Wow. Thank you @shenobie. Those are very kind words. Steemit is an amazing platform. I really appreciate your insight and support. In my younger years I tended to focus way too much on the purely spiritual side of things. So much so that I eventually I had to admit that it wasn't really "spirituality" I was chasing but more a subtle kind of escapism/narcissism via the pleasant sensations and altered states brought about by meditation, chi gong and certain types of martial arts.

I think, underneath it all, there was a good core intention but I lacked the experience and perspective to integrate it with the world. I call this "Peter Pan Syndrome". It's a term I use to mean an obsession basically with one's hobbies and the pleasure resulting from them to the exclusion of the very real and impermanent conditions of our world always just a hair's breadth from ruining us. Becoming a parent and then a business owner has really changed my perspective. I have also lost both my parents. It is not that the world is such a dark and evil place, it's more that many of us don't make a connection with a way to navigate it skillfully enough in time before conditions change.

It turns out that truly spiritual people are amazingly hard working and the benefits of the various techniques developed over the millenia feed back into this work ethic to allow them to do more with their time and energy. I saw some parallels to certain entrepeneurs in this. Although some of them may lack some of the interpersonal skills their employees would desire, bits and pieces of their perspective toward their relationship with the customer and their place in it all were to striking not to write about.

There are also a lot of speakers out there who touch on this. The notion of working with your own mind in order to more efficiently (and less destructively) manifest what you want in your life. It sounds kind of whacky at first but the more you get into it the more sense it starts to make.

Something that has really peaked my interest recently is gratitude journaling. This seems really helpful in generating the right kind of mental current and flow to focus your energies on doing positive things instead of stagnating in memories of failure and regret. Doing that just takes you right back into manifesting similar results, no?