Sometimes we get on a treadmill and can’t imagine how to get off.  We don’t even know that we should get off.  A lot of it has to do with our family/religious/societal conditioning.  Most of us are not living according to our own true nature.  We have incorporated time-honored tenets into our day-to-day living:

• “You don’t get anything worth having without struggle and hard work.”
• “You always need to be busy and productive.  Doing nothing is unproductive and will lead to ruin and disaster.”
• “Taking time for and giving to yourself is selfish.  You must always be doing something that gives to others and puts something back into society.”

Most of us have never been taught to look within and discover ourselves, to discover our needs and desires separate from those imposed upon us by our parents, our neighborhood and community, our ethnicity, our church, and any other status external to our own individualized inner being, which is the essence of who and what we are.

At a very young age, we are given a plan that is responsive to entities outside of ourselves: go to school, mind (or kiss up to) the teacher, and make good grades in order to go to college and get a good job.  The instinctual reliance by children on their intuition and on their feelings is gradually replaced by the need to please, to fit in, or to accomplish.  Always becoming, never just being.  Knowledge is for the purpose of becoming a lawyer, a doctor, something more than the parents, something to give the child the “advantages” of life.

Knowledge is not advocated simply for the sake of knowing and learning to be more aware of where and what you are right now.  Knowledge is not taught as a way to productively and consciously manipulate a universe that consistently responds to our every nuance.

Societal circumstances cause many adults to relinquish their dreams and give into a conditioned reality.  It becomes too hard to “fight the power.”  Many parents are trying to grow up themselves.  Not being taught to search within for answers, some turn to alcohol, drugs, sex, work, and dependencies on other people to find solace and satisfaction.  This behavior is then passed on to the next generation until someone decides to stop the cycle and find another way.

Many of us obtain education, training, and jobs in order to pursue the standard paths for financial well-being, believing that we’ll be happy once we have the nice car, the beautiful houses, the 2.5 children, the trips to the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe, the huge bank accounts and substantial investments.  If asked what would make us happy outside of these things, most of us would be stumped for an answer because we have been conditioned to think of happiness as being represented by tangible objects.  That’s why we don’t understand why we aren’t happy once we obtain the material possessions we desire.

Some of us don’t even expect to be happy.  We believe happiness is for the afterlife, not to be experienced here on Earth.  Or we accept that a life of getting by is ok.  Joyous and exuberant people are deemed abnormal and avoided.  You feel more comfortable around complainers and moaners.

How many of you are so stressed from working 12 to 16 hour days, including your commute, that you don’t have the time to enjoy your abundance?  Your 2.5 kids are being raised by daycare providers or nannies.  You don’t have time to get to know your spouse/lover because he or she is equally successful and talented and probably sleeping with a coworker or subordinate who is seen more often.  Or maybe neither of you is intimate with anyone because each is too tired to express love in any way.

Where is the happiness?  Is it your boss’ fault that he or she is an asshole, constantly demeaning you and denying your potential?  Or can you take responsibility for your predicament because you choose to be in this situation?  You chose this route to happiness, to security, to well-being.

It is difficult to look into yourself for your answers unless and until you stop and get off of the treadmill.  The choice is to continue on your present path or you can change and seek to find your true self and your true purpose.  Yes, change brings turmoil and confusion.  You have to decide what your mental, physical, and spiritual health is worth.

The choice is always there and it is always yours to select whenever you are ready.