Peace is Practical (How the Inner Journey Can Transform the Outer)

By George R. Blow

With a relaxed, entertaining style, George R. Blow reveals all the practical benefits of an experience of peace and demonstrates how anyone can mine the wealth of joy buried inside their core. Loaded with timely common sense and timeless wisdom, Peace is Practical includes priceless advice on:
work, romance, family, finance, sports, and how to experience unconditional happiness everyday.

• Language: English
• Publisher: George R. Blow
• Release date: Nov 10, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452389967

George R. Blow

As an award-winning TV producer/director residing in New Orleans, Blow witnessed first hand the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Deeply affected by the untimely deaths of several close friends and family members in the years following the storm, he determined to change course and pursue a more meaningful path in his life. Long a student of the inner journey, George found that making contentment his number one priority did not land him in a monastery or on top of a lonely mountain, but on the contrary made him much more productive and prosperous. He now speaks on the importance and practicality of an experience of unconditional peace."An experience of peace is the most practical thing there is. It helps you eliminate waste, perform at your peak and usher worldly prosperity into your life. More than that, it fulfills every human being's fundamental desire to enjoy and appreciate this life as a gift." GRB

Book preview

Peace is Practical

[How the Inner Journey Can Transform the Outer]

By George R. Blow

All rights reserved. Published by George R. Blow at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 George R. Blow

Second Edition

Discover other titles by George R. Blow at Smashwords.com:

Everybody Dies [The Movie]

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/213714

The Hidden Spring [A Short Story About a Long Life]

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/215099

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission from the author.

Interior layout and cover design: George R. Blow

Front cover photo by Walter Volpati

Dedicated to Mom and Dad, Kathy, Chuck, Jim, KH, RB, the Three M’s, PR, Russian Angel and the Lovers of Truth, Tanya, Walter, and everyone who believed in and supported me along the way.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1. Breaking Free - How I Turned the Worst Year for the Economy into the Best Year for me

Chapter 1 - A Cry From Within

Chapter 2 - The Consequences of Clarity

Chapter 3 - Letting Go and Moving On

Chapter 4 - Bold Moves

Part 2. Peace, Productivity, Prosperity - The Practical Benefits of an Experience of Contentment

Chapter 5 - What Constitutes True Wealth?

Chapter 6 - Defining Peace

Chapter 7 - The Benefits of Peace in the Workplace

Chapter 8 - Consciousness, Cupid and Rampant Vampires

Chapter 9 - Family Life and the Role of the Self

Chapter 10 - Breathing Balance into your Financial Life

Chapter 11 - Zoning in on Sports

Part 3. A Plan For A Lifetime - What Does it Mean to be a Human Being?

Chapter 12 - The Island Story

Chapter 13 - Words To Live By

Chapter 14 - The 8 Step Peace is Practical Life Method

Introduction

Many people view the pursuit of material wealth and the commitment to the inner journey as mutually exclusive. Because they have a concept, rather than a feeling of peace, they think that making it a priority would involve sacrificing either their worldly responsibilities, or pleasures, or both. However, in my experience, the commitment to inner contentment not only didn’t land me in a monastery or on top of a lonely mountain, but on the contrary helped me become much more productive and prosperous. On top of that, it turned my life into an ongoing adventure.

In December 2008, after some serious soul-searching, I made the difficult decision to turn in my resignation from a large communications corporation I had been with for the better part of six years. Most people around me considered this move counter-intuitive at best. I had prospered with the company as a television producer/director and programming coordinator, and it didn’t really seem like a smart time to quit, to say the least. That fall will be remembered for a worldwide economic crash rivaling the 1930’s Great Depression. No one who lived through it will forget the widespread downsizing and financial insecurity of those months and the following years.

My own corporation was forced to let go of a significant percentage of its employees nationwide just before the holidays. It was an extremely emotional time for everybody. Throughout our system, security guards ushered chosen workers out of their respective buildings with only a few minutes to clean out their desks. Many were crying. My own department lost one of its best employees, a man with a family to feed and insure.

Nevertheless, shortly after these dramatic local and worldwide events, while just about everyone was either struggling to find work or maintain their jobs, I took the radical step of voluntarily retiring.

It turned out to be one of the best moves I ever made. Since January 31st, 2009, I have enjoyed the most exciting, productive and fulfilling period of my life. Since that fateful day I have:

1. Completed the copy for two novels, a compilation of essays on the inner journey, an illustrated book and a movie script (as well as what you are reading).

2. Created two popular blogs and related websites.

3. Worked on a couple of television series and a film.

4. Updated and re-published a book on the history of the golf swing.

5. Learned a new foreign language and revived an old one.

6. Lived for three months in the Paris of South America, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

7. Re-visited the place of my family’s roots in North America.

8. Salvaged a pre-civil war estate in uptown New Orleans.

9. Regularly guest lectured in diverse departments at a prestigious university on the practical benefits of an experience of unconditional joy, peace and contentment.

Suffice it to say that making peace my priority didn’t turn me into a vegetable! In fact, it infused me with passion and purpose, and propelled me into a much better place by first making me a more focused and productive employee, and then by giving me the self-knowledge and clarity of vision I needed to see where I needed to go and how to get there. What’s more, since retiring, my time at liberty has been personally transformative and fulfilling beyond my wildest imagination, something I will treasure for the rest of my days, regardless of what is to come. The experience has been so consistently excellent it has made my whole life worth living.

So what were the internal and external circumstances that both inspired and prepared me to make such a radical move as quitting during an economic crisis? And what steps did I take to make the most of my time and money once free of the career job routine - i.e., exactly how did I get where I am today? Most importantly, how can an experience of inner peace lead YOU down the path to outer prosperity? And finally, how can ANYONE enjoy and appreciate the gift of existence regardless of their situation? That is the true art, the key to a lifetime of happiness.

Peace is Practical is about rediscovering your instinctive heart, about mining the wisdom and joy you once brought to this world as a child and still carry within - whatever you may do and wherever you may go. It’s about sowing the seeds, and reaping the harvest, of real, lasting wealth. It’s about thriving both inside and out.

And ultimately, this book is about you.

Part 1 - Breaking Free

How I Turned the Worst Year for the Economy into the Best Year for me

Chapter 1 - A Cry From Within

The truth is, when I retired from the world of television I wasn’t in a bad situation at all. In fact, I will always refer to my role at the communications company as a great job. It paid fairly well, if not on a national scale, then at least in relation to the average in New Orleans, LA. It was very engaging and educational, and gave me the opportunity to do a lot of different things. I wore a plethora of different hats. I was at once a television producer/director/video editor/photographer and programming coordinator/copy writer for a local commercial cable station. These are currently referred to in the industry as LO's, or local origination stations. They are not community access channels, but commercial stations expected to generate revenue and add value to the cable product. But because we were in the unique situation of operating under the system's public affairs department, our programming could also address important community issues. Amongst my many duties, I produced: an award-winning fitness show, countless long-format programs related to the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, numerous public services announcements and company communiqués, and I even had my own series for our internal employee channel.

And the company I was with wasn't bad at all. In fact, compared to some of the publicly-traded corporations in North America that have become infamous for their ignoble behavior over the last few decades, it was top of the line. It had the positive characteristic of being privately owned, and truly stepped up to the plate after Hurricane Katrina devastated the greater Gulf South. They took very good care of their employees in the most difficult of circumstances and spent millions rebuilding (something they were not compelled to do). On top of that, their benefits packages were generally quite competitive, and they always offered significant contributions towards employee-education. I gratefully took advantage of those whenever I could and grew by leaps and bounds as a professional while I was there.

But there were some serious problems with this great job business. First of all, I learned the hard way that in television people carefully guard their technical ignorance. They will often studiously avoid training in new areas. The simple reason is that the more you know how to do, the more you are asked to do. At least this was the case being a salaried employee for a major corporation (salaried positions are actually unusual in the production industry as most people are contracted to work on a job-by-job basis). Because I was eager to learn, by the end of my stay I was actually handling two full-time jobs, one essentially clerical, or office-oriented, and the other in the creative field of video production. I ended up taking work home on a regular basis (during the busier seasons between three and five days a week - including weekends) and this remained the case even as I became increasingly efficient at my jobs. The list of duties just kept getting longer and longer.

There were quite a few other issues as well. For one thing, even though I was working for one of the better corporations, I grew to loathe the pervasive corporate American mentality. For example, I can’t stand the cubicle, and it came to be a regulation in our company that with the exception of VP’s, no one was allowed their own office. Everyone had to work in an open area. In this way and many others, life very closely resembled a Dilbert cartoon (for those who are not familiar, it depicts the lives of computer engineers as an absurd form of hell). For me, one of the tell-tale signs towards the end was that I was laughing way too hard at these comic strips. Obviously they too closely resembled my own life. Nearby coworkers in other departments often displayed Dilbert calendars and I actually looked forward to reading the daily lampoons. However, I didn’t dare put them up on my own desk because a certain person in a position of authority might consider them seditious. An archetypal corporate character, this person, although a hard worker and no doubt unconscious of any negative effect on morale, was a source of endless misery for just about everyone in the entire system. I feel compelled to mention this situation because it eventually played a major role in my decision to leave. It was unhealthy and unsolvable by any other means. Let's face it; the people you work with make a huge difference, regardless of how good a management system the company may have. Systems can't account for every human factor and a lot of times it's not the case that someone is badly intentioned or inept, but simply that they aren't particularly well-suited to their position.