Marshalltopia

   "For every action there's an equally opposite reaction."- Newton's Third Law of Physics

   I'd like to talk for a moment about a couple of scientists. One of them is the most well-known, and well-respected environmentalists in the world, Dr David Suzuki. The other is the most well-known, and well-respected gerontologist, Dr Aubrey de Grey.

   Accordng to Dr Suzuki, "the debate is over" regarding global warming, and he's right. In the February 28th issue of NewScientist, the lead article graphically spelled out what we can expect over the next 40-90 years from global warming. We can expect a massive desert that will extend from 30 degrees south latitude to 30 degrees north latitude. That means that pretty much all of South America, Central America, the US, Asia, Africa, and Southern Europe are going to become one huge uninhabitable sand pit. This is going to happen because the planet is going to get warmer by 4 degrees celcius. Most marine life will become extinct because of rising carbon dioxide levels in the oceans. Most of the animals that you watch on the Discovery Channel will be a memory in a few generations. The worst prediction is that by 2099, the human population will only be a billion people. It took until 1888 for the Earth to reach that number. We may get up to 9 billion before the bottom falls out but to go back to that number in 200 years, or less, is amazingly depressing. What makes it worse is this, the only places that will be spared the ravages of global warming will be parts of Australia and Antarctica, and all of New Zealand. Siberia will be the only part of Russia to survive. Scandanavia and England will be the only parts of Europe to survive. Part of Greenland will survive and all of Canada will make it. The only part of the US that will make it will be Alaska. On those stretches of land we're going to have to feed and house a billion people in massively compressed high-rise Bladerunner-style cities. Did I neglect to mention that under these conditions we're probably all going to be vegetarians because we won't be able to spare the land to mass-manufacture meat? We're probably going to lose the dairy industry for the same reason, which means that ham and cheese sandwiches are going to become a memory too. Let's pause right here for a second and talk about Dr Grey.

   Dr Grey is a gerontologist in England. A gerontologist is someone who studies aging. He is convinced that we're thisclose to immortality. Specifically he thinks that we're 15 years away from the first major breakthroughs in life extension. The way he explains it the first breakthroughs will give us enough time to be around for the next breakthrough after that and so on. Well thanks to stem cell research, he's right. The technology now exists for us to clone our own organs from mice instead of from human embyros. Say you're 50 now and in 10 years when you're 60 you spring for a new set of lungs and a heart made from your own DNA. Heart/lung transplants go on routinely. I watched one on the Discovery Channel a few years ago. It's a scary procedure to watch but the real danger is afterwards as everyone tensely waits to see if the body will accept the new organs. If the DNA isn't yours it probably won't. The procedure itself is quite do-able if the patient is healthy. So now we can transplant organs the body won't reject. You're 60 years old in 2019 and you have the healthy heart and lungs of your 18 year old self. How much longer would you live in a healthy fashion? 30 years easily, and depending on your lifestyle you'll make 120 smoothly. With stem cell cloning we can replace everything except the brain.

   Dr Grey basically asserts that humans are machines and organs are like parts that keep the machine going. If you replace the parts on a regular basis with new parts then death can be postponed for enough time that aging can literally be stopped on the cellular level. That's his ultimate goal is to keep cells reproducing in a healthy way (eg. non-cancerously). Part of the maintenance process involves taking huge amounts of vitamin supplements, hormones, and amino acids as well as keeping up with a healthy diet and exercise routine. That by itself will get you to 100-120 according to the Life Extension Foundation but organ replacement is still going to become necessary at some point.

   Do I even have to ask what this has to with us this time?

   Okay, simply put, here it is. Every day you and I live with a maelstrom of bad news. The economy is getting worse and The War on Terror seems to have crawled to a standstill. Our only two options appear to be either believe in nothing (nihilism) or believe in the impossible. When you believe in nothing you set into motion what Sigmund Freud called, "The Death Impulse". What this means is that you subconciously start to do things that will insure that your body breaks down and you end up dead (eg. bad habits combined with a lazy sedentary lifestyle). Let's talk about the impossible for a minute.

   In a short film that he made, Kevin Smith brought up a brilliant point. He said that in 1960 JFK declared that in a decade men would be walking on the moon. The President had no scientific proof to justify this. At that time there were some sputniks, dogs, and chimps orbiting the Earth. John Glenn didn't even become the first man to orbit the Earth until 1962. Just under the bell, in the summer of 1969, men walked on the moon. JFK didn't "know" in any emprical sense of the word that this was going to happen. He believed in the impossible and he made the people that knew how to do it believe in it as well before he was killed in 1963. Only 66 years before men walked on the moon, two brothers who repaired bicycles for a living built a rickety aeroplane and launched it from Kitty Hawk. The thing only stayed in the air for 59 seconds, travelling a distance of 852 feet, but it paved the way for flying machines that could be controlled. And that led to the moon.

   That's one example of believing in the impossible.

   Here's another one. In the early 1980's the Atomic Clock hung at two minutes to midnight. The Atomic Clock was a device used by scientists to determine how close we were to a nuclear war. Two minutes to midnight meant that it wasn't a quesiton of if but when. Then a short movie came out in 1982 called If You Love This Planet. The film laid out what exactly would happen if a nuclear war took place. It makes the effects of global warming look pretty good by comparison. In 1986, the Premier of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, said to President Reagan that they should scrap all of their nuclear weapons. Reagan said no. Gorbachev chose to believe in the impossible, which was to singlehandedly prevent the possibility of a nuclear war without America's co-operation. He achieved this by setting his people free and dismantling The Soviet Union. This in turn killed the possibility of a nuclear war. America still claims to have won The Cold War but the real winner was sanity thanks to Gorbachev. No one now realistically worries about a global holocaust that only a generation ago was considered to be a sure thing by the leading lights in the scientific community.

   A lot of scientists seem to believe the Earth is doomed due to global warming if this article in NewScientist is anything to go by, but yet Dr Suzuki isn't one of them. He still thinks it isn't too late to get the carbon emissions under control. He still thinks it isn't too late to get the carbon dioxide levels in the ocean back under 350ppm. (Currently they're at 387ppm). He still lectures all over the place under the belief that we can still save Africa, Asia, South America, the US, Europe, and the polar ice caps. Right now he's the one that believes in the impossible. Watching Dr Suzuki is like watching Joe Montana getting blitzed in his own end zone. It may not look good but it's still Joe Montana and if anyone can throw a Hail Mary Pass in the final seconds to win the SuperBowl it's him.

   And let's not forget Dr Grey. Is there anything more impossible than believing that people who are currently 55 or younger will live to be 1000 years old? Again science is on his side and all we have to do is stop thinking of him as Dr Frankenstein and watch his lectures on Google Video.

   When you think about it we've been believing in the impossible all along. Somebody had to come up with a plan to build the pyramids in Egypt. We still don't know how they did it but they're there and that means somebody believed in the impossible thousands of years ago. How many decades did it take for people outside the scientific community to believe in evolution? It took from 1859 to 1926 for evolution to be taught in American high schools. 1859 was when The Origin of the Species was first published by Charles Darwin. 1926 was when the jury in the Scopes Monkey Trial decided that The Book of Genesis didn't adequately explain where people came from and that evolution should be taught. 

   David Suzuki and Aubrey de Grey are the latest madmen to tell us that something really big is right around the corner. In fact Dr Suzuki had two messages. He was one of the first to raise awareness in the the issue of global warming in the first place, and he seems to be the last one telling us that it's not too late. Somewhere in the dictionary the terms "balls" and "optimism" must be synonymous. What kind of impossibilities do you believe in? Can you believe that you'll survive the recession? Can you believe that you don't need a partner because you're already "complete"? Can you believe that things will get better? Can you? If you can then that's the first step towards believing in the impossible and you know what they say about journeys? They start with a single step.

   And if you're not afraid to believe then that step will carry you for a thousand years.

   All over the world.

   Here's a scary thought, David Lynch and Donald Trump are more alike than people think. To begin with Lynch is only 6 months older than Trump. In the mid-60's Lynch was studying away at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts while Trump was studying away at The Wharton School of Business in the same state. Neither one of these guys were into the counter-cultural revolution of the 60's, which comes as no surprise when it comes to Trump, but according to Lynch's closest friends they've never seen him wear a pair of jeans, let alone get stoned and protest anything. During this same period Trump flirted with going to film school while Lynch really wasn't interested in making movies as he had a scholarship at PAFA to paint pictures. Trump went to a military academy as a teen-ager to learn discipline and structure while Lynch when he was 14 became an Eagle Scout and got to meet JFK. Both of these men have experienced incredible highs. Trump has been credited with beautifully restoring the Manhattan cityscape and Lynch has three times been nominated for Best Director at the Oscars (among many other honours). Both men have also had their share of hard times as well. By the mid-90's Trump was 9.6 billion dollars in debt and he had to hustle to save his business empire. Lynch was booed off the stage at the Cannes Film Festival when he premiered, Twin Peaks-Fire Walk with Me. Both of these men have admitted taking on projects that they knew at the time they shouldn't have. Shortly before the election Trump condemned George W. Bush and the war in Iraq on the Larry King Show. Back in the 80's Lynch supported Ronald Reagan and was a frequent guest at the White House. Can you imagine what kind of buildings would be made if Lynch drew up the blueprints and Trump got them erected? 

   So what's the point to this?

   The point is if you only look at what's on the surface you'll see what you think is two very different men with unique hair-do's. It's easy to write off Trump as some kind of corporate Godzilla who only wants to erect monuments dedicated to himself all over the place. It's equally easy to write off Lynch as some sort of solipsistic bohemian dingbat who cranks out vanity projects with absolutely no consideration for the wants/needs of the audience. The truth is always more complicated, and far kinder, than the simplistic two-dimensional impressions we carry around. Trump may be a businessman but there's more than a touch of the artist in what he does. Whether he's restoring a hotel, putting up a skyscraper, ressurecting a skating rink in Central Park, or building golf courses, he personally wants these things to be beautiful. Beauty attracts and beautiful art stands the test of time. With Lynch there's more than a touch of the businessman to what he does. Lynch has made tv commercials for Gucci, Calvin Klein, Armani, Adidas, Sony, and Nissan. With clients like that he doesn't have to worry about applying for welfare anytime soon no matter what people think of his movies. Both of these guys have learned the hard way that it's important to only get involved in projects that you're absolutely in love with. When you're in love with a project, and subsequently you love what you do, it's easy throw yourself into it and create something that pleases the soul much moreso than the ego. Trump has built things that have lost money but he doesn't regret building them. Lynch has made movies that have lost money and disgruntled critics, but he doesn't regret making them. There's plenty of people out there that only look at the bottom line and they make stuff that they think is commercial but it turns out to be merely boring. Would you rather be booed at the most prestigious film festival on the planet, a festival that in the past proclaimed you a god, or would you rather make a "safe" picture that people will watch and immediately forget about, and it may still end up in the red? Would you rather build a skyscraper that may not achieve majority occupancy because of an economic meltdown while millions of people in the street will stop and stare at in awe, or would you rather build less-ambitious budget-concious structures that disappear into the lanscape that may not achieve a profit because every other developer is doing the same thing?

   Trump has admitted that because of his love for what he does he was too busy to focus on his first two marriages as he celebrates being a father again with wife #3 at the age of 63. Lynch has just ended his third marriage and is already engaged again ,(along with having a long term relationship with Isabella Rossellini somewhere between wives), but he too has admitted that being busy with his projects has impacted his relationships. If past performance is indicative of future behaviour both of these guys are going to be forking out child support/ alimony payments in 2046 when they both turn 100. Women often comment, "He's in love with his career". Is that such a bad thing? Ike Turner was in love with beating up and raping his wife Tina. Where is he now? Lots of men are in love with alcohol and drugs and they're either dead, or they're at a point in their lives where they'll never re-capture their lost glory because they're just too screwed up physically and mentally to get it together. Brad Pitt succumbed to the charms of Angelina Jolie while he was still married to Jennifer Anniston. John Lennon succumbed to the charms of Yoko Ono while he was still married to his wife Cynthia. Lots of men cheat all over the place and then get violently jealous if their women look at the parking valet at the restaurant for more than 3 seconds. Men cause all sorts of suffering in all kinds of ways that in the end is difficult, if not impossible to forgive. There are men a lot worse than David Lynch and Donald Trump. Besides being geniuses in their fields they do have a reputation for being nice guys (and good fathers) who love what they do and have written their names in the history of modern culture.

   So what does all of this have to do with us?

   Ask yourself what it is that you love to do? It doesn't really matter what it is. Have you abandoned this activity at some point in your life because your family and your community told you it was time to grow up and get serious? How happy are you now? Do you love your job? Odds are 70% that you don't. Are you married to the person that completes you? Odds are 50% you're going to get divorced. Even if you hate your job and you end up getting divorced there's probably children in your life as you read this. Ok, fair enough, you have responsibilities and I'm the first one to commend you for fulfilling your responsibilities, but someday those kids are going to grow up and move out, or at least they'll reach an age when they can feed themselves and do their own laundry (if you kick them in the ass hard enough). What comes next for you? What's the next power point on your checklist in terms of your overall life plan? What's that? All you have is a blank spot there. That might be the point when you're going to have to blow off the dust from that screenplay/novel you buried in the attic/garage. That might be the point when you're going to have to get another easel, some canvasses, some brushes, and some paint, and make those neglected images that have been stirring your soul for decades. It may be a good time to go back to university and shoot for that profession that has always fascinated you. It may be time for you to draw up that business plan and start hustling for the capital to open that store you've always wanted. Whatever it is that you love now is the time to start thinking about getting back into it.

   Both Lynch and Trump can quit what they're doing right now and never worry about money ever again, but they both know that that's the psychological equivalent of committing suicide. Both men will tell you that even if they had failed to get off the ground in the 70's they both would have kept pursuing what they love to do irrespective of whatever money they made along the way. For them "it's the doing not the getting", that pushes and defines their lives. It's time for you to start doing a little doing of your own.

   Or a lot.

   One day, back in the late 1800's, Thomas Edison was entertaining a guest and he said that it took 10,000 different experiments until he perfected the invention of the lightbulb. The guest said something like, ""It's amazing that you had to endure 9,999 failures until you got it right. " Edison snapped back, " Those weren't failures. I just discovered 9,999 ways that lightbulbs don't work. "

   So what does this have to do with us?

   Failure isn't a reality in the way that say the existence of winter is a reality. Failure is at best an idea, and it only takes on power when you or I accept that idea as the truth in any given situation. It's one thing to say, " I gave it a shot and it didn't work. " It's another thing to proclaim, " I failed. " The former sounds like a temporary setback while the latter sounds like a permanent blot on your record.

   Nowhere is the fear of failure more prevalent than in the world of relationships. Over the past 9 years on keen I've heard thousands of people say, " I invested all of this time into this relationship. If I walk away now that'll mean that I failed. " Really? Why's that. The only thing you would really be walking away with is the discovery of how a relationship doesn't work. The only true failure is to not try at all. Getting involved with someone attractive is fine. The willingness to take chances is a sign of a strong personality. When you make that latest discovery, however, you have to sit back and ask yourself, " Does it make me a failure to leave this unhappy situation or does it make me a failure to stick around when I know it isn't going to change? " If Edison stopped at experiment #245, I'd be writing this by candlelight with a pencil and you'd be reading it in a newspaper while the sun was out. Instead he plunged onward creating another experiment until he found the answer to his problem. You have to do the same thing. You have to ask yourself, " Did I try my best to make this work? " If you can honestly said you did then it's no failure to walk away. There's no shame in saying to anyone, " It didn't work out so I made some changes and I'm ready to try again with someone new. "

   Having said what I said there is one thing I wouldn't recommend. A lot of people when they're in unsatisfying relationships like to look for their next partner while they're still committed to the one that's making them unhappy. I wouldn't suggest that you do that for one practical reason, it creates the negative impression with the new person that you encounter that you're the sneaky "cut and run" type. They'll assume that you're untrustworthy and they'll choose to take advantage of you. Also if the person you're with finds out what you're doing then you look like a cheater and that can be pretty embarrassing. There's no shortcuts in the pursuit of love. If you honestly can't handle being single, if the thought of it makes you feel worthless, then that's something that you need to discuss with a therapist. I've said all along that the most important relationship is the one you have with yourself. Doctor Phil likes to say that " there's no such thing as reality, there's just perception. " With that in mind I'd like to say that there's no such thing as failure, there's just temporary setbacks. The closest we come to failure is when we give up altogether and stop trying to create new solutions. Then you have to deal with your conscience as it tells you that you let yourself down for the remainder of your life.

   Over the course of the past 9 years I've spoken to tens of thousands of people on keen and the interesting thing I've found is that a huge percentage of those people are miserable, and yet their upbringing isn't what one would call traumatic. They often-times say to me, "I need love in order to be happy." Ok, fair enough, but where did that need come from?

   The things that you need in order to be ok with yourself are not innate, or instinctive. The need for food, sleep, and water are instinctive. Sex is another powerful need but you won't die without it, and much like eating, sleeping, and drinking it's something you can handle alone if you really need to unburden yourself. The "need" for things like love and validation are implanted into your conciousness by everyone's favourite devil- the media.

   So why does the media put these things into your head during the most vulnerable years of your life?, because there's good money in it. The wedding industry in America pulls in billions every year. The diet and fitness industry is worth another 5 billion annually according to Naomi Wolfe's, The Beauty Myth. Have you ever really watched commercials for pizza and fast food? Did you ever notice how they turn food into fetish/love objects? That's not an accident. When people hate themselves they'll turn to anything that gives them a sense of gratification and control. Needless to say the fast food industry pulls in billions a year and it never wants you to lose your need for love and validation. Then there's the cars, the clothes, the furniture, the alcohol, the medication we get from our psychiatrists, the self-help books, and finally a host of unfulfilling relationships stretched over the best years of our lives, and still we crave for this "need".

   A lot of this comes down to the fact that we keep asking the wrong question. The question isn't, "Why can't I find love in order to be happy?" The question is, "What's wrong with me right now as I am?" The minute you ask yourself that the "need" grinds to a halt. Seriously, what's wrong with you as you are? The one thing you and I have in common is that we're not perfect. Another thing you and I have in common is that we're nowhere near as bad as we've been led to believe.

   Say what you will about the old days before the invention of mass-media but it did have something going for it way back when. People judged themselves by their actions. Am I self-sufficient? Am I a good neighbour? Do I make a positive/financial contribution to the society I live in? Am I law-abiding? Am I an active member within my place of worship? Do I take care of my family? People in the late 1700's, and into the early 1800's, didn't worry about love and validation. The people back then who went on to do great things did so because they too judged themselves by their actions. True there was a strong element of decadence (as there is now), but things like neuroses, insecurity, mood disorders, eating disorders, and the idea that we need external things in order to repair internal issues was nowhere near as prevalent as it is now. The point here is that back then people didn't waste time waiting to be told they were love-worthy because they already possessed a sense of self-respect. The mass-media has tricked us out of that particular privilege. Over the course of our lives we've watched/listened to millions of commercials that have told us we are poor, fat, ugly, losers and we've allowed ourselves to be conditioned into paying too much attention on our so-called "defects" and not enough attention on how we behave. Even worse we've allowed ourselves to believe that when we do judge ourselves on our conduct we're being self-centered and egocentric. It doesn't take a P.H.D. in sociology to figure out that people who base their self-worth on their actions won't be motivated to spend every nickel they have (or ever will have), because they won't feel that "need" to be deemed love-worthy.

   You can accept or reject what I'm about to tell you but the fact is the most important relationship you're ever going to have is the one you have with yourself. You can have children but they're going to grow up and go forth to live their own lives. You can fall for anyone that notices you but they'll never replace that "need" that gnaws at your thoughts everyday. No one is perfect enough to remove that. You can do whatever you have to to become famous but if the history of both Hollywood, and pop music have anything to teach they teach that that kind of mass love is never enough, and there's plenty of corpses to prove it. Day in and day out all you have is you and it's time you started to ask the right questions. What exactly do you do? Chances are that what you do is positive, and if what you do is positive then you must be a positive member of your community, and if you're a positive member of your community then how bad can you be? The paradox here is that that point is easy to understand but nearly impossible to accept. Start asking the right questions and your self-acceptance will start to look more real than you think.

   Imagine this, you're on welfare and every week you buy a lottery ticket for one dollar. Now every week you do your book-keeping and you make entries indicating that every time you bought a ticket you won the prize for that week. At the end of the year when you're doing your taxes you write down that you're worth somewhere in the neighbourhood of half a billion dollars. Now imagine that instead of the government telling you you're insane they say "congratulations", and then imagine that tens of thousands of people throw money at you every week to buy lottery tickets for them because they think you have something going for you because according to you you never lose. Sounds crazy?

   Welcome to the world of Enron.

   Enron was established by a guy named Ken Lay in 1985 in Houston, Texas. Essentially Enron bought and sold natural gas, and later on heavily invested in electricity. In the early 90's Lay hired a guy named Jeff Skilling to be his CEO. Skilling said he'd take the job if he was allowed to use what's called "mark to market accounting". Basically this means putting on your books projected future earnings as actual cash assets the moment a deal is made. If you buy a lottery ticket for a dollar and the prize is 7.5 million bucks, you can write down that you made 7.5 million before you even walked out of the store, let alone before the numbers were even called.

   Now that's "voodoo economics".

   Ken Lay didn't have a problem with this stipulation and Skilling put out the idea that Enron should turn the whole natural gas industry into a commodities market where people could bet on whether or not the price of natural gas would rise or fall. In the meanwhile Enron was using mark to market accounting to make itself look like it was doing great guns financially. They told everyone they were making tons of money off of power plants in India, video-on-demand deals with Blockbuster, and they were poised to take advantage of the de-regulated electricity industry in the western U.S. This in turn made a lot of people invest in Enron because they figured  that Enron was going places. This drove up the price of their stock to an all-time high of $90/share.

   It turned out, however, that Enron didn't have any money. In fact Enron was in debt to the tune of 30 billion dollars. The power plant in India didn't make a dime after an initial outlay of a billion dollars to build it. The video-on-demand deal with Blockbuster fell apart because they couldn't get the technology to work. Even though these projects were failures Enron recorded massive earnings that didn't exist, and they hid their debts by not listing them.

   By 2001 all of the top guys at Enron started to sell their stock options in small blocks in order to avoid detection. If this were to be found out it would have signalled to the investors that the company was in trouble and that it was time to pull out. It also would have signalled to the 22,000 employees at Enron that their days were numbered and it was time for them to cash in their 401K's while they were still worth something. Instead Lay told the employees that everything was fine and that they should keep investing in the company. He said the same thing to the investors.

   Everybody at the top was cashing out, and Skilling quit as CEO on August 14, 2001 for "personal reasons" with a whopping golden parachute. About six weeks after that Enron filed for bankruptcy and the whole sorry scandal came to light. By then Enron's stock was worth 40 cents. In the end Skillings got sentenced to 24 years in prison for fraud. Lay died from a heart attack after being found guilty of 10 out of 11 fraud-related charges. The company's CFO, Andy Fastow, snitched out everyone after Lay and Skillings tried to say that he was the only one ripping off the company. The government thought he was such a good witness that they only gave him 6 years in a "club fed" style prison. Another top member wound up committing suicide. The employees lost their retirement pensions along with their jobs. All the way around it was a sad situation.

   So what does this have to do with us?

   Things like the Enron scandal don't happen in a vacuum. They flourish in an environment where image is everything and the truth is whatever you think you can get away with telling the world. Everyone wants to project an image of success, but how far should you and I go in order to promote that reality? Should we max out our credit cards in order to get a designer wardrobe for the workplace? Should we go even deeper into the hole for some kind of sporty-looking vehicle? Should we take on an unsecured mortgage so that we can get the best house possible even though we may not be able to make the payments because our job situation is shaky? Should we kill ourselves at the gym while working a diet that would make the average anorexic nervous while blowing more money we don't have on cosmetic surgery? Then there's the things we tell people as we pray they'll never find out that our lives are not really that exciting, or that prosperous.

   But that's the point isn't it. The stress of maintaining that reality, the fear of all of our deceptions being exposed, drives us to come up with more lies in order to keep being accepted as a winner. If you're one of those people then I suggest you get a documentary called The Smartest Guys in the Room, which is where I got all of this information about Enron, and watch it repeatedly. When you've absorbed every facet of the film ask yourself this, "How long can I keep pretending that I'm something that I'm not?"

   The thing that drives lone individuals to continue these dangeous charades is that they fall for the misconception that there's no way back to some kind of honest stability. That isn't true. Every day you can bite the bullet and admit that you have a problem and once you've done that all you have to do is stop playing the game. Get your credit under control by changing your budget. Accept that you can't afford the house you're living in and sell it before the sherrif takes it from you. Do the same thing with your car and buy a second hand vehicle. And finally stop lying to everybody about how fabulous your life is. Take your life back before it's taken away from you and you end up being the subject of humiliation in your workplace, your neighbourhood, your church, your social scene, and your family. That's the end of the line really when you take this route to social acceptance and popularity. Sooner or later everyone is going to find out just like everyone is going to find out if you're secretly addicted to sex,drugs,alcohol, and gambling. You can't win this game. The only way you can do that is to quit. Only then are you going to see yourself for what you have going for you, instead of for your setbacks. Then you can begin to live a life that is honestly satisfying.

   And then you really will be a winner.

    Here's a disturbing argument to think about. Gandhi and Hitler were more alike than is commonly believed. Both were small town guys from humble lower-class roots. Both served with distinction in huge wars. Both were voracious readers. Both abstained from alcohol/drugs. Both of them were vegetarians. Both of them loved animals and children. Both of them were in long-term relationships with one woman, forsaking the lifestyle of the philanderer. Both of them subscribed to a particular spiritual belief. Both of them were masters at enthralling massive populations, and finally both of them had tremendous will power that was harnessed to a specific ideal. All of these combined attributes made them virtually god-like while they were alive, and in death both have been guaranteed that they'll never be forgotten.

   So why is it that Hitler is the most hated man in history while Gandhi is the most loved?

   The answer is this, Hitler conducted himself on the idea that things were supposed to be a certain way, while Gandhi lived with the idea that ultimately things happen because they are meant to. Hitler tried to re-make the world in his own image while Gandhi presented an image of how the lone individual should live their lives. As such everyone in India tried to live up to Gandhi's example while everyone in Germany committed horrific acts in order to satisfy one man.

   So what does this have to do with us?

   You and I live each day on the Gandhi/Hitler Axis. We struggle with the reality that things aren't the way they're supposed to be, and we often-times hate accepting things as they are. And so we force ourselves to push ourselves towards some imagined destiny. This pushing that we do is built on the idea that we are in absolute control of our environment, and by extension the society that we live in. You and I aren't in control of a lot of things. We don't control the price of gas. We don't control the line-ups at the grocery stores. We don't control the people that we elect, and we especially don't control the people that we are in relationships with.

   Hitler had a low threshold for frustration. One widely-held myth said that when he didn't get his way, after becoming Germany's dictator, he used to throw himself on the carpet, kicking and punching it, while screaming and frothing like a rapid dog. Most of this story is false but he was famous for screaming at people who dared to say no to him, or tell him that his latest idea was impossible to execute. When it comes to relationships we exhibit this frustration to a greater or lesser extent.

   " How come I never see you? "

   " Why do I have to do all of the calling? "

   " How come you never talk to me? "

   " When are you going to grow up? "

   " When are we going to take this relationship to the next level? "

   The questions and complaints that I've heard on keen for the past 9 years are all tied into one central question, "What do I have to do to make this relationship work? " My answer is always the same.

   Nothing.

   Haven't you done enough? Haven't you given enough? If you gave to yourself the love you've extended to that other person what would the quality of your personal life be like? It would have to be at least a little bit better.

   Gandhi was content to stay in one place for long periods of time and focus on the simple things that gave him pleasure. He spun cotton on an old-fashioned spinning wheel. He prayed. He took long walks. He read books, wrote letters/articles, and he especially enjoyed playing with children. By keeping the focus on himself, and his beliefs, the world came to him. Dignitaries sought him out in ashrams, prison cells, or wherever he laid himself down for the night. Hundreds of people a day asked for his advice, his blessing, and he never looked down on anyone. Having said that he never chased anyone either. When asked a question he gave an honest answer and then he left it up to the questioner to accept or reject what he had to say. He never tried to control relationships. He had it within himself to accept anyone while disagreeing with them about their beliefs. To some extent you need to do the same thing. You need to put the focus back on you, and do the things that give your life meaning and pleasure. That other person will come to you eventually and they will be the ones to ask what have you been doing and why have you stopped calling? You can tell them the truth at that point and you have to allow them to accept or reject what you have to say. The important thing is that you don't compromise yourself for the sake of appeasing a partner. Gandhi never compromised himself to please anyone. The whole point of "supposed to be" versus "meant to be" can be best illuminated in how these two men died.

   Gandhi was assasinated by a Hindu extremist in 1947 at the age of 78. Though he was in great pain he died smiling. He died achieving his dream of liberating India from the yoke of British rule without resorting to a campaign of violence.

   Hitler, on the other hand, married his girlfriend of 20 plus years, Eva Braun, in April of 1945. He spent one night with her as her husband and then the next day he killed her, the family dog, and himself. He left orders that both of their corpses were to be dragged into a ditch, soaked in gas, and burned to a crisp. While all of this was going on Allied forces were tearing Germany apart from the west while the Russians were doing the same thing from the east. Witnessing everything he built up being destroyed around him it's not likely that he died smiling.

   Gandhi believed that India's liberation was meant to be and he told everyone to live a righteous life on the way to that particular goal. Hitler believed that Germans were supposed to be the master race and in the end he lost everything. In your own life you have to choose between "meant to be" and "supposed to be". Inside of all of us there's a little bit of both Gandhi and Hitler. Your life is meant to be a positively beautiful experience but who is it that's supposed to give you that wonderful life? It's up to you to de-stress your current situation by simplifying your needs and finding your own way to make a positive contribution to the world that you live in. No one knows what you need better than you do, therefore no one is more qualified than you are to make you happy. Stop chasing other people. Stop demanding that other people do what is necessary to make you happy. If you give them the chance to they will come to you on their own, and only then will they be receptive to what it is that you believe.

   If, on the other hand, you decide to tilt towards the Hitler end of the spectrum then you have no one to blame but yourself when all of your "controlled" relationships go wrong and you end up alone and abandoned. Hitler may have been married when he shot himself in the head but he died alone. Maybe at that exact point he found himself staring into the mirror of his own conscience and maybe (hopefully) he realized that control was an illusion. Give yourself the love you deserve, and you'll be amazed by how many people will try and match your example.