Why Stop at Thoughts and Prayers?
The three-step approach to manifesting any outcome.
The age of information has heralded an unprecedented level of awareness. Billions of people the world over equipped with internet-ready smartphones, instantly transmitting data at the press of a share, like, or follow.
The balance between nascence and ignorance has thus skewed heavily to ignorance. With all the available data, being out of the loop is no longer an excuse!
Rockets dropped on Yemeni villages are immediately identified as American. With images of carnage and patriotic shrapnel making the case irrefutable. Likewise, century-hidden infractions of animal rights have become part of the public domain. Reaching a far wider global audience than Upton Sinclair’s 1906 tell-all, The Jungle ever could. Every whale slaughter. Dolphin cull. Dog-meat festival. And polluted ocean. There for all to bear witness.
With this vast amount of data-driven awareness comes a public reckoning.
While many of our society’s data-points seem binary (climate change, pollution, war, etc.), humans are not binary by nature. We do not see in black and white or interpret the world as zeros and ones. That distinction is reserved for machines!
Humans are complex webs of data processing contradictions. Receiving information and often finding heuristics for optimized integration. Most Americans are far too familiar with this topic as it pertains to gun violence.
While mass-shootings plague American society, the political response is often, “thoughts and prayers.” Rational minds may understand the danger of rampant gun ownership, yet the solution is far too complex to process. The result is the creation of a heuristic: a shortcut.
Rather than consider a complex solution to a complex problem, thoughts and prayers offer an easier way out! Because our brains use up to 20% of our body’s total available energy, humans are programmed to save CPU at every turn. Over analyzing is the surest way to induce an unexpected nap or a more serious burnout!
But thoughts and prayers don’t end with the complexities of gun ownership. These heuristics extend to how we tackle every problem facing our existence. In fact, the age of information has made many of us feel we’re doing more than ever before. When in actuality, we are as lazy, complacent, and unmotivated as ever! Cleverly rolling in our piles of likes and follows yet failing to change any out-of-balance condition.
We are all activists! Thinking, praying, sharing, just not actually doing anything to change an outcome.
Somewhere on the road of rapid human expansion and evolution, we’ve lost the plot to manifesting our destiny. Manifestation is a trendy word these days. But little has changed in the way we approach manifesting our dreams into reality.
Manifestation relies on a tried and tested timeless approach…
Three steps. Three levels of increasing awareness reached with each step. The combination of the three magically turns an intention into reality.
I. Thoughts.
II. Deeds.
III. Actions.
I hope that wasn’t a disappointing reveal. If it was, perhaps you are indeed my target audience! Having seen the basic nature of the toolkit, many are disappointed that they knew it all along. There is no shortcut. This is not a heuristic!
Analyzing further, we can see where so many of us fall short of manifesting change in our lives or in our collective society. To understand this better, let us dig deeper into the three steps.
Everything in our material existence starts with a thought. The idea that sparks motion is the beginning of the chain of events that leads to everything that follows. In order for that thought to become reality, it must first leave the confines of your mind. The most common way for this to happen is to express this thought as words.
Deeds are thoughts put into words. Spoken, written, and declared for all to see that your intention means business. A deed elevates the thought into something others can see and help you co-create. Birthing the idea into the material world.
Once the seedling of intention appears in the material world, the real work begins. Cultivating, caring, and nurturing that seed-deed with actions. Actions are material, logistical steps to bring the deed into a fully manifested, 3D reality. Actions and the consistency with which they’re performed will directly impact manifestation.
In today’s overwhelmed, digital culture, out of three steps, most of us are hitting one and a half. And on occasion putting our deeds on other’s thoughts — creating inauthentic manifestation chains.
How many of you care about animal rights? Showing your care with your deeds. AKA, posting animal rights videos on Facebook? But is this deed springing from your authentic thought, and do you plan to see that thought through to make a change? To manifest transformation in your life?
Some of you are indeed devout manifesting ninjas. Tirelessly campaigning, petitioning, and writing letters to your local politicians. You are the exception. Odds are, if you are this person, you also lead a vegan lifestyle. Shunning fur. And decline parmesan if offered on a bowl of otherwise vegan pasta. For most, this is nowhere close to reality, despite what public personas may show!
A typical human in today’s info-social reality spends most of their time consuming the deeds of others. At times regurgitating those deeds, should they derive added utility to the regurgitator. But fleeting near-term utility only leads to future disappointment. Humans are hard-wired to want to see the fruits of their labor. We demand to see change if we put effort into changing something!
As many of us follow this behavior, it becomes the norm. The so-called herd-mentality. Posting and reposting. Patting each other on the back for 20 seconds of worthless attention. We make ourselves feel better for being part of the herd because it fits our basic human need for socialization and community. But we often don’t change the out-of-balance condition within ourselves to create the change we wish to see in the world (Gandhi).
Re-posting a video of slaughtered animals while eating a salami sandwich, doesn’t make you a change-maker, it makes you a hypocrite. Running a marathon for the oceans while buying a plastic water bottle on the way home doesn’t make you an activist, it makes you ignorant. Sending thoughts and prayers won’t prevent future children from being gun-downed in their school. It just makes you feel better about yourself at the moment you integrated that painful catalyst.
Rather than fall into the herd of ineffectiveness, change your own life to reflect your values. If you’re appalled by the plastics in the ocean, understand the supply chain that creates the overabundance of plastic. Use your spending choices as daily votes for a different system. Lead a zero-waste lifestyle. Encourage your business to do the same. Implement policies that align sustainability with your customer acquisition and retention efforts. Know it, live it, spread it.
If you’re concerned about animal welfare, become vegan. Boycott brands that don’t align with your cause. Tell others around you why you made those choices. Understand that animal welfare directly relates to human welfare. If you didn’t know your dairy habit is responsible for the veal industry, and the egg industry kills billions of male chicks a year — open your eyes further. Use different types of information to appeal and convey your values to others. Know it, live it, spread it.
When you think you’ve done enough, strengthen your deeds! If we agree that most humans only get to one-and-a-half of the three steps to manifestation — we’re clearly fucking up the approach to step two!
In order for a deed to have true power, it must be authentic. It must come from your individual thought form and drive your feelings and values forward into the material world.
When you have a thought that's been keeping you up for days, focus your effort on the deed. Let your deed reach those that hold the power to change the out-of-balance condition. Write letters to your local elected representatives, this even works in Russia! What’s your excuse at only posting your ramblings on Facebook when your local Senator is waiting to speak on your behalf?
For me, writing a letter to Senator Chuck Schumer changed my life. Or at least relieved an out-of-balance condition sooner than expected. That fateful letter in 2008 to expedite my US citizenship application, was not only answered, but it was also actioned. Whatever your fight may be, fight it from beginning to end, putting yourself at the center of the narrative. If you don’t care enough to write or do, no one else ever will.
Imagine the power of 7.5B humans going through each of the three steps to drive their wishes into reality. What would this world look like? I suspect it would involve less complaining, and pointing fingers. At governments. Corporations. And all the other parties supposedly responsible for the ills of our society!
The age of information has been a blessing in allowing humans to raise their awareness. Yet it came with no instructions manuals to harness this power for our greater good. Like everything else that humanity has created, this abundance of data is only a tool. A tool for us to evolve.
In order for us to step fully into a new paradigm, we must first recognize the divinity within ourselves to change our circumstances.
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” — Leo Tolstoy
