What am I without a cause to champion, a fight to win or an idea to build?  If I didn’t ‘do’ what would I ‘be’?  What am I if I am no longer attached to labels like ‘partner, spouse, parent, owner, producer, provider….’?

If I believe I am ‘wealth’, and I lose all my money then who am I?  A failure?  If I believe I am a good parent because my kids are ‘good’ and a reflection of me, then who am I if they start taking drugs, get in trouble or fail by my measuring stick?

What measuring stick do I use to say ‘I am a good person.  I am doing well.  If I accomplish this, then I will be happy’?

What happens if I get everything I want and find out I’m not happy?  Does my ego say ‘I want more’?  When I get ‘more’ don’t I just become even more fearful?  Do I live in fear that I may lose it all.  Do I live in fear that ‘it’ is never enough?

What if I ‘lose it all’ and it appears on the front page of the business section of the Gainesville Sun?  What if I publicly ‘fail’ by others measuring stick?  What if some people make it their stated mission to bring me down, to make me suffer, to hunt me down to the ends of the earth?

Spiritual evolution happens… At least it did for me because I allowed it to.

“That is to say, their inner purpose would emerge only as their outer purpose collapsed and the shell of the ego would begin to crack open.” – Eckhart Tolle,  The Power of Now.

In our society, ‘failure’ is often considered ‘terrible, bad, humiliating’.  Athletes, champions, scientists and those with evolved consciousness understand that failure leads to strength.  There is strength training that requires total failure in order to receive maximum results.  Many discoveries are made through repeated failure which spawns creativity and leads to breakthroughs; just not where they were expected. So why is failure considered bad and old age useless and an honest and humble life meaningless?

“Because…. the emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being.  It asks: Being?  What do you do with it?” – Eckhart Tolle

When you fear something real or imagined and that fear walks into your life as a reality….  When you are afraid of a sick child, and get one.  When you are afraid of being a ‘failure’ and become one.  When you are afraid of your health failing and your body ts down.  When these fears materialize and you understand that you are ok then true power emerges.

“Thus, destruction or disruption of outer purpose can lead to finding your inner purpose and subsequently the arising of a deeper outer purpose that is aligned with the inner.  What is lost on the level of form is gained on the level of essence… When you have had a direct experience of the unstable nature of all forms, you will likely never overvalue form again and thus lose yourself by blindly pursuing it or attaching yourself to it. – Eckhart Tolle.

I am not my things, my roles, my measuring stick or the measuring stick of others.  My happiness is not contingent on those outside things.  There is freedom in failure.  Losing it ‘all’ means I have nothing to fear.

I love my sick child.  I appreciate what I have.  I am open to a new world I never expected.  I stop wishing that things were different.  I accept what is.  I build a new life.  One that is free from broken metrics that never brought me joy anyway.

I embrace what is.  There is joy.  There is freedom.  There is real power.  Much of which is only possible because of love. Love for my children.  Love from my family.  Love from