Aspiration – The Future:

If This Card Chooses You – Time To Make a Plan. Time to focus your desires. Do you dream about the future? We know the future is real – it keeps arriving every second! But how often does it match our aspirations? Does that even matter?

Warriors Aspire – To aspire means to yearn for something better, to be able to imagine something better and to begin to mentally create a pathway to improvement. To eternally yearn for improvement means the ultimate can never be reached, and it is the process itself – the devotion to that process – that becomes the religion of the Warrior.

Warriors Plan – Nothing comes to reality without a Plan. This is a main argument for the existence of God – a Planner of bluebells and quasars seems so real to us and the scope of the universe, its chemistry, math & physics, so orderly. Even the people who see only “chaos” don’t actually want chaos in their own lives. Is our mind greater than the universe? Clearly not. No single brain has been able to encompass the universal design – not even Einstein’s. Wishing is helpless and works out so seldom it leaves us worse off. But plans evolve, along with us, and even when they fail, WE succeed. Edison said he hadn’t failed at anything, he simply found “ten thousand ways things don’t work.” That’s the “empiric method.” It’s called knowledge!

Warriors Take an Active Role – Don’t bother investing pride and honor in being “right” – with a universe this complex, NOBODY’S right. Invest instead in having a good, flexible plan that evolves along with you. Plans are adaptable – they must borrow from all disciplines. Plans can be Art – art is what this universe IS – including the people in it. Give your Plan room to grow.

Warriors Create a Future Worth Having – Without this effort all our futures would fade into entropy, a constant winding down into muck, inertia and dissolution. Understanding the Warrior’s commitment to betterment means accepting our obligation to advance the lives not only of ourselves and our loved ones, but unmet and even unborn others.

Warrior Danger – Never forget Fundamental Attribution Error. There’s a lot of coincidence and happenstance, which is what the phrase “Being in the wrong place at the wrong time” expresses. So our plan must always be modified to deal with tragedy –the ongoing and universal tragedy of illness, war and disaster. Warriors try to avert these things, will continue learning how better to avert them – but everything isn’t up to us. There are perverse, dark forces at work that enjoy harm and destruction. We can’t become over invested in “winning” because we can’t see or know everything.

Warrior Faith – This is where Faith comes in. Jesus said evil will not win, and that’s good enough for me. Find your own mantra to help you stay strong and to keep working on a healthier you by designing a healthy plan and promoting people around you who can make your plan better. You will also be contributing to their plans – and that’s gratitude. And love. Win-win!

Self-Definition is a Joy – Even though the Ultimate can never be reached by in this lifetime and is always just ahead, it gives us a concept of Paradise we can work for. This work provides the deepest pleasure and connection between persons that is achievable on this planet.

Models & Mentors – “The future is completely open and we are writing it moment to moment” – Pema Chodron

“The future starts today, not tomorrow” – Pope John Paul II

“A good education is the foundation of a better tomorrow” – Elizabeth Warren

“An uncertain future is not oppressive when Hope guides us” – Charlotte Bronte

#Haiku: Freshness

Each nonpareil moment
Liquefies,
Cascades into
Flowing future