Guest column: Keys and souls

By David Magallanes / guest columnist

Some of my best ideas occur to me as I run. I’ve been an avid runner since my teen years.  As long as I can keep enough focus on running while I’m thinking to avoid running into people and falling into ditches or tripping on curbs, I’m good.

I also get ideas for articles when I run. Like the other day, as I ran in a park past a gaggle of young men playing basketball, they were playing the music that most young people enjoy (or, at least, as I perceive it, force themselves to enjoy): loud hip hop. There was nothing unusual about the lyrics, but they got my attention. The song was typically romantic.

The male singer was hip hopping to his gal that she had the key to his life. That’s so romantic.

It is, isn’t it?

Uh … talk about tossing that precious key from the bridge into the turbulent waters in the river below!  What is he thinking?

Unfortunately, what many of us think: that another person holds our life in their hands, or on their finger, or around their neck, or somewhere in an obscure closet at the back of the house. That’s an enormous responsibility to place on a person who ultimately has his or her own agenda, by the very nature of soul.

In his profound work, Soul Mates — Honoring The Mysteries of Love and Relationship, Thomas Moore sagely instructs us: “As the Greek mystical philosopher Heraclitus taught, ‘The soul is its own source of unfolding.’  It has its own reasons, which may be only dimly apparent to consciousness. If we want soul in relationship, we have to look beyond our intentions and expectations” (p. xiii).*

Teenagers (and many older adults) may not yet see it — nor want to see it — ever — but Moore teaches us that soul indeed has its own agenda.  And entrusting our life to a soul that is not under our control, nor even under the control of the person associated with that individual soul, is, well, “asking for it.”

Organizations and companies have their own souls that are likewise at best benevolent but unpredictable, and at worst erratic and mean-spirited. And what do we workers to with the keys to our happiness and financial health? We tend to give them away right along with our identities. We trust organizations and companies with our emotions and happiness, much as a boy trusts his girlfriend, or a wife her husband. And when any of them fail us, we become distraught or, in extreme cases, suicidal.

Perhaps through the wisdom that comes with suffering, or with a few knocks on the head, we eventually realize that we need to hang on to those keys! In spite of the myths of romantic love, company loyalty, romance novels, Mexican telenovelas and hip-hoppery, no one else besides ourselves can access the treasures of the universe.

* Moore, Thomas.  Soul Mates. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

— David Magallanes is the creator of his own enterprise, Real World Projects, a business primarily dedicated to building marketing business networks for the creation of affluence. In this pursuit, Real World Projects constructs distribution outlets for highly reputable products that offer a healthier life and a more vibrant lifestyle, as well as free training and guidance for those who wish to create their own similar enterprise.  David is available for speaking opportunities. To contact him and for more information, you are invited to visit and explore the Real World Projects web site at www.realworldprojects.info

Editor’s note: Please click on links on the right-hand side of the website or click on the Opinion link at the top of the page to see previous guest columns by David Magallanes.