I've been having sweet moments of non-linearality. Heh heh. It's always fun to try to come up with that word. Non-linearality. Ha! I just looked it up. Linearity. Non-linearity. I sorta like my word better. Well anyway! . . .
Like the things we do that might not seem like money-makers are what brings us riches. And the things that seem like they're obviously for money may have other purposes.
On the court: I go to work at the psych hospital for a handful of hours each week. I really like it. I woke up late this stormy morning, thinking it was early from the darkness and chill in the room, so I just stayed in bed. When I got up I called the woman I work with at the hospital to let her know when I thought I'd be in and check on whether that worked for her or not. She said, "You know, if you don't want to come it, I'll be okay." She said, "Unless you want to. Do you want to?"
And I checked in with myself. "I like to," I said.
What a joy!
I went through a stretch a little while later, as I sat eating my lunch, feeling kind of sleepy, craving just to play my guitar and read my kids' book.
I argued with myself a little bit and grumbled in my pms mind about well, I'd said I was going to go into work, but I kinda wanted to get back in bed, in jammies, hole up. And I looked to see why I'd said I'd go in. Was it out of fear, like I need the money? Was it out of the desire to more than fill my present place (it's a great opportunity to do that!)? Was it to get my head out of my ass (it did)? Or is it just that I do like it and it's what's there to do?
I don't guess it matters.
As I was driving over in the rain after lunch, though, I had a sense of work not necessarily being a linear money-maker. And I think this is, in part, what Mr. Wattles points to in the book. There is a scientific method that creates riches, but it's not necessarily the linear model of work harder and work more and more money will come. True, some work is indeed necessary. But he doesn't even define work. He does say, "Do all the work you can do every day, and do each piece of your work in a perfectly successful manner." And then he goes on to say, "Put the power of success and the purpose of getting rich into everything that you do."
And so, driving to work, writing this blog, brushing my teeth are all actions that bring riches to me. And going to "work" at the hospital, while - and I'm grateful - it brings cash into my bank account (very grateful!) does not have its sole purpose in directly, linearly making me rich.
At least not in the way one would think.
I remember when I worked full-time as a social worker, worked my ass off, I couldn't imagine that at my rate of less than twenty bucks an hour, I was ever going to get anywhere. Never going to pay off student loans or other debts. Never get ahead. And it drove me nuts. I was miserable.
What could it have been like had I discovered the Certain Way back then? What power I could have brought into that setting! Imagine, giving off the impression of increase in such a place!
Well, as my friend Randall told me, months before I eventually resigned -- over a year, in fact -- I had outgrown that position. But I was not more than filling my present place; I'm quite sure of that.
But wait, is this focus on the past and how it used to be what Mr. Wattles guards against? I don't know. Where was I?
Oh yes, the non-linear viewpoint.
When I get into that space, when I'm graced to have that space arise within me, beyond the thinking mind or the mind that is trained by this fear-based society, this - God bless 'em - limited, hypnotized by appearances society, I experience the Formless Substance and know that money is just like anything else. It is created out of the formless substance just like this apartment was, just like this laptop, just like the John Coltrane Pandora station. Just like my trip to India so long ago. Just like my recent trip to California. Just like everything else we will ever create and have ever created.
It's all one thing and we are that.
The mind quiets down in those moments and my whole being has more fun. Lightens up. Doesn't worry.
Chapter 16 of the little green book really inspired me when I read it earlier today. It got me psyched to pay the bills that have been sitting on my desk. Here are some of the inspiring notes:
"The more men who get rich on the creative plane, the better for others."
"When you enter on the creative plane of thought, you will rise above all these things and become a citizen of another kingdom."
"Do not spend any time in planning how you will meet possible emergencies in the future. You should be concerned with doing today's work in a perfectly successful manner -- not with emergencies which may arise tomorrow. You can attend to them as they come.
" Do not concern yourself with questions of how you will surmount obstacles which may loom upon your business horizon. Ignore these questions unless you can plainly see that your course must be altered today in order to avoid these obstacles.
"No matter how tremendous an obstruction may appear at a distance, you will find that if you continue in the certain way, it will disappear as you approach it -- or that a way over, through, or around it will appear."
"Give no anxious thought to possible disasters, obstacles, panics or unfavorable combinations of circumstances. There is enough time to meet such things when they present themselves before you in the immediate present. You will find that every difficulty carries with it the wherewithal for its overcoming."
"When you make a failure, it is because you have not asked enough. Keep on, and a larger thing than you were seeking will certainly come to you. Remember this."
All quotes courtesy of Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich. Click the title to link to the book.
I'm gonna go clear those bills off my desk. Paying THEM brings me riches, like all things, when done with faith, purpose and gratitude, do.
Thank you! I love you,
I.P.
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