The Post that Nobody Read Because It Contained the Secret to Everything

If there is anything I’ve learned from reading a week’s worth of “how to write a blog” articles, it’s that no one reads the first post. No one reads the first post for good reason: no one knows that it exists.This is why I thought I’d include the secret to everything in this particular post. I mean, if I put the secret in post No. 4839 when a quarter of the planet’s population is reading (ha ha), it won’t be much of a secret.

So here it is:

You can’t change a damn thing that is going on around you. You can’t change people, your environment, your job (or lack thereof) or any of that other stuff. Not in a significant way… not in a way that is really changing those things. You can move around, try different jobs or manipulate people, but there is no authentic change going on. Trying to change any of that is like trying to change a bad film by throwing tomatoes at the movie screen. No matter how many you toss, it’s still a bad film.

Now before you go take a leap off a bridge or something, let me add that you can change one thing and that is you. Your real job, my real job, everybody’s real job is to work on the self. This self is much more dynamic than as it might appear. You totally change you by changing your beliefs (aka your perceptions); you can strategically realign the self through various exercises such as yoga; and you can tweak it for full potential with commitment and perseverance. The self is like a director, script writer and projector rolled up into one. So when you work on yourself, all that stuff you can’t change, changes.

Instead of throwing tomatoes at a bad movie, you start watching a different movie. Sometimes you have to go through a multitude of films before you find a genre you like, but the basic principle remains the same.  In other words, you can’t change anything outside of you directly; you can only change anything outside of you indirectly by changing you. I’ve found this principle stated in numerous texts, both modern and ancient. Obviously, a lot of people know about it. What really makes it secretive is that we forget it. Or we take it for granted. Or we are still under some delusion that we can manipulate others and happiness would be the outcome.