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3
February 2009 |
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Memory
is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell
what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its
treasured things.
Pierce
Harris
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Moral
excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become
just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts,
brave by doing brave acts.
Aristotle
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In
our appetite for gossip, we tend to gobble down everything
before us, only to find, too late, that it is our ideals we have
consumed, and we have not been enlarged by the feasts but only
diminished.
Pico Iyer
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The
Principle of the Present Moment
(an excerpt)
Richard Carlson
The
only way to experience genuine and lasting contentment,
satisfaction, and happiness is to learn to live your life
in the present moment. Regardless of your past
experiences, the specifics of your current circumstances,
how much you analyze your past or speculate about your
future, you will never be happy until you learn to live in
the present moment. A mind that is "out of the
moment" is fertile ground for worry, anxiety, regret
and guilt. This doesn't mean that every moment of
your life should (or ever will) be spent focused in this
moment, only that it is important that this occurs more
often than not.
Dr.
Wayne Dyer demonstrates the importance of living in the
moment with a wonderful and powerful analogy. He
suggests imagining yourself on a boat in the ocean, and
asking yourself three very important questions. The
first: What is the wake? The wake, of course,
is the trail of water left behind as you move
forward. The second question: What powers the
boat? The answer here is that the present moment
energy of the engine is the power that makes the boat
move--not yesterday's energy, not tomorrow's, but the
energy generated in the present moment. Finally, ask
yourself: Can the wake power the boat? The
obvious answer here is an absolute no! The
wake is powerless. It was created by past energy and
has no power in this moment. You see nothing more
than the trail.
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How
this analogy applies to your life is fairly obvious
but extremely important in understanding the pursuit
of your happiness and your dreams. Many people
live as if the past is the power running their
lives. The truth, however, is that just like
the wake of a boat, your past is powerless.
It's certainly true that what happened in your past
and the challenges you faced in your childhood did
happen, and you did have to confront those
challenges. It's also true that what happened
in your past contributed to the way you see life
today. However, that's where the relevance
ends.
Your
past, as it actually exists today, is nothing more
than the thoughts you have about it--nothing more,
nothing less. In reality, your past is all
thought--simple memory. This doesn't diminish
your past or suggest that you should pretend it
didn't occur exactly as it did. Seeing your
past as nothing more than harmless memory allows you
to keep your attention in this moment by freeing you
from the compulsion to follow each train of thought
that enters your mind. When you understand
memory for what it really is--simple, harmless
thoughts passing through your mind--rather than a
present reality that must be analyzed and
battled against, it's far easier to dismiss the
hundreds of future- and past-oriented thoughts that
run through your mind every day.
Understanding
the harmless nature of your thinking reminds you
that it isn't something that happens to you
but rather something that you create--from
the inside out. Once you see your thinking as
an ability that can work for you or against you at
any given moment, you'll be less frightened and
bothered by your thoughts. You'll keep them in
perspective. As thoughts enter your
consciousness, you'll have a choice: You can
look at them and respond, or simply let them
go. It's up to you. When you empower
yourself in this way, you'll become far less
reactive and in turn it will become much easier to
remain in the present moment. Your mind won't
view the specifics of your thoughts as front-page
news.
When
your thoughts are distanced from the present moment,
whether you are thinking of your childhood or
something that occurred earlier this morning, you
are actually recreating your past through your
thinking. As long as you are aware that you
produce your thoughts, that you are the
thinker, you can avoid feeling sad, angry, or
victimized by bringing your attention back to the
present. You won't assume, as many do, that if
a thought appears in your mind, it must have done so
for a really important reason, and now that it has,
you're stuck with it. Instead, you'll remember
that thoughts of the past are nothing more than
actively engaged memories. And memories, much
like dreams, are simply thoughts running through
your mind. You need not be concerned.
The
only way a thought, or series of thoughts,
can harm you is if you give them significance.
If you don't, they have no power to hurt you.
And as long as you remember that your thoughts have
no power to hurt you without your consent, you will
retain power over your life. Rather than
feeling victimized or defeated by the thoughts that
stream through your mind, you'll be able to keep
them in perspective. As thoughts enter your
consciousness, you'll decide whether to pay
attention to them, take them seriously and respond
accordingly, or simply dismiss them and go on with
your day.
The
destructive effects of thought happen only when we
forget that our thinking is simply a function of our
consciousness--an ability that we human beings
have--that doesn't need to be blown out of
proportion. When we keep this bit of wisdom in
mind, we realize that it's our thinking, not our
circumstances, that determines how we feel.
This gives us the confidence to live in the moment
by removing the fear that we must pay such careful
attention to our own thinking, or else. Others
may have experienced a nearly identical set of
circumstance as you, and they may feel depressed and
resentful about their plight, while you feel quite
content. Obviously, the difference in how you
feel won't have anything to do with who was better
off, but will be determined by who more clearly
understands the nature of thinking and who takes it
more in stride.
Understanding
our thinking in this way allows us to live more of
our life in the present moment by allowing us to
become far less preoccupied with our thinking.
When our mind spins forward toward worries and
concerns--or backwards towards regrets and past
hurts--we can actively observe our mind and make
gentle mental adjustments, suggesting to ourselves
that we bring our attention back to the
present. We can say to ourselves,
"Whoops, there I go again," or something
else that keeps our thinking in perspective,
reminding us that we just need to slowly bring our
attention back to this moment to bring back a
feeling of contentment.
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Many
people believe they can only be happy when
their problems are solved, relationships
improve, and goals are achieved. In this
simple guide, Dr. Richard Carlson shows
readers how to be happy right now — no
matter the situation. His plan, based on the
principles of Thought (thoughts are voluntary,
not involuntary);Mood (thinking is a voluntary
function that varies from moment to moment and
these variances are called moods); Separate
Realities (everyone thinks in a unique way and
lives in separate psychological realities);
Feelings (feelings and emotions serve as a
barometer for when one is “off-track” and
headed for unhappiness); and the Present
Moment (the only time when genuine
contentment, satisfaction, and happiness are
possible). This timeless book guides
readers through life's challenges and restores
the joy of living along the way. |
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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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Eyes
Wide Open
tom walsh
Learning
of Value
I
saw something a bit disturbing last week. I
had to stop at a drugstore to pick something up, and
while there I saw a kid about thirteen years up buy
a Monster drink, about 24 ounces of caffeine
fix. That in itself saddened me, to think that
this kid has been seduced by marketers and peers to
think that a caffeine fix is a positive thing in
life. I was shocked, though, to see the price
affixed to the can: $3.49. This kid was
spending more on one drink than anyone making
minimum wage earns in half an hour of work--and I
feel taken when I have to pay $1.19 for a large soda
at a gas station when I'm traveling. I
couldn't help but think that this kid never had been
taught of the value of money, and of the concept of
exchanging the money for something of comparable
value.
I
see this principal all over as I go through my
day. I see rims on car wheels that cost
upwards of $500, just for a little bit of decoration
on a vehicle. I see people spend four or five
dollars for a cup of coffee, hundreds of dollars for
cell phones that they almost never use, thousands of
dollars on huge television sets that they almost
never watch. All around us are ads and
commercials that keep us wanting to buy things, that
keep us dissatisfied with the way things are, and
those ads and commercials are trying to convince us
that if we just buy some more stuff--no matter what
the cost--we'll be happier and more content.
But
somewhere along the line we have to learn to make
our own decisions about value. There's a
common law of economics that states that many poor
people will stay poor because of the decisions that
they make about how to spend their money. How
many people have you known or known of, for example,
who have little money yet who buy a very expensive
car with high monthly payments? And how many
people are in trouble right now because they bought
houses that were more expensive than they could
afford?
While
I wouldn't say that the answer to our money issues
would be to skimp and save every penny and never
have any fun in life, it is important that we learn
about value and about when to spend how much.
A few years ago, for example, my wife and I had cell
phones. At the time I worked half an hour from
home, I was on the road with sports teams a lot, and
my wife also was on the road quite a bit. The
cell phones made sense, even though we didn't use
them much--at least we knew that if anything
happened, we could contact one another.
Then
we moved someplace where we didn't need the phones
any more, for we both worked close to one another
and we weren't on the road much. Suddenly, the
$75 every month to keep the phones made no sense, so
we got rid of them. They were now just a
luxury item, no longer as necessary as they were
before. They simply didn't have the same value
that they had had before. And even though it
had been quite convenient to make an occasional
phone call from wherever I happened to be, that
convenience was no longer worth the amount of money
we would have had to pay to maintain it.
It's
unfortunate that money is such a huge part of our
lives, and that it affects our lives so very
strongly. But that's the way things are, so
the best that we can do is learn to define the value
of our money for ourselves and to exchange our money
for goods and services that have equal or even
greater value. While a woman I know who is
broke can go out and spend almost a hundred dollars
on a new hairdo, I know that she really can't afford
it, and that its value is not nearly as much as she
thinks it is. When my wife and I go on
vacation in a few weeks and spend $400 on a hotel
room in Yosemite National Park, though--which is
much more than we've ever spent on a hotel room
before--we both have considered the cost, the
location, and the reasons for our vacation, and we
both agree that there is great value in the price
that we'll pay.
Money
is here, and it's a part of our lives. We can
live with it and have it work for us, or we can
squander it and lose it and become angry and
frustrated with our loss. The choice is ours,
but one thing is for sure--the path to happiness
doesn't lie in exchanging our money for goods or
services of little value; rather, we need to make
sure that the money we spend is money well
spent. Only then can we avoid the resentment
and frustration that will come over having wasted
money when we didn't need to.
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Positive
Expectancy
Bill O'Hanlon
an excerpt
It seems that
one year, there was a class of students who were so unruly that they
burned out two different teachers. One teacher took early
retirement and the other decided to get out of teaching
altogether. This class was so bad that substitute teachers
began to refuse to take it. So the district called a teacher
who had applied for a job but hadn't made the cut that year.
They asked her if she would be willing to come in and finish out the
year in return for the promise of a full-time position the next
year. She eagerly accepted.
The principal
decided not to warn the teacher about the class, afraid that she
would be scared off if she heard what she was up against.
After the new teacher had been on the job for a month, the principal
sat in on a class to see how things were going. To his
amazement, the students were well-behaved and enthusiastic.
After the students had filed out of the classroom, the principal
stayed behind to congratulate the teacher on a job well done.
She thanked him but insisted that he deserved thanks for giving her
such a special class, such a great class, for her first
assignment. The principal hemmed and hawed and told her that
he really didn't deserve any thanks.
She laughed
and told him, "You see, I discovered your little secret on my
first day here. I looked in the desk drawer and found the list
of the students' IQ scores. I knew I had a challenging group
of kids here, so bright and rambunctious that I would really have to
work to make school interesting for them because they are so
intelligent." She slid the drawer open and the principal
saw the list with the students' names and the numbers 136, 145, 127,
128, and so on written next to the names.
He exclaimed,
"Those aren't their IQ scores--those are their locker
numbers!" Too late. The teacher had already
expected the students to be bright and gifted--and they had
responded positively to her positive view and her positive handling
of them.
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Do One Thing Different. Bill O'Hanlon
A lot of practical, common-sense suggestions for dealing with many aspects
of your own life, such as your own perspective, co-dependencies,
etc. Quite a few step-by-step ideas for dealing with things that may
be bringing you down. His website is at possibilitycenter.com if
you'd like to learn more about him or see his other books. |
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I am discovering that
many people want, above all else, to live life fully.
But sometimes the
past prohibits our living and enjoying life to the utmost in the present.
A school teacher
entered his room a few minutes early and noticed a
meal worm laboriously
crawling along the floor. It had somehow been injured.
The back part of
the worm was dead and dried up, but still attached
to the front, living
part by just a thin thread.
As the teacher studied
the strange sight of the poor worm pulling its dead
half across the floor,
a little girl ran in and noticed it there. Picking it up,
she said,
"Oh, Oscar, when are you going to lose that dead part so you can
really live?"
What a marvelous question for all
of us! When are you going to lose that
dead part so you can really live?
When are you going to let go of past pain
so you can live fully? When are
you going to drop the baggage of needless
guilt so you can experience
life? When are you going to let go of that
past resentment so you can know
peace?
Have you been dragging something
that is dead and gone around with you?
Are you ready to "lose that
dead part so you can really live"?
~Steve Goodier, publisher of "Your
Life Support System." |
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Little
Things
Orrick Johns
There's
nothing very beautiful and nothing very gay
About the rush of faces in the town by day;
But a light tan cow in a pale green mead,
That is very beautiful, beautiful indeed.
And the soft March wind, and the low March mist
Are better than kisses in a dark street kissed.
The fragrance of the forest when it wakes at dawn,
The fragrance of a trim green village lawn,
The hearing of the murmur of the rain at play
These things are beautiful, beautiful as day!
And I shan't stand waiting for love or scorn
When the feast is laid for a day new-born . . .
Oh, better let the little things I loved when little
Return when the heart finds the great things brittle;
And better is a temple made of bark and thong
Than a tall stone temple that may stand too long.
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