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href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/xmlrpc.php?rsd" /><link rel="wlwmanifest" type="application/wlwmanifest+xml" href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-includes/wlwmanifest.xml" /><link rel='index' title='Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog' href='http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog' /><meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.9.2" /><style type="text/css">.addtoany_subscribe img{border:0}</style> <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#publisher=08b2cd3c-c30f-4b00-9061-9cadf1ef60b0&type=website&wp=2.9.2"></script><link rel="shortlink" href="http://wp.me/dhLM" /><style type="text/css">img.nothumb{border:0}</style></head><body><div id="page"><div id="masthead"><div id="masthead-text"><span class="masthead-title">Steve Pavlina . com</span><br><h1 class="masthead-subtitle">Personal Development for Smart People<sup style="font-size: 50%; position:relative; top:-8px;">TM</sup></h1></div></div><div id="hmenu"><div id="hnav"> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/">Home</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/">Blog</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/products.htm">Products</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/">Workshop</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/audio/">Audio</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/archives/">Archives</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/">Forums</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/about-steve-pavlina.htm">About</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/contact-info.htm">Contact</a> <a href="http://www.erinpavlina.com/">Erin</a></div></div><hr /><div id="content" class="narrowcolumn"><div class="post"><h2 id="post-2160"><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Spanked by eBay">Spanked by eBay</a></h2> <small>July 28th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email_famfamfam.png" alt="Email this article to a friend" title="Email this article to a friend" style="border: 0px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow">Email this article to a friend</a> </small><div class="entry"><p>A few hours ago, eBay removed my listing for a 60-minute phone consultation. The last time I checked, that auction had received dozens of bids and was up to $1000. There were still 2-1/2 days left in the auction, so I suspect the final price would have gone much higher.</p><p>I checked my email and saw that I’d received an automated message from eBay about it. Here’s the relevant snippet:</p><blockquote><p>You recently listed the following listing:</p><p>120599874589 – 60-minute consultation with Steve Pavlina</p><p>Unfortunately, we had to remove your listing because the following information violates our policy:</p><p>60-minute phone consultation</p><p>The purpose of the eBay Web site is to enable members to buy and sell items from each other. Listings that do not offer an item for sale through the site, or that are designed for any other purpose, are not permitted. For example, listings for invisible or intangible items are not permitted. Buyers should be able to verify the existence of an item they bought when they receive it.</p><p>For more information on this eBay policy, please visit:</p><p><a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html" target="_blank">http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html</a></p><p><a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html" target="_blank"></a>You may need to take a tutorial. The next time you sell, you may be asked to take the tutorial, if it’s required. Once you’ve completed the tutorial successfully, please review your account status for any other possible concerns. If there are no other issues, you should be able to sell again.</p></blockquote><p>I read that policy, but it didn’t seem to apply to what I was listing. There was mention of trying to sell intangibles like a “soul” and other crazy stuff that of course wouldn’t make sense.</p><p>So I contacted eBay to find out why they delisted it and to see what my options were.</p><p>The first person I connected with there wasn’t very helpful. I got nothing but stock replies, and then I was disconnected before I could get very far.</p><p>I tried again right away, and the next agent was much more helpful. He looked into it and explained that they don’t allow such listings. I gave him links to several similar listings on eBay, but he simply asked me to report them through their public flagging system if I felt they violated eBay’s terms. I’m not an eBay cop, so I’m not going to do that.</p><p>I also suggested other options like including an MP3 recording of the call and/or an autographed copy of my book, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.</p><p>If you go to eBay and do a search on “consultation,” you’ll find hundreds of results, including listings for phone consultations with no tangible products — the exact same form of service I was offering. One of my Facebook friends pointed out that eBay is inconsistent in enforcing this policy. The agent who was helping me also admitted as much.</p><p>I’m disappointed by this outcome, not because of the money but because eBay pulled the plug on my experiment. I was really curious about the outcome. A lot of other people were curious about it too. I would have preferred if they nuked it after the final bid, so we could have seen where it ended up. I think that would have been a cool piece of data to share with everyone.</p><p>This doesn’t seem like a good deal for eBay either. Other top bloggers were following my experiment, and in fact someone else already listed a similar consultation there, crediting me for the idea (his auction is still live). I imagine that if this experiment was a success — if they hadn’t delisted it, it’s fair to say that it already was a success — it could easily have resulted in thousands of dollars in extra revenue for eBay this year. (I think that’s a pretty modest estimate.)</p><p>On the other hand, I can understand why they may not want to list such items. It’s hard to verify the delivery of a phone or video consultation, and maybe they had problems with scammers in that category in the past.</p><p>The only real option they could offer me was to purchase classified advertising there, but I’m not interested in buying traditional advertising. I was using eBay for their auction service — I was obviously able to refer plenty of bidders to them.</p><p>So for all practical purposes, eBay appears to be a dead end for this sort of thing, at least for me.</p><p>I don’t see a need to assign this event any particular meaning. I’ll simply let it go and await the next wave of inspiration. As the saying goes… when one door closes, another door opens.</p><p>So where’s the open door now?</p><p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({title:"Spanked by eBay",url:"http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/"});</script></p><p align="left"><a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+Spanked+by+eBay+http://bit.ly/c1I6P8" title="Post to Twitter"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter3.png" alt="Post to Twitter" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+Spanked+by+eBay+http://bit.ly/c1I6P8" title="Post to Twitter">Tweet This Post</a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/&t=Spanked+by+eBay" title="Post to Facebook"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-facebook.png" alt="Post to Facebook" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/&t=Spanked+by+eBay" title="Post to Facebook">Post to Facebook</a></p><div class="noprint"> Discuss this post in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/steve-pavlina/">Steve Pavlina forum</a>. <br><br><p><b>Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/" style="color:blue"><i>Conscious Growth Workshop</i></a>, October 29-31, 2010.</b></p> <br><br></div></div><div class="noprint"><p> <b>Related Articles</b><br><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/60-minute-consultation-auction/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: 60-Minute Consultation Auction">60-Minute Consultation Auction</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/million-dollar-experiment-open-your-money-doors/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Million Dollar Experiment – Open Your Money Doors">Million Dollar Experiment – Open Your Money Doors</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/02/used-goals-for-sale/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Used Goals For Sale">Used Goals For Sale</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/jennifer-jarvis-manifestation-story/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Jennifer Jarvi’s Manifestation Story">Jennifer Jarvi’s Manifestation Story</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/million-dollar-experiment-first-dollar-earned/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Million Dollar Experiment – First Dollar Earned">Million Dollar Experiment – First Dollar Earned</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/30-days-to-success/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: 30 Days to Success">30 Days to Success</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/an-inspirational-week/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: An Inspirational Week">An Inspirational Week</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/07/how-to-earn-your-first-love-dollar/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: How to Earn Your First Love Dollar">How to Earn Your First Love Dollar</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/09/john-assaraf-interview/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: John Assaraf Interview">John Assaraf Interview</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2009/03/living-paycheck-to-paycheck/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Living Paycheck to Paycheck">Living Paycheck to Paycheck</a></li></p></div><p class="postmetadata">Posted in <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/category/business/" title="View all posts in Business" rel="category tag">Business</a>, <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/category/entrepreneurship/" title="View all posts in Entrepreneurship" rel="category tag">Entrepreneurship</a> <strong>|</strong> <span>Comments Off</span></p></div><div class="post"><h2 id="post-2157"><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to 30 Days of Inspiration">30 Days of Inspiration</a></h2> <small>July 28th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email_famfamfam.png" alt="Email this article to a friend" title="Email this article to a friend" style="border: 0px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow">Email this article to a friend</a> </small><div class="entry"><p>Today is Day 5 of my 30-day trial of inspired living, as I explained in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/an-inspirational-week/">previous post</a>. If you missed that post, basically I’m testing what it’s like to live without thinking or planning ahead. I’m living in the moment and doing my best to act on inspiration whenever it comes to me, riding each wave for as long as it lasts. If I’m not feeling any strong inspiration, then in those moments I’ll take some downtime or catch up on routine tasks like email — and take the time to eat, shower, etc.</p><p>I’m not scheduling anything at all, unless the inspiration to schedule something hits me. I’m not using an alarm clock to wake up at any particular time, I’m not “planning” to exercise unless I’m inspired to do so, and I’m only eating meals if and when I’m inspired to eat.</p><p>I’m learning that hunger can be somewhat inspirational at times, but last night I skipped dinner entirely and went to bed hungry because I didn’t feel inspired to eat. I was too busy following other inspirations, so being hungry didn’t bother me much. By the end of the day, I was spent and collapsed into bed.</p><h3>A Difficult Trial</h3><p>What began in the spirit of fun and adventure is now becoming much more difficult. I’m realizing that this is shaping up to be the most challenging and intense 30-day trial I’ve ever done. How nice that this part of it shows up after I’ve already made a public commitment to it…</p><p>This trial isn’t about testing a new habit or altering my sleeping or eating patterns. It’s a 24/7 commitment. Part of me is surprised that I can even commit to this at all. I had to get my thinking to a whole different level just to say yes to this experiment.</p><p>Dealing with the unpredictability of what’s going to happen next is extremely unsettling. In order to make it through this, I have to let go of trying to control anything. I have to let go and trust.</p><p>I’m also seeing that in any given moment, I can be under the influence of multiple waves of inspiration at the same time. They don’t conveniently line up for linear processing. They arrive in complex layers sometimes. When there are multiple waves overlapping, I do my best to ride the strongest wave at the time.</p><p>Another pattern is that each wave has its own crests and troughs. Sometimes there’s a powerful impulse, but it’s too much to do all at once. After I catch and ride the initial wave, there’s a lull, and then another related wave shows up to move things further along.</p><p>Initially I figured that I couldn’t screw things up so badly with this trial that the damage would be irreparable. Now I’m having serious doubts about that. As I ponder what’s beginning to show up now, I can easily see a pathway where I could do some real “damage.” I could throw a lot of things out there that would make it impossible to ever return to my Day 1 equilibrium.</p><p>There are certain things that, once I put them out there, can’t be recalled. If I act on such impulses, my life will spin off in some new direction, and there will be no going back. An example was when I shared the story in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/06/the-meaning-of-life-intro/">Meaning of Life: Intro</a> article. There was no way to back away from that once it was posted. I don’t regret doing it, but I can never go back to what my life was like before I posted that.</p><p>At this point, I now expect that by Day 30, I’ll have probably done at least some things that will make it impossible to restore my life to essentially the same place it was in on Day 1. That’s pretty unsettling.</p><p>I now see that it’s going to take a lot of courage to continue, let alone complete, this trial. I know you probably don’t see evidence of that yet, but I imagine you’ll have a better grasp of what I mean by the end of the trial.</p><h3>Subjective Reality</h3><p>There’s another aspect to this trial that I haven’t mentioned yet. For me this trial is also a deeper exploration of the perspective of subjective reality. Subjective reality is the notion that consciousness is primary, that there’s only one consciousness, and that all of physical reality is essentially a dream world that arises within consciousness. I’ve shared articles about this concept years ago. If you care to learn more about it, see the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/archives/">Archives</a>, and scan for the articles with “subjective reality” in the title.</p><p>At the last CGW, I spent much of the final two hours explaining how subjective reality works, along with some personal experiments that indicate it may in fact be a more accurate model of reality than the objective model (whereby the physical universe is primary and consciousness arises within it).</p><p>At one point, I asked the CGW attendees that if they had to pick one or the other, which model did they feel was probably the more accurate depiction of how reality actually works? Interestingly, the room was divided roughly 50-50, with half the people favoring the subjective model and half favoring the objective one.</p><p>That didn’t surprise me because I’ve been on the fence as to which model is likely to be more accurate. From a subjective standpoint, it makes perfect sense that the dream characters in my reality would reflect back to me a 50-50 split.</p><p>Well, after that CGW, I began thinking that I was ready to explore the subjective perspective in greater depth than ever before. I had largely stopped progressing down that path because quite honestly, it scared me. Things were beginning to get too strange too quickly. This perspective was bestowing me with more power than I felt ready for. For example, in less than a year (which was 2006-2007), I progressed from manifesting pennies to manifesting $50K. And to this day I can still create roughly $50K amounts with relative ease. I’ve also manifested lots of other good things in my life. All of my needs are well met, I enjoy an abundant life, and I’m genuinely happy with my existence. But this begs the question, “How deep does the rabbit hole really go?”</p><p>After a few years of stalling interspersed with some very gradual steps forward, I finally decided that as scary as it was, I needed to get moving in this direction once again. Within days some synchronicities began showing up. Some were personal, and others were more public and obvious. For example, right after I made this decision, the movie <em>Inception</em> showed up in my reality and began generating a lot of buzz. Several people began telling me to go see it, some claiming that it included elements of subjective reality. I almost went to see it last night, but I still haven’t seen it yet. Maybe today if the inspiration hits me. Before making this decision though, I’d never even heard of this movie.</p><p>Another thing that happened is that some TLC friends shared some subjective manifestation stories of their own with me, stuff that was beyond what I’d experimented with on my own. For example, Joe Vitale shared the story of Dr. Hew Len, a therapist who cured a hospital filled with mentally ill patients without ever seeing them. If you believe the story, this sort of healing is tough to explain objectively, but it makes perfect sense if reality is in fact a subjective dream world. If you want to learn more about this therapist, go read the article <a href="http://www.mrfire.com/article-archives/new-articles/worlds-most-unusual-therapist.html">The World’s Most Unusual Therapist</a>, or read Joe’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470402563?ie=UTF8&tag=dexteritysoft-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0470402563">Zero Limits</a>. I’ve already started testing some of these ideas, and some curious results are beginning to show up. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to regard other human beings as separate and distinct from me now.</p><p>At present I’d say I’m now around 80-20 in the sense that I’m 80% certain that subjective reality is the more accurate model of how the universe actually works. Consequently, I’m beginning to loosen my grip on the objective side, and I’m beginning to do things that may seem risky from an objective standpoint, but subjectively they make perfect sense.</p><p>This trial is a good example. Objectively speaking, it’s a very risky thing to do. By acting impulsively for weeks on end without pausing to think things through, I could really screw up my life both personally and professionally. I could potentially do and say some things that have serious long-term consequences, not just for me, but for other people in my life.</p><p>However, from a subjective standpoint, this should actually be a much more sensible way to live. The notion of an “out there” is nothing but illusion, and it makes no sense to fear what may happen in a world that’s a projection anyway.</p><h3>Needing to Know</h3><p>I’m embarking on this trial because I really need to know. I can’t remain on the fence. I have to go down this pathway and see where it leads. It scares me to do so, but I’ll just take it one day at a time. If things get really screwed up along the way, I’m willing to accept those consequences. I’d be willing to sacrifice a lot in order to discovering some new truths (or old ones I’ve forgotten).</p><p>I think that deep down, part of me already knows that reality is subjective and that the whole objective model is pure delusion. But I can’t overcome my doubts by staring at them and pondering them. I have to push through the fear and doubt and resistance and see what really lies on the other side. Will it be a glorious new level of existence, or will it lead to chaos?</p><p>I strongly suspect it’s the former, but the only way I can really do this experiment properly is by being willing to accept the possibility that I may experience the latter.</p><h3>Inner Processing</h3><p>I’m still doing a lot of inner processing. If I feel inspired to share the details at some point, I’ll do so, even if it’s really difficult in the moment.</p><p>Last night I went to bed at 1:30am, and I woke up at 4:30am. Some very emotional stuff began coming up again, and I did little else but cry and sob till 6:15am. I’m still not sure if I’ll share the details about this publicly. It would probably stir up some drama if I did, but for now I’m not feeling the inspiration to write about it, at least not yet.</p><p>I am getting a glimpse of things to come. I may not be able to control it, but I can try to make sense of it along the way.</p><p>One thing I’m seeing is that I’m going to be pretty busy. Lots of energy is getting stirred up, and it’s leading to a lot of activity. I can’t separate the personal side from the professional side, so I don’t know in advance which part of my life I’ll be working on most. It feels like I’m working on both at the same time.</p><p>I made breakfast almost two hours ago, before I started writing this post, but it’s been sitting there uneaten this whole time. I’m pretty hungry, but I’ve had to follow this wave of inspiration to write because it was the stronger wave. Hopefully I can go eat once I post this. I’m also very thirsty. There’s a full glass of water next to me, but I’ve barely sipped it. I stuck with the writing wave until it reached its shoreline, even as my hunger and thirst increased along the way.</p><p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({title:"30 Days of Inspiration",url:"http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/"});</script></p><p align="left"><a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+30+Days+of+Inspiration+http://bit.ly/9p1XOs" title="Post to Twitter"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter3.png" alt="Post to Twitter" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+30+Days+of+Inspiration+http://bit.ly/9p1XOs" title="Post to Twitter">Tweet This Post</a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/&t=30+Days+of+Inspiration" title="Post to Facebook"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-facebook.png" alt="Post to Facebook" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/&t=30+Days+of+Inspiration" title="Post to Facebook">Post to Facebook</a></p><div class="noprint"> Discuss this post in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/steve-pavlina/">Steve Pavlina forum</a>. <br><br><p><b>Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/" style="color:blue"><i>Conscious Growth Workshop</i></a>, October 29-31, 2010.</b></p> <br><br></div></div><div class="noprint"><p> <b>Related Articles</b><br><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/creating-inspiration/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Creating Inspiration">Creating Inspiration</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/countdown-to-day-30/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Countdown to Day 30">Countdown to Day 30</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/11/career-and-commitment/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Career and Commitment">Career and Commitment</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/10/personal-development-for-smart-people-book-reviews/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Personal Development for Smart People Book Reviews">Personal Development for Smart People Book Reviews</a></li><li><a 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<a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/">Home</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/">Blog</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/products.htm">Products</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/">Workshop</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/audio/">Audio</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/archives/">Archives</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/">Forums</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/about-steve-pavlina.htm">About</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/contact-info.htm">Contact</a> <a href="http://www.erinpavlina.com/">Erin</a></div></div><hr /><div id="content" class="narrowcolumn"><div class="post"><h2 id="post-2160"><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Spanked by eBay">Spanked by eBay</a></h2> <small>July 28th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email_famfamfam.png" alt="Email this article to a friend" title="Email this article to a friend" style="border: 0px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow">Email this article to a friend</a> </small><div class="entry"><p>A few hours ago, eBay removed my listing for a 60-minute phone consultation. The last time I checked, that auction had received dozens of bids and was up to $1000. There were still 2-1/2 days left in the auction, so I suspect the final price would have gone much higher.</p><p>I checked my email and saw that I’d received an automated message from eBay about it. Here’s the relevant snippet:</p><blockquote><p>You recently listed the following listing:</p><p>120599874589 – 60-minute consultation with Steve Pavlina</p><p>Unfortunately, we had to remove your listing because the following information violates our policy:</p><p>60-minute phone consultation</p><p>The purpose of the eBay Web site is to enable members to buy and sell items from each other. Listings that do not offer an item for sale through the site, or that are designed for any other purpose, are not permitted. For example, listings for invisible or intangible items are not permitted. Buyers should be able to verify the existence of an item they bought when they receive it.</p><p>For more information on this eBay policy, please visit:</p><p><a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html" target="_blank">http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html</a></p><p><a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html" target="_blank"></a>You may need to take a tutorial. The next time you sell, you may be asked to take the tutorial, if it’s required. Once you’ve completed the tutorial successfully, please review your account status for any other possible concerns. If there are no other issues, you should be able to sell again.</p></blockquote><p>I read that policy, but it didn’t seem to apply to what I was listing. There was mention of trying to sell intangibles like a “soul” and other crazy stuff that of course wouldn’t make sense.</p><p>So I contacted eBay to find out why they delisted it and to see what my options were.</p><p>The first person I connected with there wasn’t very helpful. I got nothing but stock replies, and then I was disconnected before I could get very far.</p><p>I tried again right away, and the next agent was much more helpful. He looked into it and explained that they don’t allow such listings. I gave him links to several similar listings on eBay, but he simply asked me to report them through their public flagging system if I felt they violated eBay’s terms. I’m not an eBay cop, so I’m not going to do that.</p><p>I also suggested other options like including an MP3 recording of the call and/or an autographed copy of my book, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.</p><p>If you go to eBay and do a search on “consultation,” you’ll find hundreds of results, including listings for phone consultations with no tangible products — the exact same form of service I was offering. One of my Facebook friends pointed out that eBay is inconsistent in enforcing this policy. The agent who was helping me also admitted as much.</p><p>I’m disappointed by this outcome, not because of the money but because eBay pulled the plug on my experiment. I was really curious about the outcome. A lot of other people were curious about it too. I would have preferred if they nuked it after the final bid, so we could have seen where it ended up. I think that would have been a cool piece of data to share with everyone.</p><p>This doesn’t seem like a good deal for eBay either. Other top bloggers were following my experiment, and in fact someone else already listed a similar consultation there, crediting me for the idea (his auction is still live). I imagine that if this experiment was a success — if they hadn’t delisted it, it’s fair to say that it already was a success — it could easily have resulted in thousands of dollars in extra revenue for eBay this year. (I think that’s a pretty modest estimate.)</p><p>On the other hand, I can understand why they may not want to list such items. It’s hard to verify the delivery of a phone or video consultation, and maybe they had problems with scammers in that category in the past.</p><p>The only real option they could offer me was to purchase classified advertising there, but I’m not interested in buying traditional advertising. I was using eBay for their auction service — I was obviously able to refer plenty of bidders to them.</p><p>So for all practical purposes, eBay appears to be a dead end for this sort of thing, at least for me.</p><p>I don’t see a need to assign this event any particular meaning. I’ll simply let it go and await the next wave of inspiration. As the saying goes… when one door closes, another door opens.</p><p>So where’s the open door now?</p><p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({title:"Spanked by eBay",url:"http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/"});</script></p><p align="left"><a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+Spanked+by+eBay+http://bit.ly/c1I6P8" title="Post to Twitter"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter3.png" alt="Post to Twitter" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+Spanked+by+eBay+http://bit.ly/c1I6P8" title="Post to Twitter">Tweet This Post</a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/&t=Spanked+by+eBay" title="Post to Facebook"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-facebook.png" alt="Post to Facebook" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/&t=Spanked+by+eBay" title="Post to Facebook">Post to Facebook</a></p><div class="noprint"> Discuss this post in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/steve-pavlina/">Steve Pavlina forum</a>. <br><br><p><b>Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/" style="color:blue"><i>Conscious Growth Workshop</i></a>, October 29-31, 2010.</b></p> <br><br></div></div><div class="noprint"><p> <b>Related Articles</b><br><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/60-minute-consultation-auction/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: 60-Minute Consultation Auction">60-Minute Consultation Auction</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/million-dollar-experiment-open-your-money-doors/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Million Dollar Experiment – Open Your Money Doors">Million Dollar Experiment – Open Your Money Doors</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/02/used-goals-for-sale/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Used Goals For Sale">Used Goals For Sale</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/jennifer-jarvis-manifestation-story/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Jennifer Jarvi’s Manifestation Story">Jennifer Jarvi’s Manifestation Story</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/million-dollar-experiment-first-dollar-earned/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Million Dollar Experiment – First Dollar Earned">Million Dollar Experiment – First Dollar Earned</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/30-days-to-success/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: 30 Days to Success">30 Days to Success</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/an-inspirational-week/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: An Inspirational Week">An Inspirational Week</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/07/how-to-earn-your-first-love-dollar/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: How to Earn Your First Love Dollar">How to Earn Your First Love Dollar</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/09/john-assaraf-interview/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: John Assaraf Interview">John Assaraf Interview</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2009/03/living-paycheck-to-paycheck/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Living Paycheck to Paycheck">Living Paycheck to Paycheck</a></li></p></div><p class="postmetadata">Posted in <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/category/business/" title="View all posts in Business" rel="category tag">Business</a>, <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/category/entrepreneurship/" title="View all posts in Entrepreneurship" rel="category tag">Entrepreneurship</a> <strong>|</strong> <span>Comments Off</span></p></div><div class="post"><h2 id="post-2157"><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to 30 Days of Inspiration">30 Days of Inspiration</a></h2> <small>July 28th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email_famfamfam.png" alt="Email this article to a friend" title="Email this article to a friend" style="border: 0px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow">Email this article to a friend</a> </small><div class="entry"><p>Today is Day 5 of my 30-day trial of inspired living, as I explained in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/an-inspirational-week/">previous post</a>. If you missed that post, basically I’m testing what it’s like to live without thinking or planning ahead. I’m living in the moment and doing my best to act on inspiration whenever it comes to me, riding each wave for as long as it lasts. If I’m not feeling any strong inspiration, then in those moments I’ll take some downtime or catch up on routine tasks like email — and take the time to eat, shower, etc.</p><p>I’m not scheduling anything at all, unless the inspiration to schedule something hits me. I’m not using an alarm clock to wake up at any particular time, I’m not “planning” to exercise unless I’m inspired to do so, and I’m only eating meals if and when I’m inspired to eat.</p><p>I’m learning that hunger can be somewhat inspirational at times, but last night I skipped dinner entirely and went to bed hungry because I didn’t feel inspired to eat. I was too busy following other inspirations, so being hungry didn’t bother me much. By the end of the day, I was spent and collapsed into bed.</p><h3>A Difficult Trial</h3><p>What began in the spirit of fun and adventure is now becoming much more difficult. I’m realizing that this is shaping up to be the most challenging and intense 30-day trial I’ve ever done. How nice that this part of it shows up after I’ve already made a public commitment to it…</p><p>This trial isn’t about testing a new habit or altering my sleeping or eating patterns. It’s a 24/7 commitment. Part of me is surprised that I can even commit to this at all. I had to get my thinking to a whole different level just to say yes to this experiment.</p><p>Dealing with the unpredictability of what’s going to happen next is extremely unsettling. In order to make it through this, I have to let go of trying to control anything. I have to let go and trust.</p><p>I’m also seeing that in any given moment, I can be under the influence of multiple waves of inspiration at the same time. They don’t conveniently line up for linear processing. They arrive in complex layers sometimes. When there are multiple waves overlapping, I do my best to ride the strongest wave at the time.</p><p>Another pattern is that each wave has its own crests and troughs. Sometimes there’s a powerful impulse, but it’s too much to do all at once. After I catch and ride the initial wave, there’s a lull, and then another related wave shows up to move things further along.</p><p>Initially I figured that I couldn’t screw things up so badly with this trial that the damage would be irreparable. Now I’m having serious doubts about that. As I ponder what’s beginning to show up now, I can easily see a pathway where I could do some real “damage.” I could throw a lot of things out there that would make it impossible to ever return to my Day 1 equilibrium.</p><p>There are certain things that, once I put them out there, can’t be recalled. If I act on such impulses, my life will spin off in some new direction, and there will be no going back. An example was when I shared the story in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/06/the-meaning-of-life-intro/">Meaning of Life: Intro</a> article. There was no way to back away from that once it was posted. I don’t regret doing it, but I can never go back to what my life was like before I posted that.</p><p>At this point, I now expect that by Day 30, I’ll have probably done at least some things that will make it impossible to restore my life to essentially the same place it was in on Day 1. That’s pretty unsettling.</p><p>I now see that it’s going to take a lot of courage to continue, let alone complete, this trial. I know you probably don’t see evidence of that yet, but I imagine you’ll have a better grasp of what I mean by the end of the trial.</p><h3>Subjective Reality</h3><p>There’s another aspect to this trial that I haven’t mentioned yet. For me this trial is also a deeper exploration of the perspective of subjective reality. Subjective reality is the notion that consciousness is primary, that there’s only one consciousness, and that all of physical reality is essentially a dream world that arises within consciousness. I’ve shared articles about this concept years ago. If you care to learn more about it, see the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/archives/">Archives</a>, and scan for the articles with “subjective reality” in the title.</p><p>At the last CGW, I spent much of the final two hours explaining how subjective reality works, along with some personal experiments that indicate it may in fact be a more accurate model of reality than the objective model (whereby the physical universe is primary and consciousness arises within it).</p><p>At one point, I asked the CGW attendees that if they had to pick one or the other, which model did they feel was probably the more accurate depiction of how reality actually works? Interestingly, the room was divided roughly 50-50, with half the people favoring the subjective model and half favoring the objective one.</p><p>That didn’t surprise me because I’ve been on the fence as to which model is likely to be more accurate. From a subjective standpoint, it makes perfect sense that the dream characters in my reality would reflect back to me a 50-50 split.</p><p>Well, after that CGW, I began thinking that I was ready to explore the subjective perspective in greater depth than ever before. I had largely stopped progressing down that path because quite honestly, it scared me. Things were beginning to get too strange too quickly. This perspective was bestowing me with more power than I felt ready for. For example, in less than a year (which was 2006-2007), I progressed from manifesting pennies to manifesting $50K. And to this day I can still create roughly $50K amounts with relative ease. I’ve also manifested lots of other good things in my life. All of my needs are well met, I enjoy an abundant life, and I’m genuinely happy with my existence. But this begs the question, “How deep does the rabbit hole really go?”</p><p>After a few years of stalling interspersed with some very gradual steps forward, I finally decided that as scary as it was, I needed to get moving in this direction once again. Within days some synchronicities began showing up. Some were personal, and others were more public and obvious. For example, right after I made this decision, the movie <em>Inception</em> showed up in my reality and began generating a lot of buzz. Several people began telling me to go see it, some claiming that it included elements of subjective reality. I almost went to see it last night, but I still haven’t seen it yet. Maybe today if the inspiration hits me. Before making this decision though, I’d never even heard of this movie.</p><p>Another thing that happened is that some TLC friends shared some subjective manifestation stories of their own with me, stuff that was beyond what I’d experimented with on my own. For example, Joe Vitale shared the story of Dr. Hew Len, a therapist who cured a hospital filled with mentally ill patients without ever seeing them. If you believe the story, this sort of healing is tough to explain objectively, but it makes perfect sense if reality is in fact a subjective dream world. If you want to learn more about this therapist, go read the article <a href="http://www.mrfire.com/article-archives/new-articles/worlds-most-unusual-therapist.html">The World’s Most Unusual Therapist</a>, or read Joe’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470402563?ie=UTF8&tag=dexteritysoft-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0470402563">Zero Limits</a>. I’ve already started testing some of these ideas, and some curious results are beginning to show up. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to regard other human beings as separate and distinct from me now.</p><p>At present I’d say I’m now around 80-20 in the sense that I’m 80% certain that subjective reality is the more accurate model of how the universe actually works. Consequently, I’m beginning to loosen my grip on the objective side, and I’m beginning to do things that may seem risky from an objective standpoint, but subjectively they make perfect sense.</p><p>This trial is a good example. Objectively speaking, it’s a very risky thing to do. By acting impulsively for weeks on end without pausing to think things through, I could really screw up my life both personally and professionally. I could potentially do and say some things that have serious long-term consequences, not just for me, but for other people in my life.</p><p>However, from a subjective standpoint, this should actually be a much more sensible way to live. The notion of an “out there” is nothing but illusion, and it makes no sense to fear what may happen in a world that’s a projection anyway.</p><h3>Needing to Know</h3><p>I’m embarking on this trial because I really need to know. I can’t remain on the fence. I have to go down this pathway and see where it leads. It scares me to do so, but I’ll just take it one day at a time. If things get really screwed up along the way, I’m willing to accept those consequences. I’d be willing to sacrifice a lot in order to discovering some new truths (or old ones I’ve forgotten).</p><p>I think that deep down, part of me already knows that reality is subjective and that the whole objective model is pure delusion. But I can’t overcome my doubts by staring at them and pondering them. I have to push through the fear and doubt and resistance and see what really lies on the other side. Will it be a glorious new level of existence, or will it lead to chaos?</p><p>I strongly suspect it’s the former, but the only way I can really do this experiment properly is by being willing to accept the possibility that I may experience the latter.</p><h3>Inner Processing</h3><p>I’m still doing a lot of inner processing. If I feel inspired to share the details at some point, I’ll do so, even if it’s really difficult in the moment.</p><p>Last night I went to bed at 1:30am, and I woke up at 4:30am. Some very emotional stuff began coming up again, and I did little else but cry and sob till 6:15am. I’m still not sure if I’ll share the details about this publicly. It would probably stir up some drama if I did, but for now I’m not feeling the inspiration to write about it, at least not yet.</p><p>I am getting a glimpse of things to come. I may not be able to control it, but I can try to make sense of it along the way.</p><p>One thing I’m seeing is that I’m going to be pretty busy. Lots of energy is getting stirred up, and it’s leading to a lot of activity. I can’t separate the personal side from the professional side, so I don’t know in advance which part of my life I’ll be working on most. It feels like I’m working on both at the same time.</p><p>I made breakfast almost two hours ago, before I started writing this post, but it’s been sitting there uneaten this whole time. I’m pretty hungry, but I’ve had to follow this wave of inspiration to write because it was the stronger wave. Hopefully I can go eat once I post this. I’m also very thirsty. There’s a full glass of water next to me, but I’ve barely sipped it. I stuck with the writing wave until it reached its shoreline, even as my hunger and thirst increased along the way.</p><p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({title:"30 Days of Inspiration",url:"http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/"});</script></p><p align="left"><a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+30+Days+of+Inspiration+http://bit.ly/9p1XOs" title="Post to Twitter"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter3.png" alt="Post to Twitter" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+30+Days+of+Inspiration+http://bit.ly/9p1XOs" title="Post to Twitter">Tweet This Post</a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/&t=30+Days+of+Inspiration" title="Post to Facebook"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-facebook.png" alt="Post to Facebook" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/&t=30+Days+of+Inspiration" title="Post to Facebook">Post to Facebook</a></p><div class="noprint"> Discuss this post in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/steve-pavlina/">Steve Pavlina forum</a>. <br><br><p><b>Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/" style="color:blue"><i>Conscious Growth Workshop</i></a>, October 29-31, 2010.</b></p> <br><br></div></div><div class="noprint"><p> <b>Related Articles</b><br><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/creating-inspiration/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Creating Inspiration">Creating Inspiration</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/countdown-to-day-30/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Countdown to Day 30">Countdown to Day 30</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/11/career-and-commitment/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Career and Commitment">Career and Commitment</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/10/personal-development-for-smart-people-book-reviews/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Personal Development for Smart People Book Reviews">Personal Development for Smart People Book Reviews</a></li><li><a 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href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/xmlrpc.php?rsd" /><link rel="wlwmanifest" type="application/wlwmanifest+xml" href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-includes/wlwmanifest.xml" /><link rel='index' title='Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog' href='http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog' /><meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.9.2" /><style type="text/css">.addtoany_subscribe img{border:0}</style> <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#publisher=08b2cd3c-c30f-4b00-9061-9cadf1ef60b0&type=website&wp=2.9.2"></script><link rel="shortlink" href="http://wp.me/dhLM" /><style type="text/css">img.nothumb{border:0}</style></head><body><div id="page"><div id="masthead"><div id="masthead-text"><span class="masthead-title">Steve Pavlina . com</span><br><h1 class="masthead-subtitle">Personal Development for Smart People<sup style="font-size: 50%; position:relative; top:-8px;">TM</sup></h1></div></div><div id="hmenu"><div id="hnav"> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/">Home</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/">Blog</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/products.htm">Products</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/">Workshop</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/audio/">Audio</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/archives/">Archives</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/">Forums</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/about-steve-pavlina.htm">About</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/contact-info.htm">Contact</a> <a href="http://www.erinpavlina.com/">Erin</a></div></div><hr /><div id="content" class="narrowcolumn"><div class="post"><h2 id="post-2160"><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Spanked by eBay">Spanked by eBay</a></h2> <small>July 28th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email_famfamfam.png" alt="Email this article to a friend" title="Email this article to a friend" style="border: 0px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow">Email this article to a friend</a> </small><div class="entry"><p>A few hours ago, eBay removed my listing for a 60-minute phone consultation. The last time I checked, that auction had received dozens of bids and was up to $1000. There were still 2-1/2 days left in the auction, so I suspect the final price would have gone much higher.</p><p>I checked my email and saw that I’d received an automated message from eBay about it. Here’s the relevant snippet:</p><blockquote><p>You recently listed the following listing:</p><p>120599874589 – 60-minute consultation with Steve Pavlina</p><p>Unfortunately, we had to remove your listing because the following information violates our policy:</p><p>60-minute phone consultation</p><p>The purpose of the eBay Web site is to enable members to buy and sell items from each other. Listings that do not offer an item for sale through the site, or that are designed for any other purpose, are not permitted. For example, listings for invisible or intangible items are not permitted. Buyers should be able to verify the existence of an item they bought when they receive it.</p><p>For more information on this eBay policy, please visit:</p><p><a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html" target="_blank">http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html</a></p><p><a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html" target="_blank"></a>You may need to take a tutorial. The next time you sell, you may be asked to take the tutorial, if it’s required. Once you’ve completed the tutorial successfully, please review your account status for any other possible concerns. If there are no other issues, you should be able to sell again.</p></blockquote><p>I read that policy, but it didn’t seem to apply to what I was listing. There was mention of trying to sell intangibles like a “soul” and other crazy stuff that of course wouldn’t make sense.</p><p>So I contacted eBay to find out why they delisted it and to see what my options were.</p><p>The first person I connected with there wasn’t very helpful. I got nothing but stock replies, and then I was disconnected before I could get very far.</p><p>I tried again right away, and the next agent was much more helpful. He looked into it and explained that they don’t allow such listings. I gave him links to several similar listings on eBay, but he simply asked me to report them through their public flagging system if I felt they violated eBay’s terms. I’m not an eBay cop, so I’m not going to do that.</p><p>I also suggested other options like including an MP3 recording of the call and/or an autographed copy of my book, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.</p><p>If you go to eBay and do a search on “consultation,” you’ll find hundreds of results, including listings for phone consultations with no tangible products — the exact same form of service I was offering. One of my Facebook friends pointed out that eBay is inconsistent in enforcing this policy. The agent who was helping me also admitted as much.</p><p>I’m disappointed by this outcome, not because of the money but because eBay pulled the plug on my experiment. I was really curious about the outcome. A lot of other people were curious about it too. I would have preferred if they nuked it after the final bid, so we could have seen where it ended up. I think that would have been a cool piece of data to share with everyone.</p><p>This doesn’t seem like a good deal for eBay either. Other top bloggers were following my experiment, and in fact someone else already listed a similar consultation there, crediting me for the idea (his auction is still live). I imagine that if this experiment was a success — if they hadn’t delisted it, it’s fair to say that it already was a success — it could easily have resulted in thousands of dollars in extra revenue for eBay this year. (I think that’s a pretty modest estimate.)</p><p>On the other hand, I can understand why they may not want to list such items. It’s hard to verify the delivery of a phone or video consultation, and maybe they had problems with scammers in that category in the past.</p><p>The only real option they could offer me was to purchase classified advertising there, but I’m not interested in buying traditional advertising. I was using eBay for their auction service — I was obviously able to refer plenty of bidders to them.</p><p>So for all practical purposes, eBay appears to be a dead end for this sort of thing, at least for me.</p><p>I don’t see a need to assign this event any particular meaning. I’ll simply let it go and await the next wave of inspiration. As the saying goes… when one door closes, another door opens.</p><p>So where’s the open door now?</p><p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({title:"Spanked by eBay",url:"http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/"});</script></p><p align="left"><a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+Spanked+by+eBay+http://bit.ly/c1I6P8" title="Post to Twitter"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter3.png" alt="Post to Twitter" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+Spanked+by+eBay+http://bit.ly/c1I6P8" title="Post to Twitter">Tweet This Post</a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/&t=Spanked+by+eBay" title="Post to Facebook"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-facebook.png" alt="Post to Facebook" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/&t=Spanked+by+eBay" title="Post to Facebook">Post to Facebook</a></p><div class="noprint"> Discuss this post in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/steve-pavlina/">Steve Pavlina forum</a>. <br><br><p><b>Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/" style="color:blue"><i>Conscious Growth Workshop</i></a>, October 29-31, 2010.</b></p> <br><br></div></div><div class="noprint"><p> <b>Related Articles</b><br><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/60-minute-consultation-auction/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: 60-Minute Consultation Auction">60-Minute Consultation Auction</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/million-dollar-experiment-open-your-money-doors/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Million Dollar Experiment – Open Your Money Doors">Million Dollar Experiment – Open Your Money Doors</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/02/used-goals-for-sale/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Used Goals For Sale">Used Goals For Sale</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/jennifer-jarvis-manifestation-story/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Jennifer Jarvi’s Manifestation Story">Jennifer Jarvi’s Manifestation Story</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/million-dollar-experiment-first-dollar-earned/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Million Dollar Experiment – First Dollar Earned">Million Dollar Experiment – First Dollar Earned</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/30-days-to-success/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: 30 Days to Success">30 Days to Success</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/an-inspirational-week/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: An Inspirational Week">An Inspirational Week</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/07/how-to-earn-your-first-love-dollar/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: How to Earn Your First Love Dollar">How to Earn Your First Love Dollar</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/09/john-assaraf-interview/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: John Assaraf Interview">John Assaraf Interview</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2009/03/living-paycheck-to-paycheck/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Living Paycheck to Paycheck">Living Paycheck to Paycheck</a></li></p></div><p class="postmetadata">Posted in <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/category/business/" title="View all posts in Business" rel="category tag">Business</a>, <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/category/entrepreneurship/" title="View all posts in Entrepreneurship" rel="category tag">Entrepreneurship</a> <strong>|</strong> <span>Comments Off</span></p></div><div class="post"><h2 id="post-2157"><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to 30 Days of Inspiration">30 Days of Inspiration</a></h2> <small>July 28th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email_famfamfam.png" alt="Email this article to a friend" title="Email this article to a friend" style="border: 0px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow">Email this article to a friend</a> </small><div class="entry"><p>Today is Day 5 of my 30-day trial of inspired living, as I explained in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/an-inspirational-week/">previous post</a>. If you missed that post, basically I’m testing what it’s like to live without thinking or planning ahead. I’m living in the moment and doing my best to act on inspiration whenever it comes to me, riding each wave for as long as it lasts. If I’m not feeling any strong inspiration, then in those moments I’ll take some downtime or catch up on routine tasks like email — and take the time to eat, shower, etc.</p><p>I’m not scheduling anything at all, unless the inspiration to schedule something hits me. I’m not using an alarm clock to wake up at any particular time, I’m not “planning” to exercise unless I’m inspired to do so, and I’m only eating meals if and when I’m inspired to eat.</p><p>I’m learning that hunger can be somewhat inspirational at times, but last night I skipped dinner entirely and went to bed hungry because I didn’t feel inspired to eat. I was too busy following other inspirations, so being hungry didn’t bother me much. By the end of the day, I was spent and collapsed into bed.</p><h3>A Difficult Trial</h3><p>What began in the spirit of fun and adventure is now becoming much more difficult. I’m realizing that this is shaping up to be the most challenging and intense 30-day trial I’ve ever done. How nice that this part of it shows up after I’ve already made a public commitment to it…</p><p>This trial isn’t about testing a new habit or altering my sleeping or eating patterns. It’s a 24/7 commitment. Part of me is surprised that I can even commit to this at all. I had to get my thinking to a whole different level just to say yes to this experiment.</p><p>Dealing with the unpredictability of what’s going to happen next is extremely unsettling. In order to make it through this, I have to let go of trying to control anything. I have to let go and trust.</p><p>I’m also seeing that in any given moment, I can be under the influence of multiple waves of inspiration at the same time. They don’t conveniently line up for linear processing. They arrive in complex layers sometimes. When there are multiple waves overlapping, I do my best to ride the strongest wave at the time.</p><p>Another pattern is that each wave has its own crests and troughs. Sometimes there’s a powerful impulse, but it’s too much to do all at once. After I catch and ride the initial wave, there’s a lull, and then another related wave shows up to move things further along.</p><p>Initially I figured that I couldn’t screw things up so badly with this trial that the damage would be irreparable. Now I’m having serious doubts about that. As I ponder what’s beginning to show up now, I can easily see a pathway where I could do some real “damage.” I could throw a lot of things out there that would make it impossible to ever return to my Day 1 equilibrium.</p><p>There are certain things that, once I put them out there, can’t be recalled. If I act on such impulses, my life will spin off in some new direction, and there will be no going back. An example was when I shared the story in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/06/the-meaning-of-life-intro/">Meaning of Life: Intro</a> article. There was no way to back away from that once it was posted. I don’t regret doing it, but I can never go back to what my life was like before I posted that.</p><p>At this point, I now expect that by Day 30, I’ll have probably done at least some things that will make it impossible to restore my life to essentially the same place it was in on Day 1. That’s pretty unsettling.</p><p>I now see that it’s going to take a lot of courage to continue, let alone complete, this trial. I know you probably don’t see evidence of that yet, but I imagine you’ll have a better grasp of what I mean by the end of the trial.</p><h3>Subjective Reality</h3><p>There’s another aspect to this trial that I haven’t mentioned yet. For me this trial is also a deeper exploration of the perspective of subjective reality. Subjective reality is the notion that consciousness is primary, that there’s only one consciousness, and that all of physical reality is essentially a dream world that arises within consciousness. I’ve shared articles about this concept years ago. If you care to learn more about it, see the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/archives/">Archives</a>, and scan for the articles with “subjective reality” in the title.</p><p>At the last CGW, I spent much of the final two hours explaining how subjective reality works, along with some personal experiments that indicate it may in fact be a more accurate model of reality than the objective model (whereby the physical universe is primary and consciousness arises within it).</p><p>At one point, I asked the CGW attendees that if they had to pick one or the other, which model did they feel was probably the more accurate depiction of how reality actually works? Interestingly, the room was divided roughly 50-50, with half the people favoring the subjective model and half favoring the objective one.</p><p>That didn’t surprise me because I’ve been on the fence as to which model is likely to be more accurate. From a subjective standpoint, it makes perfect sense that the dream characters in my reality would reflect back to me a 50-50 split.</p><p>Well, after that CGW, I began thinking that I was ready to explore the subjective perspective in greater depth than ever before. I had largely stopped progressing down that path because quite honestly, it scared me. Things were beginning to get too strange too quickly. This perspective was bestowing me with more power than I felt ready for. For example, in less than a year (which was 2006-2007), I progressed from manifesting pennies to manifesting $50K. And to this day I can still create roughly $50K amounts with relative ease. I’ve also manifested lots of other good things in my life. All of my needs are well met, I enjoy an abundant life, and I’m genuinely happy with my existence. But this begs the question, “How deep does the rabbit hole really go?”</p><p>After a few years of stalling interspersed with some very gradual steps forward, I finally decided that as scary as it was, I needed to get moving in this direction once again. Within days some synchronicities began showing up. Some were personal, and others were more public and obvious. For example, right after I made this decision, the movie <em>Inception</em> showed up in my reality and began generating a lot of buzz. Several people began telling me to go see it, some claiming that it included elements of subjective reality. I almost went to see it last night, but I still haven’t seen it yet. Maybe today if the inspiration hits me. Before making this decision though, I’d never even heard of this movie.</p><p>Another thing that happened is that some TLC friends shared some subjective manifestation stories of their own with me, stuff that was beyond what I’d experimented with on my own. For example, Joe Vitale shared the story of Dr. Hew Len, a therapist who cured a hospital filled with mentally ill patients without ever seeing them. If you believe the story, this sort of healing is tough to explain objectively, but it makes perfect sense if reality is in fact a subjective dream world. If you want to learn more about this therapist, go read the article <a href="http://www.mrfire.com/article-archives/new-articles/worlds-most-unusual-therapist.html">The World’s Most Unusual Therapist</a>, or read Joe’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470402563?ie=UTF8&tag=dexteritysoft-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0470402563">Zero Limits</a>. I’ve already started testing some of these ideas, and some curious results are beginning to show up. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to regard other human beings as separate and distinct from me now.</p><p>At present I’d say I’m now around 80-20 in the sense that I’m 80% certain that subjective reality is the more accurate model of how the universe actually works. Consequently, I’m beginning to loosen my grip on the objective side, and I’m beginning to do things that may seem risky from an objective standpoint, but subjectively they make perfect sense.</p><p>This trial is a good example. Objectively speaking, it’s a very risky thing to do. By acting impulsively for weeks on end without pausing to think things through, I could really screw up my life both personally and professionally. I could potentially do and say some things that have serious long-term consequences, not just for me, but for other people in my life.</p><p>However, from a subjective standpoint, this should actually be a much more sensible way to live. The notion of an “out there” is nothing but illusion, and it makes no sense to fear what may happen in a world that’s a projection anyway.</p><h3>Needing to Know</h3><p>I’m embarking on this trial because I really need to know. I can’t remain on the fence. I have to go down this pathway and see where it leads. It scares me to do so, but I’ll just take it one day at a time. If things get really screwed up along the way, I’m willing to accept those consequences. I’d be willing to sacrifice a lot in order to discovering some new truths (or old ones I’ve forgotten).</p><p>I think that deep down, part of me already knows that reality is subjective and that the whole objective model is pure delusion. But I can’t overcome my doubts by staring at them and pondering them. I have to push through the fear and doubt and resistance and see what really lies on the other side. Will it be a glorious new level of existence, or will it lead to chaos?</p><p>I strongly suspect it’s the former, but the only way I can really do this experiment properly is by being willing to accept the possibility that I may experience the latter.</p><h3>Inner Processing</h3><p>I’m still doing a lot of inner processing. If I feel inspired to share the details at some point, I’ll do so, even if it’s really difficult in the moment.</p><p>Last night I went to bed at 1:30am, and I woke up at 4:30am. Some very emotional stuff began coming up again, and I did little else but cry and sob till 6:15am. I’m still not sure if I’ll share the details about this publicly. It would probably stir up some drama if I did, but for now I’m not feeling the inspiration to write about it, at least not yet.</p><p>I am getting a glimpse of things to come. I may not be able to control it, but I can try to make sense of it along the way.</p><p>One thing I’m seeing is that I’m going to be pretty busy. Lots of energy is getting stirred up, and it’s leading to a lot of activity. I can’t separate the personal side from the professional side, so I don’t know in advance which part of my life I’ll be working on most. It feels like I’m working on both at the same time.</p><p>I made breakfast almost two hours ago, before I started writing this post, but it’s been sitting there uneaten this whole time. I’m pretty hungry, but I’ve had to follow this wave of inspiration to write because it was the stronger wave. Hopefully I can go eat once I post this. I’m also very thirsty. There’s a full glass of water next to me, but I’ve barely sipped it. I stuck with the writing wave until it reached its shoreline, even as my hunger and thirst increased along the way.</p><p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({title:"30 Days of Inspiration",url:"http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/"});</script></p><p align="left"><a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+30+Days+of+Inspiration+http://bit.ly/9p1XOs" title="Post to Twitter"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter3.png" alt="Post to Twitter" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+30+Days+of+Inspiration+http://bit.ly/9p1XOs" title="Post to Twitter">Tweet This Post</a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/&t=30+Days+of+Inspiration" title="Post to Facebook"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-facebook.png" alt="Post to Facebook" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/&t=30+Days+of+Inspiration" title="Post to Facebook">Post to Facebook</a></p><div class="noprint"> Discuss this post in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/steve-pavlina/">Steve Pavlina forum</a>. <br><br><p><b>Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/" style="color:blue"><i>Conscious Growth Workshop</i></a>, October 29-31, 2010.</b></p> <br><br></div></div><div class="noprint"><p> <b>Related Articles</b><br><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/creating-inspiration/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Creating Inspiration">Creating Inspiration</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/countdown-to-day-30/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Countdown to Day 30">Countdown to Day 30</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/11/career-and-commitment/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Career and Commitment">Career and Commitment</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/10/personal-development-for-smart-people-book-reviews/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Personal Development for Smart People Book Reviews">Personal Development for Smart People Book Reviews</a></li><li><a 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<a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/">Home</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/">Blog</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/products.htm">Products</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/">Workshop</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/audio/">Audio</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/archives/">Archives</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/">Forums</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/about-steve-pavlina.htm">About</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/contact-info.htm">Contact</a> <a href="http://www.erinpavlina.com/">Erin</a></div></div><hr /><div id="content" class="narrowcolumn"><div class="post"><h2 id="post-2160"><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Spanked by eBay">Spanked by eBay</a></h2> <small>July 28th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email_famfamfam.png" alt="Email this article to a friend" title="Email this article to a friend" style="border: 0px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow">Email this article to a friend</a> </small><div class="entry"><p>A few hours ago, eBay removed my listing for a 60-minute phone consultation. The last time I checked, that auction had received dozens of bids and was up to $1000. There were still 2-1/2 days left in the auction, so I suspect the final price would have gone much higher.</p><p>I checked my email and saw that I’d received an automated message from eBay about it. Here’s the relevant snippet:</p><blockquote><p>You recently listed the following listing:</p><p>120599874589 – 60-minute consultation with Steve Pavlina</p><p>Unfortunately, we had to remove your listing because the following information violates our policy:</p><p>60-minute phone consultation</p><p>The purpose of the eBay Web site is to enable members to buy and sell items from each other. Listings that do not offer an item for sale through the site, or that are designed for any other purpose, are not permitted. For example, listings for invisible or intangible items are not permitted. Buyers should be able to verify the existence of an item they bought when they receive it.</p><p>For more information on this eBay policy, please visit:</p><p><a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html" target="_blank">http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html</a></p><p><a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html" target="_blank"></a>You may need to take a tutorial. The next time you sell, you may be asked to take the tutorial, if it’s required. Once you’ve completed the tutorial successfully, please review your account status for any other possible concerns. If there are no other issues, you should be able to sell again.</p></blockquote><p>I read that policy, but it didn’t seem to apply to what I was listing. There was mention of trying to sell intangibles like a “soul” and other crazy stuff that of course wouldn’t make sense.</p><p>So I contacted eBay to find out why they delisted it and to see what my options were.</p><p>The first person I connected with there wasn’t very helpful. I got nothing but stock replies, and then I was disconnected before I could get very far.</p><p>I tried again right away, and the next agent was much more helpful. He looked into it and explained that they don’t allow such listings. I gave him links to several similar listings on eBay, but he simply asked me to report them through their public flagging system if I felt they violated eBay’s terms. I’m not an eBay cop, so I’m not going to do that.</p><p>I also suggested other options like including an MP3 recording of the call and/or an autographed copy of my book, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.</p><p>If you go to eBay and do a search on “consultation,” you’ll find hundreds of results, including listings for phone consultations with no tangible products — the exact same form of service I was offering. One of my Facebook friends pointed out that eBay is inconsistent in enforcing this policy. The agent who was helping me also admitted as much.</p><p>I’m disappointed by this outcome, not because of the money but because eBay pulled the plug on my experiment. I was really curious about the outcome. A lot of other people were curious about it too. I would have preferred if they nuked it after the final bid, so we could have seen where it ended up. I think that would have been a cool piece of data to share with everyone.</p><p>This doesn’t seem like a good deal for eBay either. Other top bloggers were following my experiment, and in fact someone else already listed a similar consultation there, crediting me for the idea (his auction is still live). I imagine that if this experiment was a success — if they hadn’t delisted it, it’s fair to say that it already was a success — it could easily have resulted in thousands of dollars in extra revenue for eBay this year. (I think that’s a pretty modest estimate.)</p><p>On the other hand, I can understand why they may not want to list such items. It’s hard to verify the delivery of a phone or video consultation, and maybe they had problems with scammers in that category in the past.</p><p>The only real option they could offer me was to purchase classified advertising there, but I’m not interested in buying traditional advertising. I was using eBay for their auction service — I was obviously able to refer plenty of bidders to them.</p><p>So for all practical purposes, eBay appears to be a dead end for this sort of thing, at least for me.</p><p>I don’t see a need to assign this event any particular meaning. I’ll simply let it go and await the next wave of inspiration. As the saying goes… when one door closes, another door opens.</p><p>So where’s the open door now?</p><p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({title:"Spanked by eBay",url:"http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/"});</script></p><p align="left"><a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+Spanked+by+eBay+http://bit.ly/c1I6P8" title="Post to Twitter"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter3.png" alt="Post to Twitter" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+Spanked+by+eBay+http://bit.ly/c1I6P8" title="Post to Twitter">Tweet This Post</a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/&t=Spanked+by+eBay" title="Post to Facebook"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-facebook.png" alt="Post to Facebook" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/&t=Spanked+by+eBay" title="Post to Facebook">Post to Facebook</a></p><div class="noprint"> Discuss this post in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/steve-pavlina/">Steve Pavlina forum</a>. <br><br><p><b>Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/" style="color:blue"><i>Conscious Growth Workshop</i></a>, October 29-31, 2010.</b></p> <br><br></div></div><div class="noprint"><p> <b>Related Articles</b><br><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/60-minute-consultation-auction/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: 60-Minute Consultation Auction">60-Minute Consultation Auction</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/million-dollar-experiment-open-your-money-doors/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Million Dollar Experiment – Open Your Money Doors">Million Dollar Experiment – Open Your Money Doors</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/02/used-goals-for-sale/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Used Goals For Sale">Used Goals For Sale</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/jennifer-jarvis-manifestation-story/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Jennifer Jarvi’s Manifestation Story">Jennifer Jarvi’s Manifestation Story</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/million-dollar-experiment-first-dollar-earned/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Million Dollar Experiment – First Dollar Earned">Million Dollar Experiment – First Dollar Earned</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/30-days-to-success/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: 30 Days to Success">30 Days to Success</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/an-inspirational-week/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: An Inspirational Week">An Inspirational Week</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/07/how-to-earn-your-first-love-dollar/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: How to Earn Your First Love Dollar">How to Earn Your First Love Dollar</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/09/john-assaraf-interview/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: John Assaraf Interview">John Assaraf Interview</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2009/03/living-paycheck-to-paycheck/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Living Paycheck to Paycheck">Living Paycheck to Paycheck</a></li></p></div><p class="postmetadata">Posted in <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/category/business/" title="View all posts in Business" rel="category tag">Business</a>, <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/category/entrepreneurship/" title="View all posts in Entrepreneurship" rel="category tag">Entrepreneurship</a> <strong>|</strong> <span>Comments Off</span></p></div><div class="post"><h2 id="post-2157"><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to 30 Days of Inspiration">30 Days of Inspiration</a></h2> <small>July 28th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email_famfamfam.png" alt="Email this article to a friend" title="Email this article to a friend" style="border: 0px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow">Email this article to a friend</a> </small><div class="entry"><p>Today is Day 5 of my 30-day trial of inspired living, as I explained in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/an-inspirational-week/">previous post</a>. If you missed that post, basically I’m testing what it’s like to live without thinking or planning ahead. I’m living in the moment and doing my best to act on inspiration whenever it comes to me, riding each wave for as long as it lasts. If I’m not feeling any strong inspiration, then in those moments I’ll take some downtime or catch up on routine tasks like email — and take the time to eat, shower, etc.</p><p>I’m not scheduling anything at all, unless the inspiration to schedule something hits me. I’m not using an alarm clock to wake up at any particular time, I’m not “planning” to exercise unless I’m inspired to do so, and I’m only eating meals if and when I’m inspired to eat.</p><p>I’m learning that hunger can be somewhat inspirational at times, but last night I skipped dinner entirely and went to bed hungry because I didn’t feel inspired to eat. I was too busy following other inspirations, so being hungry didn’t bother me much. By the end of the day, I was spent and collapsed into bed.</p><h3>A Difficult Trial</h3><p>What began in the spirit of fun and adventure is now becoming much more difficult. I’m realizing that this is shaping up to be the most challenging and intense 30-day trial I’ve ever done. How nice that this part of it shows up after I’ve already made a public commitment to it…</p><p>This trial isn’t about testing a new habit or altering my sleeping or eating patterns. It’s a 24/7 commitment. Part of me is surprised that I can even commit to this at all. I had to get my thinking to a whole different level just to say yes to this experiment.</p><p>Dealing with the unpredictability of what’s going to happen next is extremely unsettling. In order to make it through this, I have to let go of trying to control anything. I have to let go and trust.</p><p>I’m also seeing that in any given moment, I can be under the influence of multiple waves of inspiration at the same time. They don’t conveniently line up for linear processing. They arrive in complex layers sometimes. When there are multiple waves overlapping, I do my best to ride the strongest wave at the time.</p><p>Another pattern is that each wave has its own crests and troughs. Sometimes there’s a powerful impulse, but it’s too much to do all at once. After I catch and ride the initial wave, there’s a lull, and then another related wave shows up to move things further along.</p><p>Initially I figured that I couldn’t screw things up so badly with this trial that the damage would be irreparable. Now I’m having serious doubts about that. As I ponder what’s beginning to show up now, I can easily see a pathway where I could do some real “damage.” I could throw a lot of things out there that would make it impossible to ever return to my Day 1 equilibrium.</p><p>There are certain things that, once I put them out there, can’t be recalled. If I act on such impulses, my life will spin off in some new direction, and there will be no going back. An example was when I shared the story in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/06/the-meaning-of-life-intro/">Meaning of Life: Intro</a> article. There was no way to back away from that once it was posted. I don’t regret doing it, but I can never go back to what my life was like before I posted that.</p><p>At this point, I now expect that by Day 30, I’ll have probably done at least some things that will make it impossible to restore my life to essentially the same place it was in on Day 1. That’s pretty unsettling.</p><p>I now see that it’s going to take a lot of courage to continue, let alone complete, this trial. I know you probably don’t see evidence of that yet, but I imagine you’ll have a better grasp of what I mean by the end of the trial.</p><h3>Subjective Reality</h3><p>There’s another aspect to this trial that I haven’t mentioned yet. For me this trial is also a deeper exploration of the perspective of subjective reality. Subjective reality is the notion that consciousness is primary, that there’s only one consciousness, and that all of physical reality is essentially a dream world that arises within consciousness. I’ve shared articles about this concept years ago. If you care to learn more about it, see the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/archives/">Archives</a>, and scan for the articles with “subjective reality” in the title.</p><p>At the last CGW, I spent much of the final two hours explaining how subjective reality works, along with some personal experiments that indicate it may in fact be a more accurate model of reality than the objective model (whereby the physical universe is primary and consciousness arises within it).</p><p>At one point, I asked the CGW attendees that if they had to pick one or the other, which model did they feel was probably the more accurate depiction of how reality actually works? Interestingly, the room was divided roughly 50-50, with half the people favoring the subjective model and half favoring the objective one.</p><p>That didn’t surprise me because I’ve been on the fence as to which model is likely to be more accurate. From a subjective standpoint, it makes perfect sense that the dream characters in my reality would reflect back to me a 50-50 split.</p><p>Well, after that CGW, I began thinking that I was ready to explore the subjective perspective in greater depth than ever before. I had largely stopped progressing down that path because quite honestly, it scared me. Things were beginning to get too strange too quickly. This perspective was bestowing me with more power than I felt ready for. For example, in less than a year (which was 2006-2007), I progressed from manifesting pennies to manifesting $50K. And to this day I can still create roughly $50K amounts with relative ease. I’ve also manifested lots of other good things in my life. All of my needs are well met, I enjoy an abundant life, and I’m genuinely happy with my existence. But this begs the question, “How deep does the rabbit hole really go?”</p><p>After a few years of stalling interspersed with some very gradual steps forward, I finally decided that as scary as it was, I needed to get moving in this direction once again. Within days some synchronicities began showing up. Some were personal, and others were more public and obvious. For example, right after I made this decision, the movie <em>Inception</em> showed up in my reality and began generating a lot of buzz. Several people began telling me to go see it, some claiming that it included elements of subjective reality. I almost went to see it last night, but I still haven’t seen it yet. Maybe today if the inspiration hits me. Before making this decision though, I’d never even heard of this movie.</p><p>Another thing that happened is that some TLC friends shared some subjective manifestation stories of their own with me, stuff that was beyond what I’d experimented with on my own. For example, Joe Vitale shared the story of Dr. Hew Len, a therapist who cured a hospital filled with mentally ill patients without ever seeing them. If you believe the story, this sort of healing is tough to explain objectively, but it makes perfect sense if reality is in fact a subjective dream world. If you want to learn more about this therapist, go read the article <a href="http://www.mrfire.com/article-archives/new-articles/worlds-most-unusual-therapist.html">The World’s Most Unusual Therapist</a>, or read Joe’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470402563?ie=UTF8&tag=dexteritysoft-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0470402563">Zero Limits</a>. I’ve already started testing some of these ideas, and some curious results are beginning to show up. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to regard other human beings as separate and distinct from me now.</p><p>At present I’d say I’m now around 80-20 in the sense that I’m 80% certain that subjective reality is the more accurate model of how the universe actually works. Consequently, I’m beginning to loosen my grip on the objective side, and I’m beginning to do things that may seem risky from an objective standpoint, but subjectively they make perfect sense.</p><p>This trial is a good example. Objectively speaking, it’s a very risky thing to do. By acting impulsively for weeks on end without pausing to think things through, I could really screw up my life both personally and professionally. I could potentially do and say some things that have serious long-term consequences, not just for me, but for other people in my life.</p><p>However, from a subjective standpoint, this should actually be a much more sensible way to live. The notion of an “out there” is nothing but illusion, and it makes no sense to fear what may happen in a world that’s a projection anyway.</p><h3>Needing to Know</h3><p>I’m embarking on this trial because I really need to know. I can’t remain on the fence. I have to go down this pathway and see where it leads. It scares me to do so, but I’ll just take it one day at a time. If things get really screwed up along the way, I’m willing to accept those consequences. I’d be willing to sacrifice a lot in order to discovering some new truths (or old ones I’ve forgotten).</p><p>I think that deep down, part of me already knows that reality is subjective and that the whole objective model is pure delusion. But I can’t overcome my doubts by staring at them and pondering them. I have to push through the fear and doubt and resistance and see what really lies on the other side. Will it be a glorious new level of existence, or will it lead to chaos?</p><p>I strongly suspect it’s the former, but the only way I can really do this experiment properly is by being willing to accept the possibility that I may experience the latter.</p><h3>Inner Processing</h3><p>I’m still doing a lot of inner processing. If I feel inspired to share the details at some point, I’ll do so, even if it’s really difficult in the moment.</p><p>Last night I went to bed at 1:30am, and I woke up at 4:30am. Some very emotional stuff began coming up again, and I did little else but cry and sob till 6:15am. I’m still not sure if I’ll share the details about this publicly. It would probably stir up some drama if I did, but for now I’m not feeling the inspiration to write about it, at least not yet.</p><p>I am getting a glimpse of things to come. I may not be able to control it, but I can try to make sense of it along the way.</p><p>One thing I’m seeing is that I’m going to be pretty busy. Lots of energy is getting stirred up, and it’s leading to a lot of activity. I can’t separate the personal side from the professional side, so I don’t know in advance which part of my life I’ll be working on most. It feels like I’m working on both at the same time.</p><p>I made breakfast almost two hours ago, before I started writing this post, but it’s been sitting there uneaten this whole time. I’m pretty hungry, but I’ve had to follow this wave of inspiration to write because it was the stronger wave. Hopefully I can go eat once I post this. I’m also very thirsty. There’s a full glass of water next to me, but I’ve barely sipped it. I stuck with the writing wave until it reached its shoreline, even as my hunger and thirst increased along the way.</p><p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({title:"30 Days of Inspiration",url:"http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/"});</script></p><p align="left"><a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+30+Days+of+Inspiration+http://bit.ly/9p1XOs" title="Post to Twitter"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter3.png" alt="Post to Twitter" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+30+Days+of+Inspiration+http://bit.ly/9p1XOs" title="Post to Twitter">Tweet This Post</a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/&t=30+Days+of+Inspiration" title="Post to Facebook"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-facebook.png" alt="Post to Facebook" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/&t=30+Days+of+Inspiration" title="Post to Facebook">Post to Facebook</a></p><div class="noprint"> Discuss this post in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/steve-pavlina/">Steve Pavlina forum</a>. <br><br><p><b>Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/" style="color:blue"><i>Conscious Growth Workshop</i></a>, October 29-31, 2010.</b></p> <br><br></div></div><div class="noprint"><p> <b>Related Articles</b><br><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/creating-inspiration/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Creating Inspiration">Creating Inspiration</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/countdown-to-day-30/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Countdown to Day 30">Countdown to Day 30</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/11/career-and-commitment/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Career and Commitment">Career and Commitment</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/10/personal-development-for-smart-people-book-reviews/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Personal Development for Smart People Book Reviews">Personal Development for Smart People Book Reviews</a></li><li><a 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href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/xmlrpc.php?rsd" /><link rel="wlwmanifest" type="application/wlwmanifest+xml" href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-includes/wlwmanifest.xml" /><link rel='index' title='Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog' href='http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog' /><meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.9.2" /><style type="text/css">.addtoany_subscribe img{border:0}</style> <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#publisher=08b2cd3c-c30f-4b00-9061-9cadf1ef60b0&type=website&wp=2.9.2"></script><link rel="shortlink" href="http://wp.me/dhLM" /><style type="text/css">img.nothumb{border:0}</style></head><body><div id="page"><div id="masthead"><div id="masthead-text"><span class="masthead-title">Steve Pavlina . com</span><br><h1 class="masthead-subtitle">Personal Development for Smart People<sup style="font-size: 50%; position:relative; top:-8px;">TM</sup></h1></div></div><div id="hmenu"><div id="hnav"> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/">Home</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/">Blog</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/products.htm">Products</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/">Workshop</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/audio/">Audio</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/archives/">Archives</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/">Forums</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/about-steve-pavlina.htm">About</a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/contact-info.htm">Contact</a> <a href="http://www.erinpavlina.com/">Erin</a></div></div><hr /><div id="content" class="narrowcolumn"><div class="post"><h2 id="post-2160"><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Spanked by eBay">Spanked by eBay</a></h2> <small>July 28th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email_famfamfam.png" alt="Email this article to a friend" title="Email this article to a friend" style="border: 0px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow">Email this article to a friend</a> </small><div class="entry"><p>A few hours ago, eBay removed my listing for a 60-minute phone consultation. The last time I checked, that auction had received dozens of bids and was up to $1000. There were still 2-1/2 days left in the auction, so I suspect the final price would have gone much higher.</p><p>I checked my email and saw that I’d received an automated message from eBay about it. Here’s the relevant snippet:</p><blockquote><p>You recently listed the following listing:</p><p>120599874589 – 60-minute consultation with Steve Pavlina</p><p>Unfortunately, we had to remove your listing because the following information violates our policy:</p><p>60-minute phone consultation</p><p>The purpose of the eBay Web site is to enable members to buy and sell items from each other. Listings that do not offer an item for sale through the site, or that are designed for any other purpose, are not permitted. For example, listings for invisible or intangible items are not permitted. Buyers should be able to verify the existence of an item they bought when they receive it.</p><p>For more information on this eBay policy, please visit:</p><p><a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html" target="_blank">http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html</a></p><p><a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html" target="_blank"></a>You may need to take a tutorial. The next time you sell, you may be asked to take the tutorial, if it’s required. Once you’ve completed the tutorial successfully, please review your account status for any other possible concerns. If there are no other issues, you should be able to sell again.</p></blockquote><p>I read that policy, but it didn’t seem to apply to what I was listing. There was mention of trying to sell intangibles like a “soul” and other crazy stuff that of course wouldn’t make sense.</p><p>So I contacted eBay to find out why they delisted it and to see what my options were.</p><p>The first person I connected with there wasn’t very helpful. I got nothing but stock replies, and then I was disconnected before I could get very far.</p><p>I tried again right away, and the next agent was much more helpful. He looked into it and explained that they don’t allow such listings. I gave him links to several similar listings on eBay, but he simply asked me to report them through their public flagging system if I felt they violated eBay’s terms. I’m not an eBay cop, so I’m not going to do that.</p><p>I also suggested other options like including an MP3 recording of the call and/or an autographed copy of my book, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.</p><p>If you go to eBay and do a search on “consultation,” you’ll find hundreds of results, including listings for phone consultations with no tangible products — the exact same form of service I was offering. One of my Facebook friends pointed out that eBay is inconsistent in enforcing this policy. The agent who was helping me also admitted as much.</p><p>I’m disappointed by this outcome, not because of the money but because eBay pulled the plug on my experiment. I was really curious about the outcome. A lot of other people were curious about it too. I would have preferred if they nuked it after the final bid, so we could have seen where it ended up. I think that would have been a cool piece of data to share with everyone.</p><p>This doesn’t seem like a good deal for eBay either. Other top bloggers were following my experiment, and in fact someone else already listed a similar consultation there, crediting me for the idea (his auction is still live). I imagine that if this experiment was a success — if they hadn’t delisted it, it’s fair to say that it already was a success — it could easily have resulted in thousands of dollars in extra revenue for eBay this year. (I think that’s a pretty modest estimate.)</p><p>On the other hand, I can understand why they may not want to list such items. It’s hard to verify the delivery of a phone or video consultation, and maybe they had problems with scammers in that category in the past.</p><p>The only real option they could offer me was to purchase classified advertising there, but I’m not interested in buying traditional advertising. I was using eBay for their auction service — I was obviously able to refer plenty of bidders to them.</p><p>So for all practical purposes, eBay appears to be a dead end for this sort of thing, at least for me.</p><p>I don’t see a need to assign this event any particular meaning. I’ll simply let it go and await the next wave of inspiration. As the saying goes… when one door closes, another door opens.</p><p>So where’s the open door now?</p><p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({title:"Spanked by eBay",url:"http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/"});</script></p><p align="left"><a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+Spanked+by+eBay+http://bit.ly/c1I6P8" title="Post to Twitter"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter3.png" alt="Post to Twitter" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+Spanked+by+eBay+http://bit.ly/c1I6P8" title="Post to Twitter">Tweet This Post</a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/&t=Spanked+by+eBay" title="Post to Facebook"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-facebook.png" alt="Post to Facebook" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/spanked-by-ebay/&t=Spanked+by+eBay" title="Post to Facebook">Post to Facebook</a></p><div class="noprint"> Discuss this post in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/steve-pavlina/">Steve Pavlina forum</a>. <br><br><p><b>Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/" style="color:blue"><i>Conscious Growth Workshop</i></a>, October 29-31, 2010.</b></p> <br><br></div></div><div class="noprint"><p> <b>Related Articles</b><br><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/60-minute-consultation-auction/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: 60-Minute Consultation Auction">60-Minute Consultation Auction</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/million-dollar-experiment-open-your-money-doors/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Million Dollar Experiment – Open Your Money Doors">Million Dollar Experiment – Open Your Money Doors</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/02/used-goals-for-sale/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Used Goals For Sale">Used Goals For Sale</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/jennifer-jarvis-manifestation-story/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Jennifer Jarvi’s Manifestation Story">Jennifer Jarvi’s Manifestation Story</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/million-dollar-experiment-first-dollar-earned/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Million Dollar Experiment – First Dollar Earned">Million Dollar Experiment – First Dollar Earned</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/30-days-to-success/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: 30 Days to Success">30 Days to Success</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/an-inspirational-week/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: An Inspirational Week">An Inspirational Week</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/07/how-to-earn-your-first-love-dollar/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: How to Earn Your First Love Dollar">How to Earn Your First Love Dollar</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/09/john-assaraf-interview/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: John Assaraf Interview">John Assaraf Interview</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2009/03/living-paycheck-to-paycheck/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Living Paycheck to Paycheck">Living Paycheck to Paycheck</a></li></p></div><p class="postmetadata">Posted in <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/category/business/" title="View all posts in Business" rel="category tag">Business</a>, <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/category/entrepreneurship/" title="View all posts in Entrepreneurship" rel="category tag">Entrepreneurship</a> <strong>|</strong> <span>Comments Off</span></p></div><div class="post"><h2 id="post-2157"><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to 30 Days of Inspiration">30 Days of Inspiration</a></h2> <small>July 28th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email_famfamfam.png" alt="Email this article to a friend" title="Email this article to a friend" style="border: 0px;" /></a> <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/email/" title="Email this article to a friend" rel="nofollow">Email this article to a friend</a> </small><div class="entry"><p>Today is Day 5 of my 30-day trial of inspired living, as I explained in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/an-inspirational-week/">previous post</a>. If you missed that post, basically I’m testing what it’s like to live without thinking or planning ahead. I’m living in the moment and doing my best to act on inspiration whenever it comes to me, riding each wave for as long as it lasts. If I’m not feeling any strong inspiration, then in those moments I’ll take some downtime or catch up on routine tasks like email — and take the time to eat, shower, etc.</p><p>I’m not scheduling anything at all, unless the inspiration to schedule something hits me. I’m not using an alarm clock to wake up at any particular time, I’m not “planning” to exercise unless I’m inspired to do so, and I’m only eating meals if and when I’m inspired to eat.</p><p>I’m learning that hunger can be somewhat inspirational at times, but last night I skipped dinner entirely and went to bed hungry because I didn’t feel inspired to eat. I was too busy following other inspirations, so being hungry didn’t bother me much. By the end of the day, I was spent and collapsed into bed.</p><h3>A Difficult Trial</h3><p>What began in the spirit of fun and adventure is now becoming much more difficult. I’m realizing that this is shaping up to be the most challenging and intense 30-day trial I’ve ever done. How nice that this part of it shows up after I’ve already made a public commitment to it…</p><p>This trial isn’t about testing a new habit or altering my sleeping or eating patterns. It’s a 24/7 commitment. Part of me is surprised that I can even commit to this at all. I had to get my thinking to a whole different level just to say yes to this experiment.</p><p>Dealing with the unpredictability of what’s going to happen next is extremely unsettling. In order to make it through this, I have to let go of trying to control anything. I have to let go and trust.</p><p>I’m also seeing that in any given moment, I can be under the influence of multiple waves of inspiration at the same time. They don’t conveniently line up for linear processing. They arrive in complex layers sometimes. When there are multiple waves overlapping, I do my best to ride the strongest wave at the time.</p><p>Another pattern is that each wave has its own crests and troughs. Sometimes there’s a powerful impulse, but it’s too much to do all at once. After I catch and ride the initial wave, there’s a lull, and then another related wave shows up to move things further along.</p><p>Initially I figured that I couldn’t screw things up so badly with this trial that the damage would be irreparable. Now I’m having serious doubts about that. As I ponder what’s beginning to show up now, I can easily see a pathway where I could do some real “damage.” I could throw a lot of things out there that would make it impossible to ever return to my Day 1 equilibrium.</p><p>There are certain things that, once I put them out there, can’t be recalled. If I act on such impulses, my life will spin off in some new direction, and there will be no going back. An example was when I shared the story in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/06/the-meaning-of-life-intro/">Meaning of Life: Intro</a> article. There was no way to back away from that once it was posted. I don’t regret doing it, but I can never go back to what my life was like before I posted that.</p><p>At this point, I now expect that by Day 30, I’ll have probably done at least some things that will make it impossible to restore my life to essentially the same place it was in on Day 1. That’s pretty unsettling.</p><p>I now see that it’s going to take a lot of courage to continue, let alone complete, this trial. I know you probably don’t see evidence of that yet, but I imagine you’ll have a better grasp of what I mean by the end of the trial.</p><h3>Subjective Reality</h3><p>There’s another aspect to this trial that I haven’t mentioned yet. For me this trial is also a deeper exploration of the perspective of subjective reality. Subjective reality is the notion that consciousness is primary, that there’s only one consciousness, and that all of physical reality is essentially a dream world that arises within consciousness. I’ve shared articles about this concept years ago. If you care to learn more about it, see the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/archives/">Archives</a>, and scan for the articles with “subjective reality” in the title.</p><p>At the last CGW, I spent much of the final two hours explaining how subjective reality works, along with some personal experiments that indicate it may in fact be a more accurate model of reality than the objective model (whereby the physical universe is primary and consciousness arises within it).</p><p>At one point, I asked the CGW attendees that if they had to pick one or the other, which model did they feel was probably the more accurate depiction of how reality actually works? Interestingly, the room was divided roughly 50-50, with half the people favoring the subjective model and half favoring the objective one.</p><p>That didn’t surprise me because I’ve been on the fence as to which model is likely to be more accurate. From a subjective standpoint, it makes perfect sense that the dream characters in my reality would reflect back to me a 50-50 split.</p><p>Well, after that CGW, I began thinking that I was ready to explore the subjective perspective in greater depth than ever before. I had largely stopped progressing down that path because quite honestly, it scared me. Things were beginning to get too strange too quickly. This perspective was bestowing me with more power than I felt ready for. For example, in less than a year (which was 2006-2007), I progressed from manifesting pennies to manifesting $50K. And to this day I can still create roughly $50K amounts with relative ease. I’ve also manifested lots of other good things in my life. All of my needs are well met, I enjoy an abundant life, and I’m genuinely happy with my existence. But this begs the question, “How deep does the rabbit hole really go?”</p><p>After a few years of stalling interspersed with some very gradual steps forward, I finally decided that as scary as it was, I needed to get moving in this direction once again. Within days some synchronicities began showing up. Some were personal, and others were more public and obvious. For example, right after I made this decision, the movie <em>Inception</em> showed up in my reality and began generating a lot of buzz. Several people began telling me to go see it, some claiming that it included elements of subjective reality. I almost went to see it last night, but I still haven’t seen it yet. Maybe today if the inspiration hits me. Before making this decision though, I’d never even heard of this movie.</p><p>Another thing that happened is that some TLC friends shared some subjective manifestation stories of their own with me, stuff that was beyond what I’d experimented with on my own. For example, Joe Vitale shared the story of Dr. Hew Len, a therapist who cured a hospital filled with mentally ill patients without ever seeing them. If you believe the story, this sort of healing is tough to explain objectively, but it makes perfect sense if reality is in fact a subjective dream world. If you want to learn more about this therapist, go read the article <a href="http://www.mrfire.com/article-archives/new-articles/worlds-most-unusual-therapist.html">The World’s Most Unusual Therapist</a>, or read Joe’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470402563?ie=UTF8&tag=dexteritysoft-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0470402563">Zero Limits</a>. I’ve already started testing some of these ideas, and some curious results are beginning to show up. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to regard other human beings as separate and distinct from me now.</p><p>At present I’d say I’m now around 80-20 in the sense that I’m 80% certain that subjective reality is the more accurate model of how the universe actually works. Consequently, I’m beginning to loosen my grip on the objective side, and I’m beginning to do things that may seem risky from an objective standpoint, but subjectively they make perfect sense.</p><p>This trial is a good example. Objectively speaking, it’s a very risky thing to do. By acting impulsively for weeks on end without pausing to think things through, I could really screw up my life both personally and professionally. I could potentially do and say some things that have serious long-term consequences, not just for me, but for other people in my life.</p><p>However, from a subjective standpoint, this should actually be a much more sensible way to live. The notion of an “out there” is nothing but illusion, and it makes no sense to fear what may happen in a world that’s a projection anyway.</p><h3>Needing to Know</h3><p>I’m embarking on this trial because I really need to know. I can’t remain on the fence. I have to go down this pathway and see where it leads. It scares me to do so, but I’ll just take it one day at a time. If things get really screwed up along the way, I’m willing to accept those consequences. I’d be willing to sacrifice a lot in order to discovering some new truths (or old ones I’ve forgotten).</p><p>I think that deep down, part of me already knows that reality is subjective and that the whole objective model is pure delusion. But I can’t overcome my doubts by staring at them and pondering them. I have to push through the fear and doubt and resistance and see what really lies on the other side. Will it be a glorious new level of existence, or will it lead to chaos?</p><p>I strongly suspect it’s the former, but the only way I can really do this experiment properly is by being willing to accept the possibility that I may experience the latter.</p><h3>Inner Processing</h3><p>I’m still doing a lot of inner processing. If I feel inspired to share the details at some point, I’ll do so, even if it’s really difficult in the moment.</p><p>Last night I went to bed at 1:30am, and I woke up at 4:30am. Some very emotional stuff began coming up again, and I did little else but cry and sob till 6:15am. I’m still not sure if I’ll share the details about this publicly. It would probably stir up some drama if I did, but for now I’m not feeling the inspiration to write about it, at least not yet.</p><p>I am getting a glimpse of things to come. I may not be able to control it, but I can try to make sense of it along the way.</p><p>One thing I’m seeing is that I’m going to be pretty busy. Lots of energy is getting stirred up, and it’s leading to a lot of activity. I can’t separate the personal side from the professional side, so I don’t know in advance which part of my life I’ll be working on most. It feels like I’m working on both at the same time.</p><p>I made breakfast almost two hours ago, before I started writing this post, but it’s been sitting there uneaten this whole time. I’m pretty hungry, but I’ve had to follow this wave of inspiration to write because it was the stronger wave. Hopefully I can go eat once I post this. I’m also very thirsty. There’s a full glass of water next to me, but I’ve barely sipped it. I stuck with the writing wave until it reached its shoreline, even as my hunger and thirst increased along the way.</p><p><script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({title:"30 Days of Inspiration",url:"http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/"});</script></p><p align="left"><a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+30+Days+of+Inspiration+http://bit.ly/9p1XOs" title="Post to Twitter"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter3.png" alt="Post to Twitter" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@stevepavlina+-+30+Days+of+Inspiration+http://bit.ly/9p1XOs" title="Post to Twitter">Tweet This Post</a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/&t=30+Days+of+Inspiration" title="Post to Facebook"><img class="nothumb" src="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-facebook.png" alt="Post to Facebook" /></a> <a class="tt" href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/07/30-days-of-inspiration/&t=30+Days+of+Inspiration" title="Post to Facebook">Post to Facebook</a></p><div class="noprint"> Discuss this post in the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/steve-pavlina/">Steve Pavlina forum</a>. <br><br><p><b>Learn how to make faster progress in your career, finances, relationships, habits, health, and more. See Steve at the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/conscious-growth-workshop/" style="color:blue"><i>Conscious Growth Workshop</i></a>, October 29-31, 2010.</b></p> <br><br></div></div><div class="noprint"><p> <b>Related Articles</b><br><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/creating-inspiration/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Creating Inspiration">Creating Inspiration</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/countdown-to-day-30/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Countdown to Day 30">Countdown to Day 30</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/11/career-and-commitment/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Career and Commitment">Career and Commitment</a></li><li><a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/10/personal-development-for-smart-people-book-reviews/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Personal Development for Smart People Book Reviews">Personal Development for Smart People Book Reviews</a></li><li><a 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