People rarely succeed unless they
have fun in what they are doing.

Dale Carnegie

What lies in our power to do,
lies in our power not to do.

Aristotle

Overcome anger by non-anger, overcome evil by good. Overcome the miser by giving, overcome the liar by truth.

The Dhammapada

Practice radical humility when it comes to your own accomplishments, and give credit everywhere except to your ego.

Wayne Dyer

Reproduced with permission from the Denis Waitley Ezine. To subscribe to Denis Waitley's Ezine, go to www.deniswaitley.com or send an email with Join in the subject to subscribe@deniswaitley.com Copyright 2005 Denis Waitley International. All rights reserved worldwide.

Will We Ever Learn?

Wouldn't it be nice if we as human beings actually could learn from the mistakes that other people make?  It's hard to imagine just how far we could go in life if we were able to avoid making the errors that already have been made, over and over again, somehow thinking "nothing bad will happen to me."

I constantly see people engaged in actions that are dangerous and even potentially fatal, and not even because they're trying to do something different.  Rock climbing, for example, is a potentially fatal activity, but the people who engage in it tend to be extremely careful about what they're doing.  They know the risks involved, and they do their best to compensate for those risks.

On the other hand, I know a couple down the street who won't let their kids ride their bikes without wearing helmets.  When dad goes out on his motorcycle, though, he doesn't bother to wear a helmet, and in not doing so he's risking not only his own well-being, but also the stability of his family.

The difference between the rock climbers and the motorcycle rider, obviously, is that the rock climber has his or her own safety mostly in his or her own control.  A person on a motorcycle, though, is riding on streets that are full of other drivers who may or may not be paying attention to what they're doing.  When we're out in traffic, our safety isn't completely in our own hands anymore--there are many other drivers on the road who can affect us.

I was recently at Yellowstone National Park.  When we entered the park, we were given a handout that warned that many park visitors are gored by bison each year because they get too close to them.  The handout was very clearly written and very clear in its instructions--stay away from the buffalo.

Two days later at the Old Faithful geyser, a small herd of buffalo came to where the crowd was waiting for the geyser to erupt.  They crossed the boardwalk where people were standing in order to get to the grass next to the geyser.  It was a beautiful and powerful sight, but what amazed my wife and me (and many people around us) was that when several of the buffalo made their way to the pathways behind us, the people there made no effort to get out of the way.  They even approached closer, some of them within five or ten feet of the animals.  It wasn't until a ranger appeared and started yelling out for people to stay 75 feet from them that people started respecting the need for distance between themselves and the bison.

We tried to learn our lesson when we read the line "Many visitors are gored by buffalo each year."  The rest of the handout gave pretty clear directions for how to act around the animals, which can be temperamental and unpredictable.  We followed those directions.  It was only luck that nobody was hurt that morning, and many other people haven't been so lucky in similar situations--and they have the scars to prove it.

How many of us have read of the importance of maintaining our bodies in healthy states, of eating well and not letting ourselves get extremely overweight?  Maintaining our bodies in healthy states is an important aspect of living full lives, and of demonstrating our self-respect and even self-love.  It's an extremely important part of avoiding future medical problems.  But many people get caught in the trap of overeating to compensate for other areas of their lives, not putting into practice important lessons that they have learned through reading and conversation.  I know of many doctors and nurses who smoke still, despite all the lessons they've been taught about the damage that tobacco smoke does to the human body.

I will get scars in life, but I don't want them to result from my ignoring advice or not learning lessons from other people.  I've read enough well-documented articles about the dangers of using cell phones while driving that I'll not do so myself (and I could write a small book on the close calls that I've witnessed!).  I've read enough information about the dangers of not exercising that I'll continue to exercise as long as my body will allow me to do so.  If a sign says "Danger--Keep Out," chances are very good that I'll keep out.

I don't want to become so careful that I'll never take any more risks in life, and I don't plan to.  But I do know that if someone else has had problems before me and has taken the time and made the effort to share that experience with me, the best thing I can do is learn from them.  There are plenty of other unique mistakes that I can make in my life--I don't need to keep making the same ones that others are making.

Ego is "I"; it is your singular point of view.  In innocence, this point of view is pure, like a clear lens.  But without innocence the ego's focus is extremely distorting.  If you think you know something--including yourself--you are actually seeing your own judgments and labels.  The simplest words we use to describe each other--such as friend, family, stranger--are loaded with judgments.  The enormous gulf in meaning between friend and stranger, for example, is filled with interpretations.  A friend is treated one way, an enemy another.  Even if we do not bring these judgments to the surface, they cloud our vision like dust obscuring a lens.

Because he has no labels for things, the wizard sees them afresh.  For him there is no dust on the lens, so the world sparkles with newness.  The same faint song is heard in everything:  "Behold yourself."  God could be defined as someone who looks around and sees only Him- or Herself in all directions; insofar as we are created in His/Her image, our world is also a looking glass.

Mortals found this wizardly viewpoint very strange, for their interest was drawn in an entirely different direction.  They looked outward and  were fascinated by things, and whatever thing they saw, they craved to name and then to use.  Names had to be given to all the birds and beasts.  Plants were grown for food or pleasure.

Merlin showed almost no interest in any of this.  Wizards often do not know names for the most ordinary things, like oak trees, fallow deer, or the constellations.  However, a wizard could look at a gnarled oak, a feeding doe, or the night sky for hours, and every moment of his contemplation would be all absorbing.

Mortals wanted to share this kind of rapt attention.  When asked the secret of how to look at the world afresh, with delighted eyes, Merlin said, "You lack innocence.  Having labeled a thing, you no longer see that thing, you see its label instead."  This was easy enough to illustrate.  If two knights who were strangers met in the forest, they immediately searched for the emblem or pennant that told them whether the other was friend or foe.  The instant this sign was spied, the knights could act, but only then.  A friend could be embraced, welcomed to the feast, invited to tell stories.  A foe could only be fought with.

This obsession to label things, Merlin said, is the activity of mind, pure and simple.  Mind cannot react without a label.  We carry millions of labels in our heads, and our minds can run through these labels with lightning swiftness.  The speed of the mind is dazzling, but speed does not save us from staleness.  Whatever you can think about, you have already experienced. you are going to grow tired of.  "Do you wonder that you cannot look at an oak or a deer or a star for more than a minute?" he said.  "I can hear your minds all but groaning, 'That old thing!' and off you go on your mad rush for something new."