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Have you ever tried to change something about someone else? Or have you thought about wanting to change someone or wished they'd change?nnHave you wished your life was different or wanted to change something? Perhaps you've wished for more money or for Mr Right - or Mrs - to come along!nnAlmost all of us want to change something. Most often that thing we want to change is some external - tangible - thing that we perceive will create more happiness. nnFor years I worked in sales, then marketing and PR. We were trained to appeal to the tangible things - the houses, the cars, the money, the career, the relationship, the holidays etc. nnThe when I hit a life crisis years later I picked up the latest book on ‘Having it all’ and guess what it said? Set tangible goals. But somehow this tangible - material ideal - didn’t do it for me. Beyond the initial rush of adrenaline something was missing, and no amount of pumping myself up, or strutting around a room mouthing positive affirmations worked. nnAm I saying that people don’t want the tangible? No. That would be wrong. Clearly human beings do get motivated by the tangible - things they can feel and touch and take home, such as a new DVD player - or the insurance policy that covers it when the kids feed it orange juice and chocolate cake through the slidy, opening drawer. It makes perfect sense: that tangible provides the opportunity for immediate gratification. Physical objects or even coffee or chocolate can have a short lived positive effect. But as I found, when I set my goals, the excitement of attaining anything physical dwindles quickly, leaving the feeling of dissatisfaction or the space I came to know as, ‘There must be something more to life than this’. nnAnd I’ll admit it. For many years I’d have been thrilled if all my tangible dreams came true. But thank goodness they didn’t. If that would have happened I’d have missed out on something much more gratifying - the discoveries I’m eagerly waiting to share with you now. nnFor a moment, turn inward. Put your hand on your heart and ask yourself, honestly, ‘Deep down, how satisfied am I with the goings on I’ve come to call my life?’ You may have many lovely things around you. You’re life may be blessed. Or not. But now look beyond you. Look out at society. Ask yourself ‘What is our society really like?’ Now ask one more question. ‘Using society as a mirror of me, what do I now see about myself?’ nnWe live in a world where it is common to measure ourselves by what we have, what we do or how much money flows into our bank account. But I suggest to you, that if being human is about gaining such a deep sense of satisfaction from physical possessions, why then do we see so much neuroticism and dysfunction in our society? nnMaybe we have allowed ourselves to become tangible harvesting machines that are never satisfied and always searching for more. Maybe that’s true. Maybe not. But if we have been become tangible harvesting machines, and found no satisfaction, then what’s the answer?nnIf we’ve turned outwards, looking for external gratification in the tangible and found little pleasure, then perhaps the answer is to turn in the opposite direction - inwards. If we do this we begin to look at our self. Many people are already doing this and they seem to be finding things like - satisfaction, inner peace, more love for their self and more compassion for others. nnIt seems that these people are tapping into another source, something greater than the physical - material/tangible - world. Some are claiming, we all originate from God, and therefore hold a God-like essence and can produce everything we could ever desire. If that is true then perhaps there is no need for me to write any more on the subject because you can just ‘tap-in’ to your Godliness and create things just the way you want them to be. But let’s be honest, this isn’t the case, is it? You can’t just tap in.nnOr can you? nnMaybe you can tap in. Maybe you tapped in to your Godliness and created the current conditions of your life. You may well shake your head, or raise an eyebrow or even point a finger and say ‘Pwer! Never!’ I mean, would I really create things just the way they are now? No. That’s crazy! Get away with you man!” nnBut is it so crazy?nnMaybe it is possible that rather than choosing to live like a God we’ve chosen to take the path of losing our way. Maybe this losing our way is part of the plan too. Perhaps, for a time, we’ve chosen to be ‘off course’ so we can come to know what ‘on course’ is like. Because, if we never got lost, how could we ever experience being found? And if we don’t experience the ‘founding’ we can never come to know our founder-God self. nnIn the first thirty-seven years of my life I’ve been lost many times. I’ve been married and divorced, co-habited and separated and fought for both of my children’s well-being in Law Courts, at separate times. I’ve also suffered physical, mental and emotional abuse to the extended that I have been beaten to the state of paralysis and left bleeding and completely stripped of my self-worth. And if that’s not enough, I’ve endured financial hardship, survived an almost fatal accident, become obese and felt about as low as a man could get - zero self-esteem. Zero confidence. nnAnd I don’t regurgitating this list in an egotistical hope of impressing you with all my failures. But I do hope that by sharing them with you, it will impress upon you that, if your heart is willing, you can take almost any experience you’ve had in your life, up to this point, turn it on it’s head and create an experience of life that is just the way it is meant to be.nnNeil MillarnCommunitySoulnn