Today is all that matters. James Allen says that   "Mind clothes  itself in garments of its own making. Mind is the arbiter of life; it is the creator and the shaper of conditions and the recipient of its own results. It contains within itself both the power to create illusion and to perceive reality. Mind is the infallible weaver of destiny; thought is the thread, good and evil deeds are the warp and woof, and the web, woven upon the loom of life, is character."
So as you think, therefore you are. I stopped ritualized prayer many months ago, at first I felt guilty, like I should expect some bad things to happen or some kind of punishment. But as I continued to read authors like James Allen and Joseph Campbell I began to see that I simply see prayer as something entirely different from Christianity, like Campbell says, "Religion is a metaphor, it's when its taken literally that we get into trouble." I have never believed in a real "Garden of Eden" or the flood or other myths. I pretended I did, because if I didn't then somehow I disqualified myself for the benefits of this God that Christianity espoused was so interested in "saving" me. Christianity starts you out with a strike against you, says we are "born into sin" and we need saving. That's convenient for them, now we have to spend the rest of our lives making up for something we did not do. "Jesus died for our sins" Not mine. Or yours for that matter. This was thousands of years ago we are talking about. Question everything, what you choose to believe will shape your destiny. I can believe in being good and righteous and selfless without attributing it to an English speaking deity that is most often portrayed as a bearded white old man in the sky. There is no reward in Heaven, Heaven and Hell are inward states that exist within us as we go about our lives. The choices we make in dealing with them either continue our suffering or alleviate it. What I say out loud in prayer better match what my innermost desires are because those are what is pulling things toward me, not prayer. If I have bestial desires in the back of my mind, those are what I will be unconsciously acting upon, not what I say I want in my life through prayer. So what I profess that I don't want I end up with, and what I say I really want eludes me, I know because I have experienced it. It has taken me decades to put words to what I actually have experienced. I credit the two writers I mentioned above for writing those words in a way that finally resonated with me, I have discovered many others that are saying the  same types of things, I see connections that I missed before, it has given me renewed purpose and vigor in other readings that I engage in as well, because what I am looking FOR, I am looking WITH, I bring meaning to my life, I don't need to try and "discover" the meaning of life, I already have it, it's what I bring to it. Education should create a sense of teachability within us that makes us ask questions and seek answers in life not just in textbooks for assignments. Joseph Campbell says that "When you are on YOUR path doors will open up for you that would have remained closed had you not set out on this path" That is how I feel about they way my life has been unfolding this past year, which coincidentally is my Senior year in college. I feel awakened, I have always felt a bit of this awakening but I did not pursue it as I am now, for it is fluid and dynamic, not static or stationary, there is no end to the learning, and that's the good news. I am never bored, nor ever will be if I keep seeking, I am not awaiting a destination, I am in it for the Journey.

I like reading Joseph Campbell. His writings have inspired me to explore my own beliefs and to questions them openly and honestly. I approach life differently than I did only a year ago. His observations on the Power of Myth pulled me away from the scattered and floundering beliefs that i thought I had into a more open and flowing way of thinking. 
  You see I am looking for a patterns, ever since reading a fictional book by Clive Barker called The Great and Secret Show I have wondered about a sort of background program in life, not a religious one, but symbols and meanings that transcend what I normally think and believe. Campbell identified this as being Myth. He says that "Myth's are the spiritual potentialities of the human life". Myth's transcend all religions and belief systems. "People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about, and that's what these clues help us to find within ourselves."
  Myths are clues. 

This is one of my favorite quotes by Campbell. I have heard this message from other writers, speakers, philosophers, psychologists, and others whom I respect and have studied. I simply choose to use his writings as a guide. I find that his message is present in so many different ways throughout my searching for meaning in my life. A spiritual teacher I love and respect named Chuck Chamberlain, who wrote a book called A New Pair of Glasses  was quoted as saying "What you are looking for, you are looking with." The answers are not outside of you, guidance may come from without, but the answers are within.