The beautiful thing about the way the Universe works, is that, 1) It’s all bigger than we are, and 2) It’s all automated, so we don’t have to do anything for it to work. The world works according to unseen laws and principles… some of them scientific, some spiritual.

Today, in reading, I was reminded that Life is the greatest teacher of all. There’s simply no substitute for life experience. Borrowed wisdom is rarely appreciated or listened to. Since I was a young boy, I’ve always had to learn my lessons the hard way. Often insisting on doing something my way, until the pain of my way was just too much to bear any longer.

It took me about twenty years, but I finally learned the lesson: Lessons not learned, will be repeated.

Looking back I see this rule applied to my life in a dozen different places, but the ones that hurt the most were the relationship lessons that I refused to learn the first time around. Often not even recognizing that I needed to learn anything at all… I used to just think that it was somebody else’s fault, or fate… anything that would allow me not to take responsibility. One of the lessons learned was to respect myself and to stop holding on to things I had no control over (like other people). There were lots of lessons like that, all rolled into just a few relationships.

I can see now how I should have learned the lessons the first time around, when they were presented to me in friendships that needed to be cleaned out of my life, but apparently my way was better, and it took until I had almost gotten engaged to a girl before some of those lessons were learned the painful way.

Most lessons in life usually start out being taught gently. In our busy, hectic, ego-controlled lifestyles however we rarely seem to hear the still small voice gently teaching us the better Way. The Universe is much like my father was, he would start out asking me to do something… pick up my room, or mow the lawn, or something… and I would say ok, and then go about whatever it was that I wanted to do as soon as he’d left. It wouldn’t take very long before that normal voice, asking me to do something, was now fully raised and projected at me, and the consequences of not doing what I was originally advised to do were suddenly painful. Like I said before though, I had to learn the hard way back then. It’s funny to me now, but around my teen years I actually prided myself on having to learn the hard way! I guess the lessons just weren’t painful enough yet for me to listen.

With every situation in life though, there is a lesson you want to learn from it… that’s why it’s in your life at all. Instead of pointing fingers or trying to analyze what caused this in your life, try asking yourself, “What am I trying to learn from this?” Begin to seek out the lessons in your life and learn them, and stop the cycle of screw up, rinse, and repeat. There will always be another lesson to learn, but it won’t be the same lesson… you will be able to grow and move on. You will be able to restore the flow to your river of life that has been dammed up by this particular lesson.

Good luck, and don’t be scared to ask for help along the Way