Readers,
This week I want to discuss the four pillars from the book.  I came to a realization early on after the accident that there were things that I was missing in life.  All I had to do was figure out why I wasn’t seeing them as my life raced by day after day.  When your ego is striped away and you are left with what would seem like a giant hole in your life,  just open your heart and let God rush in.  When looking at the four pillars, I knew that there were two sides to every pillar.  The two sides were the ego side vs the spiritual side.  An example of that is when someone says something inappropriate to their spouse and an apology is given.  If the apology comes from the ego side, it comes with sarcasm and no remorse just a desire to make the situation go away.  When the apology comes from deep inside your spirit, it is heart felt and full of remorse with a desire to lift the pain from the individual you just hurt.  The four pillars being accountability, self-awareness, perspective and faith all have these two sides.  It takes some time and practice to really become self aware of the way you think and act.  Your ego will always create control, elevation of itself, and differentiation.  If any of those thoughts or actions are in place, your ego is in control.  Many years ago I was at one of our kids school functions that was doing a fund raiser event.  I was standing in line to buy some baked goods.  The lady in charge of selling at this particular table got into a discussion with another lady about pure gossip.  As we stood there in line she had no desire to help anybody but rather just speak loud enough for everyone else to hear how much she knew.  When I was next, I offered my opinion to what had transpired and what I thought she was there to do, you know sell to help the kids.  She gave me a look of surprise at first as if she couldn’t believe that I would even say anything to her and then replied with a distasteful response. ” You know I am volunteering!”  I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and responded,” Even if you’re not getting paid to doing something, it doesn’t give you the right to do it poorly.”  This was one of the first awareness thoughts that I came across.  The ego allowed this individual to turn something from the heart into something about her.  The pillars can be viewed from all sides but when you start to grasp self-awareness your mind will continue to blossom and your ego will fight for it’s position.  Before closing this week out, I get a lot of questions about faith.  “What faith do I follow? What Church do I go to? What do I think about different religions or ideology? ”  Faith is not different than any of the other pillars.  It too has two perspectives,  We all know in the history of the world man has fought wars over ideologies.  Who is right about God and who is wrong.  Man spends more time trying define and validate God than they do actually getting to know God.  My answer is this.  God is addressed in the last chapter of the book.   God doesn’t need to be defined.  Man needs to define God.  Man needs the definition and does everything in his power to capture God in a bottle.  Simply the desire for man to be “right” has led to the exposure of man’s ego, but even the most faithful or holiest of men  fail to see their influence in how they see God.  One of my biggest struggles today are the people of “faith” that influence through FEAR.  Everything God taught me through this event was to trust him.  Even the negatives in my life were directional to my success and faith.  I will say it again, if mankind would leave God to being God and just stop trying to define God to make himself feel all warm and fuzzy or to be right, life including mankind’s relationship with God would fill em up.  People would rather be at war because they believe their definition is better than the next guys.  If you pull the ego out by being accountable, becoming self aware, and changing your perspective, Faith and God WILL follow.  It will be the most gratifying experience you have ever been through.  Next week I will be talking about my failure with the four pillars and what I was missing, possibly the most important factor to humanity.

Everything God taught me through this event was to trust him.  Even the negatives in my life were directional to my success and faith.

Thank you for listening, God bless

Bill