Welcome
to today, and to our new issue! We're well on
our way to spring
up here in the northern hemisphere, and winter is on
its way far to our south.
Let's do our best to enjoy the transitions of the
seasons.
Humility is the
most difficult of all virtues to achieve;
nothing dies harder than the
desire
to think well of self. -T.S. Eliot
I
wonder why it is that we are not all
kinder to each other. How much
the world needs it! How easily it is done!
-Henry Drummond
To
pursue joy is to lose it. The only way to get it is
to
follow steadily the path of duty, without thinking of joy,
and
then, like sheep, it comes most surely, unsought.
-
Alexander
Maclaren
Our
greatest illusion is disillusion. We imagine that we are
disillusioned with
life, when the truth is that we have not even begun to live.
-
Paul Brunton
One of the most
important decisions you'll ever make is choosing the kind of
universe you exist in: is it helpful and supportive or
hostile and unsupportive? Your answer to this question
will make all the difference in terms of how you live your life
and what kind of Divine assistance you attract.
Remember that
you get what you think about, whether you want it or not.
So if you're sure that this is an unfriendly universe, you'll
look for examples to support this point of view. You'll
anticipate people attempting to cheat, judge, take advantage of,
and otherwise harm you. You'll blame the antagonistic,
inhospitable cosmos for not cooperating with you in the
fulfillment of your desires. You'll point the finger at
belligerent folks and bad luck for the kind of world we all live
in. Since this worldview trickles down into every thought
you have, you become a person persistently looking for occasions
to be offended, and therefore in possession of a whole slew of
excuses.
I implore you
to see the universe as a warm and supportive one. . . because
you'll look for evidence to support this view. When you
believe that the universe is friendly, you see friendly
people. You look for circumstances to work in your
favor. You expect good fortune flowing into your
life. In other words, you aren't looking for excuses!!
My favorite
affirmation when I feel stuck or out of sorts is: Whatever
I need is already here, and it is all for my highest good.
Jot this down and post it conspicuously throughout your home, on
the dashboard of your car, at your office, on your microwave oven,
and even in front of your toilet! Remind yourself: I
live in a friendly universe that will support any thing or desire
that is aligned with the universal Source of all. Such a
stance will be a giant step toward living an excuse-free life.
Affirming that
what you want is already here and all you have to do is connect to
it causes you to remember that what you attract is for your
highest good, so you can then let go of the timing issue
altogether. Just know that it is here and will arrive on
God's schedule--as does everything that makes the journey from
nonbeing to being.
I've found that
by shifting my belief about the nature of the universe, I attract
whatever I desire into my life. I desire love. I
desire peace. I desire health. I desire
happiness. I desire prosperity. Why would I want to
hold the view that our universe is unsupportive, evil, and
unfriendly? How could I expect the Divine realm to hear me
if I'm asking it to be something other than what it is?
Thus, I see my desires in perfect rapport with how the universe
works.
When I pray, I do
so in the spirit of Saint Francis. Rather than ask God to
grant him peace, this inspiring man beseeched God to "make me
an instrument of Thy peace." In other words, "Let
me be like the Source from which I originated, and then I will
rest in the knowing that it must be here, on its way, and for my
highest good." As you can see, there's no room for
excuses when you apply this model to your everyday life.
As I've written
and said many times, "When you change the way you look at
things, the things you look at change." And this
applies to the entire universe.
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The
universe is extremely generous. Beauty abounds in the most
surprising locales and within even the most soul-searing
experiences. We simply need to look for beauty and take
the time to appreciate and digest what we see. I agree
with Magaret Wolfe Hunerford's quote "Beauty is in the eye
of the beholder" and would add that beauty is also in the
beholder's ability to see.
The other
night I was gifted with an unexpected beauty when I took our
little dog, Lily, out to her piddle place, a fenced-in area
behind the house. It is hidden from the road and
"landscaped" meagerly with rocks. Its sole
decoration is the garbage can. Expecting the same old
bedtime routine, I was blessed by beauty instead.
The
streetlight, which goes on and off sporadically, was
backlighting the brand-new, fuzzy catkins on our neighbors'
aspen tree. They looked as if they were encased in
sparkling ice, shimmering and dancing in the early spring
breeze. An awed "Ahhhhhh" escaped as I
exhaled. While Lily did what she was supposed to do, I
turned off our light, etched the beauty of the lighted catkins
in my mind's eye, and whispered a prayer of gratitude for a
lovely surprise in such an everyday place and action.
While the
beauty of the illuminated aspen would have been hard to ignore,
I easily could have done just that before making the promise to
myself to lead a more mindful, appreciative, and in-the-moment
life.
In order
to enjoy everyday beauty, you need a desire to see it and the
willingness to open your heart to it. It helps when you go
about your day expecting to be blessed by beauty
everywhere you look and turn. Expecting and paying
attention to the beauty of the moment will draw to you
loveliness beyond imagination. Appreciating and reveling
in beauty can soothe your soul, relax your body, and immerse you
in gratitude.
Practice.
. .
*
Expect to find beauty in the strangest places.
*
Allow yourself to look for beauty everywhere.
*
Enjoy and appreciate the beauty you notice.
*
Allow yourself to really see a single aspect of your own
beauty.
Throughout
your day. . .
*
Notice and appreciate at least one of Mother Nature's everyday
beauties.
Beauty
is in the eye of the beholder expecting to see it.
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.
Karma
is a Sanskrit word meaning "action," though it's often
used to refer
to both an action and its results. Many people
think of karma as Newton's
Third Law--"For every action,
there's an equal and opposite reaction"--as
it applies to the
psychological or ethical domain. Karma isn't luck or
destiny--luck suggests randomness; destiny, a lack of choice.
Nor is it the
voice of the gods trying to keep us in line.
Karma is a description of how
moral law operates, not a prescription
for good behavior.
Joan Duncan Oliver
Leaving
Work Behind
One day
long ago, I went on a hike with several colleagues on a day that
we had off. We went to a beautiful place, an extraordinary
canyon with sandstone walls and ponderosa pines and aspen, along
with some amazing rock formations and fascinating plant
life. To make things even better, it was a beautiful
autumn day--it had been cold enough recently that some of the
water in the canyon was still frozen over, yet it warmed up
enough for us to be able to hike in our shirts, without our
jackets. In other words, it was a perfect day in a perfect
place for a hike.
Except. .
. .
I hadn't
hiked with these people before--in fact, I was new to the
school, so I didn't really know anyone yet--but I found out very
quickly that all they wanted to talk about was school.
They talked about the students and their fellow teachers and the
administrators, and they talked about what they did in class and
the problems that the students had and the personalities of
their colleagues. Not all of it was positive--in fact,
most of their conversation consisted of negative observations
that I didn't necessarily want to hear.
To a large degree, the measure of our peace of
mind
is
determined by how much we are able
to live in the
present moment. Irrespective
of
what
happened
yesterday or last year, and
what may or may not happen
tomorrow, the
present moment is where you are--always!
It's not
part of my nature to tell people what they should or shouldn't
talk about--they live their lives and they have their
preferences, and I don't feel that it's really my place to try
to make them change. So I tried often to shift the focus
of the conversation to where we were and what we were doing
then--I asked questions about the rock formations, about the
people who used the canyon regularly, about the type of wildlife
that lived there. I tried everything I could to start a
conversation about the here and now, but that just wasn't in
their comfort zone for some reason--the conversation always
immediately went back to school and students and teachers.
It didn't
take me long to realize that my efforts were futile, but I also
knew that I didn't want to lose the opportunity to enjoy the
beautiful settings that surrounded us. I put a little
distance between myself and the others, stopping here to examine
some rocks, pausing there to check out an interesting plant,
taking the time to enjoy a view that the others didn't even
notice at all. In this way I was able to stay focused on
the present moment, on the here and now, rather than focusing on
places and people that at the moment were very far away.
And I was able to avoid hearing gossip about people that I
really didn't want to hear.
As you walk and eat and travel, be where you
are.
Otherwise you will miss most of your life.
It wasn't
a choice that I really wanted to make, but I found out later
that I wasn't the only one making it. Another member of
our small group took the opportunity to do some running with her
dogs. At the time, I thought she wanted to run with her
dogs, but she told me later that she just had to get away from
all the gossip and enjoy her surroundings. It was good to
hear that I wasn't the only one feeling as I did, but a shame to
know that the situation had been so negative for someone else,
too.
The
important part, though, was that she did take the time to
herself to enjoy her surroundings, just as I did. Neither
of us felt that we had the right to tell others what they should
or shouldn't talk about, but both of us made sure that we did
our best to avoid the negative talk and gossip. Both of us
wanted to be where we were, when we were there, enjoying the
place that was incredibly beautiful. And neither of us
wanted to bring our job on a hike with us, because when we had a
break from our work, it was important to us to rest our minds
from the work so that when we got back to school, we'd be coming
from a much-more-rested place.
You
spend very little time
in the present moment.
Reality exists only
in the present moment.
Therefore you spend very little time
in reality.
The
people we were hiking with weren't bad people at all. In
many ways, they're very helpful and considerate, especially at
school. But as I watch them burn out at school and become
less and less positive, I have to ask myself how much of the
change is due to the fact that they take their work with them
wherever they go, even into beautiful canyons on beautiful
autumn days, when work is many miles and many hours away. . . .
It is easy in the world to
live
after the world's opinion; it
is easy in solitude
to live after our
own; but the great person is one
who in the midst
of
the crowd
keeps with perfect sweetness
the independence of solitude.
The truth
is, at home, in private and in secret, we mostly make do.
That's how we run our lives most of the time. We might as
well accept that. And feel good about it. And get
good at it. It's a matter of attitude, as summarized in
these nine rules from the Fulghum Guide to Being Handy Around
the House:
1. Try to work alone. An audience is rarely any
help.
2. Despite what you may have been told by your mother,
praying and cursing are both helpful in home repair--but only if
you are working alone.
3. Work in the kitchen whenever you can--many fine tools
are there, it's warm and dry, and you are close to the
refrigerator.
4. If it's electronic, get a new one, or consult a
twelve-year-old.
5. Stay simpleminded. Plug it in, get a new battery,
replace the bulb or fuse, see if the tank is empty, try turning
the "on" switch, or just paint over it.
6. Always take credit for miracles. If you dropped
the alarm clock while taking it apart and it suddenly starts
working, you have healed it.
7. If something looks level, it is level.
8. If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
9. Above all, if what you've done is stupid, but it works,
it ain't stupid.
Our
inner child is still in there somewhere, aching to be let loose from
all the layers we’ve piled on over the years. Why not break
him or her out
for the day or even a moment? Be playful. Blow some
bubbles. Skip
around the block. Feel the freedom. Take fearlessness
out
for a test run. Let yourself have some fun.
Lynn Hasselberger
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 (there are five pages on adversity, for example).
™
