Are you Living in the Problem or the Solution?

Every day we have the opportunity to make decisions to honor who we are. I would hope that because you are reading this you are someone who believes you have a very important path to travel.

Your life can be more than simply living from day to day. Yet, many people are living from day to day. Rather existing from day to day.

Life is more than an existence if you choose it to be. It’s a journey that you have so much choice in. The two questions to ask are, “What are the choices you are making? Are they serving you and others?”

If you are someone who feels life is empty, lonely, boring and non-eventful there is only one person to blame for this. You!

I’m not going to beat around the bush on this. It doesn't matter what the outward circumstances of your life. What matters is what your attitude around the circumstances are.

How do I know? My life is my evidence.

Years ago I lived my life in the place of emptiness, loneliness and boredom. It was definitely a non-eventful life.

With no idea of how to change things the only thing I knew to do was complain to anyone who would listen.

I couldn't seem to figure out why people didn't want to be around me. Not until one person had the courage to point out that if all I did was complain it likely meant I was so into self that I was missing lots of great opportunities to be of service to others.

How could I be of service to others if my life was such a mess? The answer I got was to start right where I was. Simple as this.

It took a while, and lots of pushback, for me to see how this could be a solution to my empty life. Yet, I do remember the first time I did a bit of service (and I do mean a bit). I was attending a support group in hopes that my life would improve from living a day to day existence, barely able to pay $100 per month in rent, not able to count on a regular meal and working part time jobs.

Change it did. And it all began with washing coffee cups at the end of the meetings I was attending. The strangest thing began to happen. I actually felt useful. I felt needed. I felt like I was helping others.

For even a brief moment I got outside of my problems and was living in a solution. Although the feeling quickly left it was easy to get it back by looking for something that would be helping others rather than simply talking about my problems, real and imagined.

Little by little this one strategy changed my life to a point that who I am today is light-years away from who I was.

Are you in a place where life seems so tough you wonder how you will make it through another day? If the answer is yes, now is the time of year there are plenty of opportunities to be of service to others. It is in the service to others we get outside of our own self-centeredness.

This is not to discount anyone's life situation. Life can often be very tough. And yet, it truly is in the ability to be of service to others, what may be tough lightens up.

Life will always have challenges. It's what we do with the challenges that make all the difference.

We choose moment by moment. As James Allen so eloquently wrote in his book, "As a Man Thinketh So We Are" our focus determines the quality of our life. “THE LIFE WE LEAD IS CREATED BY OUR THOUGHTS. IF WE WOULD LIKE TO IMPROVE OUR LIFE WE WILL HAVE TO IMPROVE OUR THOUGHTS.”

What is your focus? What can you do to be of service to others; no matter how big or how small? What are you willing to do to make a difference in the life of another?

Often, you don't need more than the willingness to be of service for the opportunity to do so to show up.

Focus on what is possible rather than what is not. Focus on the good in your life rather than the lack. Focus on love rather than lack. Focus on that which you want more of.