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Great question. I appreciate you posting about it as this topic has been on my mind for a long time.
And just to be clear, I'm dealing with the same problem. I'm not judging you at all in this post.
Also, I apologize if my post is a little scatterbrained as it's a big topic to tackle and I'm still developing an understanding of it.
First, I wanted to quote Michael A. Singer:
Why would I get out of bed if I'm already happy? Because love wants to express itself. Enthusiasm wants to create and do something. Now you're not acting out of need, pain, problems. You're acting out of joy, beauty. You're driven by a whole another choice.
According to him, this state can be achieved only if we let go of all preferences (if we surrender). If the world needs to unfold according to your likes/dislikes, then you'll be busy manipulating the world and never actually interacting with it as it is. It'll be all self-serving, not serving the world as it is.
For example, imagine you pass a homeless person and give them money. They don't even acknowledge you. Next time you pass a homeless person, will you still give them money or decide it's not worth it? If it's the latter, it means you're giving money as a transaction ("here's 5 bucks, now make me feel good I helped you"). You're not acting out of your higher self (love/joy/enthusiasm/contribution) but out of your lower self (expecting the homeless person to make you feel better which is manipulative and disrespectful).
One of the fundamental concepts of what Michael A. Singer is teaching is letting go of your preferences (likes/dislikes, wants/things you want to avoid) which are built when you create patterns called "samskaras". These samskaras are created when you can't handle the situation unfolding in front of you. For example (another quote):
I'm driving behind a car that's driving slow. My mind is noticing and causing me a hard time. What good is that? The answer is: zero. You're getting aggravated, uptight, you're not enjoying your drive, you're being negative about the person in front of you, etc. In three weeks when you see a similar car you'll avoid it again. You created a samskara. Then you see the person of a certain gender, age, race, and you create a prejudice. You just made the situation make you worse. How about we use this moment as a learning experience? As a trial? I'm gonna use this experience to not do this. I'm going to use this experience to let go of whatever is inside of me that's causing my mind to think like that.
So in this example you can condition yourself to feel anger each time you see, say, a red convertible because THESE DICKHEADS ALWAYS CUT ME OFF. Based on what happened in the past, now you avoid every red convertible and hate every owner of such a car. You create a new reality in which every red convertible is out to get you.
I don't want to go too deep into it as I'm nearing 100 pages of notes of Singer's teachings. It all relates to each other, explaining all the concepts in great detail. But the example above is a good simple explanation of creating patterns and how they affect our life.
In your case, you're conditioned to enjoy the act of creation (in the area of business/investments) only if it stimulates the stuff you've stored inside you, namely, making money.
You created a pattern in which you want to act only if you can get something specific back. If you couldn't make money on your Airbnb tiny homes idea, you don't want to do it. You made it conditional. You live in a reality in which it makes sense to contribute only if you can make money, even if you don't need it. In other words, you're only happy to create something if the world unfolds according to your preferences.
I have no idea when and how you created this conditioning, but for me it was probably out of growing up in a relatively poor household with a lot of uncertainty. As a kid, I couldn't handle it. I saw my parents struggling financially and I decided that the only reason to do anything is to make money as this solves the most pressing problems. This is why I still crave security which I believe money will give me. Note that it doesn't matter how much money you make. Because of this stored pattern from childhood you ALWAYS need more. The solution isn't the outer world, but changing the inner world (letting go of this pattern).
Michael A. Singer prescribes noticing this resistance and letting it go. It's good that you're asking yourself this question because you're becoming aware that something doesn't make sense here. If you can observe this urge and not let it dictate your life, you can start freeing yourself of it.
In the example of the red convertible, each time you now see one and start feeling angry, you observe the feeling but don't act on it. Eventually, you'll retrain yourself and start seeing red convertibles as something neutral, in the same way, as, say, white SUVs are to you now.
So coming back to that first quote, if you get rid of your patterns, you're going to act out of love, contribution and enthusiasm, without any expectations or conditions. You want to act on your Airbnb tiny homes idea because it'll be fun and it'll contribute positively to other people. You DON'T do it under the condition that it makes x amount of money. You start serving the world which is infinitely more satisfying than trying to get something out of it.
I like to compare it to being in a relationship. If you feel lonely single, you CAN'T have a good relationship. The reason is that you'll look for another person (the outer world) to solve a problem you have inside (feeling lonely). The relationship you'll have, no matter how great it'll make you feel initially, is NOT the solution because it'll be conditional ("as long as you make me feel not lonely, I enjoy the relationship").
One more quote:
I'm looking for something or looking to avoid something - then I can't interact with you. I'm interacting with me. My consciousness is buried in me. And I'm going to look at you in relation to me. Are you giving me what I want? Are you being the way I want? Are you making sure you're not giving me what I don't want?
While you have it inside of you (the blockages), you cannot be you. You have to be it. It's owning you.
The spiritual path is about liberation. You free yourself from these patterns inside of you, therefore you free yourself to be okay. You free yourself to be open all the time. You free yourself to enjoy the moment that's unfolding in front of you instead of defining the moment that has to be unfolding in front of you for you to enjoy it.
This is what essentially we're dealing with now when we look at business. We're owned by the pattern that a business needs to give us x money back, even if we no longer need it. We aren't free to just do what is fun and would contribute to the world. We're prisoners to our own conditioning.
So what's the solution? The solution is to let go of this pattern. Obviously this is easier said than done. We've spent our entire lives conditioned to believe that business needs to be all about money. But look at guys like Elon Musk or Richard Branson. I'd venture to say that neither of them create new businesses to get anything out of it.
Elon Musk wants to solve big problems (you can argue he's in it for the challenge but I think he just wants to contribute) and Richard Branson starts new businesses when he sees industries where customer experience sucks (so he's all about creating a positive change).
I read biographies of both of these guys and what's interesting is that neither of them, even when they were young, seemed to be motivated by money. They were both in it for pretty much the same reasons they are today. So perhaps they didn't build patterns around this specific area of life?
So I think that a good exercise is to be aware and let go each time you feel resistance to the idea of building something without getting a (determined by you) amount of money from it. Slowly, you can get rid of this blockage and start acting out of pure motives rather than have a transactional approach.
And maybe you'll discover you don't want to do it anymore—and that's fine as well. Nobody says you have to keep building businesses or investing just because you've been doing it all your life.
As an everyday example of how to let go, I was recently in a barbershop with some incredible art on the walls. I asked the owner about it and it turned out she actually created the pieces. I was blown away. This was SPECTACULAR work.
In my head, I was like "Why the hell are you working in a barbershop if you have such a talent? Why don't you become a professional artist?" But I didn't tell her that. It was my problem, based on the patterns I have.
For her, art is something fun she often does with her friends. She told me they meet up every week and just chill out as they create art. I still find it hard to believe that people do this just for fun, without any expectation or financial motives. But this is a great example of how everyone can teach us something. She approaches art from a very pure place. She doesn't have any patterns stored related to art.
Meanwhile, I don't want to write any more books if I can't make money off them. And to be honest, I would do very little creative work without proper compensation. And here we're back to the work of letting go. Until I fully let go of it, I'll continue looking at the world in a distorted, self-serving, and ultimately not really satisfying way - all because of what I have stored in my head.
This is why I'm retired at the moment. I don't think it's a good idea to keep investing money, time, and effort into something I delude myself will give me something I should find in myself.
And just to be clear, I'm dealing with the same problem. I'm not judging you at all in this post.
Also, I apologize if my post is a little scatterbrained as it's a big topic to tackle and I'm still developing an understanding of it.
First, I wanted to quote Michael A. Singer:
Why would I get out of bed if I'm already happy? Because love wants to express itself. Enthusiasm wants to create and do something. Now you're not acting out of need, pain, problems. You're acting out of joy, beauty. You're driven by a whole another choice.
According to him, this state can be achieved only if we let go of all preferences (if we surrender). If the world needs to unfold according to your likes/dislikes, then you'll be busy manipulating the world and never actually interacting with it as it is. It'll be all self-serving, not serving the world as it is.
For example, imagine you pass a homeless person and give them money. They don't even acknowledge you. Next time you pass a homeless person, will you still give them money or decide it's not worth it? If it's the latter, it means you're giving money as a transaction ("here's 5 bucks, now make me feel good I helped you"). You're not acting out of your higher self (love/joy/enthusiasm/contribution) but out of your lower self (expecting the homeless person to make you feel better which is manipulative and disrespectful).
One of the fundamental concepts of what Michael A. Singer is teaching is letting go of your preferences (likes/dislikes, wants/things you want to avoid) which are built when you create patterns called "samskaras". These samskaras are created when you can't handle the situation unfolding in front of you. For example (another quote):
I'm driving behind a car that's driving slow. My mind is noticing and causing me a hard time. What good is that? The answer is: zero. You're getting aggravated, uptight, you're not enjoying your drive, you're being negative about the person in front of you, etc. In three weeks when you see a similar car you'll avoid it again. You created a samskara. Then you see the person of a certain gender, age, race, and you create a prejudice. You just made the situation make you worse. How about we use this moment as a learning experience? As a trial? I'm gonna use this experience to not do this. I'm going to use this experience to let go of whatever is inside of me that's causing my mind to think like that.
So in this example you can condition yourself to feel anger each time you see, say, a red convertible because THESE DICKHEADS ALWAYS CUT ME OFF. Based on what happened in the past, now you avoid every red convertible and hate every owner of such a car. You create a new reality in which every red convertible is out to get you.
I don't want to go too deep into it as I'm nearing 100 pages of notes of Singer's teachings. It all relates to each other, explaining all the concepts in great detail. But the example above is a good simple explanation of creating patterns and how they affect our life.
In your case, you're conditioned to enjoy the act of creation (in the area of business/investments) only if it stimulates the stuff you've stored inside you, namely, making money.
You created a pattern in which you want to act only if you can get something specific back. If you couldn't make money on your Airbnb tiny homes idea, you don't want to do it. You made it conditional. You live in a reality in which it makes sense to contribute only if you can make money, even if you don't need it. In other words, you're only happy to create something if the world unfolds according to your preferences.
I have no idea when and how you created this conditioning, but for me it was probably out of growing up in a relatively poor household with a lot of uncertainty. As a kid, I couldn't handle it. I saw my parents struggling financially and I decided that the only reason to do anything is to make money as this solves the most pressing problems. This is why I still crave security which I believe money will give me. Note that it doesn't matter how much money you make. Because of this stored pattern from childhood you ALWAYS need more. The solution isn't the outer world, but changing the inner world (letting go of this pattern).
Michael A. Singer prescribes noticing this resistance and letting it go. It's good that you're asking yourself this question because you're becoming aware that something doesn't make sense here. If you can observe this urge and not let it dictate your life, you can start freeing yourself of it.
In the example of the red convertible, each time you now see one and start feeling angry, you observe the feeling but don't act on it. Eventually, you'll retrain yourself and start seeing red convertibles as something neutral, in the same way, as, say, white SUVs are to you now.
So coming back to that first quote, if you get rid of your patterns, you're going to act out of love, contribution and enthusiasm, without any expectations or conditions. You want to act on your Airbnb tiny homes idea because it'll be fun and it'll contribute positively to other people. You DON'T do it under the condition that it makes x amount of money. You start serving the world which is infinitely more satisfying than trying to get something out of it.
I like to compare it to being in a relationship. If you feel lonely single, you CAN'T have a good relationship. The reason is that you'll look for another person (the outer world) to solve a problem you have inside (feeling lonely). The relationship you'll have, no matter how great it'll make you feel initially, is NOT the solution because it'll be conditional ("as long as you make me feel not lonely, I enjoy the relationship").
One more quote:
I'm looking for something or looking to avoid something - then I can't interact with you. I'm interacting with me. My consciousness is buried in me. And I'm going to look at you in relation to me. Are you giving me what I want? Are you being the way I want? Are you making sure you're not giving me what I don't want?
While you have it inside of you (the blockages), you cannot be you. You have to be it. It's owning you.
The spiritual path is about liberation. You free yourself from these patterns inside of you, therefore you free yourself to be okay. You free yourself to be open all the time. You free yourself to enjoy the moment that's unfolding in front of you instead of defining the moment that has to be unfolding in front of you for you to enjoy it.
This is what essentially we're dealing with now when we look at business. We're owned by the pattern that a business needs to give us x money back, even if we no longer need it. We aren't free to just do what is fun and would contribute to the world. We're prisoners to our own conditioning.
So what's the solution? The solution is to let go of this pattern. Obviously this is easier said than done. We've spent our entire lives conditioned to believe that business needs to be all about money. But look at guys like Elon Musk or Richard Branson. I'd venture to say that neither of them create new businesses to get anything out of it.
Elon Musk wants to solve big problems (you can argue he's in it for the challenge but I think he just wants to contribute) and Richard Branson starts new businesses when he sees industries where customer experience sucks (so he's all about creating a positive change).
I read biographies of both of these guys and what's interesting is that neither of them, even when they were young, seemed to be motivated by money. They were both in it for pretty much the same reasons they are today. So perhaps they didn't build patterns around this specific area of life?
So I think that a good exercise is to be aware and let go each time you feel resistance to the idea of building something without getting a (determined by you) amount of money from it. Slowly, you can get rid of this blockage and start acting out of pure motives rather than have a transactional approach.
And maybe you'll discover you don't want to do it anymore—and that's fine as well. Nobody says you have to keep building businesses or investing just because you've been doing it all your life.
As an everyday example of how to let go, I was recently in a barbershop with some incredible art on the walls. I asked the owner about it and it turned out she actually created the pieces. I was blown away. This was SPECTACULAR work.
In my head, I was like "Why the hell are you working in a barbershop if you have such a talent? Why don't you become a professional artist?" But I didn't tell her that. It was my problem, based on the patterns I have.
For her, art is something fun she often does with her friends. She told me they meet up every week and just chill out as they create art. I still find it hard to believe that people do this just for fun, without any expectation or financial motives. But this is a great example of how everyone can teach us something. She approaches art from a very pure place. She doesn't have any patterns stored related to art.
Meanwhile, I don't want to write any more books if I can't make money off them. And to be honest, I would do very little creative work without proper compensation. And here we're back to the work of letting go. Until I fully let go of it, I'll continue looking at the world in a distorted, self-serving, and ultimately not really satisfying way - all because of what I have stored in my head.
This is why I'm retired at the moment. I don't think it's a good idea to keep investing money, time, and effort into something I delude myself will give me something I should find in myself.
