The Principle of Better Endings

I have been posting to this blog site of Better Endings, in various editions, for well over seven years. In the process of developing ideas for the blog, I have come to understand how “Better Endings” is more than a literary device. It is a principle, a creative faculty, inherent to each of us as human beings because of our capacities for imagination and rational thought. We are capable, through language and memory, to reflect on our past, to mindfully experience our current thoughts and actions, and to anticipate and plan for our future. 

We are never ‘stuck’ in the present moment—or bubble—of time. The philosophical admonition that we live ‘only in the present moment’ means different things to different people, but I find for myself it is not really about the Present tense or about time (or spacetime), at all.  To be grounded in the Now can mean simply focussing your attention fully on what you are experiencing. If I travel to a past event through memory or imagination, I am Here-Now. If I recall a dream to explore its meaning, I imagine myself back in that experience to ‘replay’ it, and I am Here-Now. If I consider my future potentials to choose my best path forward, as I ‘preview’ a future potential, I am Here-Now. And if I reflect on a full process of how some event or attitude or situation has emerged, unfolded, and resolved (or its forward potentials), viewing that entire process as a single extended Moment is also being Here-Now.

The Principle of Better Endings allows you to regard and conduct your life as a transformational process of Becoming: where have you been, where are you currently, then where are you headed in relation to where/how you would most desire to Be?  To develop the talent of future prospection—like mining for gold!—it is helpful to reflect on past events and situations to ferret out what has worked and what could use some tweaking for going forward in a direction most in keeping with your current goals or with your sense of mission and purpose.  The principle of Better Endings lets you choose how you will respond in a current condition so you can ‘aim’ to achieve a ‘better’ future condition for yourself and all concerned.

If we think of ourselves as locked within some bubble of the Present (like in a level-balancing tool), then we might think of our lives as like floating on a raft being tossed about on the open seas of chance or circumstance. Hang on!  We might say, “I don’t make plans; I like to let things happen and Go with the Flow, wherever Life takes me.” (If you have set the flow in motion in a particular, desirable direction, then yes by all means!) I get the dynamic randomity of that and the sense of surfing on the waves of life experience to develop resourcefulness and spontaneity in the journey or process of living, day by day. “The journey is more important than the destination,” someone framed in this perspective might propound. I totally agree with that idea!  Still, how we engage in the Journey is part and parcel of living a fruitful, dynamic life.  “Following Your Heart” to “Find/Live Your Bliss” requires more from you than ‘just getting by’ or waiting to see what will happen next.

Here’s the deal, from the perspective of the principle or faculty of Better Endings as I have come to understand it from practicing the art of ‘better-endering’ through the last several years:

If we regard ourselves as bobbing along through life in a Present spacetime-bubble, there is no reason for the future to be any more than a further unfoldment and extension of habits, conditions, and circumstances we have accrued along the way. We may become trapped in this Present bubble of time.

When I began the journey of conducting research that ultimately led to my book providing Life Mapping tools, Your Life Path (2018), I was inspired by a dream.  One morning as I woke from sleep, I saw a white placard with bold black letters pasted right between my eyes, that stated:

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE TO REALIZE YOUR DREAM, NOT JUST FOR GETTING BY.

What a wake-up call!  This dream vision led me on a quest to discover for myself what is my Dream and how can I realize It. This led to my research on life mapping as I piloted every step of that emerging process before sharing it with others. After teaching from that process for several years in a humanities course about Myth, Reason, and Your Life Story (co-taught with an historian of mythology), my book and more importantly the workbook for Your Life Path (2018; you can download the workbook for free from the right panel), this process has now led further for me to a new book manuscript (now with my agent) of the title, Better Endings!

images are from pixabay.com

In the last three and a half years I have moved three times, following my own heart to realize aspects of my Dream. This shows how flexibility is an important component of applying the principle of Better Endings. There are no limits to this principle, of course. As we apply it to situations and choices in our lives, engaging with this principle of Better Endings helps us realize the manifold potentials of the Present Moment.

The future is not fixed or necessarily determined by past choices or conditions.

You are free to exercise your faculty to reflect on the past, to review current conditions, and to choose your direction forward, to Realize Your Dream!

Vocation Better Endings

One of my favorite classic movies is the Deborah Kerr/ Cary Grant version of An Affair to Remember. One of the reasons for the enormous popularity of this story is not just the romantic kismet between the main characters Nickie Ferrante and Terry McKay but also because of what they represent to each other as opportunities to Follow Their Hearts and Realize their Dreams, apart from the normative, mediocre lives/ relationships they have been oriented to before they meet.

They each have ardent vocations: Miss McKay’s as a working class children’s vocal teacher and Nickie’s as a painter.  Once they meet Nickie vows to give up his money-seeking, playboy lifestyle to earn a living for his wife from his painting, though he could instead marry into money and continue with a carefree, empty life instead. Terry is willing to risk pursuing true love with Nickie rather than settling for a predictable life where her own career is likely to be sacrificed or to come second to her husband’s.

Both Terry and Nickie’s vocations fulfill their deeply artistic natures.  They are following their hearts as well as recognizing kindred Souls in one another.  Both have “gone to Sea” on an ocean liner seeking deeper truths than their engagements of ‘convenience’ offer. So, An Affair to Remember is a Better Endings tale, through and through.

images are from pixabay.com

Of course the ending of this film is itself a Better Ending conclusion, wonderfully acted by Grant and Kerr.  It is Nickie Ferrante’s art that saves their relationship: a painting of Terry wearing his Aunt’s shawl, in Terry’s bedroom, that Nickie had been told “a crippled woman” had purchased.

“If you can paint, I can walk!” 

May you, too, Follow Your Heart. Listen closely to the beat of your own drum. This way you, like Terry and Nickie, can embark on the Journey to Live Your Best  Life!

I welcome YOUR Comments and STORY

 

ART to the RESCUE: A Popular Better Ending Theme

One of my favorite all-time movies is the original “An Affair to Remember” with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant. Of course it is a highly romantic tale of star-crossed lovers who find each other on an ocean cruise while both are otherwise engaged with the ‘wrong’ people back on land.  What interests me this month as we are exploring the ARTIST archetype is how in “An Affair to Remember,” it is the ARTIST to the rescue, to save the day and make sure not only that these two destined lovers marry, but more importantly, that each is able to manifest their fullest potentials.(Click to see scenes at  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050105/ )

Nikkie Ferrante, global playboy about to marry for money to perpetuate his high living lifestyle, is in reality a frustrated Dreamer, an Artist.  Meeting Terry McKay, who teaches voice in New York City to children, brings Nikkie face to face and heart to heart with his true inner calling, not just to marry Miss McKay but to return to his Art at any cost in order to support a family on his own. When these two promise to meet after six months at the top of the Empire State building to forego their prior engagements and declare their love for each other so they may marry, Nikkie gives up his aim to ‘marry into money’ and live off his wife’s inheritance and he vows instead to be an ARTIST, destitute if need be, even alone if that must be what occurs after the six month hiatus.

It is also quite literally Art to the rescue in the pivotal scene at the end, when Nikkie visits Terry to bring a gift of a shawl from his deceased Aunt after he and Terry have become estranged. He had been there at the Empire State building and believed that Terry was not, although the audience is quite aware Terry was hit by a car and crippled on her way to their meeting place:

“I was looking up; it was the nearest thing to Heaven. You were there!”

Terry visits Nikkie at her apartment where she remains seated on her couch; it is only when Nikkie enters her bedroom and sees his own painting of Terry wearing his Aunt’s shawl (which he was told had been purchaesd by a lady in a wheelchair), that he understands. Terry also wanted her independence and to be true to herself; she needed to be able to walk before she would have sought out Nikkie on her own.

The song Terry coaches children to sing in the movie is about listening to one’s “conscience;” again, to be true to one’s innermost callings rather than taking the easy, obvious pathway in life.  Many people defray or submerge their own ARTIST’s WAY; that is, they may not listen to what their unconscious, archetypal ARTIST part of Self is trying to express, either to the world or to their own conscious sensibilities.

images are from pixabay.com

Express your own Inner ARTIST’s Nature! What would it have you do today? In an important situation? Heed the Call!

I welcome your Comments and Stories!

FOR A LIFE OF ABUNDANCE: Follow Your Heart

Envision a future of life fulfillment and abundance that you are already “living INTO,” Now! PLease go ahead, I invite you and I entreat you to take some time out from whatever busi-ness you are about right now; to close your eyes and dreamily, freely:

I M A G I N E 

So just think of it: Life IS a Bowl of Cherries. Okay then, what does YOUR “bowl of cherries” contain in your imagined dream of life fulfillment? What relationships or conditions, behaviors, activities, locations, etecetera comprise  the cherries filling your bowl of abundance in the parallel reality of your future dream come true?

I encourage you to contemplate, journal, walk and muse, paint or write a haiku or poem about your life of abundance.

And as always, I welcome your response in any form of sharing.

Now then also, would you need to make any specific sorts of changes or tweaks to your current life course in order to bring this abundance about? Consider how you might make such adjustments as simply and effectively as possible from your present vantage point.

My dear sister whom I am visiting has a refrigerator magnet that reads: THERE IS NO PLAN: FOLLOW YOUR HEART! Yet what if, after all, following your heart truly will fulfill your “plan”, even if you didn’t know you have one? The question remains the same by either viewpoint: How to ‘truly’ follow your Heart?

Some speak of nudges, others pay attention to their dreams and “intuitions;” still others stay centered on their current course, neither expecting nor desiring change. And you know, it’s all good: Life is Good, no matter what.

Myself, though, I enjoy creating or composing my life actively as I go along. I love adventure and creating some measure of change and flexibility to bring about variety as that “spice of life.” I enjoy the Present Moment of Nowness, yet I also enjoy musing inwardly and reflecting lightly on the Past, and I enjoy looking forward to creating a future of my own choice and design. All of that involves listening to the Heart and ALLOWING the Moment to unfold yet being an active, mindful participant.

The Here and Now is multidimensional, resplendent, full of potentials and possibilities! So take a peek into the byways of your Heart’s own rhythm and pulse, and… Follow!

Follow Your Heart to Embark on Your Greatest Adventure

 

How might your inner Teacher help you benefit from understanding that “life is but a dream”? To find out, I invite you to simply open a conversation! You can do this by journaling (as below) or through direct, active imagination and then write about it or otherwise represent what you gain from this later.

I’ll share an excerpt from an archetype dialogue with my Teacher part of self:

Self: I call upon my Teacher persona. Are you there?

Teacher: Always, yes.

S:  How would you like to be addressed?

T:  It depends on your reason for calling me; what is it you need?

S: Just to chat, for a blog topic about the metaphor “Life is a Dream”.

T: Okay then, call me Coach.

S: Okay then. Why Coach?

T: To realize the potentials of manifesting your Dream, a life coach can help you expose your goals.

S: That could be helpful. What would you suggest then?

   {Synchronicity (aside): As I am in the process of engaging this dialogue, Tolkien’s Return of the King is on TV. I had forgotten that Frodo and Bilbo Baggins both depart with Gandalf at the story’s finale, on an elvish boat that heads out to unknown and indescribable Adventure.}

T: How could it be otherwise? Bilbo and Frodo are Adventurers by their deepest nature.

S: How does this relate to living life as a Dream?

T: You must follow your dreams. To do this, listen to your heart, then act accordingly.

S: My heart aches lately. I long to embark on the next phase of my great adventure, too. But I wish I could do this, when I go, with fellows such as Frodo has; true friends of the Soul.

T: Follow your heart then.

S: I don’t know what you mean. 

T: You are never alone, not when you realize HOW Life is a Dream. Your fellows are right beside you, and within, always.

S: Thank You. I begin to perceive what you are teaching me.  Separation is an Illusion. 

T: Trust the process. The law of spiritual economy ensures that everything is interconnected; nothing is wasted…

I gain from this encounter that since Life is But a Dream, there are no limitations except for those we choose to accept for purposes of learning life’s lessons. There is a freedom to ACT in the direction that accords with our own deepest nature.   A dream is malleable; it can be redirected according to the will of the Dreamer. This does, however, require (and reward!) an exercise of mindful awareness.

On another level, as someone reminded me this week, we can also think of God or Higher Wisdom itself as “the Divine Dreamer”. In this sense, mine or your dream-life is neither accidental nor random.  Remember to ask of any life situation: “Whose Dream IS this, really?”

I welcome your comments and stories. I invite you to engage in Archetype Dialogue with your own Inner Teacher persona!