The parents dream – my children are not only well-behaved, they are attending university and excelling in their studies. One day they will be leaders in their field… A common ideal for parents but reality, a dream headed for failure.

Universities, higher education, advanced learning are not the keys to success, happiness or a fulfilling life. They are only steps necessary to achieve a particular lifestyle and career experience.

Success is fulfilling your personal ideals. So if you want to be married with 6 children and you achieve it, then you are successful but you are not necessarily happy, wealthy or fulfilled. You have successfully achieved one of your fantasies, nothing else. You have successfully converted a dream into reality.

Whether you become a lawyer, doctor or street cleaner you will not be able escape the constant unexpected twists and turns of life. You will still be a victim of life. You will still experience happiness, unhappiness, frustration and pleasure. Within the wide scope of life, your career or your success is but a tiny aspect of the whole.

No matter what you achieve, you will not escape from real life. The richest to the poorest, the most famous to the most secretive, all experience the ups and downs of daily life. There is no escape. There is no utopia. Things will not be better when… they will simply be different to what they are now.

So whether you’ve got degrees or money, fame or notoriety, you are still subject to the strange and unpredictable punches and kicks that life throws at us all.

So what is success? Perhaps success is the ability to make a happy life in an unhappy world.

There are many situations in life that will not give you the results you desire. Most of your dreams will die on dry ground. Determination often only results in wasted energy and  frustrated efforts.

All of the positive thought in the world is not magically going to convert a situation to your favor. You cannot force life, nor can you charm it or coerce it to do things your way. Most likely life, whatever it is, has no interest in your personal goals and fantasies.

There is a good possibility that if life does have a purpose, it is for it’s own sake and not for yours. If you swim in the sea and swim against the tide with a positive attitude, do you think the tide might change direction just to please you?

If you go to the casino with $50, put it on the roulette wheel and pray really hard, do you think that miraculously, you will win? And if you don’t win and determine to never, never give up, do you think that eventually, you will come out as a winner… I think not!

Do you really believe that each little human on this planet is so powerful and so important that if they want something, all they have to do is nag and eventually, that thing called life will give it to them?

When you swim in the sea, if you swim with the current, you will probably enjoy the ride with a minimum of effort. If you want to swim against the current and fight life with a blind and unyielding attitude, it is doubtful that you will enjoy the ride. You will waste a lot of energy and possibly even drown – dammit!

Perhaps, the best you can hope for is to spot opportunities when you surrender and ride with the tide of life.

That cloud looks like an infinite awareness having a mystical experience on planet earth.

The problem is, the human brain has an extraordinary ability to find patterns in everything. It can cross-reference all manner of possibilities to find a relationship between the most obscure of situations.

The brain also works well with logic, so when it thinks it has found a relationship, it equates it to discovering a truth, the owner of the brain naturally takes the relationship as reality. The process of scanning for relationships and then accepting them as a truth, can be a matter of moments for the brain.

When you look at a cloudy sky, you can see all sorts of imagined pictures, especially images that are related to your current situation. These can be easily seen as omens by the ever-obliging, ever-justifying brain.

Omens from whom? From a god sitting in the sky? From your higher self? Why doesn’t it just tell you the message instead of confusing you with symbols and mystical innuendos? Or are the omens from some other secret source that is too subtle for anybody but you to understand?

Why the great mystery surrounding these higher messages? If they are really from some form of higher intelligence, doesn’t it speak English? The use of obscure omens seems a dumb way to impart a special message.

Can’t this source just whisper in your ear or perhaps give a you a good old-fashioned clear vision in a dream? And what’s wrong with emailing? If the hidden power that gives us these wonderful messages is so great and intelligent, surely it can find a clever way to send an email?

Omens? They are all in your head, created from a brain that is always busy finding relationships, meanings and purposes amidst all of the daily jumble that surrounds you. Stare long enough into the dark and your brain will soon start to create images and omens for you.

You are probably some sort of awareness in some sort of infinite existence, the number of possibilities at any moment is infinite. The number of relationships that your brain can find is endless and the number of signs, omens and secret messages all depends on your imagination and willingness to believe in it.

Everything offends me. I take offense whenever I think somebody disagrees with me. I take offense whenever I am unlucky or if someone else is lucky. I will be offended if you speak bluntly to me or or if you are indirect with me. I also take offense at random events that are simply annoying.

I take offense if something happens that I don’t like or if somebody does something that I would not do. I also take offense if governments don’t behave or if corporations don’t do what I wish they would do.

My friends are only my friends because they have not offended me too much… yet. Everybody else is totally offensive to me.

In fact when I think about it, everything is offensive. Life offends me.

I think it would be okay if things went my way, then I might not take offense so often but things usually don’t go my way and I find that offensive. I’m not sensitive and I am not easily offended, it’s just that everything and everybody else is so annoying.

Someone said to me that perhaps I am the one in the wrong and that I need to accept that life is not easy and that’s the nature of this planet… I took offense at that!