Much of our walk in life involves the effort to continually get a bigger and better picture of reality with our minds, hearts and hands. This drive is fueled by the hope that quantity information will eventually lead to the quality information that will enable us to increase our ability to control things better and be more successful.

   It is a bit ironic that much of our outward mind expansion results in discovering inner bits of quality information that are right under our noses. One such bit of information is The Secret Gift.

What is this secret gift? It is the wonderfully mysterious reality of free will.

free will (tiny version)—the pure ability to choose between this or that at any and every given moment.

Free Will (Huge Version)—the continuous ability to explode into an efficacious potential that literally has no limits.

   The main challenge in life for us all is to figure out how to use our secret gift in the right way to get where we want to be. The prescription for doing this is another bit of information that is right under our noses. But, human nature being what it is makes things a little more difficult than they need to be, because gifts have to be earned to be truly appreciated. Besides, we all love surprise outcomes—especially ones that we don’t expect and turn out in our favor.

   Probably the most ingenious way we have hidden this secret gift of free will is to misuse our imagination to diminish its power to the point of even denying its existence altogether. This degree of denial is partly a result of our paradoxical brain’s way of working. We crave to know and understand things to the point of artificially oversimplifying them and then resist the genuine, simplest truths that are staring us square in the face. And we strive for success by setting up failures to learn how to be successful or create chaos so we can restore order to it.

   The undeniable reality is that the one thing that makes us truly equal is our continuous ability to either believe in free will and its limitless bounds or not to. Which approach to life makes more sense— (a) Passively accepting a predestined mediocre life that you can’t do much to change because you don’t believe in the power of free will? (b) Applying free will irresponsibly or wrongly and then being unhappy, frustrated and angry because you are not were you want to be? or (c) Letting go to the full meaning of free will and then building success by learning how to use it correctly to grow into your potential?

If you haven’t already chosen “C” consider answering the following questions:

1. Why do I need to not believe in the awesome, boundless power of my free will?


2. Why is it so hard to learn how to exercise my free will wisely and responsibly to get where I really want to be?


3. How am I limiting the quantity and quality of my destiny by the way I am under-defining it?

   The really daunting question here is, if believing in the infinite power of our free will to explode off the success charts is so great, then why is the world still divided on this issue? We have a continuum of die-hard, win-win optimists that believe without any limitations, to practical win-lose realists who give it a 50-50 shot, to the cynical pessimistic, lose-lose, non-believers. Most of these three main groups spend a significant time trying to get others to join them.

   But which group is presently  being more successful? Oddly the one with the least advocates—the optimists. It has taken a few years to build momentum, but the relatively new field of positive psychology is about to explode. “Enough negativity and disbelief in positive people power” is the current mantra.

   Why has it taken us so long to shift from focusing on entropy and getting nowhere to focusing on growth and getting everywhere? Back to the paradoxical functioning of our brains again—Instead of just believing in the infinite potential of our free will (the Huge Version), we want incontrovertible proof first, with positive results from exercising the small version of our free will. The tail is wagging the dog and the cart is before the horse; and the truth is so simple that it is missed.

   Now isn’t all this a bit silly? If you want big dreams to come true and bring big things to you, does it make any sense to have pessimistically small dreams of where you want to be and make pessimistically small efforts to get there? Rule # one:  You get what you expect and do. Nothing more and nothing less. This is another reality right under our noses that goes unseen by too many.

   If you are not a “C” person, we other C’s can only say, “Try it you might like it and if not, what have you got to lose?