Here is another illustration of the main principle of life: The Anna Karenina Principle… the strait and narrow

I have been using Freecell as a training tool for myself.

Slow going, because sight, going from not seeing to being clear of what you are seeing is not a simple, one-step process… and playing Freecell well uses the sight… or shall I say Sight?

Today I even saw that it uses many of the principles, or better said: obeys many of the principles I write about.

Many card games in casinos ban card counters… because they have an advantage over everyone else… even over the house.

There are not many card-counters, because people cannot see what to count and why.

They can’t see that there are 52 cards in a pack, and once a card is used, it is not available any more.

I used to play bridge, a highly competitive card game. I played and I was a beginner card counter… and as such, I played quite well, better than the not card counters.

Most people make decisions from their feelings, or from what they want, but a card counter sees a lot of reality, the what is so… and makes his decisions on the knowable reality…

When I measure the new measure in the Starting Point Measurement: to what degree you live your life based on your emotions, people, inevitably, measure in the high 90’s… whereas a card counter would measure less than 10%.

One of the difficulties of being human comes the problem of plenty.

Plenty is like a forest. You see the trees, too many to count, but you cannot see the forest.

Forest is the organizing principle of the trees.

Unless you can see the underlying principle or principles, you are clueless.

You can get lost in the forest, because all the clues are wasted on you.

I am reading Kipling’s Jungle Book, and it is a great illustration of how we see and how we don’t see.

As a child you read the books, and get all busy, imagination and all, with all the different talking animals, their adventures, their arguments.

Some of you may watch the animated movies, because why read… it’s the same, isn’t it? Or listen to the audio recording of the book.

And what happens? You get stuck on the surface level of life, on the level of the trees, the level of the young boy who plays with toy soldiers.

You don’t even suspect a deeper layer of book. Even if I point it out to you: truth repeated is a lie… your brain hasn’t learned to go deep, seek connections, see the ocean in a drop of water.

And until you do, your vibration will be low, or jump around between low and not so low… because you are lacking the eyes to see, and the desire to look.

And the life of the surface is actually boring. If something has to happen for you to not be bored, then you are both bored and boring.

So how do you start developing your ability to see layers, to see connections, to see an integrated world?

I could spend a lot of time to try to remember how it happened for me… but I am sure that seeing THAT forest is very difficult, to see the commonality among all humans is beautiful, but too much information for you to get started.

I will share, though, how it began. It was 1956, and one morning we woke up and my father was gone… and we could hear shooting from the city.

My little brother, three years old, was jumping up and down excitedly, shouting, War, war, war!

Then there was no food. My mother and brother went to get handouts at the Austrian Embassy a few blocks from where we lived, rice, pasta, packaged goods… but we didn’t starve to death.

Then my brother, 11 years old then, stood in line at a bakery about a mile from our house, only to be turned away when all the bread was gone.

• Then two thugs took a shot at me in the window…
• Then began a nightly skull and leg bones on the front door… My brother and I went down at the crack of dawn to wash it off every morning.
• Then it was all over… The Russians came in with tanks, and I remember watching them pass in front of the house on their way to the Prime Minister’s house… His wife gave birth in the tank, I found out later.

Let’s jump to next summer. I am standing in the attic, hot as hell, reading the secret government document on the happenings. Pictures of men hanging from lamp poles, killed after careful examination of their penises… circumcised? Hang him!

For some reason this sequence of events allowed me a glimpse into the forest, into the nature of humans, and that’s when it all began.

From then on everything happened on at least to different levels, the surface, and the deep connected level, where it makes sense.

The Playground, my flagship program, teaches you first to see the reality of the surface level, and then, for those who are willing to follow, the deep connected layer.

Even going to the first reality layer is very liberating. But the deep connected layer brings an unprecedented level of understanding the dynamic.

You first learn how to see the deep dynamic, and then, hopefully, are able to see it without someone pointing it out, and become like a tracker, a Houdini, an escape artist.

What does that mean?

That means that I can drop you in any dense forest and you’ll find your way out…

By dense forest, I really mean any life situation. Life is full of situations that are reactivating, confusing, infuriating, intimidating, and deadly.

And unless you can make sense of it, on the level of “forest” they eat your life… and make you get stuck in them.

And the situation can be now, or can be in the past… most of you have them in the past… maybe the story where you invented why you are doomed, forever, with no chance to be happy, or whatever you’d like to be.

We’ll talk about, distinguish, the laws of the Jungle… the laws that are violated by people… who have no laws. Well meaning monkeys at best…

A good preparation for this is the two Jungle Books…

This is the way to read: read and then ponder. Look for the deeper connection. Look for the same in your life, in human life, in history… after every half page or so.

For most of you, that is the main missing skill that you should use in the 20-hour skill learning challenge.

What do you need? A book, 45 minutes a day, of which about 15 minutes is actual reading, and 30 is actual looking.

By the end of the 20 days, you’ll know what I meant… some sooner than others.

An interesting observation: Half of the people who signed up for the Discussion Forum are Slavic… That is something to chew on… Cannot be an accident… there must be a few dots to connect for me there… lol.

OK, let me repeat the 20 day challenge thing, forgive my laziness… at least I should word it different, but if this doesn’t call to you, then why bother, right?

One of the “skills” you need to acquire if you want to live a life of success, is the skill or learning, and learning fast.

Here is an amazing TED talk to tell you how to do that… ((Summary: Just 20 hours is enough to become “reasonably good” at any skill.
1. Deconstruct the skill – Break the skill down into its most basic parts. Which parts are necessary for hitting the goal you have? (i.e. if your goal is to sing a song in Korean, you can primarily focus on pronunciation, not learning a bunch of vocabulary)
2. Learn enough to self correct – Learn enough to realize when you’re making mistakes.
3. Remove barriers to practice – Turn off your phone, unplug the TV. Put your guitar, piano, language book in the middle of your room, not behind your stack of dirty laundry.
4. Practice for at least 20 hours – Commit to 20 hours from the start. You’re going to be frustrated at times, so committing beforehand will help you push through the frustration.?))

I have learned all the money making trades, and more with this exact technique… even though I wasn’t conscious of that fact until I watched Josh Kaufman’s TED talk…

Leaning skills opens you up to see what you like, what is a good fit, which thing you want to learn next.

It also helps you get to an acceptable level with the skills I teach.

Warning: watching my videos won’t count into the 20 hours: you actually need to practice.

If you practice a grand total of five minutes a day, and do it not deliberately, you’ll never get there.

The learning needs to be deliberate, and intense enough to count.

I don’t know anyone who learned an instrument, a language, driving a car in five minute increments… do you? And yet that is what passes for practice in your world… oh, and watching videos… reading.

You need to organize your life to have a chunk of time daily, or five days a week… and you’ll get the hang of it…

You won’t become an expert, unless you’ll see that becoming an expert, and adept is what you want, and then you’ll continue past the 20 hours…

Register for the challenge. We’ll have a webinar to help you find a useful skill to learn… or a fun skill… or anything worth learning, worth playing with, worth experimenting with.

If you don’t register, you won’t be invited to the webinar.

I myself have two things in mind… for myself. Shaking in my boots… lol. Scary as hell… but also exciting.

You need to register to participate. http://yourvibration.com/discussion/wp-login.php?action=register

OK, let me close this article/invitation with a Marianne Williamson quote:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

How could Leonardo da Vinci not have painted? How could Shakespeare not have written? In Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke tells a young writer to write only if he has to. We are to do what there is a deep psychological and emotional imperative for us to do. That’s our point of power, the source of our brilliance. Our power is not rationally or willfully called forth. It’s a divine dispensation, an act of grace.

It should inspire you, scare you, and make you ponder. What if it is true? What is the dynamic, the inner dynamic of fear?

Will you have the courage to take one tiny step? Learn one skill in 20 days? Or you are so resigned (dead) that you won’t go for it.

Read the original article: The main principle of life: The Anna Karenina Principle… the invisible thread that ties it all together