Where Did You Grow Up?

Did you grow up in a cubicle?

Did you grow up without inspiration?

Did you grow up without creativity?

Do you know how to enjoy a museum, a dance concert, a symphony or string quartet?

Then what are you doing on this earth?

Do you enjoy a large vocabulary?

Do you read great literature?

Can you write a poem?

Then what are you doing on this earth?

Do you know the history of man through anthropology?

Have you seen the original creative spirits?

Are you just a bean counter?

Do you hire a lot of bean counters?

Do you really think “he who dies with the most” wins?

Then what are you doing on this earth?

Do you practice business with a generous spirit?

Can you make money following the rules that are in place for everyone?

Do you need special rules, special concessions, special tax breaks?

Does your business uplift humanity?

Then what are you doing on this earth?

What are you truly investing in?

Do you just live for now?

Do you just live for yourself?

Is your life enriched or just rich?

What makes you think you are superior?

What are you afraid of?

© 2013 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

News and Persuasion

After reading Seth Godin’s blog about Thomas Midgeley Day, http://sethgodin.typepad.com, I am reminded about the difference between news and information, and advertising and persuasion.

As a parent, I am responsible for teaching my children about moral behavior.  As a teacher, I am responsible for making sure my students learn to work in correct and sincere and honest ways.

I expect both my children and my students to grow up to be responsible members of society.

There are ways to be successful that are honest and moral and which contribute to uplifting society.

Why would there be anything else we could call success?

© 2013 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Seeping Ideas

What is true is that there is one Universal Spirit which connects us all, and which expects us to see all of Its creation as wonderful and to provide for each and every one of us well.

When we each individually live our lives from that viewpoint, we have an entirely different approach to solving society’s and civilization’s problems.

What can I do, right now, right here, to embrace and activate this viewpoint?

I can stop criticizing myself and other folks.

I can see the “down and out” person as reasonable, that is, as having reasons  to be affected as you see them.

So start there.

See them as having had more problems than solutions, more problems than resources.

Where is the first place you would start to help lift them up?

Easy.

In your own mind.  

See them.  

They are not invisible.

Now, what types of things put them there?

It is uncomfortable to think about.

But it is worth the discomfort.

With your thoughts, with your mind, just acknowledge them.

Change that one practice and let the next idea seep in.

Do it over time, and let the next idea just keep seeping in.

I am not talking about activism.

I am talking about seeping ideas.

Just take that as a practice for a while.

See where that takes you.

You will be surprised.

© 2013 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

The Age of Reunion

(after reading Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein)

http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Economics-Money-Society-Transition/dp/1583943978/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368042887&sr=1-1&keywords=sacred+economics

You would want to unite with everybody, go up to complete strangers, and express recognition and appreciation for their gifts and their beauty of expression.

You would just want to see more and more of this happening from everyone around you.

We are here to create a more beautiful world for ourselves and for everyone in it.
This only depends on our attitude.
Then the tools at our disposal, communication, technology, manufacture, would all be for the benefit of everyone here on earth.
We would become compassionate.
No longer competitive, authoritarian, and superior.
But cooperative, supportive, and equal.

What a concept.
It boggles the mind.
But it also engages the mind.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Governing Yourself

Good government is peaceful government.

If you were managing your life vindictively and trying to protect and take over assets which were not your own, you would be continually at war with everyone else.

You would have to manage your wars.

And what if you couldn’t interest anyone else in them?

You would have to create the kinds of disturbances that would rivet everyone else’s attention on your wars.

If instead, you had welfare for everyone as your motivation, you would have peaceful relationships with everyone else.

This would allow resources for everyone which would allow them to come up with peaceful commerce and peaceful solutions among everyone else.

A competent government manages its resources for peace and spreads this philosophy throughout the world.

There are a few governments who are doing this.

Mismanagement of resources for a few is a ridiculously self-serving and limited outlook on a world where we could otherwise do so much good.

Let’s move ourselves individually toward this goal, and let it trickle upward to our world leaders.

© 2013 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

What Power Is For

Power is for nurturing.

Power is for growing.

Power is for sharing.

Power is for everyone.

Power is for learning in the way most suited to the expansiveness of the human mind.

Power is for imagination.

Power is for trust.

Power is for supply and abundance.

Power is for uplifting everyone.

Power is for community.

Power is for inclusiveness.

Power is for loving.

Loving is power.

Sharing is power.

Trusting is power.

Honesty is power.

Honesty is power.

Honesty is power.

Unselfishness is power.

Generosity is power.

Imagination is power.

Caring is power.

Learning expansively is power.

Accountability is power.

Compassion is power.

Community is power.

Look at all the power we have.

Now let’s all use it.

© 2013 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

The Wealth of Your Life

I am noticing the wealth that life holds in all the little things that occur.

There is a potential for a wealth of kindness in how we view things or comment on them.

Whenever we add to this wealth, we are increasing the compassion in the world.

There is a potential for a wealth of courtesy when we deal with others, especially unexpectedly.

We can support an interruption or we can be angry.

There is a wealth of opportunity when we support another’s ideas.

There is enough weight on conformity already.

There is a wealth of community, although we mostly have not discovered it yet.

There is a wealth of delight and happiness when we do not compare ourselves to others.

We can acknowledge what we actually enjoy just for ourselves.

There is a wealth of appreciation for art we like, books we like, all available in the thoughts which we think.

There is a wealth of expansion through all these areas.

The world of wealth is open to us.

© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com