The place in which you find yourself isn't
nearly as important as where you place
your attention while you are there.

Stephen C. Paul 

Alan Cohen 

A loving person lives in a loving world.
A hostile person lives in a hostile world:
everyone you meet is a mirror.

Ken Keyes, Jr. 

One of the most important questions you can ever ask yourself is, "Do I want to be "right"--or do I want to be happy?"  Many times, the two are mutually exclusive!

Being right, defending our positions, takes an enormous amount of mental energy and often alienates us from the people in our lives.  Needing to be right--or needing someone else to be wrong--encourages others to become defensive, and puts pressure on us to keep defending.  Yet, many of us (me, too, at times) spend a great deal of time and energy attempting to prove (or point out) that we are right--and/or others are wrong.  Many people, consciously or unconsciously, believe that it's somehow their job to show others how their positions, statements, and points of view are incorrect, and that in doing so, the person they are correcting is going to somehow appreciate it, or at least learn something.  Wrong!

Think about it.  Have you ever been corrected by someone and said to the person who was trying to be right, "Thank you so much for showing me that I'm wrong and you're right.  Now I see it.  Boy, you're great!"  Or, has anyone you know ever thanked you (or even agreed with you) when you corrected them, or made yourself "right" at their expense?  Of course not.  The truth is, all of us hate to be corrected.  We all want our positions to be respected and understood by others.  Being listened to and heard is one of the greatest desires of the human heart.  And those who learn to listen are the most loved and respected.  Those who are in the habit of correcting others are often resented and avoided.

A wonderful, heartfelt strategy for becoming more peaceful and loving is to practice allowing others the joy of being right--give them the glory.  Stop correcting.  As hard as it may be to change this habit, it's worth any effort and practice it takes.  When someone says, "I really feel it's important to. . . " rather than jumping in and saying, "No, it's more important to. . . " or any of the hundreds of other forms of conversational editing, simply let it go and allow their statement to stand.  The people in your life will become less defensive and more loving.  They will appreciate you more than you could ever have dreamed possible, even if they don't exactly know why.  You'll discover the joy of participating in and witnessing other people's happiness, which is far more rewarding than a battle of egos.  You don't have to sacrifice your deepest philosophical truths or most heartfelt opinions, but, starting today, let others be "right," most of the time!
   

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The old gentleman had been hired many years earlier by a young town councilman to clear away the debris from the pools of water up in the mountain crevices that fed the lovely spring flowing through their town. With faithful, silent regularity, he patrolled the hills, removed the leaves and branches, and wiped away the silt that would otherwise have choked and contaminated the fresh flow of water.  The village soon became a popular attraction for vacationers. Graceful swans floated along the crystal clear spring,  the mill wheels of various businesses located near the water turned day and night, farmlands were naturally irrigated, and the view from restaurants was picturesque beyond description.

Years passed. One evening the town council met for its semi-annual meeting.  As they reviewed the budget, one man's eye caught the salary figure being paid to the obscure keeper of the spring.  Said the keeper of the purse, "Who is the old man? Why do we keep him on year after year?  No one ever sees him.  For all we know, the strange ranger of the hills is doing us no good.  He isn't necessary any longer."  By a unanimous vote, they dispensed with the old man's services.

For several weeks, nothing changed.  By early autumn, the trees began to shed their leaves.  Small branches snapped of and fell into the pools, hindering the rushing flow of sparkling water.  One afternoon someone noticed a slight yellowish-brown tint in the spring.  A few days later, the water was much darker.  Within another week, a slimy film covered sections of the water along the banks, and a foul odor was soon detected.  The mill wheels moved more slowly, some finally ground to a halt.  Swans left, as did the tourists.  Clammy fingers of disease and sickness reached deeply into the village.

Quickly, the embarrassed council called a special meeting.  Realizing their gross error in judgment, they rehired the old keeper of the spring, and within a few weeks, the veritable river of life began to clear up.  The wheels started to turn, and new life returned to the hamlet in the Alps.

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One of the most important habits of a creative thinker is to be a good listener.  Stand guard at the ear-gateway to your mind, heart, and spirit.

Listen to the good.  Tune your ears to love, hope, and courage.  Tune out gossip and resentment.

Listen to the beautiful.  Listen to the music of the masters.  Listen to the symphony of nature--the hum of the wind in the treetops, bird songs, thundering surf. . .

Listen critically.  Mentally challenge assertions, ideas, and philosophies.  Seek the truth with an open mind.

Listen with patience.  Do not hurry the other person.  Show them the courtesy of listening to what they have to say, no matter how much you may disagree.  You may learn something.

Listen with your heart.  Practice empathy when you listen.  Put yourself in the other person's shoes.

Listen for growth.  Be an inquisitive listener.  Ask questions.  Everyone has something to say which will help you to grow.

Listen creatively.  Listen for ideas or the germs of ideas.  Listen for hints or clues that may spark creative projects.

Listen to yourself.  Listen to your deepest yearnings, your highest aspirations, your noblest impulses.  Listen to the better person within you.

Listen with depth.  Be still and listen.  Listen with the ear of intuition to the inspiration of the Infinite.

My Thoughts

I have trouble controlling my thoughts.  No matter how much I read on the importance of staying focused on positive things, on thinking only positive and creative thoughts, I still find my thoughts being focused on things over which I have no control, things that bring me down--or that may bring me down in the near and distant future.  I don't want to be thinking this sort of thing, but I do so anyway.  This is something that I'm working to change.

I know where the habit came from.  As an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, I share this trait with millions of other people who went through childhood facing similar situations.  We tend to be focused on possible terrible outcomes to any and all situations, for our younger years were filled with disappointment after disappointment.  Whenever good things were promised to us, they almost never happened.  My dad promised to take us fishing this weekend, but since he started drinking on Friday night and didn't wake up until after noon on Sunday, it never happened.  We'd be looking forward to a camping trip at the end of the month, but since he drank away his paycheck, we can't afford to go anymore.

Of course, we didn't know about him drinking away his paycheck--we were too young to know about such things.  We were always given a different excuse, one that made the disappointment seem inevitable and completely out of anyone's control, such as "Your mom's not feeling good."  This taught us to expect disappointment always, since so few things that were promised actually came true or came through.

There's an inherent problem in this pattern, though, one that continues to sabotage me even as I'm going through my fifth decade on this planet.  Whenever my thoughts turn to something that I really want, the subconscious thoughts that accompany--and eventually overpower--my conscious thoughts tell me that what I want won't come through.  And due to those thought, I end up creating my own situations, situations in which--guess what?--my wants don't come through.

Now, I don't want you to think that my life is miserable, that I've never had anything I want, or that I have no hope.  None of these statements are true.  But I find that sometimes my life is a struggle to overcome negative, almost debilitating thoughts about who I am and what I may get out of life.

With all the research and focus developing about the Law of Attraction--a law that I firmly believe in, for I've seen it at work--I've started to see how I've been creating my own reality in many ways, how my own thoughts don't allow me to advance, don't allow me to fulfill my dreams and desires.  When I send a novel to an agent, my subconscious thoughts that "She'll reject it, too," help to create just the right conditions for that agent to reject the idea of representing my book.  When I think of the debt our family deals with, my thoughts that "We'll never get out from under this" help to create the conditions under which it's not possible to escape from it.

Another side to this is that my thoughts are what comes back to me.  Because my thoughts are on rejection, guess what comes back to me?  Because my thoughts are o debt, guess what stays in my life?  I'm not taking blame for situations based on my thoughts, but pointing out the fact that we do create the situations in our lives; they don't "just happen" to us.  And a habit that I unconsciously developed in childhood can continue to haunt me many years later, for such habits are very difficult to fight.

I am determined, though, to overcome these habits, and I've been studying for years about positive ways of living life.  And on the conscious level, I've become very good at looking at positive possibilities and potential rather than at limitations and impossibilities.  But I still have to learn to keep my subconscious thoughts positive, so that I can continue to create more positive conditions in my life and continue to grow into the person I'm meant to be.  My thoughts of lack and impossibility will do nothing to help me or anyone else, whereas my thoughts of potential can help me and the other people in my life to make things brighter and more positive.  Working on my thoughts will help me, my family, and my students at school--and with so much potential benefit, I think it's important that I do make the effort to shift my thoughts to the positive and uplifting.  I hope to create a beneficial life, and only I have the power to do so.

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