Life is a struggle, make plans or else plan to fail, set goals, and work hard. These are mandates we often hear. For some people this is a life-long song they hear from the cradle to the grave. Much of my life was governed by these gospel-like directives. Even when I was not in compliance with them they dominated my thinking, often causing me to feel that I was a failure or inadequate because I did not adhere to or live by this belief system.

Observing other people I became aware that their complying with these admonishments even when affording them with a high standard of living did not give them quality living. Often their acheivements and success were accompanied with poor health, emotional anguish and for some it caused a stroke, fatal heart attack or premature death. They made plans, had goals and worked hard. Their Bible was "How to Become a Millionaire." They were unaware of or ignored this truth expressed by Jesus in the question, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"* How many souls are caught up in this mandated lifestyle? I shall not guess. Their souls and bodies are not in sync. They have not learned how to care for their souls. For when you care for your soul your soul will care for you.

More than a quarter of a century ago I discovered that struggling, making elaborate plans, setting goals and hard work were not the key to a better life, that having more did not necessarily mean that life was better, and that simplicity in living could not be matched by a complicated or stuff-cluttered lifestyle. My discovery was not a matter of cognitive knowledge but revelatory insight that led me to have faith as my ultimate concern in the Cosmic Source. With this faith I no longer needed to know or desired to know the consistency of my future. Knowing the Creator of my future was and remains sufficient, all I needed or need to know.

My insight, understanding and the principles underpinning "a better way to live" are expressed in "Faith Can Do It," a poem I wrote shortly after I discovered the preeminent role that faith had in viable living: 

What experience, skill and perserverance
cannot do, faith can do it,
What wisdom, knowledge and understanding
cannot do, faith can do it,
What popularity, connection and privilege
cannot do, faith can do it,
What wealth, power and possessions
cannot do, faith can do it,
What love, hope and truth
cannot do, faith can do it;
Faith is the principal thing to be applied
in achieving that which appears to be
impossible;
Nothing is more idiosyncratic and strictly
personal than a person's faith.
It is your faith,
Faith can do it.**

"A better way to live" is to live by faith. This is also a simpler way to live. It is not by might or power, or by struggling, making plans, setting goals and hard work, that meaning is engendered in living. It is by faith with its intangible tentacles of imagination, visualization, illumination and actualization of individual and unique potential that a person experiences opitmum health, enjoyment and community. Indeed, these are the things that make life worth living. This is it.

*Mark 8:36
**From "Be the Best: Do It Easy, Do It Now"
    by Uriah J. Fields (1983, p. 215)

Copyright 2011 by Uriah J. Fields