How to Become A Master of Life

I want to summarise the important things I have been explaining to you:

1. You have many needs, both 'lower level' (e.g. food) and 'higher level' (e.g. love).

2. Your needs are the 'voice' of the organism called a 'human being' telling you what it needs for survival as a human (not survival at any level, e.g. as a cringing, naked half-starved beast.)

3. Your needs are never filled, finally, for all time. They are cyclical. Your two dozen (or so) needs cycle round and around. At any one moment, several are urgently screaming at you, a few are muttering for attention and others are satisfied - for now.

4. When a need is not filled, you feel discomfort and then pain. This is the human organism's method of alerting the higher part of your mind (the strategy part) to come up with some plans, pronto, for filling that need.

5. If a need has been unfilled for a long time, when you attend to it you feel a burst of an emotion we call 'joy.' This is your instant reward for getting started. It is not a sustainable feeling.

6. Gradually, as you master how to juggle your needs and respond to them in a timely fashion, your reward is a feeling we call 'contentment.'

7. The trick is to become a 'master of life' - a master juggler. This is not a 'natural' state. You need to work at it and practice it. You also need an instructor. (If you have ever tried your hand at juggling, you will know it is impossible to learn, by yourself, from first principles. But if someone shows you the step-by-step method, then anyone can learn to juggle three balls in around five hours. Five balls? Come back in five years!)

In case you have not yet realised this fact, it is going to take time for you to become a 'master of life'.

A good time to start is... now.