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A few days ago, a friend of mine informed me that his son’s baseball team had won a crucial game, advancing the team to a final game that would decide who would be first place in their division. I was very excited for them, and thought about rooting for his son’s team. That got me into a philosophical debate within my mind about winning and losing, and the implications of winning and losing on a child.
After some thought, I decided to root for each individual kid. I realized that it didn’t matter who won or lost the game. The real winning and losing comes after the game is over. I realized that winners could lose, and losers could win, depending on how each reacted to the winning or losing. What would the win mean to the winner and the loss mean to the loser? What would each do with the win or the loss? How would it affect their attitudes about themselves and each other? How would they treat each other after the game? I just hope that each child will make the best of the experience, whether his team wins or loses the game. I’m rooting for all of them.
Sincerely,
Alan
A lot of life is trial and error. Like the child learning to ride a bike and falling, in the course of learning our life lessons, we make a lot of mistakes. We form relationships with people that hurt us. We get employed in dead-end jobs. We pick the worst item off the menu in a great restaurant, and suffer through our meal as everyone else at the table is moaning in delight.
Most children that fall from their bikes cry for a minute or two, and then get back on. Next time, they try to do something a little differently, like pedaling a little faster, slightly shifting their balance or maybe reverting back to the training wheels for a bit. With a few spills under their belts and a bit of tinkering, eventually they are riding like champs. I've never heard of a child who got on a bike without training wheels and was able to stay on the first time. I've, also, never seen an adult riding with training wheels, so I guess we mostly have the resolve to get through that trial.
The thing is, as adults, we start to expect that we should be making all the right choices instantly and performing every new task without error. We not only expect this of ourselves, but we expect it of others. When we fail, we tend to beat up on ourselves and each other. We become embarrased, and often cover up our mistakes, so no one else will see our vulnerability. Part of the reason we do that is because we are afraid of others' reactions. It's OK for friends and acquaintances to laugh at each other in good fun, but we have to be careful of not going too far. Insecure people make others feel badly about their mistakes, in order to temporarily relieve their insecure feelings about themselves. This can be damaging to both parties. It can create insecurity in the target and creates unrealistic self-expectations in the critic, that will feed that person's insecurity the next time he or she fails at something. And he or she will fail at something. Do you really think that anyone exists that does not make mistakes?
It is said that Thomas Edison tried about 1000 different materials for the filament in the light bulb before he found one that worked. Sounds a lot like the kid falling off the bike, doesn't it? Not only do I think it is OK to make mistakes, I think that we are SUPPOSED to make mistakes. The trial and error process is a vital part of life. It makes life interesting. It keeps us in suspense.
I think it's healthier to laugh at our own mistakes, than to brood over them. Some people even enjoy the process of making mistakes, because they know that every mistake gets them closer to success. Life has its ups and downs. In my opinion, the most successful person is the one who can smile through a down cycle. It's one of the hardest skills to attain, not because it is any harder than learning to ride a bike, but because there are very few role models and because, for some odd reason, people don't consider it as crucial as learning to ride a bike.
Keep Smiling,
Alan
I'm wondering about wondering today. How much wondering is healthy? How much of our wondering do we spend on needless curiosity? How much of our wondering is fear-based? Where is our wondering taking us?
Wondering is healthy in many respects. It runs in concert with imagination. I think that it carries within it the seed of growth. Where in this world of infinite possibilities should I go next? Where will Life take me, and where will I take Life?
The problem with many of us is that we never get past the wondering stage. We think that our imagination is just a side show. We are constantly wondering, without letting that wonderment fill our sails and carry us to our next destination.
A lot of us waste a lot of our wondering time, wondering about what will go wrong next. Things will always go wrong. That's what makes Life interesting. If everything always went our way, we would be completely bored. We learn from our mistakes. If we play it too safe, and try to shield ourselves from making mistakes, the zest of Life will be completely absent from us. We'll go to work, watch our TV, go out for dinner, and that is Life for us. Life holds a billion more surprises than the most wild imagination could ponder. Life is limitless, boundless, filled with mystery and endless opportunities. If you give a bit more of your time to nature, the magic will find you.
When you catch yourself wondering what could go wrong next, see if you can shift that into a creative flow. What could go right next? What could Life hold in store for me? What magical opportunity could come out of nowhere and shift my Life completely? What can I do to make things better, or at least to feel better?
And, please, do yourself the favor of following your imagination sometimes, instead of staying stuck in wondering mode. What if this happens? What if that happens? If you keep wondering, nothing will improve. Your imagination is feeding you with possible journeys to take down the infinite paths of Life. If I hadn't decided to start writing this blog, you wouldn't be reading it right now. I had to get past wondering who would like it, and just put it out there.
I was on the beach, not even an hour ago. I had just finished a jog and was doing some stretching. A huge pelican came flying straight at me. I love pelicans. I love the grace of their flight, and their wide-reaching wingspan. As it flew right by me, I realized how free that pelican is. Never wondering where its next meal will come from, or whether it will get home in time for a television show. It knows it will find a meal if it flies long enough, as the ocean is filled with ample food. It knows that the world will provide. And, if not, it will just follow the endless cycle of Life into the next stage.
Wondering Aloud,
Alan
P.S. That pelican has no idea about the economy. It is completely unaffected by it. Now that is freedom.
I never thought that I'd review a movie in my blog, but I just got finished watching "The Shift" by Dr. Wayne Dyer and it was amazing! It was recommended to me by a friend, and encapsulates a lot of my own thinking, and a lot of what I say in my blog.
The shift that Dr. Dyer refers to in the title, is the shift from living a life controlled by our Ego personalities, to living a life connected with our authentic selves. In the movie, Dr. Dyer beautifully weaves together the teachings of many different spiritual philosophies. He repeatedly quotes Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching," which I "coincidentally" just reread on my recent trip to Colombia. I really like the Stephen Mitchell translation of the "Tao Te Ching," if you are interested in reading it.
I do not want to ruin the movie for you, so I am not going to go into a lot of detail about it. It is available from Netflix. Here is a link to a YouTube trailer.
It is not a fast-paced, action-packed, Hollywood-type movie, so please don't expect one. It is a thinking person's movie that may move you to review your life priorities. It's a movie with a purpose beyond pure entertainment. I give it ten thumbs up. Please give it a watch and let me know what you think.
Continually Shifting,
Alan
P.S. Love this poem Dr. Dyer quotes in the movie from the Sufi poet Haifiz:
Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe
Me."
Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.
When we begin to take responsibility for our vulnerabilities and weaknesses, we can begin the lifetime job of rooting them out of our operating systems. Just like the anti-virus software maker, we need to constantly observe the weaknesses in our operating software, and fine-tune our software to deal with them. One of the most important steps to take, in my humble opinion, is to stop feeding our negative emotions.
We feed our negative emotions by constantly reacting the same way. We feed anger every time we get angry. We feed frustration every time we get frustrated. We feed sadness every time we get sad. These emotions are like individuals. It's like they have a life of their own. They feed on their own specialized meals of our habitual reactions.
We can gain control of our emotions by becoming an observer. Instead of reacting the way we always react, when an emotion comes along, we can look at it from the standpoint of an observer. "Here comes Person X again. He always makes me angry. There he goes acting that way again." When this happens, we can observe what is happening inside of us, and we can see our emotion start welling up inside of us in a detached manner. We don't have to act out that emotion, as we realize that that emotion is not who we are. We have the power to release any emotion that we do not want. We just observe it, and let it go.
This is not easy stuff. I have not yet mastered releasing all my negative emotions. Some issues are harder than others. When someone victimizes you, it is very difficult to accept that you are the cause of the victimization, or at least a co-conspirator. If you can observe the victimization without getting emotional about it - without getting angry, frustrated and blaming - are you really a victim, though?
Taking Responsibility,
Alan
In order to clarify my last post, I want to use the analogy of an operating system. There are hackers all over the world that make a hobby of trying to infect our computers' operating systems with malicious software. In order to do so, they exploit weaknesses or vulnerabilities in our operating systems. In order to protect ourselves, we buy anti-virus software, which is constantly updated to protect against the newest threats. This software monitors any process happening in our operating system, at any time, for suspicious behavior. Running an operating system without anti-virus software these days is considered irresponsible and foolhardy. Hackers are working 24/7 to find new vulnerabilities to exploit, and constantly looking for operating systems with their guards down. It seems there is always some new weakness to exploit. Anti-virus software makers must be vigilant on our behalves - constantly watching for the newest vulnerabilities and threats - to help us protect our operating systems. If there are no vulnerabilities to exploit, the hackers are harmless to us.
Our minds are like the operating system. In our minds, we have all these memories, emotions, habits and automatic responses stored. A lot of this software is vulnerable to being exploited by certain people who know how to push our buttons. Some of these buttons are right on the surface, and easy for anybody to find. But some of them are buried deep in the subconscious, and are not found until the more evident ones are uncovered. If we walk around with these buttons exposed long enough, someone is going to push one. It's just a matter of time. It's the nature of life.
How do we protect against our buttons being pushed? What anti-virus software can we use to protect us from our own vulnerabilities? The first step, again, is to take responsibility for our vulnerabilities. We need to understand that our weaknesses are our own, and it is only because of our weaknesses that anyone can hurt us. If we did not have vulnerable programming within us, no matter what anybody would say or do to us, we would not need to react with anger, frustration and blame. We could keep our operating systems running smoothly, despite the probing of others for our vulnerabilities. Remember, if there are no vulnerabilities, these probes are harmless.
Taking full responsibility for our vulnerabilities is crucial to securing our operating systems. Taking responsibility doesn't mean we have to do it alone. We can employ the help of those who have been successful in securing their own operating systems, and often that is the more responsible route to take.
Let's continue this discussion tomorrow.
Taking Responsibility,
Alan
One of the biggest illusory obstacles to happiness is our perception that other people are keeping us from it. This person did this to me. That person always treats me that way. I can't stand it when Person X does ______. How do we get above blaming others, and all the attendant anger and frustration? We need to take responsibility for our emotions and for the people that we are drawing into our lives. You may find it hard to believe, but there is a lot of theory out there that says that we are doing EVERYTHING in our own lives. As I have observed my own life, I find this to be true.
Nobody can do anything to hurt us, unless there is something inside of us that is calling for that hurt. So, if someone is called into our lives to do act out a particular script, it is because we have called them into our lives to act out that script. There is something inside of us that magnetizes that person to us. It can be some fear or emotion or subconscious desire.
Did you ever notice all of the cyclical things that seem to happen to people? This person is always getting robbed. That person is always attracting abusive relationships. Do you think maybe there is something behind that? Is it possible that that person is a magnet for that type of behavior because his or her fears or emotions are constantly inviting that cycle of energy into his or her life?
If we can begin to take responsibility for what happens to us in our lives, and realize that it is something within us that is inviting any negativity that "happens" to us, we can start to remove the causes within us that are inviting the negative effects. We can become the "cause" of our own happiness, instead of the "effect" of what anybody else is doing to us.
To be continued...
Taking Responsibility,
Alan
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. - Aristotle
What does it take to be happy? Nothing more than the desire and intent. Why does it seem so hard to maintain happiness? Because we believe there are other requirements. When we believe that there are obstacles between us and happiness, we make it so. We think we need money to be happy. We think we need a certain person in our life to be happy. We think we need a certain brand of car to make us happy. All hogwash. It is those imagined obstacles to happiness that are keeping us from it. All it takes to increase our level of happiness is practice, just like anything else. We need to build our happiness muscles.
If we make happiness our primary goal, and release our false perception that we need any "thing" prior to being happy, then we can build a foundation of happiness that can never be taken from us. Happiness is not a "thing," so why should we need any "thing" prior to having it? When our foundation of happiness is strong, we can build anything we want on top of it.
Happiness and wealth, for example, are two different destinations. I strongly believe that people who pursue wealth before happiness are taking themselves for a ride. I highly recommend making happiness the first destination. When you build a foundation of happiness, everything else you need, including money, will come easier, because you will be going with the flow of life, instead of struggling against it. Happiness will make balanced effort, but happiness won't accept struggling, being worn out or miserable for very long. If you make wealth the first destination, you may not find happiness there when you arrive (if you ever do), or the happiness that comes with wealth may be short-lived. You also may inadvertently trade away your happiness in your struggle to stay wealthy.
I have nothing against wealth, but my point is that wealth without happiness is worthless. Better to learn how to be happy first. You may find that your values about wealth and what to do with your money will be reshaped, as your base level of happiness rises.
Make happiness first. It's smooth sailing from there.
All Smiles,
Alan :)
P.S. I'm still working on my foundation of happiness, but I understand now that the reason it needs work is because I set too many other priorities before it. I feel it is important for me to let the reader understand that I am not perfect, but that does not mean that I am not qualified to speak on the subject. People often reach a point of clarity, before they reach the goal that's been clarified. Yes, we have to make a living, but we also have to make a life. Make yours a happy one. :)
I don't believe that limitation is real. I believe we are all unlimited beings. I believe that we only experience limitation, because we believe we are limited. I still experience limitation, but I think it is only because I still have work to do with regard to my beliefs and my certainty in them.
I think that there is good evidence that we are unlimited. Look at all of the technology we've invented, for example. How did we create computers that can process billions of instructions in a second? Someone had to first believe that they could do it, and then was certain enough in that belief to see it through to completion. You know that our bodies are doing trillions of things per second, all in near-perfect coordination?
One day I was driving home from work, and I was asking myself a question about whether my thinking about some subject was too limited or not. At the moment the question ran through my mind, I came around a turn and right in front of me was a big billboard with an ad for metroPCS that said "Unlimit Yourself." It was the first time I had ever seen the billboard or heard of that ad campaign. The timing was absolutely perfect. Too perfect to be just coincidence. Just something to consider.
Yours Without Limitation,
Alan
What does Yesterday have to do with Now? The residue of what happened Yesterday and the results of the choices we made Yesterday shape Today, but place mostly illusory limitations on the direction we can choose Today. The direction we choose Tomorrow will be shaped by Today, but, again, will place very little limitation on our options Tomorrow. Our options always seem very limited, but they are always infinite. Every moment is a rebirth. Every moment offers an opportunity to choose to remain the same or to change anything or everything. EVERY MOMENT. Each moment stands on it's own.
I know it is easier to perceive this than to act upon it. For me, too.
Sweet Dreams (Day & Night),
Alan
I'm absolutely flabbergasted that it's been over 2 months since my last post. The season in my family business was extremely busy due to the chilly and rainy weather. People came shopping. Enough with the excuses, though. On to my post.
I have not been able to get the idea of the clam in the shell out of my head for the past few days. I am not an expert on clam biology, but it seems that the clam is almost completely concealed from the light. Only a little light can penetrate the membrane that drapes between the two shell halves that house the clam. One of the biggest problems with humanity is that so many of us are like the clam. We are completely close-minded, and we won't open our shells wide enough to let in the advice or ideas of others. We stay inside our ego shells, believing that our ideas are superior, and discounting the intelligence and worthiness of others. If we are so close-minded that we never allow others' ideas to penetrate us, we are probably missing out on some good guidance.
One of my past teachers would always say that God doesn't talk to people from bushes and clouds these days. He said that God talks to people through their thoughts and intuitions, and also through the mouths of other people. From my experience, I believe this to be true. When I became more open-minded, I realized that even the simplest person will sometimes have some words of wisdom. Sometimes the greatest ideas come from the least-expected sources. Sometimes some random person I meet in some random place will say exactly what I need to hear. You have to be open-minded, alert and a patient listener to pick up on what the Universe is trying to deliver to you, in my humble opinion. Most of us, including myself, could use a little work on at least a couple of those skills.
Of course, some of us are TOO open to others' advice. Many people are easily swayed by anybody else's opinion. This can be just as much a problem, because it is symptomatic of a lack of self-trust. I, personally, err more this way.
How do you know whether to be open to the advice and ideas of others? It takes discernment, but your natural inclination is a good hint. If you tend to very quickly discount the ideas of others, you are probably losing some helpful advice. If you tend to be instantly swayed by anything another says, you probably need to practice a little more self-reliance. There's always a balance to be found. These days, though, I notice a lot of clams out there.
Sincerely,
Alan
I have so many things I want to write about, but I've got to tell this story first. On Saturday, I noticed the name "Lucy" at least a couple of times. I know that when something out of the ordinary strikes me twice or more in the same day, there is probably something more to it. I was thinking to myself, "Lucy? Is this something about "I Love Lucy," the old show, or is this just another one of those coincidental "echoes" I've see so many times before?"
On Sunday, I was at the cash register in our store, ringing out a lady's purchases. As she was paying, I noticed a large picture of a pretty, young lady in her wallet. She saw me glance at the picture and she said, "That's my daughter. She died recently." I was taken aback and didn't know what to say. I just said that she was very pretty. The woman told me that the daughter had been a model. She was 33 when she died of breast cancer. The woman then proceeded to tell me that she now tells people not to rush through Life. She recommends that we take Life slowly and enjoy it. It'll be over before we know it.
Before the woman left, she told me that if she liked one of the products that she was buying to try out, she would be back for more. She asked my name, and I told her. After she had already started walking away, something prodded me to call after her for her name. "Excuse me. What's your name?" I asked. "Lucy," she called back loudly, as she was already some distance away. I can't even explain the feeling that coursed through me as she said it. I felt that she looked at me with a knowing glance. Could have been my imagination. My whole body was tingling, at any rate.
It has come more to my attention recently that one of my traits has always been to rush through Life. I have always been a very fast eater, for example. There is a favorite story in my family about the time we stopped at a highway rest stop to eat, in my childhood, and I completely devoured a gargantuan breakfast before the waitress came back to the table with everybody else's meals. My grandparents constantly reminded me that no one was going to steal my food. When I was around 30 years-old, one of my bosses noted that I was always scurrying everywhere. I never forgot that comment for some reason. I've also been known to often be running late to events, and therefore in a rush to make up for lost time. Always in a rush.
I've recently been intrigued with how little time we actually have. I calculated that someone who lives to the age of 75 lives only 3900 weeks. That's only 3900 weekends. How quickly do the weeks roll by? It's Saturday again. It's Saturday again. After only 3900 times, your 75 years old!!! Lucy was right. Time is fleeting.
Sometimes Life brings us emergencies, and we have no choice but to act quickly. I remember in the Haiti Telethon a story about a woman who dug for 50 hours straight to try and get her baby out from under some rubble, before a rescue team spotted her and pulled her baby out alive. If she had given up at any time and walked away, the rescue team may not have even noticed the baby.
But Life isn't always an emergency. Many of us live Life as if every day is an emergency. We find so many reasons to rush, because we are afraid that if we relax, maybe we will miss out, we will make less money, we will lose our position in the rat race or whatever. At what cost, though? How many of us live in almost a constant state of anxiety? Is there any amount of money that is worth living in a constant state of suffering? A lot of people sacrifice several years of their lives for some expected windfall in the 2nd or 3rd or 4th or .... year. Sometimes the payoff never comes. The best laid plans of mice and men...
It's very hard to enjoy Life if you can't relax. There are times when we are going to feel a need to get things done quickly, and some emergencies will come. When the emergencies pass, can we get out of our Fight or Flight Mode long enough to take a deep breath? To notice a rarely-seen bird singing a special song to us in a nearby tree? To notice a honey bee floating inside a colorful flower gathering sweet stuff? Or are we so wrapped up, that we're just anticipating the next emergency?
Think about it. I am.
I am not suggesting that we spend our whole lives sitting on our backs watching the clouds roll by. It can be a lot of fun to accomplish things, and that usually takes great effort. Are you enjoying Life, though? Are you able to sit back and relax, sometimes? The body and mind require rest to function well, you know. Or do you? I'm going to make more effort to heed Lucy's advice, and that might require making less effort. Sometimes less is more.
Gratefully,
Alan
For those of you who haven't heard, a devastating earthquake hit Haiti near Port-Au-Prince, its heavily-populated capital. Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. The destruction, which will probably not be fully-known for days, is supposedly massive. Loss of life is estimated to be in the thousands. Many are left homeless, and even government buildings have been wrecked.
My heart goes out to the people of Haiti. I have already responded by making donations and with prayer. Maybe you can do something that will touch the lives of those affected. Maybe some who have the freedom, will even feel a pull to go there and help. Haiti is less than 700 miles from Florida.
For those donating money, I just want to suggest that you carefully choose the organization(s) to which you give. I highly recommend that you check www.CharityNavigator.org to see the rating of the charity, and to see what portion of the money they collect goes to programs, versus to administration and fundraising. I highly recommend the following, as I have already vetted them out, and know they are involved in the Haiti response. I will list their web addresses, along with a link to their Charity Navigator rating:
www.AmeriCares.orghttp://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3289
Almost 99% to programs
www.SaveTheChildren.org
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4438
Almost 92% to programs
www.unicefusa.org
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4617
Just over 90% to programs
If you would like to share any personal, favorite organization with my readers, please post a comment. I would appreciate if you would also post a link to the Charity Navigator rating for the organization.
If you are considering inaction, I suggest that you ask yourself how you would want the people of the world to react if you were in the same situation. If money is tight, maybe you can just send your Love.
Thanks for your compassion,
Alan
A few weeks ago, I was doing inventory in our store, and one of the ladies that works with us was putting some merchandise away in a nearby drawer. I was looking around the store at all of the shelves and drawers and hooks full of merchandise and I said to her, "Do you ever wonder how we do all this?" She said to me something like, "Especially when you consider the difficult people." I thought to reply, "You mean the customers?" but what came out of my mouth was:
"You mean the Teachers?"
As I uttered those words, I was bewildered. I asked myself, "Teachers? Where did that come from?" Then I realized that there was something more to it. They ARE Teachers. The difficult people, I mean. They are here to teach us how to live.
Life is not made in the easy moments. Those aren't the ones you remember decades later. We remember the challenges we withstood. We remember the tough decisions we made that changed our lives (or sometimes the tough decisions we avoided, leaving our lives stagnant). We remember the moments when we realized we had grown, when we reacted differently, when we were strong and able to react with courage to what we previously feared.
Sometimes tough customers come into our lives to put the pressure on, carrying with them the recipe for creating those defining moments that we'll remember forever. They push our buttons, to show us that those buttons are still there. They make us angry, to give us the opportunity to resolve our anger. They take from us without giving back what we expect, to show us that we haven't learned the art of unconditional sharing. They irritate us by criticizing our actions or by pointing out our shortfalls. This can either be to help us rise above or to realize that we are the only true judges of ourselves, and we need not be swayed by others' opinions. They may treat us without dignity, just to give us the opportunity to walk away, or to be strong enough to tell them that they are out of line and not to accept their behavior.
Nobody is in this world just to be a jerk. Jerks are here to jerk you into your rightful place, to wake you from your sleep. Anyone can be nice to you, and tell you how great you are. That's easy. It's the jerks who are going to mold you into a stronger being. The jerks are the best teachers.
And they usually come at the perfect time. We only get handed as much as we can handle. Just when we think we are strongest, the biggest jerk we've ever met will come and tell us we are nobody. Then we'll see how strong we are.
The next time somebody treats you with disrespect, rubs you the wrong way or tests your patience, figure out what they've come to teach you. That person did not arrive just to spoil your day. That person came to teach you about life, and to show you where your strengths and weaknesses are. Knowing that, can you treat the situation differently? Can you learn the lesson, instead of reacting the same way you always have?
Anybody can get angry and tell somebody off. That's the easy route. Sometimes that may be the appropriate response. If you are one who usually lets people walk all over you, it may be time to stand up for yourself. If you're someone who easily gets pissed off and enjoys telling people where to stick it, that's probably not the lesson, though. Can you step into the offender's shoes for a moment and feel how they feel? Can you feel someone else's pain? Can you realize that it is your own pain that is causing your weakened response?
Forever Learning,
Alan
Excuse my long absence, please. December has been a very busy month for me. I just got back from a 4 day mini-vacation in North Carolina. Did a little skiing, and saw some beautiful countryside, replete with gorgeous, snow-capped mountains, icicle-covered trees, flowing creeks, deer and cows grazing, log cabins and old farms with big rolls of hay strewn about. I got a surprise grand finale this morning, when I woke up to a luminous, red sunrise over a nearby mountain range.
As I said in a recent post (if you can call any of them recent at this point), I have a lot to say about associations and assumptions. A very large part of our lives is controlled by them, yet they are mostly groundless. This vacation was a prime example. I had so many negative assumptions before the trip, that did not turn out to be true. Of course, I formed some more false assertions during the trip.
For example, I was really nervous about being in such cold weather for four days. I have lived in Florida for over 8 years, and I have only been in snow for one day since. I thought I was going to freeze, especially after hearing that yesterday, it was predicted to be a high of 27 degrees, with the wind chill making it feel about 2 degrees. Well, I'm here to tell you that I was well-bundled in layers of clothes, and suffered very little. At one point my left ear lobe was getting quite cold, but that resolved itself. My feet were a little cold at one point. But I was out in that weather for over 2 hours straight, staring at the signs that said "FROSTBITE WARNING!" waiting for the ski lift, and I felt fine. I even enjoyed myself. My skiing wasn't great, but it was much better than I expected. I don't think I'd skied in over 20 years.
Before the trip, I was worried about our sleeping arrangements, because we were going to be staying in a house with 14 members of my wife's family. The house was supposed to sleep 8. My wife told me that we were going to be sharing a room with her aunt and uncle, and that we would have to sleep on an air mattress. She told me we could not bring our king size air mattress (we own two) and would have to buy a new full size one to fit in the room. When I got to the house, somehow, we had our own cozy room, which was not so small, with a sofa bed and a welcome space heater. It was a much better picture than my mind had painted.
For my final example (although I actually have several more) on the way out to the ski house, I had gotten off the road onto a very steep driveway to study my Google Map on my phone, because I thought I may have missed a turn. Ironically, I was trying to be safe, and not looking too much at the map while driving. As I pulled out of the driveway, I heard serious scraping from the bottom of the car. I got out a little later, and found a dent on the bottom of the car, and thought I might have put it there. I was all nervous about turning the car back in and having to pay for the damage. Because of the placement of the dent, I thought it was unlikely to be caught on inspection, but I had decided that I was going to disclose the damage. I wanted to take responsibility if I had, in fact, caused it. From some past incidents, though, I had learned that sometimes my assumptions that I had been responsible for damage were wrong. Recently, I thought I had caused a scratch on a car parked next to me in a parking lot, because I heard a noise as I was pulling into the spot. The owner came back to the car as I was writing a note to put on the windshield. When I showed him the scratch, he said it had already been there. Also, on this current ski trip, we had gone to this museum where they had all these different shaped bubble wands with bubble solution. One of my nephews and I were wildly waving a couple of wands, making bubbles, and we hit each others' wand. I saw a crack in one of the wands and said to him, "Aw, look what we did." He said, "No, that was already there."
At least 20 times on the 4 day trip, I worried about turning the car back in. Although my mind was trying to reason me out of disclosing the damage, I was resolved to do it. When I returned the vehicle, I told the gentleman at the counter that I wanted to show him some damage to the car. I showed him the dent, and told him that I was not sure that I had done it, but had not noticed it when I received the car. He looked at my rental form and said, "No. It was already on the damage report." He gave me my receipt, and I was on my merry way.
Bottom line, a lot of our associations and assumptions are flat out wrong. A plus B does not always equal C. Circumstantial evidence is almost worthless. It's very easy to paint a connection between one thing and another, because everything IS connected. Think six degrees of separation. But the causal connection between one thing or event and another isn't necessarily there, even though it may seem that way. That's why our court systems require a high degree of evidence to support a conviction or judgment. People have both selective and creative memories. Our minds create connections that don't exist, through assumption and association.
In Don Miguel Ruiz's book "The Four Agreements," he wrote of four agreements that he felt were most important in life to make with yourself. One of them was "NEVER MAKE ASSUMPTIONS." I have found this to be one of the most important life lessons. How many times do we create all kinds of negative stories in our minds that turn out to be totally false. Just a bunch of drama. My mind still creates these stories every day, but I DON'T BELIEVE THEM, ANYMORE! Thank you Don Miguel!!!!!!!!
Missing the Mountains Already,
Alan
One of my mentors said, "The mind can be a good friend, but it makes a terrible master." I sometimes seem like I am speaking of the mind as an enemy, but I think it is important to note that you don't want to make an enemy of the mind. I tried that for awhile, and it was not pleasant. If you fight the mind, the mind will fight back. Be friendly about it. The mind is what makes sense out of a world that is really illusory. It's really just an ocean of energy. The mind categorizes all the different energies. It separates one color from the next. This makes for an interesting experience.
The mind makes a lot of associations. I could write a book just on associations, I think. I can't stop thinking about this subject. I'm going to introduce it now, but I think it deserves at least another full blog entry. The problem is that the mind makes a lot of meaningless and misguided associations. For example, as soon as we see a person, the mind starts creating all kinds of assumptions about the person based on the way they look, the way they are dressed, the way that they walk, etc. We can't see a person for more than a few seconds, without the mind creating 4 or 5 stories about what that person must be like. The stories are based on associations we have with other people we met who had similar characteristics. But we have no idea who this new person is, even though they have a recognizable appearance. The stories are all just fabrications of the mind. There might not be a shred of truth to them. But we continue to size people up, and create all kinds of stories and assumptions about how we expect them to act. If you allow the mind to go off on these tangents, unchecked, your life will just be a big story, a big drama.
Sometimes, you have to stop believing the mind, and be open to the possibility that people will act completely different than you expect them to from first glance. Don't judge a book by its cover. One time I was in a nightclub, and a very tall and very broad African-American guy walked in my path and stopped there. I stepped to the left to walk around him, and he moved to the left. I stepped to the right, and he moved to the right. At that point, I got a little nervous. I finally looked him in the eye, and he smiled, leaned down and gave me a big hug. A few years later, when I was studying Kabbalah, one of my teachers once said, "When you are walking in a dark alley and somebody is walking behind you, why do you assume that they are coming to harm you? Why don't you think they might be coming to love you?"
Don't be controlled by the fabrications of your mind. Choose what to think about a thing or situation, and that thing or situation is transformed instantly, at least in your personal world. Isn't that the only world that really exists from your persepective? Even if you turn out to be wrong, isn't it better to make a better-feeling assumption? Or can you let go of making any assumption, at all? If you can restrict yourself from always believing the drama of the mind, you can create your own story. When you create your own stories, the mind will eventually go along with you. When you challenge the negative associations, your mind will start offering you more pleasant ones. The mind can become a good friend.
As Franklin Delano Roosevelt wisely put it, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He was telling us to stop believing the fearful fabrications of our minds. Would you rather lead a Life full of fear or one full of Love? Choose your story, and tell it to your mind.
Mindfully,
Alan ;)
So I am not called a hypocrite, I am not perfect at ANYTHING I am pitching. I have an easier time with some issues than others. Most of the stuff I have written about, I have at least had remarkable improvement. I don't know if you ever get to the end of any of this. I think that perfection is a myth. Any record can be broken. I think that there is a constant evolution. You can always do a little better. If you catch me in a moment of weakness, and I am not taking my own medicine, please remind me. Believe me, I have challenges just like everyone else. I mostly handle them differently than I used to. I find that RESTRICTION is key - restricting the conditioned complaining, whining and obsessing that the mind offers me about a challenge and CHOOSING to think differently about the situation.
For whatever reason, your body will crave all kinds of sweets, processed and junk foods that are bad for your body. If you feed those cravings all the time, you will not enjoy good health. If you RESTRICT those cravings, and choose to eat good foods instead - or at least most of the time - you are much more likely to enjoy good health.
Just like you have to feed the body good food to be healthy, you must feed the mind good thoughts for it to remain healthy. Like the body craves unhealthy foods, the mind has an odd craving for unhealthy thought patterns. The mind constantly feeds itself on obsession, fear, worry, doubt, blame, anger, etc. You can control your mind, though, by RESTRICTING it as soon as possible after it starts feeding on a negative thought pattern. You can then actively CHOOSE good thoughts to feed it. When the mind CHOOSES to feed on anger, you can challenge the mind by refusing to get angry (or by doing the best you can), and by CHOOSING the thoughts you want.
In other words, you can CHOOSE to let the mind control you. This is allowing the mind to do the CHOOSING for you. This is the default option CHOSEN by most people. The problem is that most people are not even aware that there is a CHOICE, just like I was not aware that there was a CHOICE most of my life. You can't make a CHOICE until you are aware that one exists. This is why it is very important not to become judgmental about others, after you improve. You always have to remember that you were once in the same boat. Everybody else in the world is not going to understand a concept just because you now understand it.
OK, so if you are not going to let the mind do the CHOOSING, you can take control of the mind, and make the CHOICES about what to think.
To be continued...
Choose Wisely,
Alan
I chose not to post anything on Thanksgiving Day, partly because I figured there was already quite a lot of gratitude being thrown about. For me, every day is Thanksgiving Day. I am constantly trying to be in the consciousness of gratitude. I am constantly trying to be aware of everything that I have been given in the moment. Even the moment, itself, is a precious gift. I sometimes forget to be aware, especially in moments of busy-ness, but even if the awareness comes a bit late, it's still awareness.
Remember, after 9/11, all those flags flapping off seemingly everybody's car? There were flags everywhere. Where are they now? It was a bandwagon mindset. It wore off over time. Isn't it somewhat like that with Thanksgiving Day? We get all geared up. We eat our big meal, we say our "Thankses," and the next day we're back to our former state of consciousness - expressing gratitude only occasionally. How about this year, we start a Thanksgiving Day Resolution? Who said they were exclusive to the New Year? How about staying in a state of gratitude, every day? How about looking for things to be grateful for all day, every day? It's a good technique for crowding out negative thought patterns, like worry, anger and victim mentality. Whenever an ungrateful thought comes along, why not chose to be thankful for ANYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF, instead? There is always something you can be thankful for. If you focus on that, you'll crowd out negative thinking in no time flat. There won't be any space left for it. Now, wouldn't that be something to be grateful for?
Humbly,
Alan
P.S. I wouldn't recommend you make eating turkey every day part of your resolution.
The concept of Dogma keeps entering my mind lately. I'm only now starting to really understand the concept of Dogma. According to Wikipedia, "Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma. Dogma is usually followed with what we call "blind faith."
What I really want to say is that anything anybody tells you, including me, is merely Dogma, unless - and until - you experience it personally. Many of the spiritual paths I have studied differentiate themselves from religion by the fact that you experience tangible changes in your Life by following them. Blind faith becomes unnecessary after actual experience. When an overpowering and beautiful energy opens up and radiates from your Heart center and overcomes your whole being, it's much different from somebody telling you that they have a technique to open your Heart. Before I felt that, I had a totally different concept of what it meant to "open your Heart." One of my mentors said often, "An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of theory." Theory is Dogma.
I have advocated certain practices to my readers from a dogmatic perspective. How am I to know which practice is perfect for you? I only know what has worked for me. One of my readers was inspired to start practicing another type of Yoga than I have advocated. She's loving it, and I am so excited that she pursued it after being inspired by my writing. Maybe that's her path. Maybe it's an even more powerful path than those I've studied. Who knows?
Heartily,
Alan
Dropping our personal histories and reinventing ourselves is much easier when we learn to apply self-forgiveness. As we are reinventing ourselves and shifting perspective, we tend to get HARDER on ourselves. We tend to get MORE judgmental of our past acts and omissions when we start to see them from a more evolved state of consciousness. I think that is helpful to recognize that it is only because we have grown so much, that we are able to see our past actions in such a harsh light. We should be patting ourselves on our own backs, just as we are beating ourselves up. We have grown SO far from the perspective from which we acted, that we now can't imagine how we possibly did such things.
It is best to seek forgiveness from those that we hurt in the past. By doing so, both parties are able to heal the scars caused by those interactions. The extent of the healing is conditioned upon the willingness of the forgiver to genuinely forgive, as well as the willingness of the forgiven to fully accept forgiveness. Even when the offended party refuses to forgive, I believe that self-forgiveness should be applied. We all make mistakes. We are all blinded at times by our TEMPORARY, mistaken perspectives. We should not beat ourselves up eternally for TEMPORARY states of mind. We should allow ourselves to be reinvented, even when the offended party refuses to let go. And, of course, whether or not the offended party forgives, if we can't forgive ourselves, the healing cannot be complete. For some, including myself, it is easier to forgive others than it is to forgive ourselves. This is, in my opinion, a key factor in self-evolution.
Moving On,
Alan
A few days ago, a friend of mine informed me that his son’s baseball team had won a crucial game, advancing the team to a final game that would decide who would be first place in their division. I was very excited for them, and thought about rooting for his son’s team. That got me into a philosophical debate within my mind about winning and losing, and the implications of winning and losing on a child.
