Sometimes I’ve been asked ‘what my biggest regret is’. I used to think I didn’t regret. I’m not the sort of person to look back. Perhaps there is a mild feeling of regret that particularly in my past business, that I allowed myself to be talked out of strategies that instinctively I knew were right, but were revolutionary. Time proved my instincts were correct. But that doesn’t really bother me.
Recently I have become aware of a regret. It’s a deep regret. But not one from the past. It’s a regret that lives with me daily and I’m aware of more and more. It’s this;
My deep regret is what I used to call the Knowing-Doing gap. By this, I mean the gap between what I know and what I actually live up to. But after a tough day, when the universe seems to be thwarting everything I do, when nothing gets done because it’s taken hours to work out some computer bug, with my mind somewhere else, the kids fighting and demanding attention, the dog blocking my way at every step and my wife having the cheek to do things her way, when I know my way is better…
I don’t always act in the most loving, understandable and enlightened being. Actually my Daughter would state that a little more harshly… and frequently does.
I am in awe of people like Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tsu and so on seem to have lived what they know without being tainted by the gap between mind and actuality. I don’t believe they were born any different to us. I believe that through the course of their life they achieved their specialness.
And I’m going to make an educated guess and say that you are pretty much the same as me. That you intellectually know something, but fear or greed or something more primal makes you act differently. This knowledge/Doing gap is where your greatest potential to change your life lies.
How do you close that gap?
By living with integrity. Integrity is the action of choosing the highest and best choice in every situation. Start doing that and you’ll move out of the neighborhood of fear and greed and into the more enlightened territories. With which comes a lighter, happier more fulfilling life.
You have to decide to commit to a higher standard of behavior.
Decide = To settle conclusively all contention or uncertainty about
Decide comes from the latin word deicidere, which means to cut off from. Meaning there’s no going back.
The classic example is Capitan Hernando Cortes, who in 1519 faced his men after landing on an island they were invading, showed them their boats were on fire and told them they either won the fight or perished on the island.
You see most of us don’t commit at that level. We sit on the fence and hedge our bets.
Your happiness depends on your integrity. Your integrity demands that you cut out any possibility of going back to what your level of knowing has evolved past.
For instance, I’ve written some posts with some fairly strong statements. I meant them and would not go back on them. But when a number of people have commented on them and emailed me privately, I have found that, not only is there no going back, but your discernment becomes ever finer. So you have to live an evermore refined level of integrity.
And at home, my wife and kids make me live up to certain standards. If I’m in a bad mood, one day, they’ll remind me that I write about happiness to thousands of readers and ask how I can honestly do this and still be grouchy.
So how can you burn your boats?
You could make stronger statements to friends and family and allow them to remind you when you don’t live them.
You could put in writing a personal code of behaviour and put it where it’s publicly viewable.
Or you could…
Thank you for this insightful post. I am committed now more than ever to burn my boats. I am going to follow your advice literally. Thank you again
Which raises the question; “How should we deal with other people who do not come close to our level of integrity or meet our standards?” Should we avoid them, should we help them, or should we just accept them?
Some people who are perhaps of a religious nature may quote “Judge not lest you be judged”. Yet we all have to make judgements about others every day. It would be interesting to read your angle on this Rob.
It’s only about you. When you judge anyone negatively, in that moment you create a split in your mind, a conflict, which holds you from peace of mind and being as happy as you can be.
“Judge not lest you be judged” is really about what judging does to you, not the other.
When I spoke about myself not living up to my standards, it was in moments where I had judged against others and my actions followed from that.
It’s always other people that give us our greatest challenges.
In the next week or at the most 2 weeks I’ll have finished the Happiness 2.0 report. It details my complete philosophy and will give a complete answer to this question and hopefully many more.
I really appreciate the work and philosophy you speak of. I await for your Happiness 2.0 report.
cheers!
DEAR ROB,
PLEASE HAVE NO REGRETS FOR WHAT YOU DID WITH GOOD INTENTION IN THE PAST. TAKING BEST DECISION AND CHOOSING BEST AVAILABE OPTION IS NOT ALWAYS POSSIBLE IN OUR DAILY LIFE . BEACAUSE HUMAN HAVE FOLLIES AND FAULTS. AND GOD IS VERY KIND TO FORGIVE US. THE BEST THING IS TO DO A THING IN THE BEST OF INTENTION AND AS SELFLESSLY AS POSSIBLE AND THAN HAVE NO REGRETS AND GRACEFULLY ACCEPT THE RESULT.
BEST WISHWES
MOHAMMAD ALAM
i achieved a great deal of your advice and now i love my life and learnt to face it with confidence and courage.keep on mailing me .thank u very much
I believe that I have taken a right decision to learn about happy thoughts. I found it interesting as I support your ideas. reading your program will help me to enhance my knowledge and built my confidence in dealing with life and people. Would look forward to have more thoughts. Thanks a lot.
Sudhir
Rob,
Just read your book. What you had to say resonated with me nd I got a lot of “new” prospectives along with a deepening of other prospectives I’ve been nurturing. Thanks for the insights.
I have a question which always dogs me that I hope you will shed some light on. On page 58 of your book, Happiness 2.0, you talk about letting go. When I read or hear about the concept of “letting go” I feel a knowing that it is right. My question though is why does that always feel like “allowing” to me? Allowing in the negative sense, as in being passive or not efforting to right the wrong?
I have this disconnect with understanding the principle on one hand and fighting it on the other.
Thanks in advance. Brian
Hi all. Hi Rob,
By teaching and sharing with others, you evolve yourself. How many times have you looked back over your life and thought you knew alot back then but with hindsight, it was really not that much at all? It happens on a constant basis, we are all meant to make decisions we regret, we are all meant to wish we could go back and change something we said or did or the way that we acted at a certain time in our lives. Without all these “bad/wrong” decisions or actions, we would never learn the difference between whats right and whats wrong, without being judegmental of others we would never learn the reasons we shouldn’t judge others. Constant mental evolution. In answer to Paul’s question, of course you should have people around you who don’t live up to your integrity, how else would you learn that as long as you have integrity thats all that matters, as long as you are judging others that have not learned through life experience, the things that you have learned you are not acting with integrity anyway. So you learn from them. Always, everyday, everywhere you go, in every way. I love that saying “we can only do our best with what we know now” we cant be what we are not, what we haven’t become. If life worked that way we would all be perfect. Life will always be a struggle to find the right path, the right way to act, to think, to love, everyday we wil all learn something different and new, and you choose whether to enjoy the journey or resist it, usually a combo of both and thats good, because resistance leads to learning and going with the flow is the what resistance is trying to teach.