“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If there is one thing that is certain, it is that the world has plans for you. Most, if not all of the time, those plans have little to nothing to do with who you really are at the core of you. 

The world’s plans are presented in a variety of  ways. For example, they may come couched in expectations from parents or community. They may be cloaked in cultural or national patterns of normalcy. They often have economic and sociological dimensions. 

The world’s plans for you are ubiquitous, so much so that it can be hard to get the distance necessary to realize that you are much more than the world would have you be. 

Greed and fear are in many ways the father and mother of the world we have today. The world’s plans for you are the child of this union. In a world governed by this unruly tyrant, wants are confused with needs, fulfillment is defined in terms of getting rather than giving, lust displaces true love, and beliefs and superstitions trump truth. 

Rest assured, you can live in this world, as it was once put, and yet not be of it. You need not submit to the cruel mastery of fear and greed. You can be ruled by another spirit altogether: love.