I wrote this some time ago but came accross it just the other day and quite liked it. Alot of stuff happened for me last year that led to similar sermons and beliefs which just leads to more questions!. I do not say it is true, but perhaps a truth if it works for you. I came accross a intelligent discussion regarding this subject with Proffessor Richard Dawkins and the Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks which you can watch on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roFdPHdhgKQ

Today I spent a lot of my time texting my friend about the need to commit to something and that regardless of how it works out it doesn’t matter. The point is that if you commit somehow the universe will conspire to help you. Most of the time when I write these sort of text I do so because that’s what I think people want to hear.

But its not really what I want to say, although at the time I think I get caught up in in because at some level, like all of us, and the reason self help books fly off the shelf and why we desperately we hope we will somehow win the lottery, I also want to believe things can be better, that someone is looking out for us. That if we just follow our dreams somehow everything will fall into place.

Whilst I was writing all this bullshit to my friend I somehow felt drained, almost flat. I felt I had run out of energy. It was as if, although I was writing positive stuff, it was somehow out of alignment to my beliefs. As though I was spreading the gospel for a religion I didn’t believe in. I cant sell something I don’t believe in and this is no different. It was taking its toll.

When we live in-authentically we become out of alignment.

I had spouted my universal energy gobbleygook and then imagined that everything would work out.

What had started the days text with my friend was regarding my meeting with the toastmasters that evening.

My friend was not championing the idea and felt I did not need to go in order to achieve what I wanted to for my future endeavors. I had told her that it was not whether it was relevant but that I had said I would do it and that I must trust my own convictions rather than the opinions of others, other wise we can never respect or trust ourselves but instead live our lives at the mercy and approval of others opinions.

So that night I would have my meeting. I would go and be faithful to my mission to make something of myself.

I was focused. It was written down and I would do it. I got home from work with 30 mins to spare. To short for anyone less than 100 percent focus. Into the shower and changed and straight down to the station. Waterloo and then walk to the underground. Get to bank and then Navigated my way via my map to the Bunch of Grapes. Made it. It was meant to be! I had done it. I had kept my word! Surely this was the start of great things!

No. What it was the start of was me being told that there where no meetings here tonight. No Toastmasters here. Had I made a mistake with the dates? I was sure it was the 19^th. But I’ve been wrong before.

I phoned a friend thinking I would make the most of being in the city – I would reframe the problem and all that jazz and do something positive. No answer.

Home it is then. Perhaps that’s where something would happen to explain my reason for following through. I thought that because I’d got my myself in gear, even though the meeting was not going to happen surely something else would happen. Fate would intervene and my efforts would make sense. A chance meeting or something. So I made my way onto the jammed trains and back to Surbiton. No chance meetings there.

So I thought I’d go to the pub. Empty. Walk home, off license, two ciders and a lion bar was my universal prize for going through with it! Congratulations.

So whats the conclusion? What its always been, and why my grandfather and my mother would always wind me up with their belief that prayer sorts everything out. There is nothing. No one is looking down, the universe is not conspiring and fortune doesn’t favor the brave – anymore than it does the loser that wins the lottery. Its all chance.

Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t. Things often are not fare and things go badly for good people.

Just because I get of my ass in gear and do something does not necessarily mean it will all work out – in fact I may stand a bloody good chance of wasting my time as I did today. I would have been just as well off sat having a beer watching the football. I would have achieved the same. In fact I would have saved £8.50 if I hadn’t bothered. I would have made money by not making an effort in fact.

So do we give up. Sit on our asses?

I don’t think so. We have a few years of this so we may as well do something.

But the something has to be done by us. We need to get out of the way of delusions, of positive mumbo jumbo. We need to stop kidding ourselves that its not just us.

Sure there is right place at the right time or chance meetings but that’s all they are.

Things just are. As human beings we have to try and make meaning. We need to make sense of it all.

I love this stuff and as I mentioned I get seduced by its false hopes, so I began convincing myself that it was a test of my commitment, that it was the universe testing me to see if id follow through, that I would get out of the house. How I would react. And then as a reward it give me something.

Cognitive dissonance at its finest!

Well life isn’t Dawsons creek, it a series of events that just happen. We can put meaning to them however we want but the fact remains that things just happen, good and bad to good and bad people.

For me the sooner we can get away from meaning the sooner we can move forwards and achieve instead of waiting for divine intervention or universal alignment or that somehow we have been blessed because we have achieved something. It just wastes to much energy. Energy that could be used to get something done.

Of course this is only a belief and not the truth.

I feel liberated but as the night draws on I can’t help but feel flat believing there is nothing else.

I find myself running through the archives of my mind looking for meaning…..