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What one believes about life effects how one experiences life.

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The mystically minded may explain this phenomenon by talking about such esoteric subjects as the Law of Attraction (or the Law of Manifestation), or they might perhaps wax lyrical on the idea that existence is “made of consciousness” and we therefore create our own realities, yada yada…

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An atheistic, “rationalistic”, debunker of all things that smack of wish fulfilment may point out that people who are optimistic and open to life tend to be consistently open to the random opportunities that life throws up and subsequently increase their likelihood of having experiences they feel good about, whereas pessimists remain persistently resistant to opportunity and subsequently have a lower frequency of happy outcomes. So optimistic and pessimistic outlooks become self-reinforcing.

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Some people will find a profound difference between the two paragraphs above. Personally I don’t see much difference at all. I certainly don’t think they are mutually exclusive. And in any case, while the “how-is-this-happening?” part of it may remain open to debate indefinitely, there’s nothing to prevent us from going back to that initial statement, “What one believes about life effects how one experiences life,” and seeing if it can work for us.

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I’ve said it before, that none of us actually knows how anything really works. But not knowing how fire really works didn’t stop cavemen from rubbing their sticks together. Not knowing how a car works doesn’t stop me from enjoying driving. If I can get my life to please me even before, if ever, I get to understand how it works, then I’m there – big time. Yes, I’m open to my life being a pleasure.

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I have a belief that life is amazing, absolutely incredible. I’m at my happiest when I’m comprehensively boggled by how ridiculously stunning existence is. That is reward in itself, regardless of how my finances and sex life pan out as a result of holding that belief.

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In a way it is nothing, just a way of looking at the world.

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It is just a way of looking at the world.

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And, at the same time, it is everything. It is EVERYTHING!

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Daily Life is my Lotus Blossom because I wake up each day and agree with myself that it is so.

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Anybody here remember a moment of your life when you experienced a joy that felt magical? How do you feel about the memory? Is that something you would like to feel again? Do you view that memory cynically or with affection? Do you see that feeling as a random event brought about by random external conditions or do you see it as something that resulted from your own actions, decisions, beliefs at the time? Do you think you were deluded or do you think you were experiencing a rare moment of authentic self? Do you see that feeling as something rare and precious, the kind of thing that can only happen a few times in a lifetime, or do you see it as the natural default setting for a human being, a setting that we have somehow lost touch with? What exactly were the ingredients that contributed to that feeling? Were they internal to you or external, or did your internal and external worlds somehow come into alignment for once? Do you see the memory of those feelings as useful, unimportant, interesting, informative, irrelevant? Is the memory a source of pleasure, pain, regret, longing? Do you believe life really is as special as it felt in that moment, or is that just an interpretation you yourself overlaid onto it at the time? Does the euphoria brought about by unexpectedly fortunate circumstances have any meaning at all? Do you believe you get to have a say in your own moments of happiness or do you think an unthinking, unfeeling universe decides that? Do you think you have any responsibility at all for your own experience of life, or do you think you are utterly subject to what happens to you? Do you see the taking responsibility for ones own experience as a tremendously challenging task that can only be effectively achieved by amazingly strong, intelligent or intuitive people? Is feeling enraptured by life something that only happens to the worthy, or the lucky? Do you see these questions as a pointless babble? Do you ever question your most cherished beliefs? Do you even know why you believe what you believe? Do you even know what it is that you believe in the first place? Do you think you are alive right this moment? Are you experiencing this very moment as dull and prosaic, just another moment of utter ordinariness in a seemingly endless parade of ordinariness? Is this moment right now a piece of mindless clockwork? Which do you believe is “most real” this instant: your internal world, your emotions and thoughts, or the external world around you? Do you think we delude ourselves with our thoughts and emotions? Do you think you are a bad person, or a weak person, or deficient in some way? Do you think I’m trying to hypnotise you with these questions? Do you think I want to get you to agree with me? Does this day need you – would it exist without you? Do you need this day – would you exist without it? Are you little more than a bag of meat and bone and agitated chemicals that just happens to be noticing itself? What matters most, how things really are or how you experience them? What’s the difference?



They’re just questions.



Daily Life is my Lotus Blossom because I have decided it is. I have decided this out of the purest self-interest. Wish fulfilment? For sure. Why would I not wish my wishes to be fulfilled? Self-fulfilling prophesy? So be it.



Existence – I can see it as something that has been “done to me”, an infliction, or I can see it as something I can have a say about. I have made my choice in that regard. My Daily Life is my Lotus Blossom. I didn’t have to seek anybody’s permission for it to be so, nor did I have to work at it. It’s simply how it is. To convince myself that life is not my Lotus Blossom – that would take work! And it’s not a result I would wish to work towards.



My Daily Life is my Lotus Blossom. Of course it is.



I don’t need your daily life to be your lotus blossom.