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Everything you ever wanted comes to you through people. And everything you ever wanted is on the other side of NOT FEAR but entitlement.
Not some deity, not the Universe, but people. Darn! right?
Because we are lousy at this people thing, aren’t we?
The most successful at this are the sociopath, psychopaths, narcissists… not the ‘good’ people. The assholes.
… the devil doesn’t come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns. He comes as everything you’ve ever wished for ... ~ Tucker Max, Assholes Finish First
But what do they do, (the assholes) and how do they do it, so that they are the most successful at it? And why them, why not good people?
There are (at least) three moves that make people so taken that they bring you all that you ever wanted.
I just listened to Sean D’Souza’s podcast teaching this, but I am looking at it from a different perspective, you can listen to his podcast episode here: The Not So Obvious Angles For Succeeding In Life
The three moves are
being interested
being interesting
and giving
For most people, good people, life and relationships are transactional.
And yet, we all (?) want to be accepted, respected, loved for who we are, and not for what we do or give. We look at the world, life, other people through our own need, our own eyes, glued to what we want to get for free.
Entitlement. It’s our due, we say, but we are mistaken. ‘They’ don’t see it this way… so we don’t get what we want, and we don’t know why.
I have a few students who have managed to feel gratitude. Gratitude is impossible when you consider yourself entitled to what you got because you paid for it. But, believe it or not, gratitude is the key to the kingdom.
This is why recognizing entitlement underneath all of what we do is one of the most important spiritual practices we have in the challenges.
The more able you have to identify entitlement the higher you can climb on the Tree of Life.
Of course you can show being interested, you can perform being interesting, even giving as part of the transactional world you inhabit.
I give you this for the expected reciprocation, to get what I want.
Almost a year ago I was at a bad place. I wanted to die, because I saw no other way out of my predicament. I won’t go into detail here, but some of it was financial.
My nightmare situation would be being homeless. Home for me is where I can be me, without having to look, behave, in a way that others approve of me. Where I am completely free to be myself. No other people…
I shared with one of my students, and he sent me a ‘donation’ that told me I wasn’t done yet. It was beyond, I think, a sum people normally donate. It was true giving. Giving so much it hurts.
The entire Jewish fable world is full of miracles caused by that kind of giving.
One, my favorite is where the Hassidic Rebbe and his students travel the country and visit this poor man who barely ekes out a living. They are invited for a meal, and heartily eat everything, including the cow that provides the livelihood for the poor man and his family. Thank him for the meal and take off.
Now the man and his family has nothing. Not today, not tomorrow…
So the man goes to the nearby forest to pray. As he prays he stumbles upon buried treasure.
This is the Jewish fables way to say: he gave beyond his means and was rewarded for it.
But, pay attention, his giving was not transactional. He gave because he gave, expecting nothing in return.
When you give, out of fear, out of greed, out of moral superiority, you are not really giving, are you?
And you get nothing, you are grateful for nothing, and you are not happy.
None of those three can be taken to mastery if there is entitlement underneath.
I am entitled to not be interested… entitled to say whatever I want to say and be considered interesting, without ever working on having anything to say that IS interesting to the other. And of course I am entitled to not have to give beyond the transactional price.
But what about the sociopath, the psychopath, the narcissist?
The surprising thing about them is that they don’t consider that it’s their due. What they want.
In the Starting Point Measurements Measure #48. asks: To what degree are you willing to WORK for what you want? Being interested, being interesting and giving, these are all ‘working for what you want’.
The question refers to any kind of doing… and it is the measure to what degree you are not entitled to what you want in life.
I just measured each of the 19 people I regularly measure, because they are a good sample size. Eleven of them had 1% or less willingness. Six of them were 7% or 10%. One has 30% and another 70% willingness to do what it takes to get what they want.
If you are looking for the energetic explanation of why the people who are more willing to do what it takes, i.e. give are more joyful, and live a better life, consider that there is a certain reciprocity at work. Reciprocity with what? with the Universe? no. With other people.
Because don’t forget: everything you ever wanted comes to you through other people.
Not accidentally, another measure tells the same story, just from a different angle: Self concern. To the degree it is lower than 100%, to the same degree you can see what you can do to ‘earn’ the life you can love. And sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t. But you know that it is up to you… to the degree you can see it.
Entitlement is like a veil in front of your eyes. You only see the veil, and not the light that is beyond it.
But, and here is a big ‘but’: until you can be present… you can’t see, can’t recognize entitlement, your own. You can see it in others, but not in you. Not underneath everything you do or not do.
To learn to be present, you can embark on moving to an ashram and meditate many hours a day.
Or you can embark on the Drink your Food process… and practice it until it becomes automatic, that you don’t even have to think about it. I started it two months ago. And boy, it was hard. But when I let my watcher loose today, I notice that it has become automatic. And I have also noticed that I am more present to my feelings, I can go deep with them, observe the trigger, and as a result I am much more joyful… sleep better, eat less, and altogether I am a happier person.
Why do it publicly? Why do I not endorse you doing the challenge in the privacy of your head?
I mean, you can do it. But what does it say about you? That you are stingy. Not willing to do what it takes… That your numbers are so low, that you are the wretched of the wretched. That is what it says. It says also that you live in scarcity. That you don’t have enough to give. Not enough heart, not enough love, not enough gratitude.
How is that working for you?
Today I am going to measure the 19 people’s health measurements… just for my own curiosity’s sake.
And you, you should sign up to the Drink your Food challenge. And if you are already signed up: DO THE WORK! Dammit!
First step: master presencePS: this doesn’t belong here… or not strictly, but I MUST share:
I just had the thought for the first time ever: Life is still experimenting.
We learned, OK. I learned from Richard Dawkins that the genes want to more life. That the genes are the self-expression of Life.OK. I just lied. He didn’t say anything like that. But this is what I just got.
Because I am suddenly interested in healers, and botched experiments called rare diseases, I realized that these diseases are not caused by some bug or environment. They are experiments.
I just watched a minute or two of a video on children with both sexes… I think that Life hasn’t found a stable evolutionary strategy… yet.
Life isn’t done with us, humans, yet. Is it going in a good direction? Not quite… Will it get there? I don’t know. I only know that if you, the person, learn to recognize the dreaded entitlement in all its inglorious ugliness, and counter it with willingness, your life will be a whole lot better. And also the life of the unfortunates who associate with you.
Remember, be interested, be interesting, and give, willingly, for no reason.
