Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

June 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

What’s the most important thing?
The Practice:
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Why?

Have you heard this saying?

The most important thing is to remember the most important thing.

What are the most important things to you? In your life as a whole? During a particular interaction with someone? Right this minute?

The most important things often get pushed to the sidelines. Urgent crowds out important. Modern life is full of distracting clamor, from text messages and emails to window displays in the mall. Other people tug at you with their priorities – which may not be your own. And it can feel scary to admit what really matters to you, tell others, and go after it for real: the fearful voices whisper in the back of the mind: What if you fail?

But if you don’t make a sanctuary for what is important, it will get overrun by the bermuda grass of B and C priorities.

How?

Know your purpose in life. Write it down in one word, phrase, or sentence. Really. The first time someone suggested I do this, I thought they were a little nuts. But then I opened up to a kind of knowing of what matters most to me, and wrote it down. It’s OK if it changes, or if you don’t get the words just right at first. You can revise it later. Put it in positive terms and in the present tense; for example, “I am loving” is better than “I will stop getting so angry with people.” Say it out loud and see how it feels. Find words you connect with.

Keep your purpose close to your heart; it may feel sacred. If you speak of it, do so with self-respect, not self-doubt. And then every day, as soon as you remember, recommit to your life’s purpose: rename it to yourself and give yourself over to it again.

Clarify your priorities. Identify the key aims of your life these days in a word or phrase, such as: Health. Friendship. Finances. Learning new things. Career. Marriage. Spirituality. Having fun. Parenting. Creative expression. Exploring life. Service. Maybe break up one aim into two or three; for example, “finances” could become “breaking even,” “saving for retirement,” and “becoming affluent, even wealthy.”

Then do a little exercise as an experiment: rank these aims in order of importance, with no ties allowed. If you could attain only one aim, which would it be? That’s your highest priority. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Happiness, Heart, Inner Peace Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

Ask Questions

April 24, 2012 By 432 Comments

What are you learning?
The Practice:
Ask questions.
Why?

My dad grew up on a ranch in North Dakota. He has a saying from his childhood – you may have heard it elsewhere – that’s: “You learn more by listening than by talking.”

Sure, we often gain by thinking out loud, including discovering our truth by speaking it. But on the whole, listening brings lots more valuable information than talking does.

Nonetheless, many people are not the greatest listeners. (You’ve probably noticed this already: at work, at home, when you’re trying to work something out with your partner . . .) What’s it feel like when they don’t listen to you? Or maybe listen, but don’t inquire further? It’s not good. Besides missing out on important information – including, often most importantly, your underlying feelings and wants – they’re sending the implicit message that they’re not that interested (even though, deep down, they might be).

Then turn it around: what do you think they feel like if you don’t listen that well to them? Not very good either.

Being a good listener brings many benefits: gathering useful information, making others feel like they matter to you, sustaining a sense of connection with people, and stepping out of your own familiar frame of reference.

One of the best ways to listen well is to ask questions. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Inner Peace, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , 432 Comments

Stay Right When You’re Wronged

April 17, 2012 By 79 Comments

What happens after you’re mistreated?
The Practice:
Stay right when you’re wronged.
Why?

It’s easy to treat people well when they treat you well. The real test is when they treat you badly.

Think of times you’ve been truly wronged, in small ways or big ones. Maybe someone stole something , turned others against you, broke an agreement, cheated on you, or spoke unfairly or abusively.

When things like these happen, I feel mad, hurt, startled, wounded, sad. Naturally it arises to want to strike back and punish, get others to agree with me, and make a case against the other person in my own mind.

These feelings and impulses are normal. But what happens if you get caught up in reactions and go overboard? (Which is different from keeping your cool, seeing the big picture, and acting wisely – which we’ll explore below.) There’s usually a release and satisfaction, and thinking you’re justified. It feels good.

For a little while.

But bad things usually follow. The other person overreacts, too, in a vicious cycle. Other people – relatives, friends, co-workers – get involved and muddy the water. You don’t look very good when you act out of upset, and others remember. It gets harder to work through the situation in a reasonable way. After the dust settles, you feel bad inside.

As the Buddha said long ago, “Getting angry with another person is like throwing hot coals with bare hands: both people get burned.” You can see much the same thing internationally. Gandhi put it so well: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Sure, you need to clarify your position, stand up for yourself, set boundaries, speak truth to power. The art – and I’m still working on it, myself! – is to do these things without the fiery excesses that have bad consequences for you, others, and our fragile planet. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Heart, Inner Peace, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , 79 Comments
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