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EP 122 - A Joyful Opportunity

EP 122 - A Joyful Opportunity

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 A Joyful Opportunity On a certain level, we human beings are quite an accomplished species. And this is because there is a key part to our consciousness that is always trying to improve, always trying to make things better. We call this our striving mind and without it, we'd still be living up in trees, let alone in caves. But like every other part of our awareness this can be a real double-edged sword, causing us every bit as much suffering as it does happiness. But when it comes to striving, it so happens that we have another part of our awareness that is on a completely different wavelength and we're going to examine this unique level of awareness in our episode today. The Transformative Value of Making Effort To begin, I once read of a conversation between Ted Turner and Captain Jacques Cousteau. They were traveling together on the Calypso, and everywhere they went, they saw the same thing — garbage and pollution everywhere, forests stripped bare, and the ocean losing its color along with its sea life. Turner turned to Cousteau and said, "Captain, I'm getting discouraged." And Cousteau, as I remember it, responded with something like: "Don't do that. Even if we knew without a doubt that we were going to fail, and that our efforts would be to no avail, we would still carry on — and we would do it with joy in our hearts, grateful for the blessing of having been given the gift of serving the highest good." I have no idea how long ago I read that or where, but as you can tell, I placed it on a high shelf in my mind's personal hall of fame. The simple truth of that idea has never left me, because it brings up the essence of what is known in Universal Wisdom as selfless service — the act of doing something purely for the sake of serving the higher good. And that kind of action can be transformative on many levels. When we serve something larger than ourselves, the very act of making our best effort — regardless of whether or not it will succeed — becomes the place where meaning and grace merge. There's a particular kind of beauty in that moment when a person realizes that the offering of trying itself is sacred. What Cousteau offered Turner, and what is being offered to us still, is not merely an argument for optimism but a reminder of the sacredness and purity of serving the highest. Even when the world may seem irredeemably broken, the act of caring — of showing up, of doing one's part with the highest intention, even with love, if possible — has the power to change the very fabric of our own being. It can turn despair into service, and on some deep level, the river of service eventually flows into the river of joy. The Meaning of Effort This kind of effort is very different from the frantic strivings of self-serving ambition. It's more like a deliberate and wholehearted engagement with life itself. Although we live in a culture that tends to measure worth by results: grades, profits, likes, followers, medals and the like, there is a deeper truth beneath those surface metrics. On a neurological level, the right kind of effort can lead to a profound biochemical affirmation of purpose. Every time we take action toward something meaningful, the brain's reward system releases small waves of dopamine, which noticeably increases when we are engaged in an activity for the higher good. This is what neuroscientists call the reward prediction system. It's the brain's way of saying: keep going — this really matters. The Inner Alchemy The transformative value of effort lies in this invisible alchemy: we are changed not by the reward, but by the rhythm of trying. Each time we resist the pull of doubt, resignation, or failure, we strengthen the neural pathways that connect intention to perseverance. It is the inner moral equivalent of muscle growth. Within the framework of neuroplasticity, the fibers of attention, will, and patience are slowly woven together through repetition and sincere effort. The ancients knew this long before neuroscience gave it language. The Bhagavad Gita reminds us, "You have the right to your actions, but not to the fruits of your actions." Krishna's counsel to Arjuna was not a cold command of detachment—it was a revelation of liberation: that freedom is born when effort itself becomes an offering, a form of devotion. When we engage fully, without clinging to the outcome, we step into a sacred rhythm of creation. In that rhythm, the mind begins to quiet, the heart steadies, and the soul recognizes itself in the very act of striving with surrendered effort. The Sacred Practice of Trying Sometimes we come to believe that trying and failing is our lot in life—that, like Sisyphus, we are doomed to endless futility. Yet the capacity to keep trying, especially when the outcome is uncertain, is one of the most noble signs of an awakened life. The Stoics taught that to love the effort itself—even when the result remains unseen—is to live in ...
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