Nearly all of the world’s troubles caused by man are manifested first and foremost by a rightfully insufficient ego. Have you noticed how many people on television break down and cry closely resembling in manner and action the sobbing of love-starved little children when recounting their lives so far? We are all empty and all trying to fill it up with other people’s approval. Whether it is a ‘I’m proud of you little lady” from Daddy or some finally achieved “respect from my peers”, everyone seems to heart-breakingly desire to finally be considered worthy. Hmm. Is everyone worthy no matter what they put out, no matter how their spend their energies here on earth?

It reminds me of the Peter Tosh lyrics “Everyone wants to go up to heaven—none of them, none of them want to die.” Everyone wants to be considered worthy but scant few want to do the extra heavy lifting in order to actually become worthy or impeccable as Don Juan and/or Carlos Castanada might say. If you want to have and extraordinary life, if you want to be an extraordinary person, then you should be prepared to put in an extraordinary amount of energy, life-spirit, thought, work and play among all other powerful things on earth. It can’t be any simpler.

I’ve always liked working for a living. But I usually get paid extraordinarily well for my efforts because I have put an extraordinarily amount of thought and effort into creating my businesses and even more so put a ridiculously extraordinarily amount of time and energy figuring out how to serve my clients better than they could be served by any other human on earth. Sounds pretentious perhaps but I have good reason to believe that I am near the best at what I do and even more reason to believe that I have outworked nearly everyone in the world to gain the abilities I now offer my clients. I don’t have any need to ask Daddy, Mommy or anyone else for their approval. There are some arenas, small though they might be, where I am, without doubt, impeccable.

You can’t river impeccable, you can’t inherit impeccable and you can’t buy impeccable. The main thing though is that no matter how many other humans, magazines, loved ones etc. you can fool, bully or con into pretending you are impeccable, no matter how numb you may be or pretend to be of the reality-- there is no escaping the truth or the hollow emptiness of a life not lived fully., a life not deeply committed to.

Whatever part of me that might want things to be differently now in life in terms of my lack of poker success, my dwindling of clients due to many things not the least of which the economy, there is another much larger part that lives on and welcomes the new windows open to me as old doors close. Most recently I have stopped playing much poker, stopped doing what I need to do to wrangle clients, and instead committed to being more and more present in my life and the first year of my son’s time here on earth.

I always need a project or two though so I am figuring out how to live primarily off the land. I just swigged down a fresh grapefruit/tangerine/lime drink from fruits I picked this morning and now squeezed fresh. One of the worst parts of living here for my soul’s health is that we are near the bottom of the wealth spectrum or at least far from the top. I need to be of service and I also need real connection to humans and I’ve been lacking it without hordes of others I can extend my help and generosity to.

Luckily, I have found an older, single, highly Christian women named Angeline that lives down the road and has no car at her disposal nor much excess income either. But she does have a great fondness for the huge avocados I bravely scale a tree way too high for a man nearing his fifties, like I am, and I pick a few prime ones for her thrice weekly. She’s almost 80 and she swears by the good fats in avocados which she eats daily and I agree with her whole-heartedly. My wife has become her designated almond milk and organic butternut squash provider and we both joyfully in unison arrange giant fruit baskets worthy of the great Phil Helmouth, which we gift to her weekly.

I am so blessed that all these other avenues have shut down to me because now I am able to be with my son many hours of every day and hear a laugh from him that warms my heart and soul like nothing else I have ever experienced. At times like these my wife looks at me and says “Can you imagine if we loved each other like we both love him?” . It’s the inside joke my wife and I share knowingly, both having built a loving and respectful union through extraordinary attention and effort over the years. Can you imagine a relationship where the two egos involved are, in some areas, impeccable enough to lovingly and in great humor vocalize such a scandalous thought without there being any wounded reaction, no old emptiness needed to be filled?

Like nearly everything of true value—it’s worth the effort.

Thanks for reading.