Another
March has made it into our lives, and we're very
happy that we get
the opportunity to share another month on this
planet with you--thanks much
for being here! We hope that there's something
here in this issue that will
be of interest or even of use to you today!
There
is no road too long to the person who advances deliberately and
without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the person
who prepares him or herself for them with patience.
Jean de la
Bruyere
If
all the beasts were gone, people would die
from a great
loneliness of spirit, for whatever
happens to the beasts also happens
to the person. All things are connected.
attributed
to Chief Seattle
Begin
to see
what is in
front of you,
rather than
what you learned is there.
Love is the only satisfactory answer
to the
problem of human existence.
Erich Fromm
Love is the energy at the center of all life. It is the
reality beneath our fears, the breath within the breath,
the seed of all that grows. Loving ourselves, loving
others, and loving spirit/God are inseparable, for all
life is interconnected and sacred. Love is an energy force
like the air you breathe; if you withdraw your love from
anyone, you take your breath away.
We become increasingly able to love as we integrate
ourselves and become whole. Our wholeness is expressed in
a lust for life and a capacity for joy, delight, and
adventure. Our wholeness gives birth to compassion, which
Ram Dass describes in Compassion in Action as "the
tender opening of our hearts to pain and suffering."
For most people, the journey toward love requires that
we penetrate the armor around our hearts, feel our grief,
and open ourselves to all our feelings. In doing so we
become more truly alive, deepen our self-acceptance, and
become less and less dependent on others to validate our
worth. This frees us to stand in the center of our power
and to give generously of ourselves from a sense of inner
safety, potency, and vitality.
The ability to give generously of ourselves without
feeling we are giving up something or being controlled is
at the heart of intimacy because it reflects our
individual strength and development.
We reach for words to describe love, but, ultimately,
love is an experience of unity, peace, or ecstasy that
goes beyond words.
Too often people mistake love for fancy presents,
sentimental greeting cards, or lavish praise. But love is
not sentimental; love takes discipline, awareness, and a
willingness to step into the fire of transformation. It is
born of the minute-to-minute choices we make throughout
our days as we bring honesty, integrity, and compassion to
all we do and say.
People often treat love like a commodity that you can turn
on for some people and off for others. But you can't truly
love your partner and hate your neighbor, or exploit the
people who work for you. Love can't be compartmentalized
because it is central to your being. You can't turn on
half a light bulb. You can dim it or make it brighter, but
when it's on, the light shines equally in all directions.
Disconnection and separateness, nearly always stemming
from fear, are the opposite of love. To be disconnected
can be a dull anxious feeling of inner detachment that
makes life seem mundane, superficial, and routine.
We feel controlled by external events and lack an inner
core that allows us to be spontaneous, fluid, and
flexible. We see people as bodies, but not as souls --
they have form and shape and even beauty, but we don't
feel their essence.
When we are disconnected from our inner core, we are
unable to absorb and be moved by beauty, wonder, and
kindness. We hear music, but it doesn't make our heart
sing. We see flowers, but they might as well be plastic.
We touch someone, but there is no connection. When we feel
separated, it's hard to trust that anyone cares, or could
possibly love us if they were to see our hidden, shameful
side.
We can bring ourselves back to love -- to the home of
our heart-by remembering that we are all children of our
Creator, sacred because we are alive. If we accept our
intrinsic worth, we can give up the futile search for
external validation and put our energy into developing our
ability to develop our talents and strengths.
We can also remember that we have free will. Because we
are pure potential, we are not locked into our past, but
have the ability to recreate ourselves moment to moment by
our thoughts, actions, and willingness to experiment with
new behavior and give up old rigid patterns that no longer
serve our growth.
We also become willing to dive deep below the surface
into our buried wounds. We have an amazing ability to heal
and transform as we tap the powerful energy source
underlying all our feelings and emotions.
Instead of labeling our feelings as good or bad we see
them as energy that can be redirected for our growth. The
inward journey becomes easier as we tap into our heart's
capacity for humor, compassion, and mercy. We become able
to take ourselves into our heart, embracing all that we
are and all that we have been. It becomes a mystical,
humorous, fascinating show as we learn to observe
ourselves, yet immerse ourselves in life.
From this point of self-acceptance and compassion we
develop the willingness to share our feelings in their
raw, vulnerable state, not after we've figured them out or
gotten them under control. This doesn't mean that we
unload our emotions on others, it means that we stop
hiding, faking a smile, or presenting ourselves as we wish
to be seen. We accept our humanness and allow it to be
seen.
One of my favorite phrases from one of the dances of
universal peace is "God is love, lover, and
Beloved." If we break "Beloved" in two, we
have "be loved": Be loved by spirit, be loved by
yourself, be loved by others. If we remove the last letter
of "Beloved," we have "be love."
Don't seek love or lover, simply be love. Be at peace
with All That Is, and know you are the Beloved. And when
you find a lover, know that the journey is to dance
together in the circle of love, growing, playing,
struggling, and accepting with a smile the incredible
predicament of being human. When we can do this, even for
a few moments, we will feel a flow of energy like the
current of a river dissolving our separateness and
bringing us to greater unity.
We
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non-fiction!
The
stories of people achieving unusual success
despite all manner of handicaps never fail to
capture our attention. They're inspirational to
be sure. But they're much more than that if we
study them closely.
The
boy whose legs were terribly
burned and who was told he'd be lucky to ever
walk again becomes a champion track star. The
woman blind and deaf from infancy becomes one of
the most inspirational figures of the century.
And the poor children who rise to fame and
fortune have nearly become commonplace.
In this age of unprecedented immigration, we see
examples of people who start off in this world
with virtually nothing and within a surprisingly
short time have become wonderfully successful.
What sets these people apart, people with vast
handicaps such as not knowing the language, not
knowing the right people, not having any money?
What drives the boy with the burned legs who
becomes the champion runner or a Helen Keller,
blind and deaf who becomes one of the most
inspirational figures of our time? The answer,
if fully understood, will bring you and me
anything and everything we truly want, and it's
deceptively simple. Perhaps it's too simple.
The people we've talked about here and the
thousands currently doing the same thing all
over the world are in possession of something
the average person doesn't have. They have
goals. They have a burning desire to succeed
despite all obstacles and handicaps. They know
exactly what they want; they think about it
every day of their lives. It gets them up in the
morning, and it keeps them giving their very
best all day long. It's the last thing they
think about before dropping off to sleep at
night. They have a vision of exactly what they
want to do, and that vision carries them over
every obstacle.
This vision, this dream, this goal, invisible to
all the world except the person holding it, is
responsible for perhaps every great advance and
achievement of humankind. It's the underlying
motive for just about everything we see about
us. Everything worthwhile achieved by men and
women is a dream come true, a goal reached. It's
been said that what the mind can conceive and
believe, it can achieve.
It's the fine building where before there was an
empty lot or an old eyesore. It's the bridge
spanning the bay. It's landing on the moon. And
it's that little convenience store in Midtown
Manhattan. It's the lovely home on a tree-shaded
street and the young person accepting the
diploma. It's a low golf handicap and a position
reached in the world of business. It's a certain
income attained or amount of money invested.
What the mind can conceive and believe, it can
achieve.
We become what we think about. And when we're
possessed by an exciting goal, we reach it.
That's why it's been said, "Be choosy,
therefore, of what you set your heart upon. For
if you want it strongly enough, you'll get
it."
Americans can have anything they want. The
trouble is they don't know what they want. Oh,
they want little things. They want a new car;
they get it. They want a new refrigerator; they
get it. They want a new home and they get it.
The system never fails for them, but they don't
seem to understand that it is a system. Nor that
if it'll work for a refrigerator or a new car,
it will work for anything else they want very
much, just as well.
Goals are the very basis of any success. It is
in fact the definition of success. The best
definition of success I've ever found goes like
this, "Success is the progressive
realization of a worthy goal." Or in some
cases the pursuit of a worthy "ideal."
It's a beautiful definition of success. It means
that anyone who's on course toward the
fulfillment of a goal is successful.
Now, success doesn't lie in the achievement of a
goal, although that's what the world considers
success; it lies in the journey toward the goal.
We're successful as long as we're working toward
something we want to bring about in our lives.
That's when the human being is at his or her
best. That's what Cervantes meant when he wrote,
"The road is better than the inn."
We're at our best when we're climbing, thinking,
planning, working. When we're on the road toward
something we want to bring about.
With our definition, success being the
progressive realization of a worthy goal, we
cover all the bases. The young person working to
finish school is as successful as any person on
earth. The person working toward a particular
position with his or her company is just as
successful.
If you have a goal that you find worthy of you
as a person, a goal that fills you with joy at
the thought of it, believe me, you'll reach it.
But as you draw near and see that the goal will
soon be achieved, begin to think ahead to the
next goal you're going to set. It often happens
that a writer halfway through a book will hit
upon the idea for his next one and begin making
notes or ideas for a title even while he's
finishing work on the one in progress. That's
the way it should be.
It's estimated that about 5% of the population
achieves unusual success. For the rest, average
seems to be good enough. Most seem to just drift
along, taking circumstances as they come, and
perhaps hoping from time to time that things
will get better.
I like to compare human beings with ships, as
Carlyle used to do. It's estimated that about 95
percent can be compared to ships without
rudders, subject to every shift of wind and
tide. They're helplessly adrift, and while they
fondly hope that they will one day drift into
some rich and bustling port, for every narrow
harbor entrance, there are 1,000 miles of rocky
coastline.
The chances of their drifting into port are
1,000 to 1 against them. Our state lottery is a
tax on such people. So are the slot machines in
Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Someone wins from
time to time to be sure, but the odds are still
there ... stacked steeply against them.
But the 5 percent who have taken the time and
exercised the discipline to climb into the
driver's seat of their lives, who've decided
upon a challenging goal to reach and have fully
committed themselves to reaching it, sail
straight and far across the deep oceans of life,
reaching one port after another and
accomplishing more in just a few years than the
rest accomplish in a lifetime.
If you should visit a ship in port and ask the
captain for his next port of call, he'll tell
you in a single sentence. Even though the
captain cannot see his port, his destination for
fully 99% of the voyage, he knows it's there.
And then, barring an unforeseen and highly
unlikely catastrophe, he'll reach it. If someone
asks you for your next port of call, your goal,
could you tell him?
Is your goal clean and concise in your mind? Do
you have it written down? It's a good idea. We
need reminding, reinforcement. If you can get a
picture of your goal and stick it to your
bathroom mirror, it's an excellent idea to do
so. Thousands of successful people carry their
goals written on a card in their wallets or
purses.
When you ask people what they're working for,
chances are they'll answer in vague
generalities. They might say, "Oh, good
health or happiness or lots of money."
That's not good enough. Good health should be a
universal goal. We all want that, and do our
best to achieve and maintain it.
Happiness is a byproduct of something else. And
lots of money is much too vague. It might work,
but I think it's better to choose a particular
sum of money. The better, the clearer our goal
is defined, the more real it becomes to us, and
before long, the more attainable. Happiness
comes from the direction in which we're moving.
Children are happier on Christmas morning before
opening their presents than they are Christmas
afternoon. No matter how wonderful their
presents may be, it's after Christmas. They'll
enjoy their gifts, to be sure, but we often find
them querulous and irritable Christmas
afternoon. We're happier on our way out to
dinner than we are on the way home. We're
happier going on vacation than we are coming
home from it. And we're happier moving toward
our goals than even after they've been
accomplished, believe it or not.
Life plays no favorites. Yet of one thing you
may be sure, you will become what you think
about. If your thinking is circular and chaotic,
your life will reflect that chaos. But if your
thinking is orderly and clear, if you have a
goal that's important for you to reach, then
reach it you will.
One goal at a time. That's important. That's
where most people unwittingly make their
mistake. They don't concentrate on a single goal
long enough to reach it before they're off on
another track, then another, with the result
that they achieve nothing. Nothing but confusion
and excuses.
By thinking every morning, every night, and as
many times during the day as you can about this
exciting single goal you've established for
yourself, you actually begin moving toward it
and bringing it toward you. When you concentrate
your thinking, it's like taking a river that's
twisting and turning and meandering all over the
countryside and putting it into a straight,
smooth channel. Now it has power, direction,
economy, speed.
So decide upon your goal. Insist upon it. Demand
it! Look at your goal card every morning and
night and as many times during the day as you
conveniently can. By so doing, you will
insinuate your goal into your subconscious mind.
You'll see yourself as having already attained
your goal, and do that every day without fail,
and it will become a habit before you realize
it. A habit that will take you from one success
to another all the years of your life. For that
is the secret of success, the door to everything
you will ever have or be.
You are now and you most certainly will become what you think about.
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
The
masters in the art of living make little
distinction between their
work and their play, their labor and their leisure, their minds and their
bodies,
their information and their recreation, their love and their religion. They
hardly
know
which is which. They simply pursue their
vision
of excellence at
whatever they do, leaving others
to decide whether they are working
or playing. To them they're always doing both.
The process of resolving an inner or interpersonal conflict
or handling an emotion that we have struggled with for many
years or decades, such as anger or fear, in a healthy manner is
one that frequently entails making progress and suffering
setbacks. We usually feel excited and pleased with
ourselves when we make some surprising progress and discouraged
and disappointed when we regress or backslide.
When we do suffer a discouraging setback, it tends to feel
like we are back at square one, but that is almost always not
the case. The progress we have made prior to the setback
is real; it is not to be discounted or negated, though our
feelings of disappointment, shame, or remorse and our subsequent
loss of perspective may try to convince us otherwise. One
key indicator that we have made and are continuing to make
progress is that the setback will not keep us down for very
long, not nearly as long as it may have in the past.
Progress is evident after a setback or moment of regression or
failure when:
* We quickly apologize or make amends to the
person(s) we may have harmed.
* We spend less time and energy beating
ourselves up and forgive ourselves more quickly.
* We regain our perspective and see our
setback as a setback and nothing more than that, and
certainly not as anything that detracts from our value
as a human being.
* We assess what factors were at play in our
setback, such as feeling exhausted or overwhelmed, and
try to recognize these warning signs in the future.
* We recall specific times and situations in
the past when we had a taste of success in this
particular area of struggle or difficulty.
* We are able to poke a little bit of fun at
ourselves and not take our moment of regression with
such deathly seriousness.
* We realize that we are neither alone nor
unique in experiencing setbacks, but simply an imperfect
and mistake-prone human being like everyone else.
* We extend the compassion to ourselves that
we would to another person if he or she had suffered a
similar setback or moment of failure.
For instance, if we have recently lost our composure (which
happened to me just the other day when I was discussing religion
with someone), we usually feel disappointed with or even ashamed
of ourselves (Why did I let that happen? I should have
recognized that our conversation was going nowhere and either
agreed to disagree with this person or changed the subject!).
Our inner critical voice may be champing at the bit, as mine
always is, to put in his or her two cents worth.
But as is
often the case, a setback or regression of some type precedes or
paves the way for even greater progress. For some unknown
reason, a setback almost always seems to be necessary at times
in order for our next growth spurt to occur. Perhaps we
have another significant lesson to learn. Or maybe we need
to be reminded that whenever we react in familiar
counterproductive ways, such as yelling, the silent treatment,
blaming, retaliation, and the like, we are setting ourselves up
to suffer inevitable feelings of remorse or shame. A
setback, though often painful, is not without potential
redeeming value, for it frequently paves the way for a comeback
and gives us the momentum to grow more than we would have had we
not suffered the setback. Go figure! Personally, I
would prefer to make significant progress without having to
suffer setbacks, but life doesn't usually seem to work that way.
A group of students were asked to list what they
thought were the present “Seven Wonders of The World.” Though
there were some disagreements, the following received the most
votes: Egypt's Great Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon,
the Panama Canal, the Empire State Building, St. Peter's Basilica,
and China's Great Wall.
While gathering the votes, the teacher noted that one student had
not finished her paper yet. So she asked the girl if she was
having trouble with her list. The girl replied, “Yes, a
little. I couldn't make up my mind because there were so
many.”
The teacher said, “Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can
help.”
The girl hesitated, then read, “I think the Seven Wonders of the
World are:
"To see, to hear, to touch, to taste, to feel, to laugh, to
love."
The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. The things
we overlook as simple and ordinary and that we take for granted are
truly wondrous! A gentle reminder – that the most precious things
in life cannot be built by hand or bought by people.
The
finest gift you can give anyone is encouragement. Yet, almost no
one gets
the encouragement they need to grow to their full potential. If
everyone
received the encouragement they need to grow, the genius in most
everyone
would blossom and the world would produce abundance beyond the
wildest dreams. We would have more than one Einstein, Edison,
Schweitzer,
Mother Theresa, Dr. Salk and other great minds in a century.
Sidney
Madwed
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
™
