When I was in my late teens/early twenty’s I used to study a lot of different philosophies and new age thought concepts. It wasn’t a school requirement or anything like that, it was more of a personal interest and a process of self discovery at the same time. I was seeking out ideas bigger than myself to help define my place in the world. At one point, you could say I was a little bit of a personal growth junkie. I had all the books and could explain new age ideas off the cuff; I was a living breathing thought creates reality type of person.
As I got a little older, maybe even a little more mature, I started to take all of these concepts with a grain of salt. Most of the new age ideas started to seem more like mental masturbation and almost a way for people to avoid actually bettering themselves. All of the new thought stuff began to feel like inaction, with the attitude of “you’re just not believing hard enough” as the excuse.
Eventually, I moved away from that type of thinking and ended up with what I would consider is more a balanced perspective. It’s not to say that there weren’t some gems of information that I found within the pages of those books and resources, just that I learned to take a more objective approach. There was a lot of great stuff in there, but blind faith in anything has never been my strong suit.
There are still many things from that era of my life I proudly carry with me, but I will admit, once I started studying eastern philosophy and Buddhism more in depth, it made me realize that these larger than life concepts are intrinsically inside of all of us and can be found experientially on your own. It made continuing the “personal growth through other peoples ideas” feel pointless. So I stopped, started meditating and figured I guess that’s it, I’m done now.
But, the universe acts in strange ways and all of those new thought concepts and ideals I felt I had “grown out of” recently came crashing into me head on. An abundance of synchronicity, “Aha” moments, and an overwhelming amount of amazing things in my life just started manifesting themselves without having to force any of it. I am aware that creating these recent experiences has been a process of choices and actions that was put into motion before now, but I think for the first time, in a long time, I allowed my perception and awareness to be open enough to start seeing and reflecting on it beyond “this is good Karma”.
Needless to say, things are going great. I’m pretty high on life and 2012 has thus far been incredible. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me and I hope that your new year has kicked off to a start as good as mine!
Feel free to comment and let me know what you think about new agey type stuff. I would love to know your thoughts on the subject or hear about some awesome new years resolutions, keep smiling!
Happy and Fulfilled,
– Shane Lamotte
PS It’s totally YOUR fault 😉
Shane Lamotte 