There is one thing that I have noticed in my 49 years of living and that is everywhere we look, it seems that life has one stark purpose. Besides having fun, we are also asked to learn as much as we can.

From the time we are enrolled into kindergarten, we learn how to draw, we learn the alphabet and numbers, colours, about our friends and especially how to write our own names. In elementary school, we are taken steps further into learning the intricacies of language and mathematics and science and how the earth works around us. In high school, we learn about people we do not know too much about personally but we know them by reputation and their accomplishment.

People like Shakespeare, Sartre, Winston Churchill and other figures in history who have changed the planet in some way. It seems that the more we learn, the more all the mysteries of life seem to be peeled away a little bit at a time, like an onion, layer after layer after layer. The older we get the more we presumably have learnt in our years.

Not for everybody though is it true that the more years we have, the more learning we have as well. Some people have thirty years of experience and yet others have only one year of experience thirty times. It seems that some have the ability to learn and add on knowledge and in doing so, gained the ability to unlearn things that they have learnt earlier that may not be totally true. (Yes I know, truth is a relative term.) It seems that learning comes from everything that we do and from everyone whom we meet and every situation that we get entangled in. (And every article like this one that we happen to read as well.) (And yes Miranda, every programme that you watch on television or every movie that you watch also influences your life decisions and shapes who you will be in the long run.)

I have heard some people lament that life had not given them a complete deck of cards. (No, they are not from Las Vegas!) Yet for others, that they had been given a 'bad hand' in life or they may declare that they have not enough money, or education, or opportunities or looks. Something genetic may not have been given to them so that they could go the distance and manifest those dreams that they thought were their reality (whatever they thought 'reality' was). They have cocooned themselves in this train of thought that if they had somebody else's looks or opportunities or genes that they might have been able to achieve all those goals that they felt were theirs to begin with. Yet when you hear that old adage from great sages of renown, "Ask and you shall receive", you ask why have I not received? It is very simple. The old understanding of the word 'ask' was not like we would ask a question, but really the word meant, 'Claim' and it shall be yours.

So what we needed to have done was literally as we learned more in life, from every mentor possible, (The mentors are everywhere and in every event and everything that happens to you, good and bad) we were to claim our share of this planet's abundance and prosperity. (Again, 'good' and 'bad' are relative terms. It does not matter what happens to you, it is what you gain from it and what it teaches you about who you really are.)

Life is a rich banquet of opportunities all around us, but a lot of people seem to be starving for some strange reason. In the pages of this book, we will explore some of the reasons why people are starving and maybe we will begin to understand a little bit more about why we have not achieved all the things that we needed to achieve and have not gotten the things we needed to have. Along the way, we will find out why love, as we have called it, hurts; why some situations are painful; why some people 'suffer'; and then at the end of it, after understanding it all we will come to a point when we can finally 'ask' or 'Claim' that which was ours from the beginning; abundance, joy, happiness and peace of mind.

About the Author

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Dr Mel Gill has been recognized by the Business Times and The Sentinel as the World's #1 Asian American Motivational Speaker. To listen to this highly sought-after International Speaker absolutely free of charge, just visit http://www.DrMelGill.com