Welcome to The Land of More - Where We Have Way More Choices Than 50 Years Ago, But Aren't Any Happier

I have followed Robert - a spiritual psychologist - for many years, read all his books and attended all of his seminars in London. Some more than once.

He's my go-to guy when I need a spiritual change of perspective.

His teachings are inspired by A Course In Miracles and therefore always help you see things "through the eyes of love". You just become a better, happier and more loving human being if you spend a few years in his presence (or the presences of his teachings).

I his first TEDx Talk, he talks about "The Land of More": How we have more choices and more possibilities than ever before, but still we're only semi-happy. We keep thinking, "there must be more!" Even though there is so much of everything already there.

He talks how many of us have more than one career these days or how we live many more years than before.

At 2:12 min in, he even hints at our money system, when he says, "We also have more money floating around, than ever before." And with a smirk he adds, "We came off the gold standard. That's what made that possible."

(I didn't hear a reaction from the audience, so I don't know if they understood what he was talking about. ;) )

In the 'olden days' when you had a friend over and asked them if they wanted a cup of tea, they would either answer "Yes" or "NO".

Today, they'll say, "Oh, what have you got?"

Most of us are only semi-happy

At about 15:00min in, he talks about a study that was done in 1957, where about 52% of the candidates responded, they were "very happy".

More recently, only 37% responded they were "very happy", even though we have so much more these days.

Happiness is knowing what you want?

"What do I want?" is certainly a question that helps us focus.

However, once you get beyond What do I want to have/buy/get, you can ask this question in much more interesting ways, Robert says.

For example,

• What kind of person do I want to be?
• How can I be more authentic?
• How can I be more of the real me instead of a conditioned me where I'm largely defined as a consumer, by my culture.
• What or who would I most like to connect to?

The soul grows through subtraction not addition.

Henry David Thoreau

At the end, Robert offers the Tea Meditation. Pour yourself a cup of tea and meditate on this thought: "What is it like to be me, when I don't want anything?

Robert Holden is a very entertaining speaker, you might enjoy his whole talk, here: