But what’s interesting here is that so many leave it up to chance or a whim as to what they’ll do with the rest of their life to not only bring in the money to survive but to select a career that will bring fulfillment. And it’s not entirely the fault of the individual. There are few and far between systems that are objective, thorough and well thought out enough to help people in the long run.

So how can you make a decision that you will know is the right one beyond a shadow of a doubt?

Well, the answer has to come from the source, doesn’t it? It needs to come from within. However, the problem is that the majority of people don’t know how to do this or feel it’s not possible so they go to supposed “experts” to find the answer. But what’s this like? Well, in most cases, you sit there and listen as a counselor or therapist dispenses the “correct knowledge.” Then, you take it in, go home and apply their “decision” with little or insufficient self-reflection. Or, worse yet, you take a test that tells you what you should be doing for the rest of your life. If you’re comfortable with a piece of paper telling you what to do in this regards, so be it. However, most are not if they ponder thruthfully over a long enough period of time.

So, what’s a poor person trying to discover how to choose a career or one who’s working hard at finding the right career supposed to do?

You go to someone who knows how to work the answers out of you.

What’s that you say? Yes, there’s no job personality test or employment personality test that can get to the answers like a real human being can. But this person, or coach, is not there to “tell” but rather to “listen.” The career coach, success coach, or life coach is one who works as an equal in a co-active environment using open-ended questions (those that do not lead or judge in any way) to pull from the client deep ceded answers that may have been lying dormant for years if not decades.

It is the coach’s responsibility to listen intuitively to the answers given not to judge or even necessarily to guide but to determine where to go next as the client discovers for himself / herself answers that appear quite familiar but have lied dormant for many a year.Or they have been buried by doubt or need to appease those who tell them that their dreams and desires are not “sufficient.”

For example, a former student of mine (I also teach composition / writing) approached me one day and said, “You know, when I try to write this assignment, I can’t do it with an objective voice. For some reason, my writing always comes out subjective or personal. Why’s that?” I said, “Well, either you’ve got a problem you want to solve or you’re a writer.” She looked up in amazement saying, “You know, that’s always been my first love, writing. But I’ve put it on the back burner and I think I’ve suffered because of it.” We talked a little bit more and she soon came to the conclusion for herself that she better get back to writing or the consequences may get worse.

This is the key. The answers lie within. No one’s going to tell you better than you what you need to do with your life. However, it’s more complex than that. It takes some focused effort and assistance to pull out the answers. You need to go into detail the various areas of your life (career, family, health, finances, etc.) and discover what’s important to you and then match this with your specific talents, abilities, desires, and gifts.

But the work is not done. Once you discover what it is that you want to do with your life, that which is going to set your life on fire, then you need to develop a plan and stick to it. And in the process you will have to overcome character flaws that we all have that can sabotage a career quicker than you can say “success” while at the same time learning critical success principles that will help you pull it all together.

If you’re ready and are serious about making the most of your life and finding that path that is truly you, one that you can get excited to wake up to every morning, then you owe it to yourself to set sail on that path today.

Here’s to your success.

People often wonder why God or nature, or whatever your label, allows such pain and suffering. Let us examine this issue with as much honesty and depth as humans of extreme limited insight into the bigger picture can.

First, out of great calamity, even death, come great lessons. And consider that without these negatives, always living in the positive of comfort, what we couldn’t learn. And why else do we come here? If little but our thoughts and impressions have the potential to go with us beyond mortality, then things temporal and temporary (material wealth, prestige, social standing, political achievement, etc.) are short lived and, therefore, not of great consequence or merit. That which lasts, as we speak of great art, then is significant. But even greater than any material or intellectual products or goods that are left behind by individuals, what of that which is longer lasting, of greater merit and worth? If the earth ends, what is left? Once again, it is that of our actions, thoughts, words, and deeds in the positive, or the aura of such, which goes beyond earthly time, a reverberating effect that is eternal.

Inspiring, guiding, uplifting thoughts and ideas are wider reaching and of greater significance than all material, social, and political acquisition gained combined.

And in considering all this, perspective is critical. Most don’t live or think much beyond the moment, and that’s OK. But you do have to keep at the forefront of your mind the critical fact that in an infinitesimally, insignificant period of time of 150 years, all living now will be dead. And considering the millions, billions, trillions of years or eons of time that have and will exist . . . Well, that will put things into perspective, won’t it? But let’s put our feet back down on the currently existing earth.

What we don’t, wont, or will never learn in our comfort is staggering. All life’s great lessons come in the friction of pleasure / pain. It is this ying /yang, the opposition that we find life’s greatest, longest lasting lessons, for if we are always in comfort, always in the womb, we never learn, especially lessons of greatest significance.

As the child moves out of the house, moves out of himself by taking on spouse and family, moves out of his comfort zone taking on more responsibility and trials of growth, only by embracing discomfort does she not only grow but enable the tool of giving, only by breaking free of comfort and the self does she grow for personal betterment and the betterment of family and, potentially, as that growth continues, for all humankind-the greater picture.

It is the soldier in the battlefield who overcomes his prejudice by fighting side by side with his fellowman of difference. It is when life breaks things down to the lowest common denominator-survival–when all things small minded and insignificant disappear (prejudices, bias, difference of socioeconomic class, etc.) that we truly prosper.

It is in the harshness of war that we learn the significance of life. It is in the sting of the parent’s slap that we learn precious principles. It is in the breakup, the loss of employment and health in which we go deeper in our understanding and appreciation for that which we may take for granted and, if growth continues, are humbled and moved to compassion for others in like states.

It is in injury and disease that we build fond appreciation for health so much that it is often the only motivation to better health, beyond anything Jenny Craig can do to help us permanently maintain a good diet.

It is in the dire difficulties of the most challenging job on earth that the parent learns how to teach, to obtain patients, selflessness, or true giving, a priceless lesson in the Charity of Christ.

Time and time and time again, friction, difficulty, trial, pain, even mayhem and death teach us life lessons that are of sure consequence they stay with us through time and eternity, for even though our main goal is to obtain ease, safety, and security it is only in their opposites that we learn lessons of lasting importance.

For it is only in that of great substance and significance-that which is more precious than the priceless stone-that we find those things beyond measure we can use now in this lifetime, to have and to hold, life without end.

Look to the precious. Look beyond the priceless gem or stone to lessons of value and depth that need to be addressed, learned of and from, and then pass them on to as many brothers and sisters as you can.

May we all learn with great abundance those precious lessons of life.