Another question I received from my student, one of my students,
is are my childhood experiences the underlying driving
force and keys to my purpose? And that answer,
without knowing and interacting with you individually, I can speculate about,
but I can say from my observation,
they usually have a factor and factor into the mission in life.
If you look very carefully,
your purpose is the most effective and efficient pathway
to fulfill the greatest amount of voids, with the greatest amount of value.
Now, you might ask, what exactly is a void? Well,
let's step back and take a look at what that might be.
Let's say you meet somebody and you put them on a pedestal and you're infatuated
with them,
and you're conscious of their upsides and unconscious of their downside.
But e by comparison, by the law of contrast we call it,
we minimize ourself to them. We think they're more intelligent.
We minimize our intelligence. We think they're more successful.
We minimize our achievements. They may be more wealthy.
We minimize our, how much we make and have.
Anytime we exaggerate somebody and put them on a pedestal,
we'll minimize ourself and put ourselves in a pit.
And we'll be too humble to admit what we see in them is inside us.
And we'll have deflective awareness. We'll disown what we see. We'll deflect,
disown and dismember. Sometimes we call it dismemberment.
We don't remember where we have that behavior. Now,
we know in psychology that whatever we admired in them is reminding us of
something that we actually have inside that we admire about ourselves,
but we're too humble to admit it. So it's there. It's not missing in us,
nothing's missing in us, but we put them on a pedestal.
So whenever we're too humble to admit it and disown a part,
we have an emptiness. A void. We disown a part. We don't see reflectively,
what we see in them is us. If we had reflective awareness,
we would see that the seer (us), the seen (them), and the seeing,
would all be the same process and there'd be equilibrium.
And we wouldn't have them on a pedestal. We just have them in our heart,
balanced. And realize that they're just reminding us of about ourself.
So anytime we're too humble to admit that what we see in them is inside us,
we have a void. That void wants to be fulfilled.
We want to level the playing field, because if we're the underdog,
we're going to sacrifice for them until we eventually say, damn it,
I deserve more than that. And then if we are the other side of the equation,
if we resent somebody and we're too proud to admit what we see in them is inside
us and we're don't remember that and dismember that,
and deflect that and disown that, we now have a void. And if we do,
we get cocky and we get narcissistic and we expect our values to be met by them,
they can't live up to it. We eventually get humbled and we realize it's futile.
It's futile to try to live in other people's values.
It's futile to try to get others to live in our values.
But it's wiser to get us to learn how to communicate
what we value in terms of what they value so we both win out of the value so
there's a sustainable fair exchange.
So anytime we're too proud or too humble to admit what we see in others inside
us, we create voids. Those voids leaves us empty. That
emptiness wants to be fulfilled. Our highest value, where we are most objective,
most neutral, where we're not judging,
is the most efficient and effective pathway to dissolve that judgment,
to own those traits, to see that nothing's missing and have fulfillment.
So can our childhood experiences and judgments,
whatever we're resentful to in the past,
whatever we're infatuated with in the past, our phobias, our fantasies,
our philias,
any of those that are stored in the subconscious mind are what drives us,
with those voids, those disowned parts, to what our values are.
So can they? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean it's limited to a childhood.
It may be a teenager, it may be a young adult.
It could be anywhere along the way that can cause a void that can drive a
value to drive our purpose in life.
The hierarchy of our voids is determining the hierarchy of our values.
And whatever is most important in our life is stemming from the biggest voids in
our life. So if we perceive we didn't have money as a child,
we may go out and build wealth. Rags to riches to rags.
The people that are grown up with a bunch of money,
they may not have drive to go find money so they may squander it.
But the people that came in poverty,
they may be driven to go and try to find it 'cause they don't want to be in
poverty anymore. So yes,
that judgment of the resentment from not having money could drive us.
But so could, we could also be infatuated with something and go, oh,
I wish I could be like that and I missed that and then that could drive us.
So any judgment could be a driving mechanism. But ultimately,
our highest value, where we're most objective and most neutral,
is the one that neutralizes it and fulfills it and makes us realize that what we
see in others is us. The seer, the seen and the seen are the same.
So if we live by our highest priorities in life,
we have the most fulfillment and we end up whatever the voids were, we
end up filling them. But yes, the childhood could be a factor in driving it.
But any stage of our life from even before we're born,
now we know that there's multi-generational epigenetic effects that are causing
impulses and instincts and subconscious stuff inside our own life. That's a
factor. What happens in gestation is a factor.
What happens from birth till today is a factor. As a young adult,
adult all the way along,
they're all a variable that can make a factor in determining your values.
And your values are changing and therefore your purpose can tweak. You know,
when I was 3 to 13, baseball was my life.
13 to 18 surfing was my life.
18 till now is teaching. Probably the rest of my life.
But something could change, a cataclysmic event could change,
my voids could change, my values could change,
but most likely for myself is going to be teaching.
But the reality is that the voids definitely determine the values,
and childhood is at least one of the places where we could get those voids.
So hopefully that answered your question,
but just know that the hierarchy of your voids determine the hierarchy of your
values. The hierarchy of your values determines how you perceive, decide,
and act, and therefore your behavior and therefore your destiny.