The next ring outward is career-change. The next ring is career-planning. And the final ring is finding one's mission in life. We all tend to start with the innermost ring, job-hunting, but as we get older, we move outward, from ring to ring. Most of my six million Parachute readers want some guidance, here, as evidenced by the fact I've gotten more appreciative mail about this Epilogue than any thing else I've written in my life.
Religion is like a playpen or sandbox.
Every decent marriage counselor knows that there are two arenas in a committed relationship that function essentially as 'playpens' or 'sandboxes' in which the two partners act out in microcosm, who they most truly are in macrocosm. And so we find sex used for dominance or submission, gentleness or roughness, anger or appreciation, love or hatred. And so we find money used for hoarding or giving, a love of power or a love of helping others, a love of things physical or a love of things spiritual. Here too there is a wide range of behaviors, as people use their spirituality to act out who they are in the life of their soul. Spirituality that is centered around God vs. spirituality that is centered around the self.