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28 July 2009 |
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My
view is that to sit back and let fate play its hand out and never
influence it is not the way people were meant to operate.
John
Glenn
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People judge you
by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of
gold, but so has a hard-boiled egg.
Good Reading
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| People
often mistake notoriety for fame, and would rather be remarked for
their vices and follies than not be noticed at all.
Harry S. Truman
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The
question we do not see when we are young is whether we own pride
or are owned by it.
Josephine
Johnson
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Don't
Take Anything Personally
Don Miguel Ruiz
The next three
agreements are really born from the first agreement. The
second agreement is don't take anything personally.
Whatever happens
around you, don't take it personally. Using an earlier
example, if I see you on the street and I say, "Hey, you are
so stupid," without knowing you, it's not about you; it's
about me. If you take it personally, perhaps you believe you
are stupid. Maybe you think to yourself, "How does he
know? Is he clairvoyant, or can everybody see how stupid I
am?"
You take it
personally because you agree with whatever was said. As soon
as you agree, the poison goes through you, and you are trapped in
the dream of hell. What causes you to be trapped is what we
call personal importance. Personal importance, or
taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness
because we make the assumption that everything is about
"me." During the period of our education, or our
domestication, we learn to take everything personally. We
think we are responsible for everything. Me, me, me, always
me!
Nothing other
people do is because of you. It is because of
themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own
mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we
live in. When we take something personally, we make the
assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to
impose our world on their world.
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Even when a
situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly,
it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do,
and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they
have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all
the programming they received during domestication.
If someone gives
you an opinion and says, "Hey, you look so fat," don't
take it personally, because the truth is that this person is
dealing with his or her own feelings, beliefs, and opinions.
That person tried to send poison to you and if you take it
personally, then you take that poison and it becomes yours.
Taking things personally makes you easy prey for these predators,
the black magicians. They can hook you easily with one
little opinion and feed you whatever poison they want, and because
you take it personally, you eat it up.
You eat all their
emotional garbage, and now it becomes your garbage. But if
you do not take it personally, you are immune in the middle of
hell. Immunity to poison in the middle of hell is the gift
of this agreement.
When you take
things personally, then you feel offended, and your reaction is to
defend your beliefs and create conflicts. You make something
big out of something so little, because you have the need to be
right and make everybody else wrong. You also try hard to be
right by giving them your own opinions. In the same way,
whatever you feel and do is just a projection of your own personal
dream, a reflection of your own agreements. What you say,
what you do and the opinions you have are according to the
agreements you have made--and these opinions have nothing to do
with me.
It is not
important to me what you think about me, and I don't take what you
think personally. I don't take it personally when people
say, "Miguel, you are the best," and I also don't take
it personally when they say, "Miguel, you are the
worst." I know that when you are happy you will tell
me, "Miguel, you are such an angel!" But, when you
are mad at me you will say, "Oh, Miguel, you are such a
devil! You are so disgusting. How can you say those
things?" Either way, it does not affect me because I
know what I am. I don't have the need to be accepted.
I don't have the need to have someone tell me, "Miguel, you
are doing so good!" or "How dare you do that!"
No, I don't take
it personally. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know
is your problem and not my problem. It is the way you see
the world. It is nothing personal, because you are dealing
with yourself, not with me. Others are going to have their
own opinion according to their belief system, so nothing they
think about me is really about me, but it is about them.
You may even tell
me, "Miguel, what you are saying is hurting me."
But it is not what I am saying that is hurting you; it is that you
have wounds that I touch by what I have said. You are
hurting yourself. There is no way that I can take this
personally. Not because I don't believe in you or don't
trust you, but because I know that you see the world with
different eyes, with your eyes. You create an entire picture
or movie in your mind, and in that picture you are the director,
you are the producer, you are the main actor or actress.
Everyone else is a secondary actor or actress. It is your
movie.
The way that you
see that movie is according to the agreements you have made with
life. Your point of view is something personal to you.
It is no one's truth but yours. Then, if you get mad at me,
I know you are dealing with yourself. I am the excuse for
you to get mad. And you get mad because you are afraid,
because you are dealing with fear. If you are not afraid,
there is no way you will get mad at me. If you are not
afraid, there is no way you will hate me. If you are not
afraid, there is no way you will be jealous or sad.
If you live
without fear, if you love, there is no place for any of these
emotions. If you don't feel any of those emotions, it is
logical that you will feel good. When you feel good,
everything around you is good. When everything around you is
good, everything makes you happy. You are loving everything
that is around you, because you are loving yourself. Because
you like the way you are. Because you are content with
you. Because you are happy with your life. You are
happy with the movie you are producing, happy with your agreements
with life. You are at peace, and you are happy. You
live in that state of bliss where everything is so wonderful, and
everything is so beautiful. In that state of bliss you are
making love all the time with everything that you perceive.
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Sit
at the foot of a native elder and listen as great
wisdom of days long past is passed down. In The
Four Agreements shamanic teacher and healer Don
Miguel Ruiz exposes self-limiting beliefs and
presents a simple yet effective code of personal
conduct learned from his Toltec ancestors.
Full of grace and simple truth, this handsomely
designed book makes a lovely gift for anyone making
an elementary change in life, and it reads in a
voice that you would expect from an indigenous
shaman. |
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Eyes Wide
Open
tom walsh
What Really
Matters
One of the
things that I've been learning better than I used to these past
few years is just how few things really matter in my
life. As a youngster, I somehow learned that everything
matters, that every little piece of input into my life was somehow
important.
It used to
matter to me a lot if my favorite professional sports teams were
winning or losing, coming in first or coming in fourth.
These days, however, I simply watch the results and the standings,
and I admire the great efforts and the records and the special
performances. But none of that changes my life or my mood or
my perspective on the world. I never have a bad day because
a certain team lost, and I don't need a victory by my favorite
team for my day to be nice.
Since my
wife and I stopped watching television completely, I'm no longer
swayed by the news or the advertising that has become so
predominant on TV. When Michael Jackson died, I felt bad for
him and his family, but it really didn't touch me
personally. I can't tell you how many people I heard,
though, saying "I wish they would just stop with the Michael
Jackson stories. I'm getting fed up hearing about
him!" It sounded like the news media were treating his
death as something that was very important to all of their
viewers, even though the bottom line was that his death really mattered
to only a few people. (I wanted to tell the people to turn
off their TV's if they didn't want to hear about him, but that
didn't seem to be an option for them.)
And I don't
miss the ads, which are designed to try to convince me that
something I can buy is much more important to me than it really
is. In fact, most of the products and services in ads have
nothing to do with me, and no importance to me at all. But
the people who make those commercials are paid to make me want to
buy the products or services--whether I need them or not.
That's their job in life, to try to get you to buy because
suddenly you think that this product or service really matters in
your life. The truth is, though, if you've gone this long
without it, it probably really doesn't matter at all.
It really
doesn't matter to me that Sarah Palin just quit her job.
It's slightly interesting, but mostly in a voyeuristic sort of
way. It doesn't matter to me how many homes have been
foreclosed in Indiana, though it is pretty interesting to see the
depths of our economic downturn.
We have to
choose what matters to us, for when something truly matters, it
can change us. It can change the way we act and feel, and it
can change our moods and emotions.
And if we
allow too much to really matter, then we can spread our
feelings and emotions so thinly that the things that are very
close to us don't receive nearly as much of our attention as they
deserve.
I knew a
man once who coached a soccer team. That team really
mattered to him, and he spent all year working with the kids on
the team, taking them to tournaments and coaching them and trying
to help them to improve.
And all
that time, he had three kids at home who always had the feeling
that they didn't matter to him nearly as much as the team
did. Those kids are grown now, and they really don't care
too much if they see their dad or not. He wasn't there for
them early in their lives because something else mattered more to
him, so now they see him pretty indifferently.
I recently
sat down and made a list of what really matters to me. I
came up with things like my relationships (with my wife, my
stepkids, God, my family, etc.), peace of mind, rest, taking care
of my body and spirit, my work, this website, the kids I work
with. And on that list are things that I really spend very
little time on, especially my relationship with God (and I don't
see that as happening in a church) and taking care of my
spirit. What that means to me is that if these things really
do matter, I need to rethink how I spend my time, especially the
time I spend on things that don't matter to me at all.
After all,
what would life be like if we really focused on those things that
truly mattered to us, instead of spending so much time on the
things that really don't? What if more parents spent more
time with their kids than they did watching sports or sitcoms or
other TV programs? Focusing on what matters is just as much
an issue of figuring out what doesn't, and then making choices
about how we spend our time and effort.
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My heart
leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So it was when my life began;
So it is now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is the father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
William Wordsworth |
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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. |
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There
Is No Education like Adversity
Harvey Mackay
One school of
business studied 400 executives who had made it to the top and
compared them to 400 who fell by the wayside during their
careers. The idea was to discover how those who became
successful differed from those who didn't.
Education was
not the key factor because high school dropouts were running
companies, while some MBAs were slamming into dead ends.
Experience? Then those at the top should have been older, and
that wasn't the case. Technical skills, social skills and
dozens of other career-related variables were examined as
well. Those factors didn't provide the explanation either.
What is the
only single quality that distinguished those who made it from those
who did not? They persevered.
Adversity
will come to every person at some time. How you meet it, what
you make of it, what you allow it to take from you and give to you,
is determined by your mental habits. In short, you have to
take the cards in life that are dealt to you.
You can train
your mind to face life's toughest challenges-and it is especially
important to develop this habit before you actually need it.
Little children get their first lesson with "The Little Engine
that Could."
Faced with pulling many train cars up an enormous hill, larger
engines refused to attempt it. Finally, a small engine agrees
to try, repeating the mantra,
"I-think-I-can,
I-think-I-can." After reaching the crest, the little
engine triumphantly chugs:
"I-thought-I-could,
I-thought-I-could."
I'd like to
alter the story a bit for the grown-up crowd. Change the chant
to:
"I-know-I-can,
I-know-I-can!"
Adversity can
actually be a positive thing, even though it certainly doesn't feel
like it when we are facing it. Adversity is what defines
us. It is easy to have a great attitude, a strong work ethic
and a positive outlook when things are going great. But how do
we stand up during tough times?
Consider the
following phenomenal achievements of famous people who experienced
severe adversity:
- When Bob
Dylan performed at his high school talent show, classmates booed him
off the stage.
- Walt Disney
experienced both bankruptcy and a tragic nervous breakdown and still
made it to the top of the mountain.
- President
Harry S. Truman went broke in the men's clothing store he started.
- Sir Walter
Raleigh wrote the "History of the World" during a 13-year
imprisonment.
- Martin
Luther translated the Bible while enduring confinement in the Castle
of Wartburg.
- Dante wrote
the "Divine Comedy" while under a sentence of death and
during 20 years in exile.
- Handicapped
at birth, Helen Keller was not able to speak, hear or see during her
long life, yet she became a famous author and worldwide celebrity
for her charm and wisdom.
We must push
through the adversity we face. If we don't, we will be poorly
prepared for winning. People are successful because they face
adversity head on to gain strength and skill. They don't take
the path of least resistance. Adversity is a powerful teacher.
President
Abraham Lincoln said, "My great concern is not whether you have
failed but whether you are content with your failure."
And few people failed in early life as much as Lincoln, yet he is
regarded as one of our greatest presidents.
When you get
discouraged, when you cannot seem to make it, there is one thing
that you cannot do without. It is that priceless ingredient of
success called relentless effort. You must never give
up. Success cannot be achieved without experiencing some
adversity.
An Asian
saying advises, "When fate throws a dagger at you, there are
only two ways to catch it, either by the blade or by the
handle."
There was an
old farmer who had suffered through a lifetime of troubles and
afflictions that would have leveled an ordinary mortal. But
through it all he never lost his sense of humor.
"How
have you managed to keep so happy and serene?" asked a friend.
"It
ain't hard," said the old fellow with a twinkle in his
eye. "I've just learned to cooperate with the
inevitable."
"Cooperating
with the inevitable" enables us to catch adversity by the
handle, thereby using it as the tool that it was intended to be.
Mackay's
Moral: Adversity causes some people to break and others to
break records.
Copyright
Your Achievement Ezine
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Unloving
Situations
Iyanla Vanzant
It is not loving to stay in a place or an experience where you
are happy sometimes, sad most of the time. It is not loving
to convince yourself that it is okay to stay in a place where you
are not loved, honored, and valued the way your heart tells you
you deserve to be. It is not self-loving, or is it loving to
others involved, to allow yourself to be mentally, emotionally, or
physically abused in hope that things can, or will, get
better. When you participate in actions and activities that
are not loving toward you, you are helping them do things that
hurt you, and that is not a loving thing to do.
It is easy
to convince yourself that you must stay where you are because you
have no place else to go; or because you know things could be
worse, or because you know things could get better. It is
easy to overlook things that eat away at your sense of self, your
sense of value, your sense of well-being. As easy as it may
be to blame someone else, to try to ignore what you feel, to call
your pain a sacrifice for love, you are not being loving or wise
to do so. Eventually, you will be held responsible for
everything you experience and how you have responded to it.
Love does
not ask us to lose ourselves, harm ourselves, or sacrifice
ourselves for its sake. Love offers to us, measure for
measure, what we offer it. If you are being dishonored,
disrespected, physically harmed for the love you give, you must
ask yourself, "Am I really giving love, or am I simply afraid
to leave?"
Until
today, you may have participated in being unloving toward
yourself. Just for today, allow yourself to stand in the
truth, honor and peace of love. Ask yourself, "Am I
receiving all that I am giving?" If not, ask yourself,
"Why not?"
Today
I am devoted to loving myself, honoring myself,
and removing myself from unloving experiences.
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This
book of 365 daily devotionals supports the
time-honored adage, "Why put off until
tomorrow what you can do today?" Iyanla
Vanzant knows how easy it is to stay stuck in
"old sentiments, resentments, beliefs,
decisions, agreements, judgments, and ideas that
may have become habitual." Through these
devotions Vanzant hopes to show readers that the
easiest way to create change is to simply shift
your attitude--today. "We often work
so hard to get the things we want that we miss the
fact that it is the landscape of the inner world
that stands between us and true happiness."
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