Life is hard.

Sometimes.

It is also easy sometimes.

It is also neither sometimes. It depends on the day. The real question is,

"What version of life do you think it is"?

Do you think life is hard? If so, I'm pretty sure you will find many examples to prove your point. Do you think life is easy? If so, I'm pretty sure you will find many examples to prove your point.

As Henry Ford once said,

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”

Not to belabour the point, but your attitude determines your reality. You will experience the world as you paint it with the brush of your perceptions.

A thief thinks everyone is a thief.

A liar thinks everyone is a liar.

I am suggesting that you will inevitably find evidence to back up your world view no matter what it is. If you have a negative world-view you will always see the bad. If you have a positive view, you will tend to see the good.
This is not magic or spiritual woo-woo, this is science. Your reticular cortex is the part of your brain that filters through the massive amounts of information that comes into your perception from your 5 senses and decides what you pay attention to. If you didn't have this function you would not be able to make sense of the world at all, there is too much information to process all at once. So your brain makes choices.

Did you ever notice that when you are shopping for something in particular, like a new car, you start to see the make and model you desire everywhere? You start to notice all the different colours and styles. You see your favourite car stand out in a parking lot full of other cars. This is because you are thinking about it and paying attention to it.

Life is no different. You will see what you are interested in, or paying attention to, amidst all the other things that are going on in your world. As my mother used to say,

"If you are looking for trouble, you will always find it".

So, many people go through life believing that the world is "out to get them", and somehow bad luck follows them around. There are the few who believe that they are truly blessed, and life seems to send them nuggets of serendipity more often than not.

The truth is, life does neither of these things. Life, or the universe, is neutral. Some would say indifferent, but it is, by its very nature, a creation/destruction machine. So our thoughts are connected to, and an integral part of, the process of creation and destruction that is constantly happening. Life is happening all around us with equal amounts of bad, good, up, down and otherwise. There is no bias in the happenstance of existence. Things just ARE.

What we pay attention to, however, defines our EXPERIENCE of reality. We tend to believe that our life is going well or spiralling out of control based on our thoughts about it, not our actual circumstances.

Victor Frankl, in his groundbreaking work "Man's Search For Meaning" wrote about when he was in a Nazi concentration camp. As a prisoner, he was treated the same as all the other prisoners, yet some survived and some didn't. His conclusion was that those who survived had something to live for. They had a purpose. They had plans that extended out beyond their incarceration. This gave them purpose and hope. In spite of the terrible conditions they endured they had a reason to live. This is a perfect example of mindset being the difference in ones reality. All had the same circumstances, but not everyone interpreted them the same way, and thus, their lives we a product of their thoughts and attitudes, not their environment.

I am often reminded of the song "The Cheap Seats" by Alabama. In this toe-tapper, the lyrics wax poetic about how great it feels to be average. It is a celebration of mediocrity in the best sense. It encourages us to find happiness in our present circumstances without believing that things need to be better and that they could be much worse. It is all about mindset.

Beliefs

The problem with our perceptions of reality is that we believe them. We actually believe that the world is good or bad or indifferent. We believe it - so we never think to question it. We never stop to think whether our beliefs are true or not because they are beliefs. That is the nature of beliefs. We think that they are hard, immutable facts and build our paradigms around them. This is the nature of humanity. We are hard-wired to build meaning into our circumstances and we act, more often than not, from a desire to align with the meaning of things, instead of the reality of things. The things we think are true, or important motivate us. The things we disregard or believe are false we have no use for.

The part of this idea we need to understand is that we chose these beliefs. We created them from our own interpretations of circumstance. They are not necessarily laws written on stone tablets or equations deep in the bowels of a physics textbook. Especially our perceptions of good and bad, right and wrong, or creation and destruction; these are purely subjective.

For instance, one might perceive that smoking cigarettes is a good thing. Someone who smokes, believes that the feeling they get from the nicotine is a good thing. They may unconsciously believe that smoking makes them look cool or it defines them as a mature man or woman, because that is what "grown-ups" do. These are ideas that are ingrained in their minds based on decisions they made a long time ago. They don't question them. Sure they are aware of the health hazards of smoking, but they don't care. Lung cancer isn't visible, so it is easy to ignore. But the immediate physical and psychological "high" they get from a cigarette is tangible, so they choose to continue.

So therefore, they have very little incentive to quit. Not until they get cancer, or start to have real, dangerous effects to their health or the health of someone they love will it ever occur to them to change their beliefs about smoking. Sometimes, this new paradigm sticks and they never smoke again. Sometimes not. (Smoking is an insidious habit - I understand it is an addiction).

The point is, before the health crisis, it never occurred to them that they COULD change their beliefs about smoking - I'll even go so far as to say they never even realised they HAD a belief about smoking. That is the case for most people about most things they believe. They believe things without even realizing that it is a belief. They just accept it as fact and move on. It is a permanent state of things until something happens that bring to light the possibility that it could be changed.

So when we believe that the world is cruel and we are doomed to "bad luck", not only will we look for evidence of such, we may even unconsciously act in such a way as to perpetuate that claim. We will self-sabotage without thinking, as we cannot support the idea that things could possibly work out well for ourselves. This is a terrible way to live, yet those who do, are trapped because they haven't been made aware that there is a way out of their misery. They haven been taught or shown how to create their own reality. This is a tragedy.

As luck would have it, the opposite is also true. When you believe that the universe has your best interests at heart, you tend to find evidence to support your belief. Life becomes a beautiful experience full of wonder and opportunity. "Good luck" seems to find you regularly.

The hard reality of the world is that - "it is what it is". I believe that in a system of creation and destruction, which is the very nature of reality, there are equal parts of each. This balance is always maintained. Even though it is just a perception, I also believe that there are equal parts good and bad in the world too. I accept that the bad exists and I pay attention to it as needed ( it would be naive to do otherwise), but I tend to FOCUS on the good. This makes the difference.

The other reality check one might consider is that most of the things happening in the world don't affect you. Yes, we are all connected and nothing happens in a vacuum, but for the most part, your life will not be impacted by a car accident in Montreal unless it is someone you know. With the billions of people in the world, the odds are very low. So, you may as well focus on your immediate circumstances, as this is where you have the most influence. This helps keep you in the present moment, and reminds you of your self-efficacy. You always have the choice of how you react to anything that happens.

The Chicken and the Egg

Are most poor people poor because they have a poor mindset, or do they have a poor mindset because they are poor? This is the question. The answer is not that simple but I will make an argument that it doesn't really matter.

Like bio-feedback in the body, the mind affects the body just as the body affects the mind. Which do you have control over? Both.

The same goes for poverty and your mindset. You can control both.

Let’s consider two scenarios:

Poor guy A wins the lottery. He suddenly has tons of money and is no longer "poor"
Poor guy B learns how to change his circumstances by educating himself on the inner workings of money and wealth.

You probably know what happens here..

Poor guy 'A' is broke within 2 years and is probably worse off than he was before. This is a statistical fact, based on studies of lottery winners.

Poor guy 'B' slowly builds up his fortune over time using tried and true principles of wealth building. He is no longer poor.

So what fixed the "poor" problem?

Was it money?

Was it mind-set?

The answer is obvious. The knowledge of how to earn, invest and manage money was the key. Money is only as useful as the person who is using it. You are "rich" or "poor" based on who you are, not your bank account statement.

Many rich people have said that they are never worried about money because if they lost it all, they would be able to make it all back within a short period of time. They know HOW to make money. That is the real wealth.

"If someone gives you a million dollars, you better hurry up and become a millionaire"

-Jim Rohn

I hope it is becoming clear that your financial circumstances are not the true measure of wealth. It is your mindset. It is your attitude. This is not some pollyanna affirmation about having a positive attitude. This is a wake-up call to get your head out of your ass and realize that you are not a victim. You are in control of your destiny. You have the opportunity to "see" the world differently.

The hard fact is, no matter where you are starting from, you can move forward. You can educate yourself. You can learn what needs to be learned to improve your financial conditions. You can develop the habits that are needed to exercise patience and execute your plan. You can learn to sacrifice and save. You can learn to think in new ways that allow you to make better choices. You can start to think about the long-term consequences of your actions, instead of fighting fires constantly. You can do it. It is a choice, not luck.

So if you find that you are struggling through life or believe that the world is "keeping you down", take a step back and try to observe your attitude about things. Try to get out of your head and examine your beliefs about money, rich people and whether or not you are in control of your life or not.

Stop being a victim and take control of your attitude. You may not be able to control your circumstances, but you always have a choice about how you react to them.

Learn what you need to learn about money and investing. Read my books. Take my course. Read other peoples books. Take other peoples courses. It doesn't matter. The information is out there to help you help yourself. So get out of your own way and start changing mind.

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