; they were a kindred soul who understood us implicitly, could feel our emotions and saw past our emotional walls. But somehow we lost touch with them. Maybe after college we got busy with work, with kids or with God knows what. Today, find out how to reach this person. Google their name. Search on facebook and twitter. If you are determined, you will find them. Call them up and give them the surprise of their life. This is a biggy! Try it!

7. Dance and sing in the shower - OK, I know some of you can't sing or dance to save your life (I can dance, but singing is not my forte), and I know this one is a little quirky. But there is something about dancing in the shower that relieves a lifetime of stress. Maybe it's the water or the sense of freedom we feel in the bathroom. I don't know. But believe me, a good dance in the shower does the trick!

8. Laugh when it is most unexpected to do so - I must qualify this a little. I do not mean to laugh at some other person's misfortune or to laugh when laughing would cause others to feel uncomfortable. That would be rude. But laughing at times when our minds try to get us to think negatively is a powerful way of asserting our commitment to think positively no matter what. When we do this habitually, the negative thoughts vanish. So today, laugh whenever something happens that would normally irritate you or cause you to feel angry. You will notice, almost immediately, that it is your thinking that determines your experience, not what is happening around you.

9. Smile inside - this is really neat. Most of us know how to put a smile on our face. But I am not talking about that. To smile inside is a much more metaphorical process. I really don't know what an "inner smile" looks like. But I know how it feels. It feels great. It's liberating and it's uplifting. Every so often throughout today pause and smile inside. This one thing has the power to transform your day!

10. Get a good night's sleep. Don't underestimate the power of sleep. During deep sleep, our heart rate, breathing and brain waves slow significantly; our muscles relax and our hormones are regulated. A survey conducted by the American Cancer Society concluded that people who sleep 6 hours or less per night, or who sleep 9 hours or more, had a death rate 30 percent higher than those who regularly slept 7 to 8 hours! And in scientific studies lab animals deprived of sleep die. So tonight, make sure you get at least 7 hours of restful sleep.

In 24 hours, with the incorporation of the 10 tips above, you could be looking at a new you in the mirror.

You may still look the same (oh, how we wish we could transform ourselves physically in 24 hours!), but something will be different. A process of transformation will be well underway. You will feel energized, hopeful, positive, and ready to live!

It is true that you may not be able to do all of the 10 tips in a 24 hour period (you may not be able to reach your long lost friend, for example), but most of the tips can be carried out in 24 hours. Do them. Try them and see what you experience. Your life on this earth is the only one you got, so live it to the fullest.

The 10 tips are simple, but mysteriously effective. Perhaps there is no mystery at all. After-all, if we think about it, all of the tips help us to cultivate a feeling of presence, a sense of aliveness and well-being that sharpens our focus, invigorates our passions and releases our positive energies into the fiber of our essence. Understood this way, we can see that these 10 tips are ways to help us to know ourselves. "Know thyself" just might be the most powerful, transformative revelation ever to light upon the mind of humankind.

About the Author: Deshon Fox is the author of The Middle Theory (www.themiddletheory.com), a sought after speaker, loving father and devoted husband. He is passionate about the mechanics of writing and enjoys motivating others to live their best life.

What is Racism?

Racially insensitive statements made by Donald Sterling, owner of the LA Clippers basketball team, have, for the time being, captured the attention of pundits and talking heads throughout the United States. There is broad agreement that his comments are outrageous, unacceptable, disgusting, and, you get the point. We agree.

But what about those statements made by Sterling? What exactly did he say that was racist? What is racism anyway? For some persons, the topic of racism is uncomfortable as it brings to mind troubling, historic facts about the mistreatment of slaves at the hands of their oppressors. Some have experienced racism first-hand and know the peculiar feel and taste of being caught in a cloud of racist energy. And then there are those who approach the discussion of racism from a purely academic standpoint, as if it were no more than a definition to be memorized. Racism means different things to different people.

In The Middle Theory, a small section of Chapter Seven ("The Age of Balance") discusses the topic of racism. Interestingly enough, what many of us understand as "racism" is a relatively modern phenomenon. In his book Images of Race, M. Biddis points out that "before the 1800s race was used generally as a rough synonym for lineage. But over the first half of the 19th Century race (and its equivalence in a number of European languages) assumed an additional sense that seemed initially tighter and more scientific". He goes on to say that this new usage "...was evident, at its simplest, in the growing conviction that there was a finite number of basic human types, each embodying a package of fixed physical and mental traits whose permanence could only be eroded by mixture with other stocks". Essentially then, as written in The Middle Theory, "modern racism is propagated, sustained, and institutionalized by an irrational fear about the contamination of a supposedly pure, superior race."

OK, so we are now all accomplished race historians. What does any of this have to do with life today? Plenty. Today, in more "enlightened" societies the world over, democratically elected governments are guided by Constitutions that proclaim the fundamental equality of all human beings. In polite conversation, intelligent people know better than to say anything disparaging about someone of another race. And yet today, more than ever, we are aware of the ongoing economic and social disparities that have for centuries been undergirded by divisive racial attitudes that remain prevalent today in virtually every society on earth. Our simplistic color-coding system of "black", "white," and "brown" is losing meaning as more and more persons of diverse ethnic heritage assert their ethnically diverse identity. We would do well to realize that our entire conception of race as it stands is outdated and must change; race as it is currently defined is itself racist (i.e. divisive).

Isn't it interesting, for example, that a white woman can have either a black child or a white child depending on the race of the father. But a black woman can only have a black child. How can it be right and just for there to be only one version of whiteness (pure white) and a gazillion versions of blackness? It is evident that race based primarily on skin color is an over simplified description that does not say anything of substance about a person. It is time to consider an entirely new language for describing the ethnic identity of a human being. All of us are first and foremost a part of the same human race. Further descriptions of value may point to our culture, the land of our birth and rearing or to qualities of our character (e.g. " she's an honest woman with piercing eyes" or "he's a kind man with bright eyes"). As we evolve socially and spiritually, it will become more apparent that racist perceptions, if they are to be rooted out of our subconscious mind, must be viewed as an ingrained societal misconception, and not just as absurd perceptions held by the few who are caught red-handed so to speak.

Donald Sterling did not suddenly become racist when he was caught saying hurtful things about black people. His mindset was molded by his environment over many years. All of us living in modern societies have been shaped, to some degree, by pervasive subliminal messages that color-codes human beings into stereo-typical ethnic boxes.

Racism is fundamentally a negation of our spiritual oneness. In the coming Age of Balance, as envisioned in The Middle Theory, "we will no longer be defined by race based on skin color, but by the colorless, odorless, and formless spiritual qualities inherent within every human being. We will finally realize that human beings of all complexions are members of one human race. Racism in all its ugly forms will end.