Authentic and Ethical Living

In this current series I am writing to help us step more confidently into a state of ‘authentic and ethical living’

I believe it is critically important that we consciously honour all the people who have helped us throughout our life to get to where we are right now.

This belief is based on that most vital of humanising attributes: gratitude.

Without gratitude we are simply hollow bones – and far less human than most animals.

Yet with gratitude we easily rise into the immense abundance of our existence – it is simply waiting for us to reveal it to ourselves.

Who has helped you on your voyage through life?

Mother, father, brother, sister………our biological family immensely helps mold us into the people we are today.

If childhood was pleasant, remember to thank them.

If it challenged us to rise above unfair hardships, thank them doubly – even as we remember that having a family is a biological necessity but living in their pocket or sphere of activity once we reach adulthood is a social
decision.

Who else has helped? School friends, club friends, neighbours, teachers, doctors, workmates, bosses, sexual friends, spiritual mentors, casual colleagues, clients, customers – everywhere we turn we find that countless others have subconsciously pushed, pulled, drawn and helped to configure us into the person we are today.

We need to remember to thank them.

This even includes the supermarket manager, the electricity meter-man, the newsagent, the highway patrol officers, all the taxi-drivers, the bartenders, the restaurant waiters and the government clerks who handle our forms…….everyone who crosses our path takes part in our creation.

Every last one.

And we need to thank them.

This also includes the news and entertainment media, school education and character-building programs, government work, welfare and social policy, church attitudes and standards, public social norms and multi-media advertising……..it takes an entire society to create the individual we know as you and I!

Nothing is more powerful than recognizing that you and I are an end-product of a million artists working together on Planet Earth!

Some of those artists were superb designers; others lacked some basic skills.

Some had significant input; others simply added a daub here or a splash there……

But they made you and I who we are.

Honour that truth by having deep gratitude for every artist who aided your creation and you’ll suddenly find that the doors to life’s abundance and richness which we seek seem to effortlessly open before us!