During my twenty years (or so) of dating, I had many well-meaning people in my life say ‘be careful’ in response to sharing my latest love interest. It was intended as some form of positive advice, I’m sure. But they were saying something that was basically unintelligible to me. No matter how hard I tried, I was constitutionally unable to fathom this advice.

‘Be careful?’ I would say to myself incredulously. ‘How do I be careful? I’m not exactly going to meet a random stranger down a dark alleyway at night, am I? So what do they mean? Be Careful. Hmph!’

Recognising that something is not working in your life does not have to be done with negativity; it can be done with presence and awareness. Sometimes in order to effect positive change, we need to acknowledge that something is not working.

…if everyone decided to move away from big business, big tech. and a disposable society, if everyone became resourceful, thrifty, content, overjoyed with the arising of consciousness from within, in a state of bliss with their mere existence, consumerism would die.

It is rare to be told that the measure of success is the level of joy that you feel. It is even rarer still, to be told that you are worthy of the feeling of joy irrespective of your life situation. In fact, you are worthy of all that is good, no matter how you feel and irrespective of whether you are aware of the joy that is ever-present (although not always noticed) within you.