The World Was Once Flat

Sometimes I have to remind myself that things have changed and I have to get over what has passed. What happened to the $.10 coffee?

Getting ready to go to work this morning, I opened up my wallet to check out the cash flow. Gees… there was only a twenty dollar bill in there - time to fill up again. I thought for a moment and bemoaned the fact that $20 was a lot of money when I was a kid.

I remember that the coffee growers invented a frost that killed off many of the plants - a wonderful feat of manifesting. Coffee soon jumped to $1.00 a cup and has never come down. Of course, tea, and chocolate followed and everything else you put into your mouth (supply and demand). As a kid growing up in an impoverished family, we ate cheaply. Chicken was the cheapest of the foods. Can you remember $.10 a pound for wings or necks? When I first starting driving, the gas was less than $.40 a gallon and spending $20 on a date was a pretty good evening.

When I remember back to older people complaining about how things had gone up, and in their day things were like this or that. I remember thinking "get over it" get with the present. I had little patience for them. But things have changed and it is now me echoing the good ole days.

I have been spending too much time on the food channel for lack of anything better to watch. I am single and for years I have been eating out. Influenced by what I have been watching on TV, I have recently decided to start cooking again.

What the… $15 a kg for chicken - you gotta be kidding! My first major creation after I returned to the kitchen was to attempt spicy apple and raison pork chops - I got this from a new cookbook from one of those Food Channel personalities. Not having anything in the cupboards to support this recipe I went out shopping. Total price for the meal including the 1 lb $6.00 pork chop was $38.00 and I over cooked the pork chop.

I bought my first house for $10,000 in 1973 and the $100 mortgage payment was killing me. The house is worth half a million dollars today.

Every new generation must practice patience as they listen to the complaints of their parents and grand parents.

Why can't things stay the same? Why is there inflation? What's the deal with supply and demand? What happened to the promise of the industrial revolution that we would have more recreational time and less work? Why are there now two breadwinners in a family just to meet the payments? What's happened to us and why have we lost our way?

As we moved away from the land and our connection to it, life became more complicated. Greed became the motivating factor for working harder, because working harder would increase the available choices we could make, so we started raping the land and over producing. We encouraged higher populations so that we could compete in the global market and sell the surpluses which increased demands for goods, which brought higher prices.
Today unabridged exploitation is the norm - but what is it that wealth and power is supposed to bring to the money changers? Why are we caught up in productivity? Why are the world governments working together with the money changers to bring about a cashless society? What's in it for the money changers and governments?

It's absolute control and power, and for the few that will be in charge, they believe it will bring them happiness. We all have the same goal - we want to be happy. But what happens when we have reached our goals and we are not happy. It motivates us to keep going. The ironic thing about this philosophy is that it doesn't work. Happiness doesn't come from gathering abundance.

Men of power and abundance have shown us through the ages that they are never really happy. In fact when one has reached the top of the mountain and looked over it, one becomes depressed when the elation is over. If it was only the mountain that was to be conquered then one soon runs out of mountains. Dictators have demonstrated that power over life and death and the land often leads to self destruction one way or the other. Power corrupts in the spiritually immature mind. All of these people have substituted happiness for power and they find themselves unfulfilled.

Society has everything backwards. To know happiness you have to be happy first, and then you seek to demonstrate it physically. A happy mind does not have to do things to make it happy. In fact a happy mature mind knows that doing or acquiring things does not make one happy. Often it brings sadness and fear.

The world may have been flat at one time, and once Columbus discovered otherwise, the world overall did not change its happiness quotient. The world may have been flat, but it was still three dimensional, with those living on the edge and others living underneath. For all that exploring, humanity has made very poor progress in discovering its true nature.

The industrial revolution and technical evolution has left us cold and disconnected. We are not the highly developed species we think we are.

The truth is none of these things matter unless we think it does. There are fine examples of small societies that have not changed in millennia. In this highly technical world there are people living on dirt floors with no doors are glass in their windows. These people may hunt or forage for food for two hours a day to sustain themselves and the rest of the day is spend in socializing and rest. They are happy and content with what they have. They have found their true nature and their connection to the earth and their environment. They started off happy and they demonstrate it in their quality time in leisure. We label these people as primitive, but we have missed their greatest gift to humanity - simple living and maintaining the connection to the earth is happy, is contentment, and is our true nature.

From the isolated tribes in the jungle, to the man landing on the moon, our present physical reality demonstrates the diversity of humanities imagination. But it clearly demonstrates what it lacks the most and what it seeks to envelope.

The astronaut may discover new worlds and the wonders of the universe, but he looks back from space on a world that as wondrous as it is, lives far away from what it seeks. In the coldness of space this little planet could be radiating warmth to the rest of the universe, but it is cooling off. Cold collapses in on itself - heat expands. Life produces heat and death is cold.

When it comes to happiness it cannot be created by technology, visiting other worlds or Heaven. It is something that is always within arms reach. You are either happy or you are not and it is always a choice.

The world changes, but how it changes is determined by us, by each individual. We may not wish to live in a jungle, but we do not have to get caught up in the race for new technology. We do not have to over populate or over produce. The simple societies have shown us that their happiness is demonstrated by being socially involved and connected to the land, whether it is round or flat. In our struggle to find happiness - we leave it behind.

Our effort to move past horizons should be an expression of happiness not a search for it. As a species it is natural to demonstrate our happiness by sharing it with others and the land, and then we endeavor to change things to demonstrate our happiness.

We are happy so we go out and buy new cloths to show off our happiness. Or we cook something special for dinner. We may buy a new car, furniture or some toy to demonstrate our happiness. Or we may get involved in a relationship. Happiness must be expressed in a changed mindset - change alone does not express happiness unless it is created through happiness. We can lament about the good ole days, but most often it is an expression of sadness of days gone by and a recognition of our now more complicated life style. It is a feeling that we have truly lost something special, our innocence and happiness.

We are born being happy and full of wonder, and we learn to be unhappy. Once again, this is a choice, we can always be happy if we choose to be. If we make happiness a priority, it will lead us to simplicity. It will change our mindset and we will strive to only do things which make us happy. "Let happiness be your guide" is powerful wisdom that will transform your life forever. And as we continue to be happy, it will spread to all those around us and everyone will benefit.

Your own happiness should be the number one priority. This is rational and selfish, but necessary. If you are not happy, you have nothing to give. People are motivated by the happiness of others and happiness always spills over. People, who are happy, have abundance and they always share it.

This is difficult to understand in a selfless society where you are taught to place other people's happiness over your own. All one has to do is look at where we are today and see that selflessness does not work.

As an individual, we give happiness when we have it to give. We automatically change our environment and welcome it in complete joy without regret. I would be OK with knowing the world is flat because I know my happiness would spill over.