Creating a Better Life

It Is A Sin To Be Poor

“The law also applies to our demonstrations of prosperity. We cannot be very happy if we are poor, and nobody needs to be poor. It is a sin to be poor. You may ask whether Jesus cited any example of poverty’s being a sin? Yes. You will find it in the story of the prodigal son. That is often used as a text to preach to moral sinners, but a close study of it shows that Jesus was teaching the sin of lack and how to gain plenty. It is a wonderful prosperity lesson.” — Charles Fillmore, Prosperity

If, as I’ve said before, spirituality is that which gives life, then there is nothing less spiritual than poverty.

It would be nice to be able to just say to people “Don’t be poor.”  And sometimes it seems that’s what people are doing when they are throwing around quotes like “It is a sin to be poor” or this one:

“Whatever may be said in praise of poverty, the fact remains that it is not possible to live a really complete or successful life unless one is rich.” — Wallace Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich

If we stop there, all we’ve done is define the problem, and we can fall into the trap of blaming either ourselves or others for our failure.

But we need to get off of that quickly, and move on to solutions.

Charity Doesn’t Work

According to the two works that I cited above, there is only one long term solution to the problem of poverty: a connection to our Source (God, the Universe, Fred, whatever you want to call It.)

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t feed those who are hungry - one of the great teachers used his spiritual powers to do just that, and commanded his disciples to do the same.

But then there’s also this story, in which Jesus basically said “F’ em.”

It seems to me that the difference in the situations was that in the first two teachings, the feeding wasn’t just to put food in their mouths, but to do it in conjunction with teaching them, so that they could do it for themselves.

Simply putting food in front of people may keep their hearts beating, but if that is all we do, then nothing changes in the long run.  As a matter of fact, giving people food, shelter, and clothing without teaching them the basic principles of becoming prosperous themselves can turn them into slaves.

What You Can Do

There is nothing better that you can do for the world than to become prosperous yourself.

Become an example - of prosperity, of love, of generosity.

Give freely of your excess time, energy, and money - but until you have an excess of these things, don’t feel guilty for not giving.

Do what you can, where you are, right now, for yourself.  Abundance will come, and then you can share both the physical and the spiritual fruits of your labor.

Being Well, Getting Rich, and a new site for Free Personal Development Material

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on putting together a new site to replace my free personal development ebooks and free personal development audio pages.  This morning, I moved the last of the ebooks off of the ebooks page, and I think it’s about time that I pointed people to the new site.

The new site is at freepdmaterial.com - Free Personal Development Material.  Now that the ebooks have been moved, my next step will be the audio page.

I’d love to hear your comments on this new resource, and please let me know via the contact form about any resources that you’d like to see added.

And speaking of added resources, let me just mention the last two that I wrote about.  Both are fantastic audios of personal development classics, provided by equally fantastic fellow bloggers.

The Science of Being Well by Wallace Wattles - Free Audio Book

Mike Dewitt of Spooky Action put this one together, and it’s just as good as The Science of Getting Rich Audio that he released last year.  The Science of Being Well has the same philosophy as The Science of Getting Rich, but the main focus of the book is on health, rather than wealth.  But guess what… they are both obtained the same way.

Download The Science of Being Well by Wallace Wattles Audio Book Here

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill - Free Audio Book

Karen Lynch of Live the Power (and her husband Kevin from My Internet Business) are offering this one.  I probably don’t need to explain to readers of this blog just what Think and Grow Rich is, but for anyone who doesn’t know, it’s arguably the most popular personal development book that is focused on wealth building.

Download Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill Audio Book Here

And regarding the new site - if you like what it offers, Stumbles, Diggs, and/or links are always appreciated.  You can also subscribe to updates here.

Make it a great day!

Unmanageability: Hacking the 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

“1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.” - Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5, Page 59

“Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of the world if only he manages well?” - Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5, Page 61

After writing about powerlessness a couple of days ago, I thought I’d take a look at the second part of the first step, which mentions unmanageability.

GTD, the Four Quadrants, the ABC method, Simpleology - there are quite a few systems that people use to try to get some level of manageability into their lives today. Each of these methods has its strengths and weaknesses, and each is trying to do the same thing - to provide the user of the system with a method to “wrest satisfaction and happiness out of the world.”

But if we look at the second quote above, we see that Bill Wilson (the primary author of AA’s “Big Book”) is saying that it’s a delusion that managing well will bring us the satisfaction and happiness that we are looking for.

Step One is Step One. This step is simply a recognition of the problem that we have, and after we’ve recognized the problem it’s time to start working on solutions.

But to say that making life more manageable will not bring you happiness on any level is, in my opinion and experience, a mistake. Managing well may not be the end all and be all of happiness, but to say that bringing our lives back into our own conscious control and direction will bring no satisfaction is simply not true.

Control and direction. There’s only one thing in life that we can exercise direct control over, and that’s own conscious thoughts.

Whether you believe that your thoughts directly create our world, or that they are the cause our feelings and behavior and therefore allow us to have an influence on what happens to us, one of the basic truths of life is that when our thinking changes, our lives change.

In chapter four of “The Science of Getting Rich”, Wallace Wattles states that “There is no labor from which most people shrink as they do from that of sustained and consecutive thought; it is the hardest work in the world.”

But it’s also the most rewarding.

The rest of the 12 steps are a method that a person can use to change their thinking - and therefore change their life. They aren’t the only way - but they are a way.

Manifestation Mastery for the New Year

One of the purposes of Creating a Better Life is to share information with my readers that will allow them to create the life of their dreams.

Considering that it’s the New Year, and people are making all kinds of resolutions, I thought that this would be the perfect time to let my readers know about an ecourse on creating your own better life that is being launched right now.

It’s called Manifestation Mastery, and it’s a collection of 14 videos that will teach you how to use the power of the universe to build the life that you really want.

This is high quality stuff… you can really tell that Gary Evans, the creator of Positivity Space and these videos, really put his heart and soul into them.

And the cool part is that he’s offering access to all fourteen of them for the affordable price of 7 bucks during the launch.

Normally, most of what I point to here on Creating a Better Life is free - free ebooks, free audio, free video…

I’m a strong believer in making access to life changing information available to all.

But I also believe in the principle of offering, as Wallace Wattles puts it in “The Science of Getting Rich”, more use value than is taken in cash value.

And the price of these videos, combined with the quality of the information presented, more than qualify on both fronts.

I have no idea what Gary will be charging after the launch - so if you are at all interested in them, I’d get them at the seven dollar price today.

Click here to get instant access to all 14 Manifestion Mastery Videos.

And make 2008 your best year yet!

[Full Disclosure: this article contains affiliate links. But as it always is with products I recommend, I'm a very happy purchaser of the videos and a paying member of Gary's Positivity Space site.]

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Discuss this post at Personal Development Partners

“So Why Aren’t We Rich Yet?”

That’s what my wife asked me after reading my last post.

And that’s one of the things that I love about her… she supports me in everything I do, and calls me on things that I need to be called on.

The honest answer?

I haven’t consistently applied the principles and taken the actions necessary to get rich!

Thanks to my good friend Aaron for the wake up call on that one - his short but wisdom packed response to the previous post’s thread on Personal Development Partners was a real eye opener.

Regular readers of this blog know this - I’m up, I’m down, I’m up, I’m down…

There’s been some major improvement, but I still have a way to go.

I’ve been sorely lacking in focus and consistency - but I think I’ve got a way to remedy that, and hopefully help others in their own quest for the same.

Would you like to join me in really getting rich?

I’ve set up another blog for this purpose.

The Science of Getting Rich is an online study of Wallace Wattles most popular book.

I’ll be using it to study and apply the principles in Wattles’ book.

I’ve included the entire text of the book, as well as links to downloadable versions in pdf and mp3 format.

But isn’t everyone else doing the same thing?

Yes and no.

First of all, this has nothing to do with briefcases that cost $1,995 (some of you know what I’m talking about). This is an online study of the book “The Science of Getting Rich”; nothing less and nothing more.

Since the book is in the public domain, there are quite a few versions of it out there. If you’d just like a copy of it, a Google search will more than satisfy you.

But if you’d like to participate in an intense, free, online study of it, then maybe the new blog is for you.

I’ve kept the comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks open, not only on the posts, but on the individual chapter pages as well.

And not only am I looking for active participation via comments, if you’d like to contribute your own knowledge of the book and the principles it contains by writing an article, please let me know via the contact form. I’d love to add my fellow bloggers, or those who have always wanted to start writing about this topic but just haven’t yet, as authors so that they can contribute their own knowledge to this project.

I hope to see you over there!

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Discuss this post at Personal Development Partners