What’s your New Year’s Resolution?  Mine is to fail :-).  Huh?!?  Say What?   Of course my goal isn’t to literally fail, but my goal is to have unconditional love & acceptance for whatever life throws me.  To me, that’s more important than anything else because it supersedes any other attainment.  It’s a cure all.  If you can cultivate unconditional acceptance & gratitude for whatever life throws you, do you think you need “success” in the conventional sense?  Nope, my friends.  Not even a little bit.  Because once you develop unconditional acceptance, you transcend the need to attain the merely labeled success that society has taught us was so important.

So What Is Success Anyway?  

So what do you envision when you hear the word success?  I bet there are houses, cars, spouses & kids in your image, right?  The problem- The pain of attaining merely labeled “success” far outweighs the pay-off.  Once you surpass poverty & make about $50k-$70k/year, studies show that jumping up to $250k/year won’t make you any happier than $50-$70k does.  But the pain & cost of going from $50k to $250k is HEFTY.  Constant anxiety, deadlines, 60 hour work weeks, etc. are pretty standard for someone making that kind of dough.  I’m not telling you not to make a lot of money.  You can do whatever you want.  But, I would like to help you see reality & understand why you’re doing what you’re doing.  Are you doing this to be happier, or because “they” told you to?

Can Someone be Successful & Miserable?  

The unfortunate answer is Yes.  Many successful people are mean, unhappy, depressed, and generally drained of joy.  And it’s because the cost of attaining the commonly understood definition of success is very high.

I’d Like a Serving of Failure Please.

So if we’re all pre-programmed to succeed because that’s the “thing to do”, then most of us have been conditioned to have a serious aversion to failure, right?  That causes incredible anxiety & suffering in hundreds of thousands of people.  Drug companies sell billions of dollars worth of prescription medications because there’s a gap between what people want & their reality, or worse yet, there’s a chance people won’t get what they want which causes anxiety, and that too needs to be medicated.  Surely, there are some people that need medications, but we should explore the root of anxiety, fear, depression, unhappiness which is a fundamental inability to accept & embrace life.  To that end, what if we vigorously accept the notion of failing.  Let me say that again:  what if we concentrate on developing an acceptance of failure.    This requires a fundamental shift of our views.

Concept Schmoncept 

In order for us to have fear of failure, we must believe that it exists.  But the thing is- Failure is only an idea. A concept.  A thought.  Failure has no physical characteristics, size, location, color, weight, or physical existence.  Failure only exists in your mind, and it only exists because we keep the idea of failure alive.  Every moment we acknowledge failure, it remains on life support & continues to have around the clock care from the best nurses in our mind.  Think about it- does failure exist anywhere in the room that you’re in right now?  Is it floating around like dust particles, or like vapor?  No, of course not.  And can you say definitively that the fear of failure that exists in your mind is the same as the fear of failure that exists in my mind?  Of course not, and why?  Because our life experiences predicate how we see the world, how we feel emotions, etc.  The conclusion is that concepts only exist to the degree we keep them alive in our minds.  This is incredibly empowering because it means we can chose to radically accept whatever happens in life.

You’re Absolutely Perfect

Do you think the dog or the tree in this picture are self conscious about their weight? Do you think they’re worried about being accepted?  No, the tree leans left for the sun, and the dog, well she’s just Nila, pure dog :-). But I bet you don’t see the 2nd dog, Sita.  They accept life in a very simple sense, and we can too if we guard our minds & focus on understanding how to be happy which happens when we let go of the concepts we smother & grasp with our minds. Do I look fat in this shirt; am I going to look stupid asking this question. On & on we torture ourselves by clinging to these concepts that we take as really existing.  I bet nobody ever told you that you’re absolutely perfect.  So, I, Jason McDonald, hereby tell you with the utmost love and compassion in my heart, that you are completely 100% perfect.  And there’s nothing you can do to change that.  No online course will make you less perfect.  Nor will making more money, making less money, getting promoted,  getting fired, becoming fat, losing weight, buying a car, or breaking your iPhone.  None of these things will change your natural purity of perfection.  Your perfect just like trees, air, water, dogs, and the sound of a penny spinning on a table (sound nature).  In your most naked sense, you’re pure just like these things.  Dropping the adjectives, descriptions, expectations, hopes, fears, anger, desire, and a host of other mere thoughts & ideas that we’re imprisoned by, you’re perfect.  Be gentle toward yourself, be kind towards others, & understand this potent reality that all beings are exactly the same:  we want happiness & freedom from suffering, and it’s that simple.  And remember that whenever you so choose, you can let the perfection that is love & compassion warm your heart in such a way that you perceive everything else as absolute perfection.  The next time someone in a giant truck pulls in front of you on the highway & smokes you (yes that actually happened to me last weekend – they blew smoke at me & exhaust fumes), you can say that’s absolutely perfect & smile.  When your boss pressures you, it’s absolutely perfect.   Drop your preferences & radically accept life.  You’ll learn a new sense of liberation that’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.  

May all beings be happy, peaceful, and free of suffering on this most beautiful Thanksgiving eve.

Written with Love!  🙂