Do you believe yourself to be a victim of life or a beneficiary of life? Do you believe the world to be a friendly place or a hostile place? Whichever choice you make or have made will be how life is presented to you.

As a victim of life, a person believes that life or the Universe is against them and always presenting circumstances and experiences that would prevent their enjoying and receiving the goodness of life. They believe the goodness of life is always offered to others but not to them.

Victims of life tend to blame everything outside of themselves for their difficulties in life. They blame other people, their family, their heritage, society, anyone and anything that removes the responsibility for their life from themselves. Victims also believe that however their life unfolds is just “the cards they were dealt” or it is “God’s Will” and there is nothing they can do to change it.

On the other hand, a beneficiary of life views life as beautiful and abundant. They see opportunity in every situation, regardless of its difficulty. They believe that they and life are partners who co-create their life experiences and most importantly, they view what happens in life as being done for them and not to them.

Have you ever noticed that the more people complain about life the more life seems to give them to complain about? Have you ever noticed that those who seem to have everything in life and exude a quiet confidence and positive attitude about life seem to receive more for which to express gratitude? Do you believe this to be a coincident or do you see the correlation?

I write and speak often about awareness-being present to and conscious of what is happening around us and within us. This includes the awareness of our thoughts and beliefs and why we hold them. Are your thoughts and beliefs supporting you in living the life you desire or are they the greatest obstacle to your living the life you desire?

“What we believe and hold as true about life and our Self is presented to us as our lived experiences.”

Albert Einstein posed what he called the most important question facing humanity when he asked, “Is the Universe a friendly place or is it a hostile place?” 

He went on to further say, “For if we decide that the universe is an unfriendly place, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to achieve safety and power by creating bigger walls to keep out the unfriendliness and bigger weapons to destroy all that which is unfriendly and I believe that we are getting to a place where technology is powerful enough that we may either completely isolate or destroy ourselves as well in this process.

“If we decide that the universe is neither friendly nor unfriendly and that God is essentially ‘playing dice with the universe’, then we are simply victims to the random toss of the dice and our lives have no real purpose or meaning.

“But if we decide that the universe is a friendly place, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to create tools and models for understanding that universe. Because power and safety will come through understanding its workings and its motives.”

“God does not play dice with the universe,”

–Albert Einstein

Which view of life and your Self do you hold as true? Is your life unfolding as you desire it to or are you accepting it as it is?

To change anything, we must acknowledge that it exists, and then accept responsibility for it. If it is true that we can change only that which we create, which I believe is true, then when we assume responsibility for it we then have the power to change it to whatever we desire to experience.

Life is difficult enough without our compounding the difficulties with disempowering thoughts and beliefs that prevent us from receiving that which life has to offer and to which we are entitled, all of us. And all that is required of us to receive the goodness of life is be open and receptive to it.

I began with stating there are two approaches we can take to life. I am a victim of life or I am a beneficiary of life. Whichever perspective we hold life will fulfill and prove as true. However, there is another perspective that I hold as true regardless of which of the other two perspectives I might hold. And that perspective is that life is perfect regardless of evidence to the contrary. Life always provides exactly what is required, when it is required, for our fullest experience and expression of the truth of who we are.