Recently, my dear friend Kaushik remarked "The dilemma of the living - to be born is a miracle. Then what?". I pondered this for few days, and began writing my thoughts out, and the long and verbose story I had made was an excellent example of how to get through life in a middle class developed nation... and then I thought, this is not right! For a true spiritual philosophy to work, it needs to work anywhere. Whether you are a Wall St broker, an IT professional, a plumber (probably making more money than the Wall St broker and IT professional put together), or struggling to find food on a waste dump in a third world country. Is there such a thing? Is there a universal philosophy which gives the answer to all our questions? Universalist’s would like to think so, but have yet to agree, and unlikely that many of us will be students of philosophy to discuss such things. For the most, we are on our own, with some like minded friends to discuss the eternal verities. If we did know the answer to life the universe and everything, would we be happier? Would knowing the reason for living in poverty was for some higher, universal, cause make us feel better? Would a parent of child who has died be consoled by this universal wisdom? I fear knowledge is not the answer. In fact, I doubt the answer can be thought through. The answer has to be LIVED through. Living is an action and so the only action I could conceive of, which would work universally, was this: FIND YOUR INNER PEACE. This could come from your work, meditation, playing backgammon, collecting Barbie Dolls, or feeding your family, or even feeding the family of somebody else. We are born with an inner peace, and regardless of the environment in which we live, we make do. We seek out happiness and our smiles come from within. Somewhere, we lose this, and it is like losing our way. We look around and our smiles become forced, and the flame that lights the inner smile burns less brightly inside. Find your inner peace and you will know what next. Some of us will be born into wealthy families, or wealthy nations. Some will be born into abject poverty. The rest, like us reading this, will be born somewhere in the middle. However, we do not need to be victims of our environment, we can become masters of it. Find your inner peace, and do your best. My immediate thought was "look for more miracles". And this struck me as a rather glib, throw away one liner. So I started to think, Then what? Sure there are miracles around us every day. Another friend, paralyzed from the waist down has just regained bladder control after ten years. A miracle, no less. If you are reading this, I will assume you have survived the miracle of birth. Great, glad you made it! Then, like most, got through childhood with some scarring and some education, fumbled through puberty and present yourself to the world as ready-to-rumble young adult. At this point, only a very few know what they wish to do with their life. A lucky few will know. "I am going to be a musician" or "I am going to be a plumber". They then proceed along their chosen path and live happy lives. This rarely happens. Then some spiritual guru steps up and says "you have to find your passion". Find your passion, like it is your spiritual mission in life and that your passion holds the key to your purpose in life. I call bullshit! We are here on this Earth for a short time, and we do not even know how short that will be, there are many busses to dodge. In this short time, events and situations will present themselves. Some things we will deem important to us, others not so much. So, the higher question is, "What will I do with my short time that is important?". To answer this question, there is a need to look at humility. If you want to be a comedian, but are afraid of being boo'ed off stage, you are not going to cut it. If you want to solve world hunger, and children dying reduces you to a quivering mess, you are not going to cut it. The reality is, whatever you choose, comes with caveats. These caveats are your testing ground, your proof of worthiness to do the job. You can let it crush you, or let it forge you. The choice is yours. If you have placed enough importance on your chosen path, you will forge through them. For many, the challenge is the key. I see kids playing video games, day in and day out. Endlessly playing to get better and better at the game. The desire to win the game is not the driving force. The driving force is the challenge for improvement, to better themselves in a competition with themselves. For me, the driving force is solving complex math problems, and translating them into computer code. For others it is illustrating childrens story books.