Entries Tagged 'concepts' ↓

One of the hardest things to do is to stay unaffected by what other people say or do (or even what they don’t say and don’t do).  It’s easy to get caught up in what someone says and then lose a day, or even a week, running over and over something that has upset you.

Once you start to do that you get lost in the flow of negativity and bitterness until you lose all perspective and are unable to dig yourself out.  Once this happens you’ve lost your free will and ability to choose your response and direction.

One of the ways of maintaining perspective is to understand that no one is all bad or all good.  I’m sure there has been at least one person in your life that you once thought was great and now can’t stand.  Which is right?

Both.

It depends on the time and context in which you met the person.  Let me explain…

Sometimes you can look at something and recoil in disgust. Say for example that you open your fridge and find a rotting piece of fruit or a bottle of soured milk. It’s offensive to your senses, isn’t it?

Or how about a plant or flower that has died? One that once looked so pretty and full of life, but now it’s all dried up and dead?

It’s not that the fruit, the milk or the flower or plant is ugly or that it inherently disgusts you, it’s just the timing of when you meet it.

In other words, a week earlier, the fruit would have delighted your taste buds. The plant would have pleased your eye and the milk quenched your thirst.

But a lack of nutrients caused the fruit, the flower and plant to die and a build up of bacteria caused the milk to sour. And so you met them at the ugliest moment in their life, when they were dead and decaying.

It’s just the same with people. If you meet them when they feel unloved, unnurtured, frustrated and generally not at their best they might disgust and revolt you. They really aren’t repulsive, they’re just lacking something.

Yet you might see them at another time or in another context and think them to be the most pleasant and attractive person you’ve met in ages.

Your ability to be happy.  Your ability to exercise your free will and direct your life is entirely dependent on your ability to choose your response whatever others do.  It isn’t easy, but with time and effort you can achieve it.

It is also the key to making people in your life more pleasant.  Loving them when they are lacking helps to restore them to what they could be. Hating them just takes you both away from what you could be.

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I just wrote that headline and chuckled as I imagined people opening up their email and reading it. There are always people who might think that you are personally accusing them of furtively enjoying pornography or of harboring deep, hidden desires that they fear others finding out about. That’s not what I’m talking about, though the process of how people get paranoid is somewhat related.

What I really mean is this…

You have come here, metaphorically, to think about new concepts and ideas that might make your life more enjoyable. You’ll examine them, compare them with your experience and filter them through the framework of your beliefs, that make up your Operating System.

Mentally, what you are doing is akin to a Scientist examining an item. The Scientist takes great care to keep her Laboratory in pristine condition. She knows that contaminating what She wants to study will change it’s properties.

Yet you may be reading this while doing five other things. So as you mentally process the ideas they get mixed in with the other things you are thinking about.

Imagine if pharmaceutical factories were to do the same thing, so your pills would could be made of whatever happened to be around as well as the chemical ingredients.  It wouldn’t be long before they were sued out of business. But your thoughts determine your body’s biochemistry far more than one contaminated pill. So shouldn’t you be much more careful about the way you take in and consider new ideas?

Psychologist’s talk about the Cocktail Party Syndrome when they discuss Selective Attention. Basically the idea is that you could be having a conversation with Tom. Five foot away you are aware of Jim and Jane having a conversation, but your focus is on talking to Tom.

Suddenly you are aware of your name popping up in Jim and Jane’s conversation. It’s more important to you what they are saying about you – are they saying nice or nasty things? - than what Tom is talking about. So you cut off listening to Tom and try to pick up what they are saying. Then Tom finishes and is waiting for your reply, but you have no idea what he’s just said.

Now since the world always gets busier, more complicated and more to do. More and more people are trying to run around multi-tasking, there’s less and less focus on one thing. In a 2005 study, Glenn Wilson discovered that people taking an IQ test while answering email scored lower than while taking the test after smoking marijuana.

It doesn’t just have to be outside distractions either. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of reading something and then re-reading and re-reading it because your mind drifted.

Then there’s a slightly different effect. We don’t start every thought, or every activity, with a blank screen. There’s a momentum effect. You have a train of thought going in one direction, so unless what you read was very contrasting to your current thought path (like do you have a dirty mind?) it’s likely that you’ll interpret what you read in a way that continues along your path.

Then beyond this, there’s the effect that your mood has on how you interpret ideas and situations. If you were happily going about your day and someone grinned and asked you how you were you might think how nice that they cared.

But if you were having a bad hair day and were feeling paranoid that people were laughing and ridiculing you, you might interpret the grin and comment as them ridiculing you for some unknown reason. It’s the same reason that someone, feeling guilty, will have seen the title of the email I sent and wondered if someone had found out something they didn’t want others to know about.

People often want to argue about what is the best. Who has the best ideas, what are the best sources, what is the best product. The truth is that there is no definitive best. What matters more is you or more specifically your state of mind.

If you are receptive you can take any idea and see in it the most valuable insight.

The best seed is wasted if it sits on concrete.

The most beautiful item is wasted in the dark.

The most valuable product is pointless in it’s box.

Everything has a cycle, a rhythm, a season. Be mindful of what it is that you are seeking. If you come to seek ideas and explore your thoughts, clear your mind and do that.

If you seek in desperation, while simultaneously doing many other things, you’ll end up with a patchwork quilt of mish- mashed, half- baked ideas that contradict each other.  Ultimately you’ll be moving further from your goal.

Some people we can get along with easily. We meet them and we just click. They understand what we say, they can finish our sentences and vice versa. They’re just on the same wavelength. They are fun to be around because they validate our self-concept, our ego and give us a boost. In short they’re a pleasure to be around.

Others though are a challenge. Maybe they’re more gruff, more prickly, more cantankerous. They do not stroke our ego, they attack it. It’s not rewarding to be around them…

unless we rearrange our ego.

Contrarily this makes them ultimately more rewarding to be around. Because to get along with them we have to grow. We have to grow to understand them. We have to grow to get past our petty sensitivities. In other words the barrier between us liking them is in our ego. And so they make us get over ourselves.

So we have the people we like as we are, but will often reinforce our ego, and so maintain us at the level of evolution we’re at. They give us a momentary boost because they make us feel good about ourself.

Then we have the grouchy pests who bug us, but provoke us to grow and so live at more evolved levels. Ultimately these are responsible for us reaching higher levels of happiness.

Next time you come across someone you don’t immediately bond with, remember it might be worth taking the time to break down those barriers. Or all you’ll be left with is the low hanging fruit.

Each of us is the Hero in an epic tale. We travel through scene after scene. Lurching from disaster to the peaks of human experience. Being beaten over and over, yet coming back despite the odds. Overcoming complacency, fear and every other obstacle in our way.

Is your life gripping and life affirming?

Is it a story of overcoming the odds to a heroic achievement of what is meaningful to you?

Or have you settled for the mundane because it is comfortable?

Is your heart alive with purpose and passion?

Or is it anesthetized with comfort?

Today this is what I would like to talk about. None have ever walked this earth and lived a life unworthy of mention. Some who are dazzled by worldly score-keeping might think so. But not from a deeper, broader perspective.

Like the Surfer seeking excitement in the waves, we are faced with wave after wave of tumult that seemingly attack us. Yet with practice, we can overcome our fear of the waves and use the very thing that terrified us to fuel our exhilarating ride.

There is only fear that stands between you and your dreams. Yet fear is the Great Imposter. The Great Illusion.

Every situation, every goal that you may hold, every conflict you engage in, every problem you face is only Life challenging how greatly you value your intended outcome. When you fold in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Life knows you truly never valued the goal and so it does not give it you. When you stand firm and demand the result, no matter how terrifying the fear or how daunting the mountain, Life has to give in to you.

This is the Art of Mastering Life.

Learn to love the problems, for it is they that wake you from the mediocre life of fear, sloth and complacency.

Conflict was never your goal. Easy was never the path you chose. Nothing can ever match the pure exhilaration of mastering the wave that once struck fear into your very being.

Remember this. In every conflict situation, whether it be with another, or a tug of war with Life for what you desire, or your own tangled thoughts…

the strongest held view, emotion or goal dominates.

Always.

Next time you are confronted by an angry Customer, your child in a full out tantrum, or your Partner in full battle…

the strongest held emotion will dominate.

Just watch, either yourself, or others in such a situation. One, usually the one who is most angry, will suck the other into their world. You’ll find that often one begins as being calm. But the sheer intensity of the other’s fury, like a raging fire, overcomes their calmness and so they join the other in rage.

Yet if there is one who refuses to get drawn into battle, then the other will be smothered by their calmness like a fire smothered by a blanket.

Sometimes someone will hold onto their argument despite it obviously having no sound reason. This is because it holds such emotional power for them that they are more afraid of giving it up. In such a case, the other person will be unlikely to give up their position and they will be in for a protracted onslought. But the fact remains that, even though they won’t win the argument logically, they are likely to suck the other person in to their emotional state.

In just the same way as every argument is settled by who most strongly holds to their position Life tests people before they achieve their goals. Just as in an argument the other will strip away your false reasoning, Life will first fail your attempts by showing the false reasoning in your plans. So the more intelligent your plans, the less pain you will have to suffer for your art. If you do not really value your goal and you are not really prepared for it, you will suffer so greatly that you will give up.

Foucault pointed out that an Institution was strengthened the most by those who opposed it. So too can you be strengthened by your adversity. When you keep coming back stronger, by using the feedback Life has given you, to make your case with stronger and stronger conviction, you become unstoppable.

Sometimes people ask what would you do, if you knew you couldn’t fail. Yet you cannot fail. Not if what you are doing is really, truly of value to you. Because if it really is your mission, you will have the aptitude and ability to achieve it. But your story may be one that has many knockdowns and setbacks before you get to the end. But if it is held strongly enough, that you dilligently and intelligently pursue it, it will come true eventually.

Often if you are to listen to Psychologist, the media and so on, you would think the problems of humanity are of a lack of valuing themselves. This isn’t truly the root though.

The truth is that there is a lack of valuing things that transcend ourselves. There are few people willing to die for their mission. And you cannot live until you are prepared to die.

Go find what it is that means more to you, than you do. Then pursue that with more passion than you have ever pursued anything before. And when the world comes to batter your dreams into submission… Remember if you hold firm, you will master Life and it will have no choice, but to give you what you desire.

Fear, in all of it’s forms, is only a test. Life tests your mettle to see how honestly you value your goals, how true your Character and integrity are. Succumb to the challenge and it is clear that you were never serious anyway.

Everyone says they value X, but fill them with fear, give them seemingly impossible circumstances and most will change their mind. Overcome the fear and you will see it was only an illusion all the time. I’ll bet there was a time in your life that you feared the dark. Yet turn the light on and what was there to be afraid of?

People sometimes like the comfort of thinking that they have a Guardian Angel. Yet you also play this role. Every idea comes into the world through a sponsoring Guardian. If the Guardian cannot love it and hold it true strongly enough to bring it to fruition, than like the weak Spartan Baby it is left to perish on the hills.

Will you protect your Progeny (your ideas, skills, values) like a Lioness protects her Cubs?

Or will your legacy die because you cannot maintain love in the face of fear?

Would you like less conflict in your life?

Have you noticed how recently everywhere organizations, politicians and the media are talking about Carbon footprints?

Suddenly everyone has become aware of the chain effect that each of our consumption has on the planet. I guess it’s good that we are becoming responsible about our impact on the planet. But there is something so much more important to focus on…

It’s the fact that it’s not just what you consume that affects the world. By a far greater factor your state of being, the mood that you are in, whether you smile or snarl at another has a far greater impact.

Once you understand the idea that the butterfly’s wings creates an chain reaction across the globe you can relate that idea to your own mood. Let’s translate this idea to your life.

Say you wake up grumpy and scowl at your Spouse as you get up. “Where’s my shirt?” you bark. As your kids come rushing in excited you shout at them to watch the vase. Then you drive off to work cutting in to the traffic and beeping away to every other ‘idiot’ on the road.

The idea is that your emotional state determines your perceptions, which affects your decisions, which determines the perspective, the posture and the actions you take. This then affects others emotional state creating either a positive chain of events or a vicious circle.

Ideally everyone would have a level of happiness that is resistant to the bows and arrows of fate. But the reality is that our evolution is such that our mood and emotional state is fragile. Just one snarl, imagined slight or perceived snub can dominate a person’s entire day.

Imagine waking up one day to a bright, sunny day. Feeling as though the Gods have been ahead of you sweeping the path before you tread. Everyone seems to radiate love and appreciation for the wonder that you are.

Then picture another day, where the clouds seem to hover over only you. Where the Gods seem to be using you for target practice for every conceivable form of unpleasantry. Feel the pain and hostility you feel when you receive only rejection, ridicule and resentment.

Now would your actions and feelings be different?

Of course. Now take it a step deeper. Would the people with whom you interact gain a different energy, a different emotional response to their meeting with you?

Of course. And as Jimmy Stewart found in the famous film “It’s a Wonderful Life”, our actions have a power that far exceeds our knowledge.

This is the point I’m trying to make. The issue of your Carbon Footprint is minuscule in comparison to your Emotional Footprint.