Book Snippit

*Trying to get my proposal in the mail tomorrow.  Of course, I had to to include you in the process, so here is the intro for the book. It will probably help you more fully understand what the book is about too. Let me know what you think!* The formatting is off because I cut and pasted it from the actual document.

What it is-What it Ain't: An Introduction.

WARNING: This is not one of those cheesy, cheer-leader-y, “you can do it” self-help books. This is not the type of book that attempts to lump all the problems of the quarter life crisis into three arbitrary (and socially constructed categories) finance, relationships, and health. I won’t be giving you ten steps or twelve steps to financial freedom. I won’t be listing and quoting a bunch of haughty- taughty/happy go lucky millionaires who have no problems because they paid them all to go away. This is not about things, or steps, or completely out of touch moral authorities. This is about a real person, who had a real crisis. Who learned to use her thoughts as allies instead of enemies. Who learned that even in emptiness there is value and potential. This book, and the subsequent stories within it, is not a guide…it’s a tool.

I have found that at the end of the day when the sun meets the moon all we have is our mind. Our mind is the key to creation. Our mind is what fills the emptiness with the stuff (things, people, and experiences) that we want. So why not feed our mind good food? Why not learn how to train our mind and ourselves. Why not explore the emptyS P A C E?

Since your thoughts are the jumping off point for all that you see and experience, it only seemed fitting to start our little “stuff excavation” by talking about not only what we think about but HOW we think about it. That conversation starts with one three letter word that has four letter implications. That word is E-G-O. Ego, as defined by both Webster and Sigmund Freud as the thinking part of us. It’s the part of us that knows how to do what we want to do. It provides the means to the ends.  Ego defines; it guides. I will go into this more in the next chapter, but for the purpose of this introduction it is just important to know that ego is a natural functional part of your mind. As a result, losing the ego will not provide the peace that so many others have claimed it will. Learning to manage the ego is the goal. Let me back up for a moment though, because I want to do a little conceptual autopsy on the ego. The ego, in seeking to know and to organize our thoughts, has some allies, some help. I have named the allies TOTES, or tools of the ego. In my study, I have extracted 5 TOTEs, they are judgment, attachment, fear, destruction, and time. I came up with these tools based on my experiences, the experiences of those around me and through my continued study of modern metaphysics.

As human beings we are uniquely crafted to encompass that which is purely logical/ purely functional while simultaneously possessing the ability operate in the purely mystical. The mystical part of us can be defined as spirit. Mind and spirit work together in perfect unison on a daily basis. So naturally there has to be an equally powerful and functional tool of the spirit to compliment each tool of the ego. The tools of the spirit are not quick fixes; they are simply thinking strategies that can be used to gently usher you toward mental balance. The tools of the spirit are Compassion, Appreciation, Enthusiasm, Creation and Infinity. 

Each of the chapters that follow will discuss each tool of the ego as it relates to its corresponding tool of the spirit. I have found that it’s in the juxtaposition of these tools that we find our ever elusive…stuff.