The voice behind the Notes

I used to think everyone knew something that I didn't. They, like me, weren't aware of what it was, and they didn't seem to notice that I was without it, but to me the difference was painful. I felt awkwardly different, which led to a burning desire to question the things that most people seem to take for granted. A desire to know what life is about, which I have now largely satisfied, making the price of my sensed alienation very small in comparison.

I didn't realize it at the time, but my desire to "know" had put me on a path of inner knowing; or better, my thinking was beginning to attract like thinking. It seemed my questions were slowly answering themselves, opening my eyes to the insights I now realize are latent within us all. I was never sure just when my "illuminations" took place until sometime after the fact, as if an intuitive knowing had been imparted when I wasn't paying close attention.

By the time I was twenty, I had deduced that they were not just here accidentally, nor were we set adrift by some angry god who would judge, condemn, and sentence us before we even understood what was going on. I believed that through thinking, we are creators, the joyful gladiators of the Universe revered for daring the ultimate dare; here of our own choosing, each of us for our own extraordinarily unique reasons, foremost among which is for the sheer adventure of doing so. And if there was ever proof that I was on the right track, the fact that I now spend part of every day writing for "the Universe" is it.

In 1989, these were the kinds of thoughts Mom, my brother, and I put on our company's brand-new line of T-shirts, TUT (Totally Unique Thoughts), our philosophy being that everyone is special, that every life is meaningful, and that we're all here to learn that dreams really do come true. We did real well, eventually selling over one million of them.

But as the year 2000 dawned, with both our sales and our enthusiasm waning, we decided to close the last of our stores and liquidate our remaining inventory. Reluctantly, I briefly hit the pavement with my accountant's resume in hand. Fortunately, no one was hiring (at least not me!), and fortunately again, I had enough money from our T-shirt days to coast for several years. Even more fortunately, I still had a thousand or so people looking forward to receiving my free "Monday Morning Motivators" via e-mail each week.

So I decided that as long as I didn't have to "work" yet, I'd keep doing the one thing that filled me with the greatest sense of accomplishment and purpose-write, about the truths I most needed to embrace to change my life. And figure out how to make it pay, later.

Talk about scary. As the months rolled by, there were plenty of night I tossed, literally in a sweat, thinking "What am I doing with my life? What went wrong? How am I going to make any money at this? What if I have to sell my home? What if I can't find a job and no one will buy my home? What if? What if? What if...?" And day after day, week after week, month after month, my reserves dwindled, and nothing came in.

But I knew a trick. I knew that figuring out "the hows" wasn't really my job; they belonged to the Universe. I also knew to focus on the end result, the kind of life I wanted, and to get busy turning over every stone, knocking on every door, following every impulse, so that theoretically, at least, the Universe could take care of the details.

Whaaaaa! Has it ever!!! Somehow, during all the knocking and turning and visualizing, I acted on enough hunches and instincts to keep me buoyed with the necessary optimism to press on and not look back. And literally, the next thing I knew, TUT's Adventurers Club was born and the Universe began using e-mail. At last count, solely from word-of-mouth advertising, [TOTAL_SUBSCRIBERS] people in [TOTAL_COUNTRIES] countries now receive Notes from the Universe five days a week.

Even for me, it's almost hard to believe that this turn of events wasn't somehow meant to be, but I know better. I remember all too well the forks that lay in the road just seven years ago and how "career" certainty and monetary gains were virtually nonexistent, tempting me to run for safety down paths that promised little else. But as I now tell my audiences: If you understand the nature of reality that our thoughts unfailingly become the things and events of our lives, if you let go of the past and move with your dreams, it will always be enough.

To the life of your dreams,