Have you gotten enough advice lately? I have. I have also had plenty of input. I wonder if, like me, you are all set with insights, suggestions, hints, recommendations, people encouraging you to think what they think, and with charming or passionate pleas regarding what to do, buy, feel and want.

 

I’m just saying.

 

I notice a lot of people are just saying. They are just feeling, too. Feeling desire for the things they want. Objects, status, ideas, people, etc. They are not too sure about how to get what they want, or to create the world they want to live in, so they speak up.

 

Advertisers, politicians, entertainers, athletes, experts and opinionizers all raising their voices and sending their words and images our way, catching our attention and persuading us in that moment to engage with them, to dovetail our desires with theirs.

 

It has not worked, though.

 

Because generally speaking, the motive for all their talk is not love for you. Most of the time, most of them just don’t have the time to care too much if your life is better or if you find some peace, love and/or happiness in this cool and turbulent world. That, nothing personal, is your problem. Not that they might not like you if they met you or something, but as they speak out across the culture, our happiness is not really on the table. What they want is on the table.

 

That is why the messages are at once enticing and cold-hearted. That is why the result of these public messages is a rush of attraction and connection followed by hollowness and disappointment.

 

If we move through this world bothering others, we will be restless, lonely, frustrated and exhausted. Continuing along that path is death.

 

By choosing instead to follow a path, even if it’s a solitary path, of purposeful practice, we can have life instead. We need not tolerate the noise and meanness of the world. We need not engage with it directly, since trying to suppress it is like trying to calm an ocean by smashing down its waves.

 

By purposeful practice I mean be generous when you can help;

 

don’t get angry when you are provoked;

 

treat other people decently, and let them have your respect. Let what they aspire to matter to you;

 

let your mind settle down to a deep peaceful state that you can carry around with you; get so good at it you can move vigorously through the turbulent world in peace;  

 

take joy in living your life, helping where you can and leaving people alone when you are through;

 

see deeply enough to understand that no amount of goods, power over others, or pleasurable experiences will ever create a single moment of happiness for you or anyone else;

 

that the only thing that can ever last as you pass through this life and as you pass through the portal of death is your kindness and decency.

 

We cannot do these things just because they seem like a good idea. We can only do them by cultivating them as skills, little by little, humbly beginning, now, recognizing our limits and, if we persist without skipping steps, becoming a hero in this world.

 

Having this practical purpose, to train ourselves to be free of suffering, so that we can help others find their way out too, will allow our hearts and minds to return to peace and to power. There is no other way to do it.