It's all about Learning. It’s not about achieving. When you achieve something, what you learn is, “I can set a goal, target my thoughts and actions toward it, and accomplish it.” This is part of your soul’s power: that it can manifest things and events in the physical world. When Jesus said “Nothing shall be impossible to you, if you have faith” he was speaking quite literally. Whatever you desire in this world, if you focus your intention on it, move toward it mentally and physically, and believe that you can have it, you will eventually have it. The hardest part is the believing.

If you have experienced success, you may believe in success more than you believe in failure. If you have experienced what we call failure, you may tend to expect it, and probably believe in it more than you believe in success. Another amazing thing Jesus said was “Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet believe.” This was a clue, a hint, that we do have a choice in what we believe. We can endeavor to believe in the ways we want things to go, and they will be more likely to go those ways. Or we can stress and worry and fear that they won’t go the way we want, and they probably won’t. What we hold in thought, materializes in our lives, so we can powerfully influence our lives just by choosing our thoughts. The problem is, we make so many of our choices unconsciously, emotionally, or by habit.

Whatever your belief is, your choices will be. And vice-versa. So you can change your life either by choosing to change your beliefs, or choosing to change your choices and actions. Either way, you always choose what you believe you deserve, and Life/God/the Universe always unfailingly produces whatever you believe. Who you are now, and what you have, are what you chose. What you will have and who you will be, you are choosing right now.

Look at your life without judging it, and ask yourself “What do I really want?” (Note: the question is not “What should a person like me want?”) The answer you’re looking for is at a deeper level than the mind. Listen patiently and wait; it may come on a thunderbolt but it’s much more likely to come very quietly.

When you achieve a difficult or lofty goal you’ve wanted and worked for, it feels great. Your Truth is made manifest “Live” on your life’s stage. And you learn that tangible success is one of your options, one of the many choices of your soul’s power. Success feels good, and so there is the danger of becoming addicted to it, staying there and going no further. That’s why your soul also seeks other options and experiences. It’s here to experience; it’s here to learn, and break through barriers, especially spiritual ones. So your soul will sometimes choose other options, such as “not-succeeding” or not achieving the goal that’s been set by the personality of you.

We usually call this “failure” but that’s not really accurate. From this failure-experience we always have the opportunity to learn greater truths, such as this one: “There are no failures, only learnings.” This I was told by my Inner Counselor some years ago at a time when I did not want to hear it, but I knew it was the biggest thing I really needed to learn, and I could never have learned it from success. We have to experience failure to transcend it.

Contemporary spiritual thinkers and writers have used the term “The Earth School.” I can see that. I think it’s a reasonable description of what we’re here for: primarily to learn. But the term doesn’t quite cover it I think, because I believe there is also an element of sharing gifts that goes along with the Earth Journey.

We have all been given a set of gifts, some we develop and some we don’t. Yes, you too. This includes that talent you’re embarrassed to admit, the songs you write, the poetry you’re too shy to show anyone, that love of working with your hands with wood or steel or stone, or that secret love of rivers, or the constellations of stars, or some other seemingly unlikely thing. Yet it’s been there in the back of your heart all your life. consider bringing it out. Just in some small ways maybe, at first. See what happens.

The life you are living now is not all there is. It’s a very small part of all there is; there is much more. In fact, there is so much more, that we are unable to comprehend or even imagine it within the limitations of a human mind. Yet your soul knows, and from the inside of you, gently urges you to trust and believe, and to move forward, faithfully, mindfully honestly and earnestly living the life you have now. Because even though your soul will have other lifetimes, you will never have this one again. The particular gifts of this life must be shared in this lifetime, or they will remain unshared for eternity.