We live in a reality that is in experienced in opposites. Wholeness is found only in the experience of opposites. There is no up without the concept of down. There is no back without forward, no love without fear, no wealth without poverty. There is a story from the Teaching of Buddha of a beautiful woman who visited the master of a house.

The master asked who she was and she replied, "I am the goddess of wealth." The master of the house was delighted and so treated her nicely. Soon after another woman appeared who was ugly looking and dressed poorly. The master asked her who she was and the woman replied, "I am the goddess of poverty." The master was frightened and tried to drive her out of the house, but the woman refused to depart, saying, "The goddess of wealth is my sister. There is an agreement between us that we are never to live separately. If you chase me away, she must go as well." Sure enough, as soon as the ugly woman went out, the other woman disappeared. The resistance or fear of poverty can only move to chase away any ultimate wealth.

Everything is Reflected in its Opposite

Life is experienced and reflected in opposites. To know this will transform your experience of all things. Notice this principle in your life; with every beginning heralds an ending. There is no permanence in creation. To begin to build something is to doom it to its eventual demise. A certain quality of detachment is necessary for effectively living on the edge. Joy comes from the creation of life, not in its permanence.

So many people spend great amounts of energy resisting and fearing what they don't want and feeling good about what they do want, caught forever in a battle of acceptance versus resistance. Everything you do have or experience in your life is reflected in what you don't have. Having is reflected in the experience of not having. Begin now to frame all that is or isn't in your life outside the paradigm of right and wrong or good and bad. From this frame of reference, everything then is evidence of the genius you really are.

In accordance with the Principle of Polarity, to know victim is to know responsible. From this point of view, you can no longer curse what isn't or is in your life. To avoid fear is to avoid love. To curse the darkness is to curse that which is enlightened. This is where most students begin to stumble in their search for what they don't have. Life for most has become a simplistic game of avoiding "bad" and moving toward "good". Although, you can achieve modest, incremental increases in results in your life operating from the acceptance/resistance internal battle, you'll never take quantum leaps in awareness and results.

Experiencing the Principle of Polarity in your life can free you from the internal battle of good and bad, right and wrong, should and shouldn't.

The Death of Possibility Thinking

Consider this in your life, you have designed your life based on what appears as not possible, unavailable in your experience. "Possibility thinking" is what has doomed you to mediocre results in your life. During certain events in our lives we begin to frame life in what appears possible versus what appears impossible. You then must create a strategy for compensating for what appears as impossible. Something appeared impossible to you as a child. What was it? Did it seem impossible to get the respect you wanted? Did it seem impossible to get the love you wanted? Did you decide it was impossible to trust and survive at the same time? Did the grades you wanted seem impossible to get? Friends? Make the team? Have a happy home? Please someone? What was it that seemed impossible?

These early years are where we begin to develop a strategy for compensating for what appears as impossible. For you to "win" you needed to be good at something, so you developed what you were going to be good at, and this was based on compensating for what appeared as impossible!

For example, it appeared impossible to get the love you really wanted, so instead you opted for being liked. Or it appeared you could never get to the top of the class so you opted to be accepted for your humor. What ever it was, this strategy for "winning" has served us and can be honored for what it was, a survival mechanism. Still, this mechanism is based on compensating for what appears impossible, and as such will never serve us in creating results while effectively living on the edge.

To live your dream you must let go of your current strategy for "winning". Whatever strategy you used to create the degree of success that you now have, is the very thing that will keep you from doing the impossible.

To think of what is "possible" is to think of what is "not possible" at the same moment. Strive to think outside of what is possible/not possible and begin to dream of the "impossible" in your life, a life beyond your wildest imagination. This imagining of the "impossible" in your life will begin to call forth a vision for your life. Dreaming of the impossible is transformational in nature. You are literally a spiritually and physiologically different person when you dream of the impossible. Our spiritual and physical bodies shift as we imagine the impossible. Declare the impossible in your life today. Practice declaring impossible results on a moment by moment basis. What doesn't appear possible right now. Understanding this book? Having this book make a difference in your life?

This process of declaring the impossible calls forth a game in our life that isn't based on outcome, but is solely based on the passion of playing the game in our life. Living from passion, in turn, generates a field of possibilities entirely unavailable when living from resignation. Transformation takes place to a cellular level. Living in this field of possibilities causes shifts in awareness and physiology. We become an 'Impossibility Thinker'.

First Day AttitudeP> Living with passion and urgency will result from the experience of the Principle of Polarity, for this principle is embodied in the concept of First Day / Last Day.

Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life.

Does not this ring true in your heart? Is this not the truth? Is not today the beginning? You really only have today, don't you? You do not have yesterday, do you? No you don't, more accurately yesterday has you! Up until now it may be that you have used yesterday to decide how you are to be today. Do a reality check right now. Do you in fact use yesterday to determine how you should be today? To find out, ask yourself some questions. Do a simple reality check. How much money do you plan to make this year? What do you use to determine that? The amount you earned last year? How much love will you give today? Is this answer based on how much you received yesterday? If it is, then you won't really experience the genius you really are. You don't really experience First Day Attitude.

Using yesterday to determine how you are going to be today, is like driving your car watching only the rear view mirror. Sound difficult? It would be. Only able to see the damage you would have done, what has been left behind, the past would become your focus. And what you focus on you create. Apologizing for your life would be the menu of the day. "Sorry, I can't see out the front of my car, I didn't mean that!"

First Day Attitude calls forth an experience of passion. This is a letting go of yesterday. Be here now. Remember the excitement and passion of the first time you did something you really enjoyed. Recall the first date with someone you love. Remember the mindfulness you brought to the relationship, the passion. In a sudden flash you can experience this again - if you choose. You become new all through by choice. It is the first breath again, the same world appears different again with fresh eyes. You remember you as the genius you really are. You started out this way. As a child the world was a source of great passion and amazement. This is the essence of First Day Attitude. Wake up and see again.

Train yourself to see the newness available to those that live from First Day Attitude. Get out of the norm. Most people wait for something outside themselves to arrive that will generate some passion in their life. The awakened generate their own experience of passion and attract a passionate life. Most people are asleep and those who aren't are in a constant state of amazement. My son once said, "Life is like eating macaroni and cheese, when it is good, it is hard not to shovel it!" Too much, too great to spoon, life demands a shovel. Live life fully today.

Last Day Attitude

We live in a guarantee conscious society. Everything is supposed to have a guarantee. You wouldn't buy a car without a guarantee. You wouldn't get that new stereo without a guarantee. There is nothing at all wrong with demanding that manufacturers stand behind their products. The problem lies in the fact that your need for guarantees has crept into a part of your consciousness and causes you a great many regrets in your life.

Your guarantee consciousness has you living as though tomorrow is a sure thing. Well, it just isn't the case. There are no guarantees you'll be alive tomorrow. Today may be your last day. This may be it, and are you satisfied? Living as though tomorrow is guaranteed causes us to put things off, and to act without urgency can be a very dangerous state of affairs. "Tomorrow I'll do what I want." "Tomorrow I'll make that call." "Tomorrow I'll apologize." "Tomorrow I'll get on with it." Tomorrow is a fantasy. So much of my life I lived as though tomorrow was guaranteed. And as such I paid the price. With every beginning there is an end. Alpha. Omega. To conceive of a "first day" is to also conceive of a "last day". With the first breath you took you began the journey of creating your last breath. This isn't a negative idea. It is the truth, it is neither negative or positive. It simply is. A deep awareness of the truth that someday we will all take our last breath is a call to action in our life. To take this breath as though it was the last is to live with abandon and passion, totally committed to live this moment fully engaged and clearly urgent.

If you knew you had just twenty-four hours to live, what would you do with your last twenty-four hours? Would you have any time to hate? Would you have any time to regret? Would you have any time to worry? Probably, not. Wouldn't you only have time to love and appreciate? This is the essence of Last Day Attitude; love, appreciation and urgency. The Samurai Warriors of medieval Japan called this state of mind "Dying before going into battle" - ultimately knowing that the end is the same for everyone. We are all going to take our last breath someday, this is the great equalizer of all humanity.

Before any battle the Samurai Warrior brought themselves to a complete and total acceptance that a plausible outcome of the battle might be death. They knew at a deep spiritual level that as an eventuality of life, death was unavoidable. In this way a warrior was operating from a frame of mind that allowed split second decisions of life and death to be made with complete abandon - no holding back. There would be no playing to "not lose".

Truly engaged with clarity and acting with complete abandon, the warrior played life truly "to win", free to risk everything. This kind of freedom makes all the difference between incremental shifts in results and quantum leaps. Learn to risk it all. This is to be considered frequently; What have I risked today? Your greatest fear will be taking control of your destiny. Want to know how life turns out? It turns out the same for everyone, you will take a last breath. Knowing this truth, that you will have your last breath, can set you free of this fear. Complete and total acceptance is available to those that choose to live on the edge.

There are two possible responses to the awareness that we are all going to breathe our last breath someday. One response is resignation. If we are all going to die, then what's the point? The payoff is you don't have to do anything about your life. You "play to not lose". There will be prices to pay from this frame of mind. You "give up" your life.

The other possible response is acceptance - acceptance that the great equalizer of all life is death. With this acceptance comes a freedom to play with complete abandon. To "play to win" requires full engagement in the game. Operating from this freedom to "play to win", we create an opening to "do anything possible" - including the impossible. Can't hold back if you're playing to win. No longer chained by the worry over the outcome (It is the same for everyone!), playing fully to win, you experience yourself as the genius you really are. Get on with it now!

To produce results while living on the edge:

1. Cultivate the experience of "dying before battle".

2. Live with abandon and urgency today, as though it might be your last.

3. Bring the experience of passion to your every action today, as if it was your first day.

4. Discover that you are not your results. There is no permanence in creation.