Getting Started
The difficulty in doing anything, is getting started. That is true for exercise programs, diet, writing, speaking, changing anything. As always, the best time to start doing anything different, is right now, and not a moment longer continuing the old ways.
Most will counter that they have to finish off their junk food before they can begin a healthy new diet -- which means they are adding to the problem, rather than stopping it immediately, and beginning on a new better course. So of course, they maintain their old habits -- rather than living a better life immediately, and thereafter. Diet is obviously the most visible and tangible example, but also along that line, are the many behaviors that are less obvious, like saying one thing, while doing something else entirely -- often what is expressly counterproductive, as though it was a neutral and normal act -- when it is the problem, or not working.
Yet people persist -- and wonder what went wrong. They may even insist they are doing all the "right" things but getting all the "wrong" results -- and have no clue that the "right" efforts, produce the right results -- and no amount of doing the wrong things, will get the right results.
That's often not what one is taught in the classroom as the "right" answer -- and so one must never question it. However, in every random sample of people, there will be the one or two who will question everything -- because that is the kind of person they are, and will probably remain so all their lives. Those are the few who go on to discover many things that most will not suspect possible -- nor be able to tell the difference, because everything they know to be true, is what somebody else told them -- and never what they have determined for themselves. Everyone has that right -- but few will choose to exercise them -- waiting only for somebody else to tell them what to think, and what is right -- as though there is only one authority on such matters, rather than everybody finding out what the truth of the matter is.
The truth of any matter, is that nobody knows with absolute and authoritative certainty what the truth is -- although a few will come forward and claim that omniscience. To question them, is to question and spit in the face of God Himself -- they will suggest to unknowing and undiscriminating reporters. In fact, many of that profession, pride themselves on being undiscriminating about anything -- which should make one wary of accepting such sources -- because admittedly, they cannot tell the truth from the false, and have no way of knowing but to ask someone else.
Thus it has been noted, that a falsehood can travel around the world, in the time it takes to unravel the truth of any matter -- as though speed was all that mattered. Simple truths, often take time to be revealed -- but by then, many have lost interest, and have jumped on many subsequent erroneous bandwagons on the road to folly. So ultimately, time is the test of truth -- and abandons most when they need it the most. That is the aging process.
Those who live their lives well, see their lives get better, while those who have wasted every advantage ever provided, have nothing left, and are deeper in debt and deficit on every facet of life. Ultimately it shows -- whether they were naughty or nice. Eating more than their fair share of food -- eventually shows up -- everywhere. Not exercising shows up as well. Not writing or speaking, results in an inability to communicate -- especially in what one thinks should be obvious. It was never made obvious -- in any tangible way. The wishful thinking was never communicated to the universe -- one hoped and expected it would.
That may be in another universe -- but not this one, where things are made manifest. Therefore, people who know what they are talking about, show it -- in appearance, thought and action, and not that the truth is what anyone says it is -- regardless. Who has been given that authority and dominion over all the others? That is a sobering question for those who presumed that authority -- just because they could.
But everyone has that authority in their own lives -- but should proceed cautiously and deliberately, and not with reckless abandon just because they can, or saw somebody else do it. That is true even following the advice of all the designated experts in the field -- the best of whom do not claim to know everything, because finding out for oneself, is the only real truth -- and what ultimately matters. That is an ancient wisdom that has never become obsolete.
That moment of truth arrives as soon as one stops listening to the "experts," and listens to the truth of what their own body and senses are telling them -- in the mind-body connection. Those who do that well, become the masters of their own universe and lives -- which reveals itself in time, as one ages, and how one ages. If everything they know is false, that facade is revealed -- for truth will stand the test of time, or expose them. That is the (un)pleasant truth of every life. How a person ages -- or doesn't, is the story of their lives. That's what time tells.
None of that gets wiped away. Every thought, deed, and action is etched on their faces and bodies. It can be a blessing or a curse; it is cause and effect, played out in every life -- as it must be. They may get away with it for 20, 40 years, but eventually, it catches up to them -- but that is good or bad, depending on what one did.
When the forty or sixty years are up, there is still time enough to get it right -- and that is the beauty of it. One can always begin anew -- from now on, but even those given "one more chance," will find a way to waste it. But they get a chance, with every moment they still live -- until it is over. But if one has previously wasted every moment of their lives, the chances are not great they can turn their lives around -- but it is always possible, as long as there is life. And so the question remains, what is possible -- and how to make it so?
It's easier done than said. It doesn't need saying -- it needs doing. But rather than doing the most difficult thing possible, one should try the easiest thing possible -- and that works if one is nine or ninety. But one has to actually do something -- and not simply think or talk about doing it. If one can make that connection, then there is a way to improve one's functioning and condition. One does not need to ask how much? -- and all those diversions from actually doing anything. That is most people's first line of defense -- to convince themselves (and everybody else around them) they cannot.
If they just lift one finger, that is more than they have done in years -- on their own behalf. When they realize that, they see why the world and themselves are in the condition it is in -- with good reason and purpose. They have to make the connection between thinking of doing something, and actually doing it -- and in that insight, the world is changed, and everything is different. Nobody can do it for anybody or everybody else. That's how the world changes -- one life at a time, wholly, individually, and personally -- and that is the actuality of every life by every individual.