The art of asking the right questions is the key to true wisdom and productive manifestation. But what exactly are we trying to manifest? Many of us try to manifest money and status, both which are considered integral parts of success. But what we should really try to be manifesting is our own private heavens, creating a space to allow us to be our best selves.

Even in retirement from the general workforce, I still feel an absolute need to be as productive as possible. Even without the need for schedules, I still try to get the most work done before I can relax and sit back. Unfortunately, many times when I turn to use imagination, I get carried away in the bliss of diversion.

Too often in my life, I have found myself in free fall only to be greeted by a magic carpet just before I hit the bottom. But I never know how much longer this magical rug will be there to keep me from hitting the hard earth and shatter myself to her almighty gravity. I’m not as concerned with the rhythms as I am with the downward trends I see around me, and I do my best to avoid being dragged down by the common malaise.

We all wear many different caps, all interchangeable, as if identities were something to be traded and switched freely at will, when truly they’re not. It’s all psychotic madness; this society in which so many are being helplessly assimilated into, mindless superficial plastic people with no depth. The world has become hypercompetitive in recent years, especially with employment. New rules keep being made to decide who gets the jobs and who doesn’t. It’s now the sad truth that credentialism a barrier of entry to certain professions, even common ones. Heck, it can lead to having no meaningful relevance in society whatsoever.

If the journey is supposedly the thing that matters most in life, then why are people so obsessed with end results? You have to make your own journey; you cannot just perform the mundane and expect anything non-mundane to come out of it. There’s always somewhere to go, though the destination is often not worth the effort needed to get there.

I’d say the goals many people have set for themselves are the wrong ones. However, I do appreciate when people do have good, concrete goals, such as doing something you love while also earning enough to stay afloat. It warms my heart when I see people quit underpaying jobs where they were underappreciated and their skill sets wasted, only to several years later through tireless work and great conviction (that is not the same thing as arrogance, by the way). I love it when I see folks be able to pay off their mortgage and move into a nicer home. That is a strong, good line of goals. I sort of went on this route, in a very unconventional and perhaps extremely fortunate way. So, I completely understand and appreciate these journeys as I watch them unfold.

What have you done today to manifest your own private heaven?

~ Artemis Desertsong

Photo credit: Artemis Phoenix Desertsong