Three things you need to know

As I was driving to work the other day, I heard the local radio personality announce, “And stay tuned for the three things you need to know from the radio station that keeps you up to date with what is important in the world.”

Oh, my goodness, I was going to arrive at my destination well before they told me the three things I need to know.  Should I stay in my car and risk being late for my appointment while I wait for these vital pieces of information?  What will happen to me if I don’t hear these three crucial nuggets of wisdom?  Because if I need to know them, won’t the absence of knowing them surely have dire circumstances for me?

Could it be that I need to know that the American government is continuing to play intramural hardball with each other at the expense of the very people who voted them into office, the very people who they claim to have their best interests in mind?

Could it be that I need to know that former Olympian Bruce Jenner and his wife, Kris Jenner, are now officially separated after 22 years of marriage?

Could it be that I need to know that there are people who reacted sharply with racist comments and harsh accusations in response to Nina Davuluri becoming the most recent Miss America because of her Indian origin?

Could it be that I need to know that a young pregnant woman in Mexico City gave birth on the front lawn of a medical clinic after being denied care from the medical personnel inside the facility who told her she was not ready to deliver?

Or maybe I need to know that the foods I am eating are entirely wrong or what movies I must be watching.  Perhaps I need to know which preschools my children should be going to in order to ensure they will be successful adults or how to Feng Shui the furniture in my living room.  Maybe someone will tell me what car I’m supposed to be driving, what brand of jeans someone “my age” should wear, what length my hair is supposed to be.  And surely I need to know which politician is involved in the latest sex scandal.   And, of course, here is the big one that someone must tell me now:  which version of God I am supposed to be embracing?

Where does the long list of “things I need to know” end?

And how is it that everyone else knows what I need to know, and I don’t?

Of course, I’m being slightly facetious here to make a point.  But how many times and in what kinds of ways are we being told we need something in our lives in order to be, do, or have something else?   In order to be happy?  In order to be abundant?  In order to be in a relationship?  And do we ever stop to consider where we are getting that information?

Buried deep beneath our belief that somehow we are incomplete, insufficient, less-than, it seems we have forgotten the nature of who we really are.  We have caused ourselves to miss entirely the opportunity to experience ourselves as the source of our own joy and happiness by looking to and accepting external sources of information for our answers and our truth, even when that information is not in alignment with our own wisdom.  Can you imagine a more perfectly vulnerable position for someone to be in if and when somebody else wants their truth to also be yours?

For me, it has been my experience that the understanding of what I need to know is most often realized in the space of nothingness, in the stillness of nature, and in the absence of words.  And while the outside world provides us an extraordinary opportunity to apply our consciousness through the process of choosing and creating and recreating, I believe there are not 3 things we need to know, nor are there 100 things or one million things.  There is only one thing we need to know; and that is this:  we already know.

“Life (as you call it) is an opportunity for you to know experientially what you already know conceptually.
You need learn nothing to do this. You need merely remember what you already know, and act on it.”

~ Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Vol. 1

(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)