Picture this: The pharmeceuticals salesman drags himself out of bed on Tuesday morning. He dreads another day of killing boredom in pretending to care so much about the drugs in his valise because that's what his boss expects. He pretends not to mind waiting and waiting in doctors' offices until they deign to give him a couple of minutes of their precious attention. He pretends to be cheerful and confident, and feel good will towards the nurses who treat him like a used tongue depressor. And all the while, he's bored out of his mind. He thinks.

Picture this: The people in the apartment next door are partying it up again, and their bass is drumming through the living room wall, just like it did last night and the night before. I don't really care, she says to herself, as she retreats to her bedroom and shuts her door for another evening of lying in bed, watching more mind-numbing television. Sure, she has hardly sat on her living room couch since she moved in, but it's not important.

Consider this: How come it is that people who are barely scraping by before they become one of the lucky winners of the lottery manage to blow it all in a short time and then are back to barely scraping by again? They only had a vacation from worrying about money, and now they have a $5,000 purple leather couch, an expensive car and photos of the world cruise they took to show for it - and it's back again to wondering where the money will come from to pay the electric bill.

If we don't do the hard work of getting to know ourselves, then all those unsuspected motives are going to keep right on chugging along, no matter how much we consciously try to change our reality. We may do a good job of fooling the world, and we may close our eyes to ourselves, but all the while, we'll just keep spinning our wheels and not changing anything: Our hopes for a better life will be nothing more than daydreams - little pink clouds that give us momentary comfort before they dissapate in the harsh wind of our "reality."

Boredom is a true sign that a life change is on the horizon, but it absolutely must be pure, honest, unadulterated boredom - and it doesn't count if we just like to think we're bored.

Remember Seth saying, "Consciousness will expand; it will not be denied." Consciousness accepts with equal magnanimity the good, the bad, and the downright ugly and painful. All can be opportunities for expansion, and the big C doesn't care one way or another which way it is. Seth was quite explicit about that. As hard as it is to swallow, as heartless as it seems our Consciousness must be to welcome our human misery as well as our human joy, just because they both allow expansion - that's the way it is. The big C doesn't feel fear and pain; the big C doesn't apply the value judgements that our human side applies - and other than natural guilt (read Seth for the definition), morals are a human fabrication. It isn't the responsibility of our Consciousness to build our kind of happiness for us; that's human territory. The big C is always "happy," no matter what.

The pharmeceuticals salesman may think he's bored, but he's probably more impatient than anything else. Swimming around in his unexamined self are most likely a number of beliefs/motives that keep him struggling with the life he's chosen, like, for instance: 1) I believe you have to work in order to survive in this world; 2) I believe that work isn't meant to be fun, but you gotta pay your dues; 3) I believe I enjoy the comraderie of the white collar worker community, and in order to be a member, I have to wear the suit, join rush hour traffic on the freeway, and kowtow to superiors; 4) I believe in the game - the gain and use of power, the polishing of a script to perform, the reward of money because of my talent for playing the game.

If our salesman becomes miserable enough with pretending to be who he's not, he'll begin to strain out the motives he's hiding from himself, and then boredom will truly be all that remains. That's when his entire life will change, with kudos from the big C.

There are many checks and balances involved in the creation of our reality: The big C, unexamined beliefs and motives, and our conscious will. The latter can be our saving grace if we but exert its power. Our conscious will is the final word on whether or not we will consent to any experience, and we can create anything we consciously decide to create if we have no stronger, conflicting motives that we haven't bothered to see. Lest we spend our lives as reeds tossed in the wind, believing in fate and helplessness, it profits us most if we make it our hobby to get to know ourselves.

The woman who must spend her evenings in her bedroom because of the noise next door claims she doesn't care. Oh, she's happy to pay rent on a living room she can't use, is she? Not likely. It's quite certain that what she's feeling more than anything is a fear of making waves by complaining about her neighbors. Worse than her fear, though, is the fact that by claiming to not care, she's not being true to herself, and that particular denial can even be dangerous. At best, a fear of making waves is a very effective prison that grows smaller and smaller as time goes by. Yes, it's an experience, and Consciousness will expand all the while the lady's freedom is shrinking. If we're talking about happiness, though, she will have to get to know herself better before exerting her conscious will can make any difference. It may be a lifetime struggle, and a lot of beliefs that reveal themselves may seem incomprehensible and unchangeable. But life will get better, not worse.

We humans tend to stick with what we're used to. We are sensitive creatures, and big changes are uncomfortable, even lethal. They often tax us beyond our abilities, when the old rules no longer apply. The sudden acquirement of a few million dollars requires a whole new set of beliefs to protect and administer it. Otherwise, even that much money can slip away like water through the fingers. Sudden wealth is much like the critical life change of giving birth to quintuplets. But five new babies in the house is a life or death situation, and we are well aware that we have no choice but to succeed if it nearly kills us. New wealth, on the other hand, is inanimate, and if a few thousand dollars are wasted, at least no one has been hurt. This is exactly the attitude that lulls us into complaisance. Lack of comprehension and unwillingness to change beliefs will eventually lead us back to where we were before: worrying over the electric bill. Our beliefs create our reality - our old beliefs will bring back the old reality.