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Is New Age Really So New Age At All Or A Big Moneymaker?

By: Rick London..

I used to debate with my former girlfriend, a woman much more socially and finally successful than me, about the business principals to success. Though she did it, like me, the old fashioned way, made a plan and worked the plan and increased organizational skills along the way, she still believes there is some mystique and "laws of attraction" to it. Of course she is a Beverly Hills attorney, I, a cartoonist and e-tailer. Since the times of EST and other "thought mills", California has been a haven for slick re-packaged ancient scrolls disguised as "NEW"-AGE. She partly buys into it. I don't buy into it at all. Let me rephrase that. I do buy into it. I just happen to know it is nothing new except more slickly packaged and worded more for the proletariat.

I guess you could say I am better at Internet marketing than she is, but that is only because that is what I studied when I went back to school. There is little doubt she could pick it up in no time if she had the spare time to learn it, or the interest.

Being a Cancer (that remains my excuse), I naturally am less organized and more clumsy than my former Aries better-half (Gerald Ford was a Cancer...get the picture?). Her claim to fame is a monumental law firm on the most expensive property in the U.S. (possibly the world). My claim to fame is digital funny pictures on some expensive Internet property that may or may not make a lot of money, depending if I sell it or not. We both started small, she on a park bench after escaping her mother country and me in a metal rural Mississippi warehouse where 44 year old cartoonists, I guess, were considered "possessed" and nobody much wanted us for neighbors. I am also an inventor, writer, and student, but that is a whole other story.

Our lifestyles are a bit different. She drives a new Mercedes which she trades in every year. I have a 2000 Saturn which drives very well. You should see how it takes corners. Her Mercedes talks to her from the dashboard. My Saturn has not evolved to that level.

Her debate is one I hear often. "You don't think big. You need to learn to think big. I think it's an Arkansas thing!" That makes me laugh. I want to say, "Yeah, tell it to Sam Walton."

We differ in our opinions of "New Age". I have lived in Southern California so I realize all that is a way of life. But I also, hopefully, am savvy enough to realize that the majority of it is ancient biblical history, reworded ever so carefully, and packaged beautifully to make the new guru rich. And it works. And hopefully Oprah will endorse it, and the guru will live happily ever after.

Now there is nothing wrong with attracting wealth and good things for you and/or your family by praye and meditation. But there is nothing "New" about it. It is in both the Jewish and Christian Bibles and mentioned numerous times regarding the labors of attraction, prayer, and "ACTION". What seems to be left of a lot of the new age laws of attraction is the action part. If you've met someone who has sat on an easy chair for weeks, months or years, without moving a muscle, and suddenly his BVD Tee turned into an Armani Suit, his '57 Chevy Pickup into a new Lexus, please do let me know about it and I shall gladly edit or remove this article. The Kaballah (hardly New Age) but the mystical intrpretation of the Torah, still considered a bit controversial even in Judaism, has all the information in that is in the slick new age packaged goods. The big difference is that it is available for free. And the information is more precise and based on real spiritual dynamics, not on a spiritual guru's bank balance.

Suffice it to say, I when debating with a seasoned attorney about how to make income, I am not postured to win. A good cartoonist and etailer can make a good income, but we can't do tort about it when we don't.

She wants me to "live the dream". Ok ok. I don't like that term. It sounds so MLM-sh and I feel like I'm in Egypt starting a Pyramid scheme. But I digress.

In Carl Jung's book "Dreams And Reflections", though a bit of a hard read for me, he explains that we are living the dream by living the reality. The reality is the dream. If we want it to be more dreamlike, our job is to open up to new information (education) and take action. It is that simple.

One reality to know is that no matter what the dream, or one's life becomes, it will never be utopia. If we make billions of dollars and purchase the Taj Mahal, we will still get sore throats, indigestion, family problems, and have similar issues as those living in the ghetto. The only difference is more resources with which to deal. That does not necessarily mean better resources either.

Happiness is an elusive bird. Our formal education teaches us a good job and steady income is the end-all-be-all for happiness. But that is now old-school. The nature of our economy is so different than when our parents were being educated. They were taught to work hard and make a lot of money, (or marry it). That is a big mistake these days, due to the nature of our economy. Money truly has an ebb and flow and who is rich one day might not be the next. One has to create their own happiness and money is just one small part of it. How much is enough? That is up to you to decide, not someone else.

I worked in corporate America for two decades chasing the almighty dollar. I made a lot of them. I can assure you they did not buy me happiness, and, in retrospect, because I hated what I was doing for a living.

Prepare to fail (and succeed). The world of business is full of success stories (household names) who failed many times before they ever succeeded. Read their autobiographies. You might be very surprised.

I suggest never to choose friends based on their bank accounts. I used to do so, and was trained to do so and always heard "You can't make money off of people who don't have money". That tired old cliche is a dreadful lesson. You *can* make money working with people who don't have much money. If they have a hard work ethic, and honesty and so do you, you'll make much more, and have a lot more fun doing it.

So to each his own on living the dream. My dream may not be yours.

But that is okay. We are in the 21st century where live and let live is the name of the game.

Big thinking? I like to think that I think big. But I act small. I love the term, "Think globally, act locally". If all I did was think big, I think that would requre a lot of energy and I would not get much legwork done. I don't mind working in the trenches. You shouldn't either if you have a true entrepreneurial spirit. That will change. But we have to start somewhwere.

Thinking big can be a good thing, but measure your waist size first. Be sure it is not too big for your britches, and carry on, never misleading anyone. Do what you love to do. The money will follow so "they" say, and they have proven themselves right. Live someone else's "dream" and you may or may not make money, but its a moot point. One then has to ask him/herself, "Am I happy rich or not, living someone else's dream? The choice is yours. It really is.

You will be happy, rich, or not.

Article Source: http://www.articlemanual.com

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