Success Is Free

When I told someone about this column, he said, “Success is free? That’s a joke. That’s misleading. There’s nothing free on the surface of the earth, including success. You have to pay a price.”

This type of thinking is precisely the reason many people are unhappy and unfulfilled. They believe they have to strive for success. That they have to pay a price for success. So success becomes associated with fear and pain in their minds.

Success is only the realization of some predetermined outcome. To realize something is to become one with it, to be it, to act, live, feel, and think from the wish fulfilled. This is the fastest way to realize a predetermined outcome. And the tool to use is your imaginative faculty. You imagine (image-in) it. You visualize it with all five sensory modes. It is import to take your imaging one or more steps beyond the desired outcome.

POSITIVE EXPECTANCY

Then you mentally work out the details of how to move it from the drawing-board to the finishing line. You put in the feeling power. How’d you feel if you achieved it? What’d you see, hear, taste, smell? How’d your friends, relatives, workmates feel or react to your manifesting this outcome?

Expect it to happen. Your expectation must be like that of a child. When I think of expectation, what comes to my memory is a painting titled, “The Expectant Heroine”. It depicted this ravishingly beautiful princess, straining through the window, her hopes high, her whole attention directed on this road her Prince Charming was to gallop down in his horse-drawn cart. The importance of high expectancy was underscored by Paul Twitchell who reminded us that, “The experiences of your life is not determined by what you do but by what you expect, because even if you do the right things and still expect to fail, you will fail.”

DO THE WORK THAT IS REQUIRED

Next, you have to do the work that is required to make this outcome manifest out here physically. Recall the last sentence: you have to do the work that is required. You have to do whatever it takes. Doing doesn’t mean striving. Doing means to be involved in an activity, to be engaged in something. I will even insist on qualifying the doing this way: doing lovingly. Webster’s has two definitions for “strive”. The first is “to struggle, to be in opposition, to contend”. The second is “to devote serious effort or energy”. Note the phrase “serious effort or energy” in the second definition. It has the connotation of pain. In the first definition are the phrases “to struggle”, ” to be in opposition”, which are all about pain.

ACCEPTANCES

We have agreed that success is only the realization of a predetermined outcome. Realization goes beyond expectation. Just accept. Get out of the way and allow life to fulfill itself. Realization is all about acceptances.

Adrianna is sad. And she wants to be happy. What’s the fastest way for her to realize this goal? By striving to be happy? By paying some price because she wants to be happy?

Hardly. For her to be happy all she needs do is to recall a time in the past in which she was totally happy, filled with joy or love. A time she was with someone she loves or she was doing something she loves. Alternatively, she can sing an uplifting tune or mantra.

This is the fastest way to find joy within you.

SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY

Ah, you’re protesting. “Being sad and wanting to be happy isn’t exactly the same thing as having an income of $20 per hour with the desire to start earning $1000. To realize this you have to strive,” you are saying. “You have to pay a price for it.”

That’s your belief. You know very well that beliefs have a way of becoming true, of turning into self-fulfilling prophecies. The same strategy employed by Adrianna to change her state from sadness to joy can be applied in the case of the individual who wants to start earning $1000 per hour. He doesn’t need to strive for it. He doesn’t have to pay any price. He just has to accept it. He needs only to accept that as how things are, as how his situation is.

INVEST IN A DISCIPLINE

The process is to be, do, and have. Doing how? Doing joyfully, lovingly. Do you think Beethoven was striving or paying a price when he was composing the Ninth Symphony? Beethoven invested in a discipline. He loved what he was doing, and I guess he was also doing what he loved. When you don’t love what you’re doing ,you’re striving. You’re paying a price. Think of any animal: dog, cat, snake, cow, etc. Do they have to strive to be themselves? No. They just be. A dog doesn’t strive to bark. It doesn’t pay any price. It just does it. It doesn’t even need to learn how to bark. It’s in its nature. All a dog needs to do is to be a dog. Not imitate a goat or a crow. Any dog trying to crow will be striving. It will be paying a price.

BE YOURSELF

All you need to do to become successful is to be yourself. You don’t try to be yourself ; you just be yourself. Your innermost nature is success. You’re already all you want to be. You just need to awaken to the realization of this. There’re daily disciplines (like contemplation, meditation, and other awareness exercises) that can help you in this quest. These daily disciplines and your imagination is all the resources you require. “The imagination is toll-free,” says a sage. And I tell you, success is toll-free because it starts in the imagination.

“But success is more than imagining things,” you shriek. Don’t be too cocksure. Sometimes it is, other times it isn’t. If you’re bored or afraid, imagining a resourceful state may be all you need. Other times you start with imagining things and then do the work that is required. You can choose to be bored and afraid, or excited and courageous.

You can choose a goal and decide whether you want to do the work that is required or not. Success is a choice. You’re free to choose success. You’re at liberty to accept success. Everyone is invited but not everyone will accept the invitation.