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Originally Posted by nique  What I have a hard time envisioning is spending my money on what I see as extravagances. I just can't envision myself in a situation where having a tennis court in my backyard or a full 20 car garage is OK and normal. And when I hear about and see "rich people" that's what I see: extravagances. Yes you're spending a lot of money on other people, but you're spending a boatload on yourself too. Way more than you need. Is that actually OK? |
I'm not rich, so keep that in mind, but of course it's ok to spend a boatload on yourself. Life has no rules.
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What's important is whether you think it's ok to spend a boatload of money on yourself.
Personally, I wouldn't want to spend a boatload of money just on buying myself things I don't need. I don't see it as extravagant--I just see it as not intelligent or useful. I'd rather
channel it in a useful way. But I'd be perfectly fine spending money on things I think are going to positively benefit my life because I've aligned my life such that anything that benefits me ultimately benefits others as well.
If something makes me feel 2x better than I would feel without it, it makes plenty of sense to buy it. And that doesn't mean I'm attached to external items; I simply acknowledge that reinforcement exists and that it can save a lot of time to consciously make use of the concept of reinforcement instead of just accepting whatever you're currently getting.
I know one other person who lives in a way that what's best for him is also best for others (not including those I know from the internet and myself), but those who strive to live consciously generally gravitate towards doing this. It seems complicated an involved, but I think any other way of living, because of the massive loss of efficiency and leverage, is inherently more involved, or at least, unnecessarily harder.
I will say though, this mindset seems to be something that is part of you to a degree. You have to be drawn to some aspect of the "holistic, non-compartmentalised" mindset as a natural result of your talents, your values, your desires, etc.
I know people who just don't get this mindset, and I think they have a different path in life. Steve likes to make living consciously seem like it's for everyone, and I agree that there are a lot of people who could transition to this style of living and probably be a lot happier with it as well, but for other people, I think there are different approaches that may closely mirror living consciously, but go about it a different way. They all have the same goal in the end (love, and most likely, truth and power), but the particular "path"--the methods used--are different.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that is the case. I think Steve understands that living consciously isn't for everyone, and his goal is to influence those who are willing and want to live consciously, so they can have a net positive impact on the planet and consciousness in general. Other people have a different role in life. People who live consciously have a lot of power, but so can other people as well. Others may not have the magnitude of power, but what they lack in size they may make up for in depth.
People need to learn to stop trying to live a certain way, and start living the way *they* want to live. Only then will they feel congruent in their decisions and a degree of alignment. This is a choice. It doesn't just happen. People might say it's about not giving power to others, but those people probably want to monetise your problem and charge you money for an e-book or something. All you really need to do is update your mental model of reality and acknowledge that (A) you want to feel connected with yourself, and (B) to feel connected, you should start listening to what you want and what you think about things and take action in alignment with that.
In my experience, any personal development practices that are worth doing are easy to implement and elegant in nature (like Steve's truth, love, power principles, or the StrengthsFinder talent theme language--see my
Twitter profile for more info on ideas related to the latter). If something feels difficult on an emotional level, it's probably less about the issue you're facing and more about a lack of alignment in some area (either your own alignment, or alignment with universal principles and mechanics, which may be the same thing).
Foot notes 1. Non-gamers have a hard time with this concept, but one of the most challenging things I've had to deal with in life is the no-rule-ness of life. Ultimately, for me, that meant living consciously since other ways were suboptimal.