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It was the year 2008 and a good friend of mine invited me to come to a birthday party of one of his friends.

When I got to the birthday party, I met up with my friend who invited me and he introduced me to the “birthday girl.”

It turned out that the birthday girl and I had been a part of the same business organization some years back.  I began to tease her about not reaching a certain, “coveted” level in the organization, knowing full well in the forefront of my mind that I had not only not reached the said level of the organization, but I also had quit and was no longer a part of it.

My whole attempt at teasing her was an attempt at sarcasm and a way to make fun of my own self since I had not done any better than she did.  As a matter of fact, when she in turn asked me why I also didn’t reach this position, I confessed I was only joking with her as I did no better my self and wound up pathetically leaving the entire thing.

Well, there seemed to be no hard feelings about my busting her chops and I laughed it off and forgot about the whole thing.

Okay, so I thought there were no hard feelings, but I was about to find out otherwise……

A couple of days later I’m talking on the phone to my friend who had brought me to the party.  In the course of the conversation we talked about the party we went to and the girl who had invited him came up.  He then shares with me how she felt I rubbed her the wrong way with what I had been saying to her.  She felt I had no right to bust her chops the way I did because she didn’t know me like that to do so.  She even went on to say that she would’ve preferred that he didn’t bring me.

Needless to say, I was shocked and kind of hurt.  First off, I really didn’t mean any harm.  Like I said, my busting on her really was a self-deprecating attempt to make fun of myself, since I never was really successful myself in the business in which I was teasing her about not reaching a certain level.

Second off, with alcohol usually being the culprit of someone spewing random ridiculousness, I couldn’t have imagined myself of having been obnoxious, because I was stone cold sober and had absolutely nothing to drink.  At the time I was doing a 30 day health regimen which required that I didn’t drink any alcohol for its duration.

Third, I thought to myself, “Why would I go out of m way to purposely piss off the birthday girl whose party I was at?”

Lastly, knowing my “sordid” past of running off at the mouth and offending many a person, which earned me a reputation of being tactless and utterly rude (a label I truly hated having), I really thought that I had overcome that.  It hurt that with all the work that I felt I had done on myself to be a “nice guy”, that I was still hearing this from people

After I got off the phone with my friend, I got down on my knees and prayed to God.  I came to Him in a desperate, frustrated almost angry manner saying, “After all this time why have you STILL not changed me?  Why can’t you just help me change and overcome my faults?  Look at this, I’m still offending people!  When is this going to stop and when am I going to be allowed to grow past this?”

When I finished the prayer a few minutes later as I was trying to go about my business, I sensed the Lord trying speaking to me.  No, it wasn’t in one of those manners where thunder sounded from the heavens, the clouds parted, then a bright light from heaven shined directly on me with my hair blowing in the wind, with a deep baritone voice sounding from the sky saying, “IKE MY SON.  I’VE HEARD YOUR PRAYER……”

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Com’on now, you’ve been watching “The Ten Commandments” one too many times.

In truth, it was that still small voice speaking to my heart with wisdom that I couldn’t have possibly known myself.  It was very clear, and He said, “The only reason why you’re upset is because someone is disapproving of you.  Relax, let me be in charge and let me do My work.”

Wow, really profound…

This insight was further cemented by a book I read a few months later called “Walking with God,” by John Eldredge.  In the book, the author describes a prayer he prayed to God that went like this, “God, show me how I’m doing, how You think I’m doing, and how I’m really doing.”

In essence, what I was taught at this moment was that the things that I thought were wrong with me and was beating myself up over were not actually what God thought was wrong with me.  Moreover, the things that I thought that needed fixing in me were based on what I interpreted other people’s perceptions to be of me, and may not have necessarily been what I needed to work on.  God had an ENTIRELY different perspective what I actually needed to work on.

In life, people have placed many labels on us, but we have to ask ourselves, are they based on TRUTH or are they just based on the person’s own idiosyncrasies and erroneous perception of life?  A teacher in grade school may have called you an idiot, which you may have taken to heart right up to this very day, but most likely, the teacher was in a bad mood, frustrated, etc, and was lashing out to let off some steam.

Other times a person may have put a label on you because they see the same quality in themselves, and because they don’t like it, they judge you about it to make themselves feel better.

I mentioned in other blogs that I had a bad temper as a child and up to my teenage years.  My mother would point this out and would assert many times that I had to get my temper under control.  As I got older, I did just that and learned to control my temper with a desire to get my mother’s approval and guilt that my mom saw me as person out of control, which I had believed myself.  What actually shocked me more, was that though I saw myself deep down as an angry person, just about all my good friends saw me as this calm person and would tell me, despite my protests, that they could never imagine me losing my temper.

Yet, whenever I would get into a disagreement with my mom and I raised my voice just one octave, not even out of anger but just out of the spirit of the discussion, my mom would immediately jump on the fact that I was raising my voice and say that I needed to get this “anger of mine” under control or else I will give whatever woman I wind up with trouble.  I, of course would immediately go on the defensive and get all self conscious.

Moreover, if I ever had a situation where I had a legitimate reason to be annoyed with my mother or angry, and I expressed it in a legitimate way the way someone is supposed to when he or she is upset or angry, it was again thrown in my face my “issue” with anger and how I had to get it under control.  My even experiencing anger was judged and criticized, and I would wind up feeling guilty and getting defensive.

Well, one day, I was on the phone and my mom had asked me to wash my dishes in the sink and I told her I would get to them when I got off the phone.  Needless to say, she came back five minutes later while I was still on the phone and blew her top about the dishes not being done.

This was a very revealing moment for me.

I thought to myself, “Wow, if I had lost my temper in the same way that she did just now, I would’ve been given all these criticisms about my ‘bad temper’ and how out of control I was, along with all these grave predictions about my future.  Yet, she does it and it’s alright?  According to the way she judges anger, what does this situation say about her?”

My mind also when to those moments where I felt I had a right to be annoyed or angry because of a way I may have been wronged by my mother, but was judged, and I realized that my mom, in a similar situation, would’ve acted in anger herself.  So then, why was I being judged for this?

It was from this moment on that I realized all these labeling that she had put on me was a bunch of b.s. used to control and manipulate me.  I mean, her accusations were more coming from a place of judgment from someone who had no right to judge.  Her judgments were more about her than they were about me.

By the way, God bless my mom.  She truly is a loving, nurturing, caring, very giving woman.

It was at this point I gave up any remaining guilt about any anger I had.  I also let go of any fear of expressing anger, realizing that anger is a perfectly normal emotion to express as long as it’s expressed in a healthy way and not letting it control you to the point of going out and killing five hundred people.

Now, this is not to say whether I did or didn’t have anger issues.  The issue with my mom wasn’t my anger at all, it was rather more about judging and manipulating me to cover her own insecurities.

This goes to show that what we may think is wrong with us may not actually be what we need to work on because they may not be based on any actual truth.  They just all form a part of The Illusion of what we think we are but really aren’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong, we ALL have blindspots that other people can see on us but we can’t see on ourselves of things we actually do need to change.  If you hear people saying the same thing about you over and over and over again, then it may be an indicator that God is trying to tell you something and you need to look into it.

This is why it’s very important to associate with the right people whose opinions and advice you trust who may also be on their own path of self improvement and self discovery in one way or another.  People like this are quite crucial to your growth because they will notice things in you that you don’t notice in yourself and vice versa.  These people, if they’re really your true friends, will have your best interest at heart.

In regards to this point, there were definitely MANY, many times in my life where I had exhibited rudeness towards others that close, trusted friends had pointed out.  Situations that earned me the reputation of being a rude. bastard  I don’t doubt the legitimacy of many of these claims, however, the situation with the birthday girl wasn’t about who was right and who was wrong, it was a lesson that I had been going about dealing with my issues the wrong way.

I had depended on my own wisdom to work out my faults and not on the wisdom of the Creator, therefore I got frustrated when it appeared to me that I wasn’t overcoming my faults.  His lesson was that they will get dealt with in their own way, in their own time, in their own sequence.  My problem was that I felt that my “improvement” had to look a certain way, and be worked out in a certain manner.  God had other ideas.

Though we all have ideas about how we should be overcoming our faults, it doesn’t mean that we’re right.

Either way, I digress, back to the original point I was making.

The truth of the matter is that there is a bigger plan at work.  God created each of us for a specific purpose in mind for the unraveling of a bigger picture that only He knows and we’ve only received very minute glimpses of.

So, since that’s the case, wouldn’t God, an Infinite Being, have a MUCH better idea of what about ourselves we need to work on than some person who not only was created just like you and me, but also has his or her own insecurities that he is more interested in hiding by judging you to make himself feel better than he is interested in telling the truth?

Wouldn’t God know better about what’s wrong with you than someone who’s just trying to be hurtful and/or let off some steam?

If this person had been more interested in telling the truth, he would’ve FIRST removed the plank in his own eye BEFORE telling you to remove the speck in yours.  In fact, it is because of the plank in his own eye that he can’t clearly see the speck in yours.

Basically, there are three perceptions we have to contend with:

• What people say that is wrong with us
• What we think we need to work on
• What we really need to work on (God’s perception)

Like I said before, many of the labels people put on us our based on their own limited perceptions, yet, we take what they say as gospel.  Many of the things that we think that is wrong with us are based on guilt of not living up to someone else’s standards, the standards of society, etc, and may not actually be what needs fixing.

Also, many of the things that are actually wrong with us that we’re aware of may actually what may need “fixing” at this point.

What do you mean by that Ike?

Think about when we were little kids and we may see our parents fixing something and we innocently want to help them so we may hand them a tool they don’t really need or we do something to whatever they’re working on only to make it worse.  The truth of the matter is, our parents knew what they were doing, we didn’t, so it was best to stay out of their way.

It’s the same way our Creator.  We were created with a magnificent purpose in mind.  When we don’t have Divine guidance, many times we adopt a harshly judgmental attitude towards ourselves and go about working on the wrong thing about ourselves, getting in God’s way of the work He wants to do on us.  He may have an ENTIRELY different plan of what needs working on with us because He sees us in an ENTIRELY different way.

I mean, sure we all have faults, but maybe, just maybe, the faults that we think need to be worked on yesterday because they’re so shockingly bad may not be what God wants to deal with just yet.  It could be that what we think of as so appalling, God may see as no big deal.

We all need to stop being so hard on ourselves.

Instead, by making an effort to surrender to God, Source, the Divine, (or whatever you call our Creator) and letting Him guide us, He will invariably lead us to know what REALLY needs working on, and will empower us to change what really needs changing.

This is The Viable Alternative, when we experience growth according to the purpose of our core being.

Hope this helps.

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Note: If you haven’t read the first part of this blog, click here.

The Illusion

The experience I had with “self improvement” (or lack thereof) speaks to the issue that all of us face.  We’re unable to create what we want for our lives because frankly we’re unable to realize The Illusion that we’re all trapped in.

In The Illusion, it SEEMS as if we’re going in a particular direction (e.g. it seemed as if I was trying to improve myself), or it may seem as if we’re going after a particular goal or that we are being a certain way.  On the surface things may look that way, but in actuality something entirely different is going on below the surface such that the way things seem aren’t what they really are.

Hence The Illusion: we’re deluded into thinking what we see in terms of our behaviours, goals, actions and desires are really what they are.

Because we’re not aware that what we think is real really isn’t, we become increasingly frustrated when we don’t get what we CLAIM we desire through the actions we think we’re taking.

In life, we usually deal with three types of desires/goals etc.

• There’s our conscious desires.  These are our desires that are on the forefront of our minds.  They’re the desires that we’re aware of that we have, e.g. saving up to buy a home, financial goals, etc.  These goals/desires mask what’s really going on underneath.
• There are our unconscious desires.  These are our REAL desires that are masked by our conscious desires.  There are the desires which give rise to the actions that we take.  They’re based on the experiences we had in life, many stemming from our childhood.  They’re based on a false “self” of who we think we are.  Most of us are totally unaware of these desires almost all the time.
• Lastly, there are the desires that stem from our CORE being.  These desires are based on who we really are, not the false “self” that we created that’s based on our past experiences.  These desires are based on the fact that we are Divine beings put on this earth for some purpose, and our desires and actions stem from that SELF.  Sadly, most people will die never getting in touch with the desires of the TRUE self.  These are our ONLY desires that are NOT a part of The Illusion.

We’re not getting what we want because of the discrepancy between what we think we desire, what we’re actually going after, and what we REALLY desire.

Are you sufficiently confused yet?

In my case, I thought I wanted to improve myself, but I was actually trying to impress my mother.  All this hid what I really desired from my CORE, which was simply to be a good person.  The discrepancy between these three things, and also the fact that I was completely unaware that there was a discrepancy, guaranteed me not getting not only what I thought I wanted, but what I really wanted from the core of my being.

This is like planting apple seeds and when an apple tree sprouts, you then rage and shake your fist against the gods in heaven as to why they hate you so much for not giving you an orange tree.

I’m sure there’s been a lot of fist shaking and raging in your life, because there still is in mine.

You may be thinking, “What type of idiot can’t tell the difference between an orange seed and an apple seed?”  Well I have news for you: you, me and the rest of the world most of the time think we’re sowing one thing, when in actuality we’re sowing something else, and we are thus surprised at what we wind up reaping, expecting to have reaped something else.

Get it?

Think about the person who works hard all his life to graduate medical school and be a doctor.  What if in actuality his father used to call him stupid all the time when he was young and him becoming a doctor was a way of trying to prove to his father he wasn’t stupid?

On the surface, he went to college, studied hard, graduated with honours, took his MCATs, got accepted to medical school and got a medical degree.

However, that was all an Illusion.  What all those actions REALLY were was him trying to prove his father wrong, thinking that by achieving his goal he would finally achieve happiness, or feel smart.

Interestingly enough, when the dude finally becomes a doctor, to you, me, him and the rest of the world, he may seem as if he’s carrying out his duties as a doctor, that’s The Illusion, but in actuality, his actions will be more aligned with his desire to be smart.  His desire to be thought of as smart, which in turn is actually an overcompensation of him really feeling he is stupid, will supersede his duties as a doctor and from time to time, may adversely affect his career as a doctor in one way or another.

Until you become aware of your unconscious, underlying desires in life , they will continue to control your actions and give you an outcome that doesn’t match up with what you consciously say or think you desire.

We all live inauthentic lives to one degree or another where we take actions that are neither compatible with our  conscious desires nor our core being.

Our actions most of the time are based on past experiences rehashed in our minds that we play out over and over and over again.  Thus we never truly live life in the present, but rather we live from our experiences.

We’re not able to live The Viable Alternative, which would mean to create from the desires that emanate from our core being simply because we’re not aware of what we really want.  We’re not aware of what we truly desire because are hearts and minds are blocked by The Illusion and we all sadly think it’s real in one way or another.

It reminds me of when we were kids, and we would be running around the house making noise.  Now, if our parents were to come home in a good mood, they may simply give us a warning to stop making noise, or if they were in an extremely good mood, they may even laugh at our gesticulations.  However, Heaven forbid if one or both of our parents came home in a bad mood because they got screamed on by their boss, or got caught up in traffic on the way home.  Most likely, we were on the receiving end of a sound beating.

Now on the surface, it would look like the parent was disciplining us, and they would claim so.  However, what was really going on was that the parent was in a bad mood and hit us to let off some steam.

Please, I’m getting flashbacks, someone give me a hug….

Anyways, really, it’s these inauthenticities that exist in all areas of our lives that keep us from creating the lives that we would truly want.  We react to experiences and our emotions rather than act from who we really are.

I also recall the many times I marveled in disgust when I go to the gym and I see a person who has been going to the gym for a number of years the same fat, sloppy mess that he was when he first started.  On the surface he takes the time to go to the gym, pay his gym membership, and work out, but if so, why is he still in such horrendous shape?

Well, if you look closer at his actions (barring him having some type of thyroid disorder), he’s doing EVERYTHING to guarantee that he doesn’t reach his goal.  He works out the WRONG way, and refuses to ask anyone for help, he probably eats like crap and doesn’t want to discipline himself to eat what’s healthy, and not only does he smoke cigarettes, but he probably lights one up as soon as he leaves the gym.

I recall quite a few times someone approaching me at the gym and asking me what he needs to do to get in “good shape”.  When I tell him, he walks away shaking his head, obviously overwhelmed, saying he could never do that and with a firmer resolve to stick to what WASN’T working.

What the hell?

“The hell” is that his intention was never to get in shape in the first place, even though he has convinced himself it was, and even if he complains that he’s not getting in better shape despite the fact he’s going to the gym or he engages in verbal masturbation by telling others who are in great shape that he wished he looked like them   What he may actually be doing is trying to prove to himself (or most likely someone from his past) that he’s not lazy, hence, to him, going to the gym on its own is enough to satisfy that goal.

There may be a million and one other reasons all resulting in one thing, him not reaching his “said” goal to get in shape.

What’s more, like I said before, is the fact that he completely unaware of what he’s doing.  He’s imprisoned by The Illusion, and as long as he remains there, not only will he continue to spin his wheels, but he’ll NEVER learn what he truly desires from the core of his being.

Oh…. and that goes for ALL of us.

In order for us to break free of The Illusion we need the tools of awareness, honesty and personal responsibility.

By awareness, I mean being aware of our actions and whether they line up with what we truly want in life from the core of our being.  For example, a person may have a desire to become a millionaire and delude himself into thinking that he’s taking action towards that goal.  However, when you take a closer look at his actions, you may see that they’re actually making him poorer.  Simply put, this person has no awareness of the underlying reasons for his actions, and will stay in scarcity until he becomes aware.

When you become aware, are you able to admit to yourself what you’re doing or do you become scared, pull the wool back over your eyes and shout the same complaints that you did before you were aware?  By the way, if you choose to CONSCIOUSLY pull the wool back over your eyes, you’re now choosing to live a lie, and let me tell you, choosing to live a lie costs a lot more than embracing the truth.

By honesty, I mean that after you become aware of the discrepancy between your actions and your “desires”, you become honest with yourself as to what you TRULY desire in your life.  You may realize that the thing you were originally “claiming” to desire but failing at may actually be what you really want.  Now that the lights are turned on, so to speak, you can go about bringing your desire about the right way.  Or, you may realize that you may not want that thing whatsoever and you’re now able to determine what you really desire.

Whatever the case, you’ve now taken the path of The Viable Alternative because by being honest with yourself, you’re now living and creating a life that comes from the core of your being, and are no longer fighting the phantoms of The Illusion.

And lastly, by personal responsibility, I mean after becoming aware of your mismatched actions, and honestly determining what you really want, taking responsibility to deal with those issues that caused you to pursue the underlying goal or action that was hidden below the surface of the goal or action you claimed to be taking.  If you don’t, I guarantee you that it’s going to come back and bite you in the ass once more, and sabotage success for yourself in the future. Dealing with these underlying issues may involve simply just letting go of some false belief you held about yourself, accepting something about yourself, or even receiving some therapy or counseling.

Personal responsibility is also taking responsibility in doing what’s needed to bring your desires into fruition.  That could very well mean confronting your demons and stepping out of your comfort zone.  Many people choose to stay unaware and refuse to be honest with themselves because to them, it ultimately means that they would have to assume responsibility to create the life they really want for themselves,  and that is too daunting a task for them.  Thus, they choose to live a sub-par life to what they can really have.

When I had the conversation with my mother and realized that I wasn’t genuinely seeking to improve myself but rather, I was seeking my mother’s validation that I was a good person, I had to be honest with myself as to what I really wanted.

To me, it was a no brainer, I really did want to be a good person who had good character and integrity.  Now though, I was able to see myself with clearer eyes, not from the eyes with which I thought my mom saw me.  Thus, I was now able to take actions that were more congruent with my CHOSEN objectives.

Now I had made the conscious decision to improve myself, I also had to agree take responsibility of letting go of the negative beliefs I had placed on myself because of what my mother had told me, I had to learn how to disengage myself from seeking the approval from my mother, and I had to learn to trust my own intuition of what direction I had to take, instead of looking for it from others.  All this didn’t happen overnight, but rather was a process, that I might add, is still going on.

I also had to take responsibility for the ugly truths that were sure to come up for anyone who chooses to embark on the path of self improvement.  Nothing prepared me however, for how UGLY some of these truths were, however, I knew if I didn’t deal with them, no one else will.

This was my own way of achieving victory over The Illusion and embracing The Viable Alternative just a little bit more.

I also have to say that just because I received this insight that changed the direction of my life doesn’t mean that the process is over.  There are still many, many, many, many places in my life were I don’t know that I don’t know where I’m being inauthentic because I’m claiming that I want one thing but actually seeking something completely different, all the while upset for not getting the results I say I want.  Shoot, you might even read about a new “discovery” I made in the near future.  All I have to say is that life is a CONTINUAL process of peeling away our inauthenticities on our path of self discovery in order to expose more the beauty of our core that has been hidden from us and the world.  It never ends until we take our last breath.

So, if you’re frustrated because your life is a mess for not reflecting what you think you want in life, you have to really ask yourself what’s really going on.

Is that goal you’re pursuing really what you want?  Or is there some whole other agenda going on that you’re not aware of?  Have you been pursuing something different all along that you haven’t been aware of?

Take a look at the actions you’re taking to pursue your goals, and ask yourself, what are they really telling you?  What are they revealing about your true intentions?

Are you REALLY married to or dating the person you’re with  for reasons other than what you’re consciously aware of?  (Hey, I’m not trying to break anyone up, I just want you to think and WAKE UP.)

How about your career path?  Why are you really doing it?  Was it an attempt to piss someone off, or prove someone wrong, or gain acceptance?  Are you really on this path for the reason why you say you are?

Be brutally honest with yourself.

If the answer doesn’t come to you, put the intention out there for it to come to your unconscious mind, to the Universe, to God or who or whatever you believe in.  Believe me, as the guy who thought that nothing worked out for him, you WILL receive an answer.

If you take a look below the surface of The Illusion, you’ll find a whole other world out there that’s been running your actions, behaviours, desires etc.  It’s a world that’s made up of your false beliefs, lies, fears, superstitions, etc that you accepted long ago without truly knowing what you were doing.  In fact, this is part of The Illusion as well, because it doesn’t represent you either.

In any case, by uncovering the lie that had been blinding you all this time, you’re now more capable of finding the truth which is expressed from the core of you being, and live and create a life that is truly and authentically YOU.  This is The Viable Alternative.

And I promise you, that along the way, you will get some REAL self improvement out of it.

Hope this helps.

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I remember it clearly as if it were yesterday…

It was in the early 2000s, in the month of November, on a sunny afternoon. (I know, how cliché, but it really was sunny that afternoon.)

It was a really strange time of my life because I wasn’t working, having left the only “real job” of my adult life almost a year earlier.  Well, I was sort of working with some startup that had big dreams, but I wasn’t getting paid for it, and frankly, I was just going through the motions with it and with life as a whole.  I really had no drive to do anything, no motivation, nothing whatsoever.  Of course I would’ve “liked” to have the symbols of success (nice care, nice pad, money, etc.) if they were bestowed to me by some benevolent “genie”, but really, that obviously wasn’t happening. Not only did I NOT have the desire or the motivation to pursue these things, but honestly, I didn’t think I had the capability of attaining them either if I were to pursue them.

Now, of course I know that the pursuit of material things is a road to nowhere, but really, if I had been pursuing these things, at least I would’ve been passionate about SOMETHING, and have been moving in SOME direction.  In my case, I was just standing still doing nothing.

The thing was, I wasn’t lazy, nor was I depressed.  I was just simply devoid of any desire for anything in life.  I just didn’t care.  I was bereft of any inspiration to do anything at all.

Was I happy?

Well…would you be if you were living like this?  I think we both know the answer.

Deep down I knew there was something wrong considering the fact I hadn’t always been like this.  The thing was, on the surface I thought that me being devoid of any ambition or any desire was the right, spiritual way to be, but it fought with every nuance of my being on a deeper level, i.e. it sucked to be me.

I think Thoreau coined my condition best: “quiet desperation.”

So, there I was, on this particular November afternoon, stopping in front of a bookstore that had a table display of books, when one in particular piqued my curiosity due to the title, so I picked it up in order to check it out.

I glance through the book and its subject matter seemed interesting enough, but I didn’t feel a need to buy it.  However, over the next few days, for some reason, my mind kept on going back to that book, though I didn’t even remember the name, so the next time I passed by the bookstore, I bought the book.

And you know what?  The book changed my life…

The name?  “Think and Grow Rich,” by Napoleon Hill, a book about the principles of success.  Well actually, it was another version of the book, “Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice” by Dennis Kimbro, but reading that prompted me to possessedly go and buy the original version by Napoleon Hill.  Needless to say, these two books single handedly gave me back something I hadn’t felt in several years: my inspiration in life to be successful and do something great on this earth.

In addition to re-kindling my desire to be successful, after reading these books over and over, and over again, I realized something else: I had a pitifully LOW self-esteem.

Low self esteem is funny, because most people who have it don’t know they have it and would never admit to it.  If someone who was able to notice low self esteem in another person and pointed it out to him, he (or she) would either deny it or get very defensive.  This is because people are very good at hiding their low self esteem from themselves through innumerable avenues, some of which include, erecting walls of materialism, bravado, or by simply just being an out and out asshole to the entire world.

I was no different.

It was when I learned this that I can say that I officially started my path of “self improvement” and self discovery.  (There’s a reason why I put “self improvement” in quotes, stay tuned).  I hit the ground running and threw myself into the whole process headfirst.  My burning desire was to become a better person, raise my self esteem, and become a confident person that was secure with himself.

The Desert Years

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Now, this is where I wish I could tell my happy ending, where I acquire unstoppable confidence, strike it filthy rich a few years later and fly off in my pink unicorn to my mansion on top of a hill at the end of the rainbow, where I sip glasses of Cristal and party nightly with the likes of Diddy and Naomi Campbell.

Nope.  Definitely not with me.

Instead, I entered into another “desert” period in my life that lasted five years.  It was a period where I experienced very little if any growth whatsoever.  Instead I went around in circles, reading book, after book after book, going to different seminars, visiting a hypnotist, talking to coaches, listening to CD after CD, etc, all in the hopes of finding that magic pill, that one marvelous distinction that would enable me to finally let go of my negative beliefs, show me how to get over the past, and show me how to be a better person.

I remember buying book after book, hoping that each book would be “the one” that would give me that magical insight that would change my life.  I would read each book accompanied with a “trusty” highlighter pen, highlighting everything I found insightful in the book, hoping that somehow these words would seep into my consciousness and help change me.

Sadly, that didn’t happen.  All I’d get was a dry highlighter pen, but no real personal growth.  I instead become a walking “self help” encyclopedia, full of inspirational quotes that made me look all positive and enlightened.  I probably was able to recite to you on command, page 73 of every book I read, that’s how into “improving myself” I was.

As I read more and more books, I’d feel more “enlightened” and “knowledgeable”, but at times, I’d have a somber moment where I’d say to myself, “you have all this knowledge, you’ve read all these books, but where’s the REAL growth?”  I’d ponder this briefly and then think, “Oh well, on to the next book!” and sweep the one insight that I TRULY needed to pay attention to under the rug.

I was lost.

I remember taking the Landmark Forum and its follow-up course, “The Advanced Seminar.”  I thought that now surely this was the place that would make me transform.  After all, before I even took these courses I heard of some miraculous stories of the breakthroughs and transformations people received.  As a matter of fact, upon taking these two courses. I did receive some tremendous insights, and I did see some people make some incredible remarkable change, but at the end of the day, I was thinking, “how ‘bout me?”

I had more knowledge, more insight, but I still felt TERRIBLY lacking.

“Why can’t I change?”

“When am I going to get rid of this horrible feeling of inadequacy I have?”

I would ask these questions to myself over and over again, after the next, best self-help tool I discovered out there that I hoped would empower me to become a better person wound up getting me nowhere.  I went to a hypnotist, hoping she would be able to hypnotize me to be a confident person….that didn’t’ work.  In fact in retrospect, I just think she was a sucky hypnotist (no offense to her).  The only “improvement” I got from her was a lesson of not to EVER waste my money or time with her again.

I talked to several coaches…nothing.  In fact, one got so frustrated with me he almost kicked me out of his coaching group.

It’s funny, because during this period, I remember talking to a guy in my gym who I have to say, was a complete mess.  He would complain to me over and over again about his girlfriend and how he didn’t trust her.  The obvious solution to his “problem” that I would explain to him was to leave her, but he’d have a barrel of excuses of why he couldn’t do that.  Yet, what surprised me was that he was an avid reader of self-help books, just like me, having ready many of the ones I had.  He in fact bragged that he had a whole suitcase full of these books.  I thought to myself in utter disgust, “Is this guy serious?  Why is this guy such a debacle if he is supposed to have read all these books?”

The truth of the matter was that I really was no different myself.  The reason why I was able to see that this guy was a debacle was because I was only seeing a reflection of myself in him.  I, despite having read all these books was quite a debacle myself.  I was pointing at him, but four fingers were pointing right back at me.  I just didn’t see it.

I really, really, really wanted to change.  The coaches at the seminars I attended were able to sense my desperation.  I had all this negative self-talk going on inside my head, and I wanted to get rid of it.  I had this deep feeling of inadequacy, and I wanted get rid of that.  I lacked confidence, and I wanted to gain it.  I felt as if I had been a horrible, inconsiderate, insensitive bastard in the past, and I wanted to become a good person that people would be able to look up to.  I wanted to learn how to stop clinging to my past and be able to let go.

What was frustrating was that during this period, I had read and heard stories about people who credited a certain book, seminar or encounter with someone for giving them some insight that changed the entire way they perceived themselves and the world. They would note that it was this “shift” in perception they received that enabled them to transform from insecure, “bad”, unsuccessful people to happy, confident and successful.

I was looking for something that would do similar for me and fix all these “horrible” things I had.  Yet, in all my five years of “self improvement”, the only major change that had come in me was after I first read “Think and Grow Rich,” which I wouldn’t even count because it was what first got me on my path.  So in actuality, in five years, I had really gotten nowhere.

Oddly enough, I was somehow able to fool myself that I was “changing” because I was reading all these books and gaining all these “wonderful” insights.

Yet funny how these “insights” brought absolutely no real improvement to the quality of my life, nor did they improve my self esteem in any way.  I was the same old me who started the journey five years earlier covered with a thin veneer of knowledge from a bunch of self-help books and quotes spouted by famous people.

I was a mess.

I liken this period of my life to the Biblical story of the Israelites wandering the wilderness for forty years without entering the “Promised Land.”  They just tread the same ground over and over and over again for forty years.

I too was in the wilderness because I was in a place that was bearing no type of fruit.  I just thank God it was five years, not forty.

Something had to give.

My “Deliverance”

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So, 2005 comes along.

In the very beginning of this year, two significant things happen.

The first thing was when a cousin of mine came to my house for the first time and stayed for a few days.  Upon looking at my bookshelf and seeing all these self help books, he comes to me and asks me, “Why are you looking for something you already have?”

That question struck me because it was told to me several years before.  I didn’t get it when it was first told to me, and I didn’t get it when my cousin said it.  However, now, these words struck me in a different way.  I figured that since I was hearing these words for a second time, there must have been a message in there for me.  I started to let them marinate in my spirit so I could find learn the message that they carried.

The second event was that I could sense that God was speaking to my heart trying to tell me something.

That “something” was Him telling me not to hang out with my childhood friends for the whole of 2005.

See, these childhood friends of mine have been my “family” for almost my entire life.  They had also been a foundation of security for me most of my life, because I felt that no matter what I went through socially, they would always be there.  The insight that God was giving me was that by not hanging out with them for an entire year, I will start to develop that foundation within myself.  Also, being absent of their “influence” will help me start to see an aspect of myself that I previously wasn’t aware of.

That’s similar to the scenario of a tree bent in a certain way would grow in a certain way, however, if you unbend it, it would grow in a different direction.

This was a PROFOUND insight that I definitely could not have thought of on my own.  It was completely out of the box of my reality.

Me, looking desperately for answers, saw no choice but to listen.

So to my childhood friends who are reading this, if you’ve been wondering why I wasn’t around for all of ’05 and making “excuses” why I couldn’t hang out, (if you remember or even care), this was the reason.  It was all for self discovery purposes, nothing personal.  You guys may find it “weird”, but I’ve come to accept the fact that I’m just not a normal person.  Also, if you do find it weird, I retort with my oft repeated phrase that you know very well, “your opinion means absolutely nothing to me.”

Either way, I digress.

So, getting back to 2005, it was a year like every other of the previous four years: going to seminars, reading book after book, having all these wonderful insights making me believe that I was enlightened, all coupled with the frustration of being in my own way.  I think you get the picture.

However, come the last two months of that year, November and December, I received two MAJOR insights, one insight for each month, that unlike all the countless other “insights” I received, were the ones that were to lead me out of the wilderness.

The first one I’m not going to get into, as it I another topic for another blog.   Also, it really didn’t have an immediate effect on my life as did the second, which began to change things immediately.

The second insight is the topic of this blog.

It was late in December, a couple of days after Christmas.  I was talking to my mom in her room while she was watching TV.  In the conversation, she mentions to me that she had a deep conversation with my brother and the subject was yours truly.

She mentioned that my brother was complaining, added to the complaint of my other siblings that I was emotionally unavailable and even though he tried to communicate with me on a deeper level, I wouldn’t let him in and kept him at arm length.

The news of this didn’t shock me because my siblings had complained about this before.  I knew that ever since my childhood that I had always been emotionally distant from my siblings and never really attempted to foster a close relationship with any of them.  As I had “matured”, I knew this wasn’t a good thing, and I felt that by becoming a better person through my “self improvement”, this would somehow remedy itself.

Upon hearing this, I told my mom that I was trying to change, and that I had been reading a lot of self improvement books and going to seminars for a number of years, and the insights I had received had helped me to grow.

I then asked her a crucial question, “Haven’t you noticed any change in me?”

To this she responded that she didn’t see too much of me because she left for work before me and I usually returned home from work late, and at that time she was already in bed, so she really couldn’t tell if I had many any change at all.

All of sudden, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I had been doing this whole self improvement “thing” to please my mother.

Why does that insight even matter?

Well let me take you back a few years to my childhood. When I was growing up, my father was the strict disciplinarian in the house, and coupled with that, he wasn’t always an easy person to deal with.  From a young age, he came down very hard on me and the older of my two sisters, and so, we were dependent on our mother for refuge.

Because of all this, it can be easy to see how my father became the “bad guy” and my mother was the “good guy”.  My father was the one associated with having a bad temper, being impatient, angry, etc, and my mother was associated with being loving, caring, patient, nurturing, etc.  Thus, compared to our younger two siblings, it became important for me and the older of my two sisters to stay on our mother’s “good side” because if we didn’t, we would be at the mercy to the whims of our father.

Furthermore, as a child, I had a very bad temper, and was prone to throwing huge temper tantrums.  When I would do this, my mom would say to me disapprovingly, “You’re just like your father.”

Well, of course, it sucked to hear that, because I didn’t want to be like my father, I wanted to be like my mother.  My mom knew this, and over the years, she would play the manipulation game whenever she and I would have a disagreement by hanging over my head the comment, “You’re just like HIM.”

This had the effect of immediately putting me on the defensive or shutting me up.  Either way, it gave my mom a “power” over me.  It made me want to be more like her, and since she became the “measuring stick” of who to be like in my house, it also made me believe all the other negative labels she had placed on me.

Thus, over the years, I would develop this persistent fear that I was going to turn out just like my father.  One of the main reasons for embarking on the path of self improvement was to “finally address” this issue of me being this horrible person in the past and become a person who my mother could look at proudly and say, “Wow, you’re totally different from your father.  You’re more like me.”

This was the reason why I had gotten absolutely nowhere in five years of “self improvement.”    I had talked a big game of wanting to become a better, more positive person, improve my self esteem, etc, but in actuality all I wanted was approval from my mother.

I remember watching those Warner Brothers or Hanna Barbera cartoons as a little kid where some cat (Tom or Sylvester) would be trying to chase a little bird to eat, but their efforts were always thwarted by the big mother hen or some other guardian that watched over the little chick. So, to fool whoever was protecting the chick, the cat would disguise himself as a bird.  However, the plan would always fail because although the cat was dressed as a bird, in one way or another, his nature of being a cat would always rise to the surface (e.g. trying to eat the little chick.)

This was similar to my quest for self improvement.  On the surface, I was saying I wanted to become a better person, improve my self esteem, etc, but below that something else was going on.

You see, when I made the decision of improving myself, I was riddled with guilt for who I was up until that point for not naturally being able to display the “characteristics” of my mother.  I felt guilty for being such a rude, inconsiderate, selfish, impatient bastard in my past, and because I felt I really couldn’t be trusted with my own self improvement, I looked to others who accused me of these things in the past, as well as my mom as indicators of whether I was changing or not.  Thus, the more pleasing I was to others, the happier I was because it meant I was changing.  However, if I did something to step on another person’s toes, I would be depressed that I was failing in my quest to become a better person.

To add to that, I also tried to be overly pleasing to women, which meant walking on egg shells around them because afraid to say the wrong thing, seeking their approval, and putting up with disrespect that I had no business putting up with.  I figured by gaining the approval of women, it would mean that I was different from my father, which would gain me the prize of my mother’s approval.

In any case, this all gave me a resentment towards women and my mother, because I gave them power over me to control my mental well being.  What made me more resentful was that I wasn’t getting their approval back in return.

All who are reading this may be able to take a “wild guess” as to how my dating life was.

If a person were to take a good look at my quest for self improvement, they would see me constantly beating myself for not being a good person, me beating myself up for days on end for lapsing into the “old me”, me trying to acquire “knowledge” so as to impress people into believing I was a “good person”, me being so stiff and stifled because I couldn’t trust myself to be “free” because I might mess up, me being terrified of receiving someone’s disapproval because then it meant that I really hadn’t changed.

My goodness, it’s a miracle that I didn’t leap from a window or go postal.

I remember reading a quote during my years in the wilderness that went something like this (I don’t remember it verbatim), “Change produced by hate can never produce love.”

Oh yes, I definitely hated myself.

Now, let me ask you, does all this sound like self improvement to you?

Now you can see why I put “self improvement” in quotes.  Clearly, I wasn’t improving myself.  All I was doing was seeking an affirmation that I wasn’t a bad person while beating myself up along the way.

The thing was, I really didn’t know I was doing all this.

It was as if I were setting out from a journey to Chicago from New York with a map of Detroit, complaining the whole time why I wasn’t getting any closer to Chicago or why where I was winding up didn’t resemble Chicago at all.

That revealing conversation with my mom made me realize I was looking at the wrong map…..DOH!

At least now with the right map, I could get an inkling of where I needed to go.

I would also like to add that had I not followed Divine guidance and taken time away from my friends, I probably wouldn’t have gotten this revelation.  Taking time away from the people that I had been around all my life allowed me to gain a different perspective of myself that made it ripe for me to receive the breakthrough I did.

Obedience to Divine guidance pays!

When I got this breakthrough, I was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief because a big burden was lifted off my back.  I now was able to see that I had a lot of guilt in being a man instilled in me by society, my family and the Church, and I read some very interesting books that helped strip away a lot of that guilt.  I also now began the painstaking process of untangling myself from approval seeking (which I might add is still going on up till now).

I also cut down considerably on the amount of self improvement books I read.  The urgent need that I had once felt to read every self improvement book in sight left me.

Finally, the REAL self improvement process had begun.  It was as if God had said to me, “Now you’re ready for Me to deal with you.”  He now was in the driver’s seat.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I still don’t have the pink unicorn or the mansion on the hill.  In fact, if you might be thinking that my life got any “easier”, I’m here to tell you that it didn’t.  Straight from the desert, I had a brief respite before I was led into “purgatory”, (though it still felt like hell).  This period lasted for another three and a half years where my life actually got harder.  However, this served to be a cleansing period where, unlike the previous five years, I experienced a lot of growth, though I must admit, I didn’t care too much for many of the experiences I had that forced me to grow.

Hey, you know the saying, “be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.”  Boy did I get it.

Click here to read Part 2 of “Why you’re getting absolutely NOWHERE in your self improvement path.”

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You know, when I first completed this site, I considered this a milestone in my life.  After years of writing about The Viable Alternative, I finally was able to compile it all into one neat little site.  I beamed with pride at what I considered an intellectual masterpiece of all the insights that helped me on my path of personal development.

Well, after my “crowing achievement”, when I realized all was “done”, I excitedly email several trusted friends of mine who’ve been what I’ve considered confidants on my path of self-discovery and tell them to check out my site.

One of my friends, who has been a trusted mentor of mine, gave me what my ego considered to be some damning feedback about my site.  Now, I always welcome constructive criticism from trusted and well meaning people, because it helps me to grow and work on my blindspots.  However, due to fact that I am a sensitive person by nature, (a quality that I have always loathed about myself), the feedback was quite stinging.

The feedback given to me was that I still came off as very guarded in my writing, which, she said, is a reflection of how I am in real life.  Furthermore, I was told that my writing had too much head and not enough heart.

What? …..Wow!  How could someone NOT be impressed by such an obvious intellectual masterpiece?  After all the tremendous growth I’ve made in the past 2.5 years culminating in me being FINALLY ready to do a site like this, how can someone still be saying this?

Well, after licking my wounds for a few days, and almost scrapping the site altogether (I said “almost”, but yes, I’m such a perfectionist. .sheesh), the clouds began to part and a whole new realization about what’s to be the next phase of my life opened up.  A lesson that I was only now ready to receive had become plain to me.  The next phase of my life is to involve learning to let down my guard.

You see, one of the main reasons I started my path of self improvement was because I felt I was too stifled.  I wanted to learn how to un-stifle myself and become fully self expressed.  I hated the fact that some days, I’d be this suave, charismatic person, while MOST other times, I was stilted, self-conscious and inhibited.

I would read stories about people I admired, one of them being “The Rock,” a.k.a.  Dwayne Johnson, professional wrestler and actor, and I would gush with admiration (and envy) when people would praise his charisma, his wittiness, and aura of power.  I wanted to be that confident, charismatic guy that people loved and thought was cool.  I wanted to be that guy who was always on, always had something witty to say, who exuded that “power.”

To be honest however, I failed miserably at achieving this “goal”, and the more I tried to be that “guy”, the more frustrated and inhibited I became.  For YEARS I banged my head against the wall getting absolutely nowhere.  In fact, I reflect in embarrassment on how annoying I must’ve been to others.  Can you imagine what it’s like to be around someone who’s “trying” to be cool and confident in order to be liked?  It’s weird when others do it and I must’ve looked quite weird myself.  There’s a sense that something is off, and my friend, something was definitely off with me.

Well, the reason why I failed so miserably was because I was missing a piece of the puzzle.  That piece was a willingness to let down my guard.

For as long as I can remember right from infancy, I had a deep emotional wound that left me with a feeling of always being weak and vulnerable.  This caused me to be very sensitive as a child.  I used to cry at the drop of a hat.  From some of the deep soul searching I’ve done over the years, I really think it might’ve come from the fact that at one point in my life at a very, very young age, I felt as if I were abandoned by my mother.  That wound was further exacerbated by the emotional wounds inflicted by people in and out of my family while I was growing up.

With me seeing the world as a hostile, unfriendly place in which I felt too weak to defend myself against to the very core of my being, I learned to build a wall around me that would hide my pain from me and from others.  This would be where I stopped living from the TRUE core of who I was, and constructed a false self known as my “ego”.

So with this type of past, here I am YEARS later, saying that I want to be free, spontaneous and fully self-expressed but failing miserably.

The problem was that this whole “altruistic” goal of mine was all b.s.

I was coming from my ego, where I wanted to look cool so I could be loved and admired by everyone.  I really didn’t give a rat’s ass about expressing myself from my core, which is what TRUE self expression is.  Hence the conflict I had: on one end, I was desperately attached to projecting a certain persona to the public while on the other end I was cursing my life as to why I wasn’t able to freely express myself and be spontaneous.

By identifying with my ego and its goals, I was able to stay hidden behind the wall I built up to hide my pain.  And if I insisted on hiding my pain, there was absolutely NO way I could ever hope to ever be “free”.  Imagine watching a fight where someone gets badly injured and is trying to protect his wound.  Chances are you’re going to witness this guy receive a good pummeling by his opponent.  He’s not free to “express” his fighting skills because he’s trying to protect something.

Ironically, I was that guy, the guy who was being pummeled by life because I couldn’t, or wouldn’t let my guard down.  Imagine wanting to be free, but somehow “something” seems to be holding you back.  Take it from me, it sucks, and I would know because I lived that way for most of my life.

I wanted to be free but I didn’t want to pay the price.

The price I now realize would be me manning up, letting go of my ego so my core self can shine through.  That would mean giving up “control” of how I wanted to look and giving that power over to my core self.

It would mean letting my guard down and being……vulnerable.

By the way, when I say, “vulnerable”, I don’t mean I become a person who falls down on his back crying anytime someone does or says something to me I don’t like.  Rather, I mean being a person who’s willing to express and SHARE who I am with the world, warts and all, without fear of who will or will not accept me.

At this new crossroads in my life, I realize my overwhelming desire that I nursed deep down for years to lose my “inhibitions” would NEVER ever be achieved if I was attached to looking a certain way to the people.  That’s not being free, but somehow, I was able to lie to myself all these years that I was indeed striving for freedom.  Somebody shoot me….just kidding.

My ego had absolutely NO interest in letting my core self shine through unless it expressed an image that was pleasing to my ego.  It was terrified of giving up “control” because it was afraid of what may come up.  Hence the reason for the existence of the robotic, emotionless, frustrated individual that many people knew to be me, living totally inauthetically in that he said he wanted one thing (freedom of self expression) but was actively pursing the opposite goal (expressing a false self engineered by the ego in order to look good and protect himself).  Sad, but true.

I now accept the fact that by letting my core shine through, everything expressed by my core may not be in line with the image my ego wants me to present to the world.  Everything expressed by my CORE self may not be so “peachy”.  My “warts” are certain to come up as well.  However it’s these “warts”, these odd quirks that we all have that actually set us apart from each other

Now, don’t get me wrong, like I said earlier, the last 2.5 years was probably the period of some of the greatest growth I had ever experienced in my life.  A lot of this growth had enabled me to connect more to my true self and become less inhibited.  The feedback I had received was my friend pointing out a blindspot that I hadn’t been able to see in order to aid me in my growth  and self-discovery process.  Had I been given this feedback let’s say three years ago, it would’ve sounded like some extinct Biblical language.  In fact, it was like a extinct language to me, because people had told me before that I was guarded, but frankly, either I didn’t care, or I didn’t know really how to take it or what to do about it.

Hey, like I said in my about me page, I am in no way some type of guru.  I am a work in progress and will be so until the day I die.  I am here to share my insights that I’ve learned in my life to help you along.

I’ve written this to extend my hand to you, in the way someone who was drowning in quicksand has figured how to climb out, and wants to take others in the same predicament with him as he climbs to safety.  I’ve learned the past year that fulfillment, the number one thing we all seek in life, is gained by giving value to others.  How I personally gain fulfillment is by inspiring others, and giving others insight from what I’ve been through.

There’s no way I could really effectively do that unless I learn to let my guard down so my own core self can shine through.

If you’re painfully self-conscious to the point where you’re afraid of making any move because you’re afraid of looking bad, I feel your pain.  It feels so constricting, so stifling.  It feels as if you’re in your own prison looking out at a world that seems to be freely living life.  What’s worse is when you try to solve this but can’t seem to get anywhere year after frustrating year.  It feels as if your life is passing you by.

I invite you to welcome the possibility that you really have no idea what freedom really is…..News Flash: I didn’t.  The “freedom” you desire has strings attached, but that’s not really freedom, is it?

First off, let’s call a spade a spade. There’s no use living under false pretenses any longer.  Your REAL goal is to hide behind a wall and have the world see you a certain way.  That’s why you haven’t been able to make any “progress”.  You think you want one thing but have been going after something else.

Think about comedians.  I’ve read that some comedians tend to be some of the saddest people on this planet, though they make people laugh for a living.  I’m not saying all comedians are like this, but those who are, they use humour as a wall to hide behind their pain that most likely originated from childhood.  Comedy is a way they escape from their pain and also gain acceptance from others.

They may be able to make people laugh and gain people’s acceptance, but are they really free?  Are they REALLY expressing themselves?

Hey, I have my own wall I hide behind, and will continue to do so until I fully evolve to the next level where I’m fully able to let my guard down.

The difference between me and you is that I have now realized The Illusion that I’ve been living and choose not to live this way anymore.  I’m sharing my insight here with you to give you a chance to make the same choice.

Now, if you’ve seen the light and have made the decision that you don’t want TRUE freedom and rather continue hiding behind a wall constructed by your ego where you’re seeking to appear a certain way to the world, I wish you all the best.  At least now, you’re honest about what you want and are no longer lying to yourself.

If on the other hand you’re tired of living all the b.s., and want to be truly free, you must first acknowledge that there is a SELF within you that you had no idea about that is far, FAR greater than any image that your ego tried to project to the world.

It is a self so complex, so vast, yet so beautiful that it scares the hell out of your ego because your ego can’t truly grasp it, so it tries to bottle it up and put it in a corner to use for its own selfish devices.

Unstifling our selves involves giving up the idea of “control” and surrendering to a greater self that can never be controlled.  It involves getting out of our way and letting ourselves BE.  Now, what may now come forth may not always be “pretty” the way we may want.  It may not always be wrapped up in a nice neat little bow.  Some “dark stuff” may emerge from time to time.  However, because it will be coming from our CORE, and not from our ego, that in and of itself is BEAUTIFUL as well.

Our true, core self within each of us does not give a damn about how the world perceives it.  It has no need to “hide” because it’s already aware that it was “fearfully and wonderfully made.”  It’s not concerned with the past or future because it lives in now, and is thus able to flow from moment to moment.

Before I go, I’ll let you in on one more thing: by letting our core selves shine through, we will exude charisma EFFORTLESSLY.

Now, doesn’t that sound like TRUE freedom to you?  Well, it does to me.

Giving up control is the price you and I have to pay for freedom, but I’m prepared, because as I heard a “retired” millionaire once say, “freedom ain’t free.”

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps.

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Welcome to The Viable Alternative.  My goal is for you to be inspired through this concept to express your own unique greatness to the world in a way that only you can, using whatever resources and treasures that you uniquely possess.  This site provides several tools and resources listed below that will help you remove the obstacles that stand in the way of you breaking out of The Illusion and living The Viable Alternative.

1. Podcasts where I interview people whose lives are a reflection of The Viable Alternative;
2. A personal development blog that shares the insights and lessons that I’ve learned on my own path of self discovery and self actualization that I embarked on so that I may live The Viable Alternative.
3. Recommendations of different books, organizations, movies that have helped me in the past;

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