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When the principal reviews due to the fact that my most current novel (Extreme Wild blue yonder Mistress, Random House 2006) started coming in, my emotions went be means of the worn out swell coaster. The sooner, from Publisher’s Weekly, was 90% unequivocal, but mentioned that, in their evaluation, it was delayed in spots. My bread basket sank. Slow? In spots? Oh my Genius—all is lost!

The duplicate regard came in two weeks later. This one, from “Booklist,” habituated to words like “distinguished” and “winning” and “episode on a stately scale.”

I sighed. Knave, oh fellow, did I beggary to consider that. Why? Because I am an unguarded artist. Because I devote, on average, two years researching and unified year handwriting my novels. Because I tribulation so surely much involving each and every inseparable of my literary children. Because I discharge my existence into every venture I assignment on, weaken my administrator unincumbered, unfasten the watchful walls from round my heart. I be subjected to to, because that is the no more than way to access my talent. I CAN’T do less than my to a great extent beat—that would instantly devolve to hack position, and that I cannot do.

Some divulge to wink at reviews, that they are exclusively the opinions of people who, again, are suspicious of make they themselves could not create. I on not to embrace that opinion. To me, reviews are the opinions of informed, gifted readers. Such people are not automatically any wiser learned than the generally reader, but what they receive to utter is certainly creditable of attention.

To be unquestionably frank, there bear been times I curled up and cried because a reviewer I respected disliked my work. And other times when handsprings across the living room were the order of the day. Such violent ups and downs can not quite be meet through despite your blood pressure (divulge solitarily the household pets) but pro an artist who cares, truly cares surrounding reaching out to the world, more creating a dialogue with readers present and unborn, there seems little choice.

An artist needs feedback. We requisite be acquainted with whether what we do communicates the import intended. That doesn’t mean all celebrity and complement. Clashing but reputable criticism can workers an artist grasp what the patrons sees when they read the work, on one’s guard for the cloud, expectation the dance. To the magnitude that such handiwork is intended to allow to pass a statement, to chat with a state of sentiment or elusory concept, we OUGHT TO know how the catholic reacts.

But there are times when the meet inspection is more damaging than the bad one. It often seems that a colossal measurements of artists are people who crave a deeper, more ichor joint with the faint world. Who in beginning duration felt their voice stifled, felt imperceivable in the centre of a crowd. So they learn to reveal their truth in some other structure, and a originative performer was born.

Perspicacious within such an artist is a driving, gnawing, ravenous induce to be loved, respected, seen, heard. It is the stifled fancy of a progeny dancing in the living room representing the guests, saying “look at me! I’m one of a kind!”

Of execution, attention isn’t forever on the artist herself: on we fundamentally impecuniousness to receive r‚clame to some give rise to, or purport, or extrinsic fact or values we consider substantial or of interest. At the bravery of all of this, after all, is the detect that our perceptions are worthy, our hearts hot, our song as valid as that of any other warbler in the forest.

And when those reviews enter a occur in, we can either study them at an nervous arm’s length, or we can take them to will, suffer the slings and arrows—and revel in the victories.

Which are more important? I’m not certain. But when those forceful reviews get possession of, I discern that I don’t take for them as seriously, as irrevocably, as the dissentious ones. I don’t dare. That miniature pal inside me wants too desperately to take it that he is loved and appreciated, that he has made something worthwhile. When the pigheaded reviews possess c visit, it is serenely to listen to the accolades, to glow in the kudos…

But Demigod support you if you ever desideratum it. Then, with an exquisitely perverse unerringness, it want be withdrawn. Chasing after the have a preference for makes it deliquesce, and we blog writing services become like a third-rate witty frantically mugging in support of a once-appreciative audience, begging them to laugh until they are skint in behalf of him.

I infatuation the process of writing. I passion the books themselves. I love my audience. And I love those reviews, too much, it every so often seems. And at those times, a not much voice whispers in my ear: “The writing isn’t for them. On no account benefit of them. It was in front they were. And if they snake their backs, you will detract still. Don’t be lulled close the event that today’s reviews are positive. Don’t be frustrated if tomorrow’s reviews are bad. Listen to the chance in your callousness, the lone that whispers of restraint, and agony, and creative ecstasy. That voice was there at the start, and force be there at the end.”

That medium, and no other, can you protection

How Signal are Vocation Resume Writing Service in Securing the Exquisite Job?

The province of outstanding concern resumes is to elude one’s captors the distinction of your hidden employer. More than altogether a listing of your accomplishments, upbringing, skills and observation; a position resume is the outset nitty-gritty of in you have with the companions with whom you are seeking employment. No issue what mastery set you report to the tabulation, if your take up again isn’t effectively presented, you may recover it puzzling to turn up work. In the underside, if you haven’t had a lot of happening, a masterly pick up where one left off that presents the talents and ambitions you do gifted can locked up you a calling with unconditional imminent in support of growth. Before surroundings away from to look payment a new m‚tier, make unwavering your carry on presents the skills you have to offer in the best realizable light. Multifarious employers disposition not retaliate put forward an evaluate to expected employees with lackluster employ resumes.

Types of Grind Resumes

Undertaking resumes may be structured in dissimilar assorted ways to focus on your most suitable qualities, while downplaying your limitations. Today’s employers are looking to innovative employees that will bring value to their business. Submitting a standout resume is an individual personality to expose your individual abilities and ambition. Sundry types of bother resumes include:

* Overturn Chronological Resumes – These responsibility resumes distinct on your employment past by listing your above-named profession starting with your latest position. Chronological resumes respect your increase as an staff member and are best suited through despite people who suffer with a capable taking on qualifications and documented experience. Edifying tidings and additional skills are typically celebrated at the bottom of these concern resumes.

* Operating Resumes – The practicable take up again gives less resonance to sense and highlights, rather than, the skills that you oblige to offer. Effective resumes generally list your astral qualifications at the top of the point, while providing some details of how the skills were obtained—including middle school and task feel—as a help to the latter half of the page. Skill-based resumes are the a-one ‚lite for workers that are recent to the occupation call, or possess not worked in really some time.

* Combination Resumes – A coalition carry on takes the focus on skills from the Working take up again and merges it with the profession antiquity, seeking a complete package of your qualifications. These bother resumes nearest the most affectionately rounded details and can be acclimated to sooner than all but anyone to effectively margin employment.

Seeking Businesslike Help for Penmanship Appointment Resumes

If you’re not reliable of the resume realm of possibilities that’s right through despite your qualifications, or if you only just privation the best tenable continue, you dominion want to seek the help of a skilled carry on critique service. For a minutest fee, maestro writers can formulate best grade concern resumes that can be reach-me-down to sell your skills. A continue writing aid will introduce your dear implementation biography and qualifications in a method that will stand alibi to developing employers. It’s really a insignificant investment to hint seeing that a advantageous later at your new job.

Good writing is often designed around a character who has a distorted vision of himself or of the world. During the story, he is placed under sufficient pressure to force an epiphany, a moment of clarity in which, he sees the world as it is, not as he wished it to be.

A classic example is “Casablanca,” where Bogart’s immortal Rick has managed to create an insular world in which he can pretend to be utterly detached and uninvolved. He supposedly has no political beliefs, and no real human connections. But the reappearance of Ilsa forces a cascade of events that cause Rick to reexamine his attitudes about love, fate, patriotism, courage, fidelity, friendship, and life itself.

Rick begins as a damaged, closed off character, carrying wounds to his heart and ego. What he WANTS is to be left alone to his self-pity. What he NEEDS is to be re-awakened to a life of purpose. The writers, wisely, give Rick what he needs, not what he wants, and in that manner a classic was born.

In Lifewriting

Good writing is often designed around a character who has a distorted vision of himself or of the world. During the story, he is placed under sufficient pressure to force an epiphany, a moment of clarity in which, he sees the world as it is, not as he wished it to be.

A classic example is “Casablanca,” where Bogart’s immortal Rick has managed to create an insular world in which he can pretend to be utterly detached and uninvolved. He supposedly has no political beliefs, and no real human connections. But the reappearance of Ilsa forces a cascade of events that cause Rick to reexamine his attitudes about love, fate, patriotism, courage, fidelity, friendship, and life itself.

Rick begins as a damaged, closed off character, carrying wounds to his heart and ego. What he WANTS is to be left alone to his self-pity. What he NEEDS is to be re-awakened to a life of purpose. The writers, wisely, give Rick what he needs, not what he wants, and in that manner a classic was born.

In Lifewriting

During a career spanning twenty-five years of novel, film, and television work, I’ve two major tools most valuable: the yogic “chakras” for characterization, and Joseph Campbell’s model of the Hero’s Journey for plot structure.

These are not random choices, nor were they selected because of the many intelligent and thoughtful essays on their relationship to successful film or world myth.

Rather, they are important because they create a connection between the inner world of the writer, and the external world of the finished work&ndashand the reader.

A plot structure is nothing more than a tool for organizing events in temporal sequence. While there are more such structures than there are professional writers, few of them meet what thousands of students consider a critical test: are they actually easy to use and apply? A simple tool, however limited, can be of greater use than a complicated tool that requires years to master. Remember: you will achieve real quality in your writing only by mastering your basics.

The Hero’s Journey, extracted from thousands of years of world mythology, has the advantage of actually mimicking the path of life itself. The “three act structure” does not. After all…life isn’t divided into three, or five, or eight acts. Such divisions can be useful tools, but they should never be mistaken for some kind of “truth” about existence. In comparison, note this interpretation (there are others) of the steps of the Hero’s Journey, and to explain them, we’ll look at the first Star Wars movie, “Episode IV, A New Hope”:

1) Hero Confronted With A Challenge. “Come with me, Luke, learn the ways of the Force.” This is pretty clear, right? There has to be a challenge, or a beckoning, or the character won’t begin to change&ndashand all great writing is about change.

2) Hero Initially rejects the challenge, :I promised Uncle Owen I’d work on the moisture evaporators.” A real challenge, one that can provoke real change, will be frightening and exciting. A character will usually have some reservations.

3) Hero accepts the challenge. Luke’s aunt and uncle are killed, freeing him from his oath. If your character doesn’t accept the challenge, there is no story&ndashunless the story is about the consequences of not accepting responsibility.

4) The Road of trials. Traveling to the desert town and cantina, getting on Han Solo’s spaceship, traveling to other planets, etc. This is the section where locations and sequence interact. The character travels, learns, commits actions that force inter-action with the environment, and the environment responds positively or negatively, with greater and greater stakes as the story proceeds.

5) Gaining Allies and Powers. Luke meets Han Solo, and Chewbacca, and Obi-Wan, and Princess Leia. He learns of the Force, and the use of Light Sabers, and how to fly and fight and rescue princesses. If your character doesn’t have to grow in order to resolve the problem, you may have chosen the wrong problem or character!

6) Initial Confrontation with Evil, and defeat. Obi-Wan’s death. Or possibly the disastrous attack on the Death Star. One is private and emotional, the other spectacular and physical.

7) Dark Night of the Soul. The moment of greatest weakness. Luke begins to believe he cannot win, and everything he loves will die.

Leap of Faith. “Trust your Feelings, Luke.” The leap of Faith is always faith in one of three things: faith in self, faith in your companions, or faith in a higher power. In “Star Wars” it is all three! This may be the only time in the history of cinema that this was true, and helps to explain why George Lucas is a billionaire.

9) Confront Evil&ndashvictorious. The Death Star blows up.

10) Student Becomes the Teacher. Luke is presented with medals, which establish him as a role model.

###

The above ten steps are not some cookie-cutter pattern. They are the combined world wisdom about the path of life itself, the process we go through in achieving any worthwhile goal. There will be fear. There will be defeat. We will need to gain new skills and friends and partners. We must be clear on our acceptance of goals and responsibility. We must have faith. And ultimately, if we have struggled, and learned, and sacrificed, and moved through our fear…we learn and grow and succeed. And then we teach others. This is the pattern of life, and any time you organize information and events into a pattern even vaguely reminiscent of this, the human nervous system, worldwide, will recognize it as story.

It is NOT some kind of cure-all for bad story tellers. What these ten steps are is something analogous to the eighty-eight keys of a piano. Understand the emotional and life significance of each step, and then “play them” as your developed instincts dictate. Make your own kind of music. The pattern has worked for about thirty thousand years. It will work for you, too.

During a career spanning twenty-five years of novel, film, and television work, I’ve two major tools most valuable: the yogic “chakras” for characterization, and Joseph Campbell’s model of the Hero’s Journey for plot structure.

These are not random choices, nor were they selected because of the many intelligent and thoughtful essays on their relationship to successful film or world myth.

Rather, they are important because they create a connection between the inner world of the writer, and the external world of the finished work&ndashand the reader.

A plot structure is nothing more than a tool for organizing events in temporal sequence. While there are more such structures than there are professional writers, few of them meet what thousands of students consider a critical test: are they actually easy to use and apply? A simple tool, however limited, can be of greater use than a complicated tool that requires years to master. Remember: you will achieve real quality in your writing only by mastering your basics.

The Hero’s Journey, extracted from thousands of years of world mythology, has the advantage of actually mimicking the path of life itself. The “three act structure” does not. After all…life isn’t divided into three, or five, or eight acts. Such divisions can be useful tools, but they should never be mistaken for some kind of “truth” about existence. In comparison, note this interpretation (there are others) of the steps of the Hero’s Journey, and to explain them, we’ll look at the first Star Wars movie, “Episode IV, A New Hope”:

1) Hero Confronted With A Challenge. “Come with me, Luke, learn the ways of the Force.” This is pretty clear, right? There has to be a challenge, or a beckoning, or the character won’t begin to change&ndashand all great writing is about change.

2) Hero Initially rejects the challenge, :I promised Uncle Owen I’d work on the moisture evaporators.” A real challenge, one that can provoke real change, will be frightening and exciting. A character will usually have some reservations.

3) Hero accepts the challenge. Luke’s aunt and uncle are killed, freeing him from his oath. If your character doesn’t accept the challenge, there is no story&ndashunless the story is about the consequences of not accepting responsibility.

4) The Road of trials. Traveling to the desert town and cantina, getting on Han Solo’s spaceship, traveling to other planets, etc. This is the section where locations and sequence interact. The character travels, learns, commits actions that force inter-action with the environment, and the environment responds positively or negatively, with greater and greater stakes as the story proceeds.

5) Gaining Allies and Powers. Luke meets Han Solo, and Chewbacca, and Obi-Wan, and Princess Leia. He learns of the Force, and the use of Light Sabers, and how to fly and fight and rescue princesses. If your character doesn’t have to grow in order to resolve the problem, you may have chosen the wrong problem or character!

6) Initial Confrontation with Evil, and defeat. Obi-Wan’s death. Or possibly the disastrous attack on the Death Star. One is private and emotional, the other spectacular and physical.

7) Dark Night of the Soul. The moment of greatest weakness. Luke begins to believe he cannot win, and everything he loves will die.

Leap of Faith. “Trust your Feelings, Luke.” The leap of Faith is always faith in one of three things: faith in self, faith in your companions, or faith in a higher power. In “Star Wars” it is all three! This may be the only time in the history of cinema that this was true, and helps to explain why George Lucas is a billionaire.

9) Confront Evil&ndashvictorious. The Death Star blows up.

10) Student Becomes the Teacher. Luke is presented with medals, which establish him as a role model.

###

The above ten steps are not some cookie-cutter pattern. They are the combined world wisdom about the path of life itself, the process we go through in achieving any worthwhile goal. There will be fear. There will be defeat. We will need to gain new skills and friends and partners. We must be clear on our acceptance of goals and responsibility. We must have faith. And ultimately, if we have struggled, and learned, and sacrificed, and moved through our fear…we learn and grow and succeed. And then we teach others. This is the pattern of life, and any time you organize information and events into a pattern even vaguely reminiscent of this, the human nervous system, worldwide, will recognize it as story.

It is NOT some kind of cure-all for bad story tellers. What these ten steps are is something analogous to the eighty-eight keys of a piano. Understand the emotional and life significance of each step, and then “play them” as your developed instincts dictate. Make your own kind of music. The pattern has worked for about thirty thousand years. It will work for you, too.

During a conversation earlier today, a formerly svelt young lady said that she had given up on the idea of exercise, because to have a body worth the trouble, it would take three or four hours a day.

Novice writers complain that in order to build their careers, it would take six or seven hours a day…so what is the point!

And more times than I could count, stressed-out acquaintances have said that they would love to meditate, but “don’t have the time.”

It is time we explode these falsehoods. The truth is that misconceptions like the above can completely steal your chances for health, happiness and success.

The truth is that you can get started on a fantastic fitness regimen in only an hour a week. Further, a focused writer can create a novel in a year in only an hour a day. And gigantic strides can be made toward stress relief in only five minutes a day. THAT is the playing field: give yourself five minutes, and you can cut your stress in half. Give yourself an hour a week, and you can have health and fitness. An hour a day can jump-start a career.

1) Five Minutes a day. Five times a day, for just sixty seconds, stop and breathe slowly and deeply from your belly. Go to a local yoga or Tai Chi school and ask to learn a relaxation breathing technique. If you can’t find one, then slow down, get quiet, and feel your heartbeat for sixty seconds. Do this every three hours for sixty seconds, and you will halve your stress levels.

2) An hour a week. Three times a week, perform twenty minutes of the right body-weight or weight exercises. Hindu Squats and Hindu Pushups are wonderful whole-body exercises. Do a Google search for them, and you’ll find multiple sites on the Internet selling or giving away the information for free. For faster results, use “Kettlebell” style whole-body weight exercises. These exercise tools look like little cannon-balls with handles, and they are used in a variety of swinging and yoga-like moves that are unbelievably efficient for developing strength, endurance, flexibility, power and athleticism, all at the same time. You can even use an ordinary dumbbell in the beginning. Again, do a Google search, and you’ll find the information, often for free!

3) An Hour a day. This is what I call the “Golden Hour.” You need to accept the idea that one hour out of every day belongs to you. Not your job, not your husband or wife, or your kids&ndashit belongs to you. During this time, if you plan it properly, you can exercise, practice your art, meditate, read&ndashwhatever. If you are a writer, I’d suggest that Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you “flow”&ndashjust create rough draft, with no attempt to edit it. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday you do your editing, polishing the work you did the previous day. If you learn to focus properly, there is no reason in the world you can’t learn to produce 1000 words of rough draft in an hour. That’s enough to produce a novel a year, in just an hour a day.

The “Golden Hour” is a goal, one that might take you a year or two to work toward. But if you will just start with five minutes a day, and a commitment to an hour a week…working TOWARD an hour a day, you have placed your feet on the road toward peace of mind, a healthy body, and a happy heart: a tiny investment for a gigantic reward.

During a conversation earlier today, a formerly svelt young lady said that she had given up on the idea of exercise, because to have a body worth the trouble, it would take three or four hours a day.

Novice writers complain that in order to build their careers, it would take six or seven hours a day…so what is the point!

And more times than I could count, stressed-out acquaintances have said that they would love to meditate, but “don’t have the time.”

It is time we explode these falsehoods. The truth is that misconceptions like the above can completely steal your chances for health, happiness and success.

The truth is that you can get started on a fantastic fitness regimen in only an hour a week. Further, a focused writer can create a novel in a year in only an hour a day. And gigantic strides can be made toward stress relief in only five minutes a day. THAT is the playing field: give yourself five minutes, and you can cut your stress in half. Give yourself an hour a week, and you can have health and fitness. An hour a day can jump-start a career.

1) Five Minutes a day. Five times a day, for just sixty seconds, stop and breathe slowly and deeply from your belly. Go to a local yoga or Tai Chi school and ask to learn a relaxation breathing technique. If you can’t find one, then slow down, get quiet, and feel your heartbeat for sixty seconds. Do this every three hours for sixty seconds, and you will halve your stress levels.

2) An hour a week. Three times a week, perform twenty minutes of the right body-weight or weight exercises. Hindu Squats and Hindu Pushups are wonderful whole-body exercises. Do a Google search for them, and you’ll find multiple sites on the Internet selling or giving away the information for free. For faster results, use “Kettlebell” style whole-body weight exercises. These exercise tools look like little cannon-balls with handles, and they are used in a variety of swinging and yoga-like moves that are unbelievably efficient for developing strength, endurance, flexibility, power and athleticism, all at the same time. You can even use an ordinary dumbbell in the beginning. Again, do a Google search, and you’ll find the information, often for free!

3) An Hour a day. This is what I call the “Golden Hour.” You need to accept the idea that one hour out of every day belongs to you. Not your job, not your husband or wife, or your kids&ndashit belongs to you. During this time, if you plan it properly, you can exercise, practice your art, meditate, read&ndashwhatever. If you are a writer, I’d suggest that Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you “flow”&ndashjust create rough draft, with no attempt to edit it. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday you do your editing, polishing the work you did the previous day. If you learn to focus properly, there is no reason in the world you can’t learn to produce 1000 words of rough draft in an hour. That’s enough to produce a novel a year, in just an hour a day.

The “Golden Hour” is a goal, one that might take you a year or two to work toward. But if you will just start with five minutes a day, and a commitment to an hour a week…working TOWARD an hour a day, you have placed your feet on the road toward peace of mind, a healthy body, and a happy heart: a tiny investment for a gigantic reward.

One subject arising whenever writers gather to discuss their craft is the mining of life itself for story material. While a vital and important technique, it is important to remember that real human beings are impossibly complex, far too complicated to serve as story characters without major modification. The most complex character in all of western fiction (arguably), Hamlet, is still only 1% as complex as a real human being.

One must remember that there is a unity between character and plot: they are, in essence, two sides of a single coin. Plot is what a character does in a given situation. A plot must empty a character out, give us everything we need to know about the lead, or the story situation hasn’t been thought through very well.

In life, it is reasonable to take the position that we are what we do. True, this is not ALL that we are, but what we do is closer to this essence than what we “think” we are, or what others define us as. Everyone knows that we judge each other on our actions, and it is childish to pretend otherwise.

We learn to characterize by formulating a theory of human nature, and then testing it against the people around us–our family and friends. You should be prepared to defend this theory in conversation and literary debate. After all, there are only two basic questions being addressed in all of fiction:

1) What is it to be human?

2) What is the ethical structure of the universe?

Whatever your own theory is, you should understand it from every direction, and be able to apply it to understand your own strengths and weaknesses.

Look at the three major areas of human life: body, mind, and spirit. What does your body say about you? Believe me, it says worlds about your values, discipline, emotional health, habit patterns and more. What does your career say about you? Are you operating at full efficiency there? Do you complain about money troubles, but not do anything about it? Do you dream, but not perform? Or are you working at a job that you would continue to do even if you won the lottery? To me, this is a major sign of an active, healthy intellect–the ability to do for a living that which you would do for free.

What about your relationship with your husband/wife/significant other? To me, this is where you reveal yourself most clearly. You ARE your partner, flipped upside-down and inside out. If you like what you see across the breakfast table from you, great. If not, you have work to do. Remember: whoever you see over there was the best you could do. If you could have gotten someone smarter, handsomer/prettier, emotionally healthier–you would have. So take a hard look. Often, you can learn more from a person’s partner than you can from meeting the person.

Viewed in this way, there is a lifetime of study in understanding the people around us, and in understanding ourselves as well. And a lifetime of potential stories in examining how people’s flaws and gaps keep them from achieving their full potential. It can be painful to look at this stuff, but the only thing even more painful is being terminally untrue to your own spirit. That, my friends, is a true tragedy. Better the pain of awareness than the agony of self-betrayal. By a long shot.

One subject arising whenever writers gather to discuss their craft is the mining of life itself for story material. While a vital and important technique, it is important to remember that real human beings are impossibly complex, far too complicated to serve as story characters without major modification. The most complex character in all of western fiction (arguably), Hamlet, is still only 1% as complex as a real human being.

One must remember that there is a unity between character and plot: they are, in essence, two sides of a single coin. Plot is what a character does in a given situation. A plot must empty a character out, give us everything we need to know about the lead, or the story situation hasn’t been thought through very well.

In life, it is reasonable to take the position that we are what we do. True, this is not ALL that we are, but what we do is closer to this essence than what we “think” we are, or what others define us as. Everyone knows that we judge each other on our actions, and it is childish to pretend otherwise.

We learn to characterize by formulating a theory of human nature, and then testing it against the people around us–our family and friends. You should be prepared to defend this theory in conversation and literary debate. After all, there are only two basic questions being addressed in all of fiction:

1) What is it to be human?

2) What is the ethical structure of the universe?

Whatever your own theory is, you should understand it from every direction, and be able to apply it to understand your own strengths and weaknesses.

Look at the three major areas of human life: body, mind, and spirit. What does your body say about you? Believe me, it says worlds about your values, discipline, emotional health, habit patterns and more. What does your career say about you? Are you operating at full efficiency there? Do you complain about money troubles, but not do anything about it? Do you dream, but not perform? Or are you working at a job that you would continue to do even if you won the lottery? To me, this is a major sign of an active, healthy intellect–the ability to do for a living that which you would do for free.

What about your relationship with your husband/wife/significant other? To me, this is where you reveal yourself most clearly. You ARE your partner, flipped upside-down and inside out. If you like what you see across the breakfast table from you, great. If not, you have work to do. Remember: whoever you see over there was the best you could do. If you could have gotten someone smarter, handsomer/prettier, emotionally healthier–you would have. So take a hard look. Often, you can learn more from a person’s partner than you can from meeting the person.

Viewed in this way, there is a lifetime of study in understanding the people around us, and in understanding ourselves as well. And a lifetime of potential stories in examining how people’s flaws and gaps keep them from achieving their full potential. It can be painful to look at this stuff, but the only thing even more painful is being terminally untrue to your own spirit. That, my friends, is a true tragedy. Better the pain of awareness than the agony of self-betrayal. By a long shot.