=STOP PLAYING THE GAME=

TAO TE CHING

Learning consists of daily accumulating.
The practice of the Tao consists of daily diminishing;
decreasing and decreasing, until doing nothing.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

True mastery can be gained
by letting things go their own way.
It can not be gained by interfering.

=STOP PLAYING THE GAME=

You are playing a game with the entire world. Sometimes it can be enjoyable and fun, but most of the times it's hard and complicated. Sometimes it can just be sadistic and cruel.

Your ego loves playing the game. It loves comparing itself to others to see who is winning. To see who has the most money. To see who has the most power. To see who is the best. To see who is happier. To see who is making the most out of their life.

Every person you meet your ego is sizing them up. Deciding who is ahead in the game.

But here is the catch. We may make the comparisons but we constantly feel we are losing. We know there is something out there we don’t have. We may not even know what it is. We just have that empty feeling that tells us it is missing.

Guess what? That empty feeling isn't going to go away. If we look out into the world to fill the void, the empty space may actually get bigger and bigger. We are chasing something we can never catch.

We are playing a game in which there can be no winner. Yet we keep playing the game and sometimes the game flies completely out of our control.

Your mind has over 50,000 thoughts a day. Are you going to tell me you are in control of all those thoughts? Do you even know what those thoughts are? Most are repetitive and useless. The same thoughts that you have over and over every day, but accomplish nothing. Most just bring worry and misery.

Even though you aren't consciously aware of all the thoughts you know they are there. You can feel them. There is that underlying current of unease that is in all of us. Sometimes we feel it more intensely. Sometimes in moments of intense anger or grief it can overwhelm us. But even in moments of relative peace we can still feel it lurking in the background.

The game keeps us searching, comparing and fighting for relief but there is none. Perhaps brief flashes of liberation, but they are always fleeting.

So is there anything we can do?

Yes!

Quit playing the game.

Surrender. Just give up. Decide you are not going to play the game anymore.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying give up on life. I am saying end the game. Now watch what happens in your life.

Turn your life over to your higher self. Trust in the part of you that is infinite. A part of you that, believe it or not, is omnipotent & all knowing. Why in the word would you want to limit yourself to your finite mind? A mind so cluttered and full of lies and deceit that it really can't even see the world for what it truly is.

Accept that you are more than this jumbled mess of thoughts and emotions, walking sometimes aimlessly in a trap of flesh and bone. Realize that you have the ability to access infinite possibilities. Understand there is no need for competition, because everyone has this ability. Everyone is pure unlimited potential. You can coordinate the universe so precise that anything you desire is possible.

How?

Embrace the unknown and uncertainty. Know that everything you could ever want is yours for the taking. Just don't get caught up in the "how" and "why" anymore. Find the joy in yourself. What makes you feel good? Let that feeling guide you. If you are having fun in what you are doing, everything else will take care of itself.

But most won't believe it. Most are just going to continue playing the game. For them the struggle is never going to end. Sad.

Stop playing the game.

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