The world is
still moving through space at an amazing speed,
carrying us with it,
and we sincerely hope that you're enjoying your
newest journey around the sun!
We are
so very rich if we know just a few people in a way in which
we know no others. -Catherine Bramwell-Booth
Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way
things turn out.
-Art Linkletter
Begin
today! No matter how feeble the light, let it shine as
best it may. The world may need just that quality of
light which you have. -Henry C. Blinn
Let there be many windows in your soul,
That all the glory of the universe may beautify it.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Most people in our culture remember their failures more than their successes. One reason for this is the “leave ’em alone—
pounce” approach to parenting, teaching, and management that is so prevalent in our culture. When you were a young child, your parents left you alone when you were playing and being cooperative, and then pounced on you when
you made too much noise, were a nuisance, or got into trouble. You probably received a perfunctory “good job” when you got As but got a huge lecture when you got Cs and Ds, or, God forbid, an F. In school, most of your teachers marked the answers you got wrong with an X rather than marking the ones you got right with a check mark or a star. In sports, you got yelled at when you dropped the football or the baseball. There was almost always more emotional intensity around your errors, mistakes, and failures than there was around your successes.
Because the brain more easily remembers events that were accompanied by strong emotions, most people underestimate and underappreciate the number of successes they’ve had compared to the number of failures they’ve had.
One of the ways to counteract this phenomenon is to consciously focus on and celebrate your successes. One of the exercises I do in my corporate seminars is to have the participants each share a success they have had in the past week. It is always amazing to see how difficult this is for so many people. Many people don’t think they have had any successes. They can easily tell you 10 ways they messed up in the last 7 days but have a much harder time telling you 10 victories they had.
The sad truth is that we all have many more victories than failures—it’s just that we set the bar too high for what we call a success. A participant in the GOALS (Gaining Opportunities and Life Skills) Program I developed to help get people off welfare in California* actually asserted that he didn’t have any successes. When I inquired about his accent, he told us that he had left Iran when the shah was toppled in 1979. He had moved his whole family to Germany, where he had learned German and become a car mechanic. More recently he had immigrated his whole family to the United States, had learned English, and
was now in a program learning to be a welder—but he didn’t think he had any successes!
When the group asked him what he thought a success was, he replied that it was owning a home in Beverly Hills and driving a Cadillac. In his mind, anything less than that was not an achievement. Slowly, with a little coaching, he began to see that he had many success experiences every single week. Simple things such as getting to work on time, getting into the GOALS Program, learning to speak English, providing for his family, and buying his daughter her first bicycle were all successes.
THE POKER CHIP THEORY OF SELF-ESTEEM AND SUCCESS
So why am I making such a big deal about acknowledging your past successes? The reason it is so important is because of its impact on your self-esteem. Imagine for a moment that your self-esteem is like a stack of poker chips. Then imagine that you and I are playing a game of poker and you have 10 chips and I have 200 chips. Who do you think is going to play more conservatively in this game of poker? Yes, you are. If you lose two bets of 5 chips, you’re out of the game. I can lose 5 chips 40 times before I’m out of the game, so I am going to take more risks because I can afford to take the losses. Your level of self-esteem works the same way. The more self-esteem you have, the more risks you are willing to take.
Research has shown over and over again that the more you acknowledge your past successes, the more confident you become in taking on and successfully accomplishing new ones. You know that even if you fail, it won’t destroy you, because your self-esteem is high. And the more you risk, the more you win in life. The more shots you take, the more
chances you have of scoring. Knowing that you have had successes in the past will give you the self-confidence that you can have more successes in the future. So let’s look at some simple but powerful ways to build and maintain high levels of self-confidence and self-esteem.
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To move from being selfish and greedy to trying not to be that way is like taking down
all the drab and ugly pictures in your room and putting up pretty pictures.
But if that room is a prison cell, you’ve changed the decorations and they look a little better; but still the freedom you want isn’t there; you’re still imprisoned in the same room.
Changing the pictures on the wall from greed, anger, and ignorance into ideals (that we should not be greedy, angry, or ignorant) improves the decoration, perhaps—but leaves us without freedom.
I’m reminded of an old story about a king who wanted the wisest man among his subjects to be his prime minister.
When the search finally was narrowed to three men the king put them to a supreme test:
he placed them in a room in his palace and installed an ingenious lock in the door.
The candidates were told that the first person to open the door would be appointed prime minister.
So two of them started to work out complicated mathematical formulas to discover the proper lock combination.
But the third man just sat in his chair for a time—and then, without bothering to put pen to paper, he got up, walked to the door, and turned the knob—and the door opened.
It had been unlocked the whole time. What is the point of that story?
The prison cell we live in, whose walls we are frantically redecorating, is not a prison cell.
In fact the door has never been locked. There is no lock.
We don’t need to sit in our cells and struggle for freedom by frantically trying to change ourselves—because we are already free.
Merely to say this doesn’t solve the problem for us, of course. How can we realize this fact of freedom?
We’ve said that being selfish and having a desire to be unselfish are both based on fear.
Even the desire to be wise, to be perfect, is based on fear.
We wouldn’t chase the desire if we saw that we were already free.
So our practice always comes back to the same thing:
how to see more clearly, how not to go down blind alleys, such as that of trying to be unselfish.
Instead of going from unconscious selfishness to conscious unselfishness, what we need to do is to see the foolishness of the second stage—or, if we play around in it, at least to be aware that we are doing so.
What we need is to go to the third stage, which is. . .
what?
Initially we must tear the first two stages apart.
We do this by becoming the witness. Instead of saying, “I should not be impatient,” we observe ourselves being impatient.
We stand back and watch. We see the truth of our impatience.
The truth is certainly not some mental picture of being nice and patient; in creating that picture we just bury the irritation and anger, which will pop out later.
What is the truth of any moment of upset, when we are impatient, jealous, or depressed?
When we start working like this—which means to really observe our minds—we see that they are constantly spinning dreams of how we should or shouldn’t be or how someone else should or shouldn’t be; of how we’ve been in the past, and how we’re going to be in the future; of how we can arrange matters to get what we desire.
When we step back and become a patient and persistent witness, we begin to understand that neither of the two stages does ourselves or anyone else any good.
Only then can we—without even trying—slip into stage three, which means simply to experience the truth of that moment of impatience, the very fact of just feeling impatient.
When we can do that we have slipped out of the duality that says there is me and there is a way I should be—and we return to ourselves as we are.
And when we experience ourselves as we are—since the only thing that is holding impatience in place is our thoughts—the impatience
begins to resolve itself.
So our practice is about making fear conscious, instead of running around inside our cell of fear, trying to make it look better and feel better.
All of our efforts in life are these escaping endeavors:
we try to escape the suffering, escape the pain of what we are.
Even feeling guilty is an escape. The truth of any moment is always being just as we are.
And that means to experience our unkindness when we are unkind.
We don’t like to do that. We like to think of ourselves as kind people.
But often we’re not.
When we experience ourselves as we are, then out of that death of the ego, out of that withering, the flower blooms.
On a withered tree, the flower blooms—a wonderful line from Shōyō Rōku.
A flower blooms, not on a decorated tree, but on a withered tree.
When we back away from our ideals and investigate them by being the witness, then we back into what we are, which is the intelligence of life itself.
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.
One
thing is certain. That is that the power of belief, the
power of thought, will move reality in the direction of what
we believe and conceive of it. If you really believe you
can
do something, you can. That is a fact.
I've always
had a strange relationship with prayer in general, probably
because I learned early the "religious" perspective on
prayer, the perspective that tells us that prayer "should
be" this and should be that. Religions, unfortunately,
have put so many rules on prayer that it's almost impossible to be
a part of a religion and feel the freedom of prayer as a dialogue
between us and God (whatever we perceive God to be) rather than as
a highly structured, highly stressful set of rules and regulations
that probably will fail because of our own lack of piety.
It's rather sad, really, just how many people are disappointed in
prayer because the rules that they've followed haven't provided
the desired results.
One of the greatest obstacles that I felt to my prayer life was
the idea that if you pray for anything, if your faith is strong
enough then you will get it. I can't begin to list the
things I used to pray for but didn't get--any list would be
completely inadequate. But when I prayed for something and
didn't get it, then the fault had to be mine, according to
religious teachings, because my faith wasn't strong enough.
It was a Catch-22 situation, especially when I prayed for stronger
faith: of course my faith wouldn't grow because my faith
wasn't strong enough for my prayer to be answered.
Fortunately I've grown out of that without any real lasting
damage. I've learned that the most important element of
prayer is not what words I use or what form I use or what position
my body is in when I pray, but my sincere desire to connect with
God and life and my willingness to be open and honest, both in
what I say and in the ways that I listen.
Never will I pray
for the material things of the world. I am not calling
to a servant to bring me food. I am not ordering an innkeeper to
provide me with room. Never will I seek delivery of gold, love,
good
health, petty victories, fame, success, or happiness. Only for
guidance
will I pray, that I may be shown the way to acquire these things,
and my prayer will always be answered.
Personally, my
favorite form of prayer is simply to go for a long
walk and have a talk with God. It's nothing
dramatic and I don't follow any scripts or formulas,
but it does keep my mind conscious of the fact that
there truly is more to life than what I see around
me and what happens to me. When I talk to God,
I'm reminded always of the qualities that we ascribe
to God--love, hope, peace, compassion--and how those
are qualities that I should be striving to show to
every person in my life. During my walks, I
tell God what I'm feeling, what I'd like to
accomplish, things I'd like to be able to do, and
other things like that.
Most importantly, though, I don't ask God for any of
those things. I don't ask God for the money to
do something--I simply ask God to be with me to help
me to be able to do the things I need to do to
accomplish my goals. God's a pretty good
companion to have, for focusing on his presence
helps us to stay focused on hope, and when we focus
on hope, we can accomplish almost anything we set
our minds to.
Prayer is not a manipulative strategy. I
remember reading a book once in which a man on a
plane prayed about a woman he knew, telling God that
if she was the right one for him, God should have
her bake a pie for him. When the plane landed,
she was waiting there with a pie that she had baked
just for him. I remember feeling very
uncomfortable with this attitude--that God is a
servant for us, that we can get him to do special
things for us just by asking. My guess is that
he had heard her mention baking a pie, but that he
had forgotten it, or that he had heard her tell
someone else that she was going to bake one, but had
been focusing on something else at the time so the
fact didn't make its way into his conscious mind.
When we consider God to be a servant who's supposed
to do things for us, then we're setting ourselves up
for disappointment. Yes, we are supposed to
ask for specific things, but why would God give you
that job but not the other three people who have
applied? Praying for God to "give"
us something like that over other people isn't going
to have the effect of God making a decision that
you're more deserving. It may come to pass,
but it doesn't do so because God favors you over
others--God loves all of us equally, and there will
be something else waiting in the wings for those
others.
When
you embrace the mystery and open yourself to it, a new life
is created, resistant to the old problems.You will notice at times that
the new life isn’t what you asked for.But asking for specific items or
for particular events to occur isn’t how I define prayer.I cannot guarantee
that the orders you place with God will always be filled.Prayer is not
a test of God, but a call for help to find your inner strength and
talent.
It's been well
said that prayer doesn't change God, but it changes
those of us who pray. Making prayer an
important part of each day helps to remind us that
there is more to life than our senses tell us, and
that we actually do have the ability to tap into the
universal consciousness that is God--we can become
stronger people and more compassionate people by
asking for the strength and the courage to live our
lives right, to live our lives in ways that are
beneficial to others, to be role models that other
people can see and hope to emulate themselves.
If we're peaceful people, others will want to know
how we've become peaceful. If we're
compassionate, they'll want to tap into that
compassion, too.
Prayer does change us, as Alexis says below.
It does give us strength, and that's something
important to keep in mind. Some people grow
frustrated and stressed out when they forget to stay
in touch with their higher power, because they try
to do everything themselves without any
guidance. It's like having a book of
directions and never opening it--it does us no good
at all unless we access its contents.
Likewise, our relationship with God has amazing
potential, but if we never tap into that potential,
it all will be completely lost--tons of potential
that's simply wasted.
Prayer
is the most powerful form of energy one can generate. The
influence
of prayer
on the human mind and body is as
demonstrable as that of the
secreting glands. Prayer is a
force as real as terrestrial gravity. It supplies us
with
a flow of sustaining power in our daily lives.
Alexis Carrel
And of course,
one of the most important elements of prayer is
listening to and recognizing the answers that come
to us while we pray and after we pray.
Sometimes our prayers are actually answered for us,
yet we don't recognize the response because it comes
in a form that we didn't expect--or we simply wanted
it in some other way. We must be aware that
responses to prayer may seem to be completely
different than what we think we want, but will be
what's best for us, and better for us than the way
we expected to see the response.
There really are no rules to prayer. It's kind
of astonishing that some people can tell us that
they ways that they pray are the ways that we should
pray--we're all unique individuals with unique ways
of thinking and seeing the world, and it only makes
sense that our relationships with God will be
different, too. There are some prescribed
prayers that we definitely can use to help us to get
focused, or that we can use when things are hectic
and we just want to take a quick prayer break, but
for the most part, our prayers should come from our
hearts, not from our heads. And when we learn
to pray that way and trust our prayers, then we'll
see how our prayer lives can positively affect our
lives overall, and we'll find that life becomes a
more beautiful experience overall.
Too
often we underestimate
the power of a touch, a smile,
a
kind word,
a listening ear,
an honest compliment, or
the smallest act
of caring,
all
of which have the potential
to turn a life around.
The trend
among most people I know under the age of sixty is toward
compulsive action. It's as if our lives are on a treadmill
with the continually
increasing speed outside our control.
The pace of our lives at work, home, and play anesthetizes us to
the real
reasons for each: Why do we work? Why do we try so
hard to create
a good home? Why do we play? Before we can answer
those questions,
we need to ask some others: Why do I run so fast? What
am I running
toward? What am I running from? Is this fast pace the
way I really want
to live? Who sets my breakneck pace? . . .
If you are obsessively active, please at least pause to ask
yourself why and
to listen for the answer from the still, quiet voice alive and
well within you. I don't have an answer for the hurry sickness afflicting our
society and our
souls. But I do trust that the how-to-stop-it is within you,
and you can
change your pace if you want to.
The beauty is forever there before us,
forever
piping to us,
and we
are forever
failing to dance.We
could
not help but
dance if we
could see things as they
really
are. Then
we
should kiss both hands
to Fate
and fling our bodies,
hearts,
minds, and
souls into life with
a glorious
abandonment,
an
extravagant, delighted loyalty, knowing
that our wildest
enthusiasm cannot more than
brush
the hem
of
the real
beauty and joy
and wonder that are always
there.
Margaret Prescott Montague
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.
Explore all of our
quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each
topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on
the same topic.
™
