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1 November 2022
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Simple and Profound
Thoughts
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We
can see in the puddle either
the mud or the reflection of
the blue sky, just as we choose.
Lucy
Fitch Perkins
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You
need only examine your present situation to discover
unlimited
resources and opportunities.
Ari Kiev
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Abundance
consists not so much
in material possessions,
but in an uncovetous spirit.
John
Selden
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When life's problems seem overwhelming,
look around
and see
what other people are coping with. You may consider
yourself fortunate.
Ann Landers |
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The
River or the Goal
Earl Nightingale
If you’re going to be a success as a human being, you
have to fit into one of two groups, or belong to both of
them.
The first group belongs to what I call “the river.”
These are men and women who have found, often early in
life, although not always, a great river of interest into
which they throw themselves with exuberance and
abandon. They are quite happy to spend their lives
working and playing in that river.
For some, the river may be a particular branch of science;
for others, one of the arts. There are some
physicians, for example, who are so wrapped up in medicine
that they hate to leave; even after a 16 hour day, they
can’t wait to get back to it.
These people are happiest and most alive when they’re in
their river--in whatever business or career or profession
it happens to be. And success comes to such people
as inevitable as a sunrise. In fact, they are
successes the moment they find their great field of
interest; the worldly trappings of success will always
come in time. Such people don’t have to ask,
“What will I do with my life?” Their work is a
magnet for them, and they can’t imagine doing anything
else.
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We all know
such people, or about such people. Doing what they
do is even more important to them than the rewards they
earn for doing it.
The second group of successful people are those who are
goal-oriented. These people have not found a
particular river, necessarily, and can be quite happy
doing a number of things. It’s the goals they set
that are important to them, and they’re quite aware that
there are many roads that can lead to their goals.
Someone once said, “Americans can have anything they
seriously make up their minds to have. The trouble
is that most of them never make up their minds about
anything.” Goal-oriented people do make up their
minds about what they want, and they keep their eyes and
their enthusiasm on the goal they’ve established until
it becomes a reality in their lives. Then they set a
new goal, if they’re wise.
One of the problems with this latter group is that after
achieving a number of goals and becoming quite successful,
they can run out of goals and become listless and
unhappy. But not the river people. Their
interest in what they’re doing never fades.
So if you’re going to be a big success, chances are you
need to be a river person or a goal-oriented person, or
both--the two groups are not mutually exclusive.
Tips
for Setting Goals
A clinical associate professor of psychiatry, Dr. Ari
Kiev, writes, “Observing the lives of people who have
mastered adversity, I have noted that they have
established goals and sought with all their effort to
achieve them. From the moment they decide to
concentrate all their energies on a specific objective,
they began to surmount the most difficult odds.”
Dr. Kiev continues, “The establishment of a goal is the
key to successful living. And the most important
step toward achieving an objective is first to define
it. I’m sure you have at least 30 minutes a day in
which to list your thoughts. At the end of that
time, choose from the possible objectives you have listed,
the one that seems the most important, and record it
separately on a single card. Carry this card with
you at all times. Think about this goal every
day. Create a concrete mental image of the goal, as
if you’ve already accomplished it.”
The doctor points out, “You can determine your special
talents or strengths in a number of ways, ranging from
psychological tests to an analysis of the unexpressed
wishes in your dreams. No method works for
everyone. You might start, for example, by clipping
and posting newspaper articles that interest you.
After 30 days, see if there isn’t some trend suggestive
or a deep-seated interest of natural inclination.
Keep alert to the slightest indications of any special
skills or talents, even when they seem silly or
unimportant.
“From this exercise, you should be able to get some
sense of potential strengths. Whenever you discover a
strength or talent, think of five possible ways to develop
it. Write these down on a card as well, and check
them periodically to keep them fresh in your mind.”
So take the good advice of psychiatrist Dr. Ari Kiev, and
don’t be afraid of failure. As Herodotus wrote,
“It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being
subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain
in cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen.”
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Joy
Leo Buscaglia
I recall when I was traveling through Asia that I was
constantly encountering people who existed, according
to our standards, at barely above a starvation level,
yet they lived in genuine joy. Their lives were
filled with smiles, song, dance and celebration of
whatever they had. Of course, I am not
advocating the naive illusion of the "happy
peasant." All who do desire should be able
to rise above whatever social condition in which they
were born and attain whatever prize they want for what
they believe to be their betterment or
happiness. What I'm saying is that nothing but life
itself is necessary for humans to know joy and
happiness.
I constantly had this affirmed in my work with
handicapped individuals. I saw quadriplegics who
smiled and laughed their way through life, while those
working with them, with every physical advantage, were
often miserable, unsatisfied and depressed. It
is strange that some of the happiest people I have
ever known were those who seemed to have no particular
cause to rejoice. They were simply happy.
They seemed to have in common a singular courage, a
willingness to risk, to fail and let go, a belief in
themselves, a wonderful resourcefulness, a trust in
their creative uniqueness and an ability to hold on to
their dream.
Perhaps much happiness is lost in the pursuit of
it. Hawthorne in his American Notebooks
said that happiness always comes incidentally.
"Make it the object of pursuit," he stated,
"and it leads us on a wild goose chase and is
never attained." He suggests that we should
lose our way and follow something totally
unrelated. In that way we often happen on
happiness without ever dreaming it would be there.
We are far too rational in our relationships, far too
ordered, organized and predictable. We need to
find a place, just this side of madness and
irrationality, where we can, from time to time, leave
the mundane and move into spontaneity and serendipity,
a level that includes a greater sense of freedom and
risk--an active environment full of surprises, which
encourages a sense of wonder. Here, ideas and
feelings which would otherwise be difficult to state
can be expressed freely. A bond of love is easy
to find in an environment of joy. When we laugh
together we bypass reason and logic, as the clown
does. We speak a universal language. We
feel closer to one another.
Joy, humor, laughter--all are wonderful, easily
accessible tools for bringing comfort into a
relationship. They can be used to overcome
inhibitions and tension. Doctor William Fry of
Stanford University has just recently reported that
laughter aids digestion (give up your antacids),
stimulates the heart and strengthens muscles (give up
jogging), and activates the brain's creative function
and keeps you alert (give up artificial
stimulants). All this with a good guffaw.
Joy and happiness are simply states of mind. As
such they can help us to find creative
solutions. When we feel joyful, euphoric, happy,
we are more open to life, more capable of seeing
things clearly and handling daily tensions. When
one laughs, the body secretes a special hormone that
is a natural painkiller. Norman Cousins claims
to have cured himself of a terminal illness wit, among
other things, the power of laughter. Good
uproarious laughter of the roll-in-the-aisle type,
causes all the vital organs to vibrate and jostle,
much like what happens to us when we jog. So, if
we're too lazy to jog, we can laugh our way to
health! Throw out the aspirin and giggle away
despair.
For years, I had been told that I was taking life too
casually, that my attitude would surely lead me to
wrack and ruin. A man of my professional
background should be an example--firm, serious, with
his "feet planted firmly on the
ground." With my two feet "firmly
planted on the ground," I found I couldn't get my
pants on! With my feet in the air, it's easier
now!
"Joy comes in our lives," Joseph Addison
says, "when we have something to do, something to
love, and something to hope for."
Live fully and with abandon. Love totally and
without fear. Hope splendidly and never
relinquish the dream. These will help us but joy
will only be ours when we choose it. As Abraham
Lincoln reminded us, "Most folks are about as
happy as they make up their minds to be."
Many a relationship has been saved by a good belly
laugh.
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When you are annoyed at someone's mistake,
immediately look at
yourself and reflect how you also fail; for example, in
thinking that
good equals money, or pleasure, or a bit of fame. By
being mindful
of this you'll quickly forget your anger, especially if you
realize that
the person was under stress, and could do little else.
And, if you can, find a way to alleviate that stress.
Marcus Aurelius
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A Night on the Roadside
A long time ago, I lived in Spain for a couple of
years. There was a point at which I had to
hitch-hike from Barcelona to Salamanca, a distance
of just over 500 miles. I had no idea how long
it would take me to get there--I just put myself out
on the highway and stuck out my thumb, hoping, of
course, to get there as soon as I possibly could.
That wouldn't end up being the case, though. I
did get a couple of rides from a few very nice
people, and by the afternoon, I had made it most of
the way to Madrid, and the last guy to give me a
ride also gave me a prediction: "I
predict that you will get a ride very soon and make
it to Salamanca tonight."
Boy, was he wrong. He dropped me off at about
seven, I think, and there were still almost three
hours of light left in the day. I kept
walking, something that I always did while hitching
simply because it seemed to be a much more
productive use of my time than just standing
there. What that meant, though, was that I
spent the next few hours before dark moving away
from the town where he had dropped me off, and there
really was nothing ahead of me for quite a
while--though I really hadn't planned on being on
the road for a long time. After all, he had
made a pretty bold prediction, and who was I to
doubt his prescience?
I should have doubted. Three hours later, as
the sun was disappearing from the sky, I was still
walking. Nobody stopped to give me a ride, and
I was very fortunate to come across a roadside bar
where I was able to get a cup of coffee and a
sandwich for dinner. There was nothing else
around for many miles, and there was no chance of
catching a bus or a train into Madrid, either.
So I was stuck in this little bar, wondering just
what I was going to do for the night. There
was no place to stay, and there was no chance of
getting a ride after dark. My options were
few.
Though it was unfortunate that there was nothing
around, I soon found out that it was also
fortunate--once I realized that I would have to be
sleeping outdoors, I felt much safer being in the
middle of nowhere, where no one was likely to show
up to harass me or make me leave, than I would have
felt in a place that had many people around.
Around midnight I left the bar and started walking
in the direction of Madrid so that I could find a
place to crash for the night. I didn't want to
go too far because I figured the bar could be useful
in the morning if it was open, and I soon found a
little building that seemed to meet my needs.
It looked like one of those little brick sheds that
are built for a specific purpose, either to contain
electrical circuits or as some sort of storage
unit. I went to the side of it that wasn't
facing the road and I sat down with my back to its
wall.
It was pretty quiet, except for the occasional car
on the road behind me, and I was quite surprised to
find that it was pretty pleasant. There were
bushes and trees in front of me, though I could
barely make them out in the dark. I knew that
I would be spending the next six or seven hours
there because there simply was nowhere else to go
and I definitely needed some sleep after and entire
day of hitch-hiking.
What surprised me the most, I think, was that I
wasn't feeling too bad about my situation. I
was frustrated, of course, but not terribly so--I
knew that things could have been much worse, and
that sleeping on the side of the road wasn't
necessarily such a bad thing. I felt safe
where I was and I did have some money in my pocket
and I knew that the next day was only a few hours
away. I had a bag with me that I could use as
a pillow, and my only real problem was that it was a
bit chilly and I had no blanket, but that was far
from a horrible problem. It certainly wasn't
going to get down near freezing that night, though
it was pretty cold.
I spent the next few hours trying to get some sleep
in spite of the uncomfortable ground and the cold
air. I did fall asleep at times, but I had no
way of knowing just how much sleep I actually
got--it wasn't much, that was for sure. I
definitely wasn't prepared for sleeping
outdoors. I had no sleeping bag, no blanket,
no coat or sweater. But none of that really
mattered.
I realized while I was sitting there that even
though my precise location wasn't where I had
planned or hoped to be at that moment, I was still
where I wanted to be. I was in Spain, and I
was hitching from Barcelona to Salamanca to enroll
in a Spanish course that I would be taking for the
next year. I had just finished my BA in
Spanish a couple of months earlier, and I was now
living in Spain, improving my language skills and
learning tons about the cultures and ways of life of
the people there.
I knew that even though my situation seemed rather
negative, it was a very small episode in my life,
one that spanned merely a few hours. The sun
would come up soon and life would go on--I'd go back
out on the road and make my way to Madrid and then
to Salamanca, I'd register for the course and then
within a few weeks I'd be starting it, fulfilling
the purpose for which I had come to the country in
the first place. Even though it seemed rather
impossible, given my lack of financial resources and
support from others, there I was, and I was fine
with that. I would have preferred that night
to be somewhere warm and comfortable, but I simply
wasn't. And since I didn't have the resources
necessary to change my situation in those moments, I
had to either accept it or be angry about it.
And in hindsight, I'm quite surprised--and
pleased--that I was able to accept it so readily.
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To
travel a circle is to journey over the same ground time and
time
again. To travel a circle wisely is to journey over the same
ground
for the first time. In this way, the ordinary becomes
extraordinary,
and the circle, a path to where you wish to be. And when you
notice
at last that the path has circled back into itself, you
realize that
where you wish to be is where you have already
been. . . and always were.
Neale
Donald Walsch
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I love
my sea-shell of a house. I wish I could live in it always. I
wish I could
transport it home. But I cannot. It will not hold a husband,
five children and
the necessities and trappings of daily life. I can only carry back
my little
channeled whelk. It will sit on my desk in Connecticut, to remind me
of the
ideal of a simplified life, to encourage me in the game I played on the
beach. To ask how little, not how much, can I get along with. To say--is it
necessary?--when I am tempted to add one more accumulation to my life, when I am
pulled
toward one more centrifugal activity.
Simplification of outward life is not enough. It is
merely the outside. But I am
starting with the outside. I am looking at the outside of a shell,
the outside of my
life--the shell. The complete answer is not to be found on the
outside, in an
outward mode of living. This is only a technique, a road to
grace. The final
answer, I know, is always inside. But the outside can give a clue,
can help one
to find the inside answer. One is free, like the hermit crab, to
change one's shell.
Anne Morrow
Lindbergh
Gift from the Sea
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The
people who say you are not facing
reality actually
mean that you are
not facing their idea of reality.
Margaret
Halsey
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