Life – Living Your Life Simply

I have always been amazed at how humble Soke Draconis was when it came to his style of living.  He lived nicely and extremely clean. However, it was not in a grand style as one would expect with his wealth. I talked to Soke Draconis about this once because even I was shocked at how simple he lived his life.  I was after all, a teenager, and felt that someone with wealth and status in martial arts and a life like him should be living in grand surroundings.

He told me that he never felt the need to prove to others that he had value.  He also never felt the need to use material things to prove his worth as a person either.  He had impulse control. He was happy with himself and his life, and so in control of his emotions that he was able to live moderately and feel appreciative of all that he had.  He held the belief that the way he treated people, his personal moral character, and the people by which he felt were quality friends  was enough for him to value himself.

He was a generous man, offering anything that he might have to help someone.    The more willing we are to help people who truly want and need help, then the more self esteem we build and the more we love our self.  If you can make a difference in someone’s life and help them climb to another level of development, then you yourself will climb another step as well.  Teachers truly are the students. The more you help someone to grow, the more you grow in the process.  You have made a difference in the life of another fellow energy being who needs help. How awesome is that?!

However, do not make time for people who want to surrender their personal will to another and have other people take care of them. If they are mentally and physically capable of taking care of themselves then they must do so! People who feel a sense of entitlement are a drain on the energy of others. It is a sense of personal pride that you instill in others when you help them build their life and they are able to maintain it for themselves. People who feel entitled to be taken care of are lacking the training of their personal will, and really there is nothing wrong with them.  They can do the things they need to do, they just do not want to.  Why work if people give me money when I ask for it?  These people who have allowed their will to be indoctrinated are now in a personal state of denial about their own role of responsibility.  I feel very much that it is up to Creotology Personal Development to help these people regain their personal will and to stop being a drain on the group consciousness.

I remember once Soke and I, along with a few other martial arts students delivered some bikes to a very needy family that had lost their father in a terrible accident.  The mother was a single mother to 4 kids under the age of 10 and she could not afford to buy them Christmas presents.  Soke did not want them to know where these bikes came from so after they were put together, we crept very quietly to the side of the house and put the bikes on their back yard porch along with a card that read simply “Merry Christmas.”  Luckily we did not get caught!!

He was lit up like a Christmas tree the entire way back to the dojo.  He kept saying how excited those children would be when they woke up to brand new bikes on Christmas.  He considered this to be the best Christmas gift he could ever receive for himself.  The sheer act of giving without expecting anything in return was the happiest feeling for him.  The way he explained this to me was that he felt the true gift in giving is not the praise and appreciation that you receive, but the selfless act to give without expectation.  Expectation of praise is attention seeking behavior because you need others validity to make you feel worthy.  This is one of the traps of ego.

I remember asking him a few days after the bike delivery why living simply was the best thing to do.  He told me that life has a way of becoming very complex and stressful on most people who do not have the courage to say no when they need to be able to focus on what is truly important to them.  You have to say no and bypass that static energy sometimes.

Another reason to live simply is to stay out of your own way.  There are people who feel they just need something more or something bigger to make everything perfect.  So, let’s say that they are making more money and are buying more things for their home.  Soon, the will begin to accumulate stuff and not have enough space to store it.  So, they feel that the right thing to do is to buy a bigger house so they can store this stuff more efficiently.

So, how do you stop that cycle of impulsivity?  You live a simpler life.  Living simply means not going without, but knowing when and how to say no, whether it be to that new sparkly car that you really just want, or that friend that always needs your help.  Those are external value creators, and external value feeds the ego.  That ego can get so overfilled with external value that like a balloon it can bust at any moment and leave you with nothing.  Live your life with meaning and appreciation and realize that you do not have to have a lot of the same things in order to be happy.

Look at your house as an extension of you.  Clean out those spaces where your impulse buys have been occupying.  Donate your extras to the needy.  An over crowed home is a direct result of your personal discipline being out of control.  You have had a serious break down in your personal will and this obsessive buying power is showing you that you are out of control. The lack of control of your impulses is the inability to control your emotions and hopefully the proof that you need to finally get to work with a mental training program like Creotology Personal Development or something similar.

The lack of impulse control carries over into every aspect of your personal life. It is better to save and invest in your future and to help others with some of the savings you have than it is to buy two large TV’s. (This is merely an example of an impulse buy.) Impulse buys only make you feel good in the short term.  Yes they release serotonin and this makes you feel good, but when the serotonin is all used up, you will need something else to give you that release.  I am not saying that everyone buys on impulse, although some do, I am saying that not being able to control impulses is a lack of personal will and attention seeking behavior.  When you get your energy system on line there will be no problem with impulse control because when you learn to control the need to act on impulse in one area, it will overlap into all other areas in your life.  We are all energy beings and we need to learn the true value of working with energy and keeping it in balance so that you will find the place where happiness and contentment is felt everyday!