Have you noticed how much energy and attention people spend trying to orchestrate the activities of people, events, nature, their own mind and the mind’s of others – what I like to call ‘the particulars’? We try to control the ‘particulars’ so they will workout in our favor. If they do, we are happy, if they do not we are unhappy. Its like a gambling addiction, when it works it pays off well but when it does not there is just a small loss. We keep trying for the big pay off but mostly we keep losing a little at a time, leaving us exhausted and in emotional debt.

A next step down the path of personal growth is making the inward turn toward the one in you who is convinced happiness is in the particulars. Spend time getting to know this one in you until you are able to see through this false belief to a deeper truth about the nature and location of happiness.

Sample practice:
Notice your efforts to orchestrate the particulars to work out in your favor. Notice your reaction when they do and when they do not. Take care not to judge your self for what you see, that part of you needs protection, a safe place to grow up, to unfold.