Spiritually Successful

Can spirituality make you more successful? Definitely. Spirituality can provide a consistent foundation, to better contribute to and celebrate life.

By “successful”, I mean more effective and satisfied with life. And I mean “spiritual” in a very broad sense —for purposes beyond our own individual physical existence.

There are many definitions of spirituality. Overall, it is a belief in something greater than ourselves, a shared human experience that connects us all. It often involves a quest for the meaning and purpose of life.

Many of us avoid the question “what is the meaning of life” thinking it is impossible to know. But it is a fundamental question which can provide direction and joy in our lives.

The majority of North Americans are no longer religious, yet most are still spiritual. Many of us are still vaguely influenced by the religious beliefs of our society. The result is that many of us have belief systems with big holes and conflicts. They prevent us from being effective and really enjoying life.

What are aspects of being Spiritually Succesful?

1. Providing example guidelines for developing a spiritually grounded belief system. (See below for examples.)
2. Early morning motivation calls. These calls will help you start your day off right, by exploring questions like:

• What is there to celebrate today and how will you celebrate?
• What is your contribution today?
• Why are we here?
• What do you see possible for yourself today?

3. Guided meditations that get us present to:

• How we are all connected
• What is the impact of your contribution today
• What is there to celebrate today

4. Online and in-person events, involving spiritual and motivational discussions, meditation, yoga, prayer, music, dance, and more.

Example Guidelines:

The Spiritually Succesful movement will provide guidelines and practices on how to develop a belief system that makes you more effective and satisfied with life. And these are just guidelines. This is not dogma. They’re not set in stone. Figure out what works for you.

1. To rely on a spiritual rule to guide your actions, it should be backed by science.

Belief in supernatural intervention can give us comfort — prayer, the law of attraction, a feeling that God is looking out for us. We are free to hold supernature beliefs. What I’m saying is, don’t base your life on something you can’t prove. Luckily, there are spiritual beliefs that can be proven by science.

2. It’s not serious.

In other words, ‘don’t take existence so seriously’. Many religious teachings imply that life is serious business. Take for example the ‘Protestant Work Ethic’. If you live in North America, it may be subconsciously driving you. The idea is that ‘hard work is a sign of faith and salvation’. I do not mean that life is meaningless and therefore it doesn’t matter what you do. In fact “life” (i.e. living things like us) have a clear purpose. (See below.) But what’s unhealthy is an obsession with achieving something to prove something to ourself (or to God). What’s deadly is predjuicing or being violent against someone else because of our own beliefs.

3. “Life” has a clear purpose: to multiply. And that is manifest through our desire to “celebrate” and “contribute”.

By ‘life’ I mean all of the living organisms on the planet (including us), every cell that makes us up, every gene etc… Living things want to replicate. Richard Dawkins provides a great explanation of this.

Life sets up a complex system of rewards, to drive behavior that leads to survival and growth — for example, organisms find eating food pleasurable and at the cellular level, chemicals such as the neurotransmitter dopamine is used to enforce favorable behaviors.

Our fundamental question each day is how will we celebrate and how will we contribute because that is what we are wired to do.

4. We are not just optimizing for the ‘ego’, we are optimizing for the ‘greater good’.

I often ask people ‘Why do you want to contribute? Why do you want to do good things for others? Why do you want a career where you will make a difference? etc…” The answer I often get is “I don’t know, it makes me feel good.” Although this drive exists in all of us, it’s hard to define and base decisions on.

On the other hand, we live in a society where the ‘ego’ has grown out of control — an emphasis on ‘our self’ at the expense of all others. Our materialistic world baits the ego with more-and-more self-gratification.

There is some room for a ‘healthy ego’. After all, by each of us doing our best, we do better as a whole. And we experience and ‘celebrate’ life as individuals.

The question is how do we balance the ‘ego’ or the ‘needs of the self’ with the ‘needs of others’? And how does this balancing act differ amongst different people (family, friends, our community, or people on the other side of the world) or different animals, plants etc…

Science can provide some guidance. We are genetically programmed to optimize at the gene level, not the organism level (i.e. for individual people.) Our genes are concerned with replicating themselves and they will drive actions that promote this. But your genes are also aware that their copies exist in other people and other living things. Having children is one way of promoting your genes, but also realize that there are more copies of your genes already in others. Often it is more advantageous to contribute to others to ensure their genes survive and prosper.

It’s actually quite liberating to realize that you are pre-programmed to be more concerned about others than yourself. But remember that you posess a healthy sense of ego as well — it’s your survival instinct.

5. Never prejudice, discriminate, or abuse someone else.