Miss Mandie

If this is true, how can success and happiness co-exist?

Is there a difference between doing something we don’t want to do because it makes us feel anxious or it’s boring or it requires energy and effort, to doing something that doesn’t resonate with our core essence/truth/soul?

How do we know the difference?

This has been an interesting conversation in my head lately.

Particularly as I watch myself procrastinate the shit out of completing my studies.

It’s as though I have to drag myself kicking and screaming through the last remaining modules of this course.

A course I have been doing for twelve months.

A course where most of the work has already been done.

A course I could have finished months ago.

A course I wished I had finished months ago.

So what’s my problem?

Albert Gray wrote a speech about his search for the common denominator of successful people. His discovery?

“Successful people formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do”.

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I should have known this tree wasn’t going to last forever. My track record in gardening would have been enough of an indication I would kill it eventually. But I had one. Oh, such a glorious, abundant money tree, so easily accessible through the convenience of my trusty electronic card. I lived for three years with my money tree; the tree that sprouted from my decision to sell up and hand over the keys to my inner city apartment and undo the chains that were around my neck from its mortgage. I travelled, I volunteered, I socialised, I soul searched, I learnt Reiki, I daydreamed, I studied. All the while giving very little thought to the exchange of my time for any currency.

Then one day, last October, with an unexpected car repair bill (the consequence of the 10,000km road trip to the centre of this great country of mine), it died. No more. The tree just fizzled up and died.

Now you would think that for most people, it would mean the shake up to a reality that might involve full-time work and the end of the holiday as such. Not I; she who believes in the law of attraction!  My life didn’t have to change given my magic money tree had gone. Thankfully the Australian Government would support me now that I was by their standards, or by anyone’s standards, dead broke. Things were going along fairly smoothly. I sold items of any value off that I wouldn’t miss too much. I picked up a few hours here and there at the local health food store. I even managed to work full-time for one week back in February. The Universe was doing a good job of looking after me from week-to-week.

But suddenly, as what little money I had from the things I sold disappeared, and the few hours I did work dried up, I noticed that in actual fact, I was more than dead broke. I was now careering backwards into a debt ditch with no visible means of digging myself out (a metaphor made even more appropriate if you know of my previous track record with driving). But what’s going on here…I believed in the law of attraction!? So Universe, where’s my bloody money!?

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There a few sure fire signs when my attitude to life takes a turn: I stop updating my facebook status, I stop exercising and I start reminiscing about working full-time. Yep, I know, tragic. But as tragic as it sounds, it just occurred.

It was prompted after the Great Easter Campout at The Forest, with 13 of my darling friends and 9 of their kids pitching tents around my yard. The weekend was chaotic, messy, fun and heartwarming. My kitchen turned into a brothel within minutes of it being cleaned, the boys couldn’t wait to burn everything in sight on the campfire, and kids were having major sugar meltdowns by Sunday evening. But all in all, we functioned rather harmoniously, sharing food and watching whoever’s kid was right in front of us…the whole weekend kind of echoed of the commune-style living that you imagine the original hippies of this area would have lived like.

Then as quickly as this impromtu community sprung up, it packed up and headed home. Headed home with their family members in tow, to their jobs and mortgages, to the weekly social gatherings with one another in Brisbane, to the cycle of life that revolves around the whole Monday-Friday gig.

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This day, 40 years ago, marks the last day of one of the momentous occasions in our modern history. An occasion that saw the largest gathering of human beings in one place. Approximately 500,000 people descended upon a small farm in New York State in 1969, to hang with friends and listen to some tunes. We could ponder whether they knew they were collectively contributing to a new beginning for humanity. I like to think that deep down they knew the magnitude of their triumph.

By today’s standards, Woodstock 69 was organised by four kids – their average age just 25 years old. They expected 60,000 to attend and got half a million. Despite having little of the resources to cope with the city that unexpectedly sprung forth, somehow they managed to steer the concert through the Three Day Peace and Music Festival. The place was declared a natural disaster zone, with emergency food helicoptered in and local charities making it their mission to feed the masses. It rained heavily, and there was one porta-loo (that’s portable toilet for all those that aren’t Aussies!) for every 833 festival goer. All of this, and only 3 people died…none of which were the direct actions of another being. They proved to the world that it was possible for that many people to co-exist in harmony no matter what circumstances they were faced with. Collectively, they supported, loved, hugged and danced their way through the experience.

I wonder how they might be feeling these days, as they watch the very foundation of all that they were rebelling against, start to crumble. It’s been a long road, but four decades down the track, they are witnessing the revolution in our world that I am sure their hearts were crying out for back then. Corporate and political systems of greed and intolerance and inequity are buckling under the weight of their own irrepressible injustice. Economic, environmental, social systems are all under pressure. Things are shifting in our world. The old unsustainable ways are breaking down, to make room for new ways to emerge. New ways of doing, being and relating with one another that have mutual respect and love at their core. The same mutual respect and love that this unique group of special individuals displayed to the whole world back in the infamous year of 1969.

At the depth of my being I am filled with an immense gratitude for this moment in time, for all that it represents as we continue to create a world of love and peace.