Tag Archives: fulfillment

As Good as It Gets

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In the 1997 movie, As Good as It Gets, Jack Nicholson plays an obsessive-compulsive character who is also lacking in social skills. The movie title refers to the character’s coming to terms with his OCD and making peace with the possibility that some things about his situation might not change.

As practitioners of the Science of Mind philosophy, we are strong believers in our ability to change our conditions in life by changing our thinking and way of being.

It’s a paradox, because life is always evolving and yet there is never a time that is better than now.

When I was in Ukraine in 2009, our host, an American woman who established a Science of Mind spiritual community there, shared with us that the people in Ukraine live more in the present than we do in the United States, partly as a result of the uncertainties that existed when the country was a republic in the former Soviet Union.

One day when I was teaching the spiritual principles applied to manifest what we want to experience in life, a young man asked me if that meant we were living in the future rather than the present. It was a good question. My response to him was that when we apply the principles correctly we are always being and thinking now what we want to experience. We aren’t projecting into some far off future. We are making the shift right now that corresponds to what we choose to experience now. Some things may take time to manifest, but we are always practicing the principles in the present moment.

The basis of practicing the principles in the present moment is that divine perfection exists right now. All we are really doing is revealing it. All the peace, joy, or fulfillment we could ever want already exists within us now. In that respect, this is as good as it gets. No matter what is taking place in our lives, we have access to peace, love, and joy right now.

It is certainly easier humanly to feel joy, fulfillment, and other divine qualities when we are at peak moments like right after accomplishing a goal or having something we want manifest in our lives. In reality, that type of fulfillment is fleeting and likely to be replaced very shortly by anxiety or longing for the next accomplishment, unless we choose fulfillment independent of what is taking place in our lives.

The choice is whether we want to live a rollercoaster life of constant ups and downs or a life of more consistent joy, peace, and fulfillment that is based on a choice to live in that state of mind and being.

This is a choice we can make every morning when we rise. We can say to ourselves, “I choose to be at peace today. I choose to feel love today. I choose to experience joy today.” We can say to ourselves before going to bed at night, “It was a good day. I am grateful.” This type of outlook leads to a more consistent sense of fulfillment because we are not looking outside ourselves for fulfillment. We recognize it’s an inside job and choose to access fulfillment in the only place it can be found – within ourselves.

In this way, we can enjoy the peak moments that occur after reaching milestones and we can also enjoy the journey, including when things don’t seem to be going our way.

This really is as good as it gets. All the joy, peace, love, and fulfillment that are possible exist within each of us right now. Therefore, “as good as it gets” is quite amazing. The invitation is to remember and to choose to be happy now.

Enjoy the journey.

Gregory Toole offers spiritual coaching to individuals and groups who want to create and live extraordinary lives. For more information, go to gregorytoole.com.

Single Focus: Fulfilling Your Divine Destiny

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by Gregory Toole

In his book, The Infinite Way, Joel Goldsmith wrote, “All of the good necessary to our welfare will be supplied to us in greater abundance than we can accept when we give up the effort and desire to get, achieve, or accomplish, and come more into the consciousness of desiring only to fulfill our destiny on earth.”

If we really are surrendered to our soul’s calling, that which we are here to be and do, is there anything else to be concerned with? This singular focus not only simplifies things, it also gives us assurance because our divine destiny is sure to be fulfilled when we surrender to it. And everything else is sure to fall short in some way when it comes to the deepest levels of fulfillment.

One might ask what divine destiny means for free will, of which we have a lot. Our soul’s agreement for being on the planet at this time has elements that we recognize as we resonate with specific activities and directions for our lives. We have choice as to how much we align with our soul’s calling, but ultimately it will keep nudging at us because it is our calling at the most deep level of who we are. And this is how we recognize it, because we see that it is something we must do for deeper fulfillment, and not something we conjured to gain recognition or material expansion.

Aligning with our divine destiny, or purpose, frees up a great deal of energy. It alleviates a lot of worry and anxiety as we begin to see that we are fully supported by life in fulfilling our divine destiny.

It brings us into full surrender, into the consciousness of “not my will, but thine, be done.” We are no longer concerned with personal achievement or accomplishment, but only with living our divine calling. “Thine,” here refers to the will of our higher nature, not a God separate from us.

A particular project or assignment may seem not to work out the way we expected, but then we remember that I am not here for that project to work out a certain way. I am here to fulfill my divine destiny, which I am absolutely doing. We are only here to serve, and if our role is to play the fool in a particular situation, then we play it well and with all of our heart. And if in another situation our role is to be the hero, we also play that role passionately, and with complete acceptance.

Often those things that we struggle with are not in alignment with our divine destiny, so we are going against the grain, like paddling upstream instead of going with the flow of the river. We can certainly choose to do that, but often in doing so we are ignoring what aligns us with our authentic expression in this lifetime.

When we align with our divine destiny, we let go of struggle. We allow ourselves to be used by life to bring about good in our world. We have less of a personal agenda and more of a soul or divine agenda. We are not trying to serve the purposes of the ego, but rather the higher purpose of our divine calling. We are serving the purpose that we are designed for, so it’s natural and harmonious. We are not struggling against life, but flowing with it.

Ironically, as Goldsmith notes in the quote I opened with, even though we are not acting out of a desire for personal gain, because we are aligned with life and our highest nature, we are ultimately prospered greatly when we are singularly focused on fulfilling our divine destiny.

May you align with your divine destiny this day and find great fulfillment.

Enjoy the journey.

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