Five Goal-setting Concepts

1. Spend some quiet time thinking about goals.

A goal properly set is halfway reached. ~ Abraham Lincoln

If goals focus your life then choosing your goals carefully, and properly is an essential step toward a successful future as an artist. Remember that it is impossible to achieve a goal you don’t have. That sounds like an obvious, self-evident aphorism, but more often than not, people tend to live their lives without any clearly thought out, definite goals. It is the absence of goals that result in dull lives of mind-numbing routine. We sometimes call this zombie–like lifestyle as being a “rat race.” We've all heard the joke, "if you win a rat race you’re still just a rat." There is no aspect of creative living more important than the setting of your goals.

When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind. ~Seneca

The truth is, the reason most people don’t get much done is because they have no goals.

Your goals work like a road map for your life. The map is a good analogy for goal setting. If you have a map you know where you are heading. You can be surprised by the topography. There could be hills and streams that force you to move away from your goal, but these moves are not going to change the overall direction of your life. You may have to take a detour, but if you have a map every detour is just a tiny little problem that has little effect on your journey through life. With a map you continue to head toward your goal. If circumstances compel you to pause, or, for a time, if you are forced to move in another direction, it is not going to be a move that changes the eventual outcome of your journey.

But if you have no goal, then you need no map because you are going nowhere and when you get there you’ll be nowhere.

2. Commit yourself fully to your goals.

In one of my favorite films, GATTACA, there is a character who has genetic flaws that cause his family, and society to believe he is limited in the scope of what he can do by his DNA. The character refuses to accept these perceived limitations. In one scene the flawed boy swims a great distance in the sea in an endurance race with his genetically perfect brother. Half way through this race the perfect brother gives up. He pauses and asks, “How are you doing this Vincent? How are you doing any of this?” Vincent’s answer is very telling. The reason he could go farther than his perfect brother is because he, the inferior brother, didn’t save anything for the trip back.

The point Vincent makes is telling. If we save something back we are limiting ourselves, and it is likely that we will save back too much. There's no telling what you can do when you get inspired by your goals. There's no telling what you can do when you believe in your goals. There's no telling what will happen when you act upon your goals. If we risk little we can only make petite gains. Vincent’s goal was to get where he was going and he was willing to commit ALL of his energy, ALL of his time, ALL of his efforts, and EVERY resource he possessed to achieve his goals. You don’t know how far you go, until you go as far as you can. Hold nothing back.

He was right, of course. If that car died at the lake and never moved another inch ever again, we were not going to just live at the lake the rest of our lives. We would, eventually, get back. It is a silly analogy, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

3. Dream Big

Any man who selects a goal in life which can be fully achieved has already defined his own limitations. ~Cavett Robert

Set your goals high. Challenge yourself. Our potential is rarely reanalyzed, because we limit ourselves by having puny dreams. Dream big and don’t worry about how the dream will be realized. The earth is round. We can only see so far before the distance drops out of our sight. But when we go as far as we can see, we can always see a little farther. Big dreams are like that. You may not see how you will get there, but go as far as you can, and you can always go a little farther.

4. Big Dreams should be broken up into small parts.

It is all to easy to consider the big picture and give up because the dream appears to be too big to be completed.

I am not suggesting that you expect your Big Dream to be realized quickly and easily. Know that big dreams come true only with big efforts on the part of the dreamer. We still use the small step approach and divide our Big Goal into dozens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of smaller goal. But working on small parts of our big dream is not the same thing as having low expectation of ourselves. Dividing a big project into small steps is just a smart strategy. There is an old saying that goes something like this: the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, and then a second set, and so on, is a trite, but true statement.

My mother use to tell me: “Little by little gets lots and lots done.”

5. Do not allow the past to dictate the future.

. . . this one thing I do: forgetting those things which are behind and straining forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call. . . ~Philippians 3:13,14

Saint Paul had at one time been a great persecutor of Christians, but he did not allow his past prevent him from reaching. And this was not a casual reach for his goal, he was straining toward the goal.

We too must be willing to strain toward our goals.

Six Steps Of Creativity

Step One is CAPTURING the idea. This is preserving a new idea as the creative idea occurs to you, and preserving this new idea without judging it. If you judge it you may discard the idea before you have really explored it. The odd thing is that when the brain is being creative it is so focused on that process that it sometimes fails to turn on the memory center. That’s why writing stuff down is critical. In the CAPTURING stage of creativity, being non-judgmental about the ideas that pop up.

Step Two is CHALLENGING the mind. Give yourself tough problems to solve.

It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when they don't have to. ~Walter Linn

There is an old saying, when things get tough the tough get going (going toward solutions, not going to avoid the tough stuff.) When things are difficult for us different parts of yourself, differing behaviors start to compete with one another and the tension and interconnectedness that arises from this challenge create new solutions and new, different behaviors.

It is in the interconnecting of behaviors and decisions that creativity is born. This is the reason for welcoming different viewpoints and perspectives within the organization and within the leadership structure.

Step Three is BROADENING the idea. The more diverse your knowledge is, the more interesting your interconnections will be. You can actually boost your creativity simply by learning interesting new things. It is not worthless to study music if you are a scientist, or biology is you are a poet. You just don’t know which stuff you are learning is going to be useful later, nor can you know when this off subject stuff is going to spark a creative act. The more you look, the more you see, the more you know the more creative you can become. When you fail to branch out and explore new and diverse ideas, stagnation sets in like gangrene.

I don't believe in intuition. When you get sudden flashes of perception, it is just the brain working faster than usual. But you've been getting ready to know it for a long time, and when it comes, you feel you've known it always. ~Katherine Anne Porter

Step Four is MULI-SOLUTIONAL, or that there is always more than one right answer. A deceptively simple observation, and extraordinarily powerful. If we stop after we find the right answer we may never find the best answer. The right answer may work with some situations, while others require totally different solutions. Haven't we learned that one size does not fit all; there are no silver bullets; and that learning and creativity beget diversity?

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all. ~Edward De Bono

Step Five: Don’t Fear Failure.

Why? 1) We must not fear failure because it will keep you from trying.

A failure is a man who has blundered but is not capable of cashing in on the experience. ~Elbert Hubbard

The surest way to 100% failure is to not do anything. The novel will never be completed if it is not started.

2) We must not fear failure because failure is a pod and the seeds of success are found inside. The Thomas Edison quote fits great here:

I didn't fail. I just found 1000 ways how not to make a lightbulb.'~Thomas Edison

Step Six: Clarify Success. Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting in his entire life, but few would say he was a creative failure. He was certainly a failure if success meant he enjoyed fame and riches during his life time. Few would say Emily Dickenson was a creative failure because she failed to publish in her life time, and had no recognition as a poet while alive. Having the wrong idea of success can become a block to creativity. If success means, fame, or money, then the efforts to develop your skills will seem worthless.

The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. . . . The ordinary objects of human endeavour -- property, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible. ~Albert Einstein

Crappy Creativity

A lot of crappy information goes around about what it means to be an artists and the nature of creativity. Artists, the people in an excellent position to set things right, will often join in on this crappy info distribution. Consider this quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

“I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did his dictation.”

When Lincoln met Ms. Stowe he is reported to have said this is the woman who started the civil war. It may have been, for its time, a powerful book, but dictated by God? Ms. Stowe was clearly spreading crap about the creative process. Artists do that. It adds to our mystic. It sets the artist apart from the common folk. When artists make statements that imply that they are gifted by some higher power, or born with some gift of talent they are actually marketing their artistic products. If you non-creative types believe that this object, or poem, or novel, or song is created by someone with an unusual, special gift that is not available to you, then if you buy the painting, or book, or CD you will have something special. Anyone could have a gold coin, but I got a golden egg laid by this artistic goose. Such notions are crap. The myth of a muse, the idea that there can be no creative effort apart from inspiration, the commonly accepted lie that some are blessed with artistic ability while others are not, is a way for the artist to promote his or her work, and becomes a block to creating art for the masses. After all, if you don’t feel like God has taken over your motor movements and forced your hand to write out a novel, wouldn’t it be silly to try to just do such a thing on your own?

I believe creative ability is as common as freckles. Artistic potential is as widespread as fingers and toes. It is a fundamental characteristic of being human to be creative. We do millions of things every day that are acts of art, but discounted by most of us because we know we are not artists, and have no artistic ability.

Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade? ~Benjamin Franklin

Yes, it is true that there are some among us that seem to have a greater attraction to creative pursuits, but it is an assumption to believe this person is attracted to artistic activity because he or she is gifted. There are other factors at work that turn one child into Mozart, and another into Michael Angelo, and yet another into Ted Kooser. The same kinds of activities that turn one child into an athlete turn another child into an poet or sculptor, or musical phenom, blah, blah, blah.

If I am right, if it is true that the creative being is cut from the same cloth as the rest of us, or at least most of us, possess creative ability. The difference is that some of us do creative stuff, and some of us do creative stuff less often.

As a kid I noticed something that set my little mind to ticking. As I read about the impressionists, I noticed that most of them were French, and most of them, even those from around Europe and even from America, all ended up in Paris and they knew each other. Then I noticed that there were tons of artists in Italy and many gravitated to Florence, and Michelangelo and Leonardo De Vinci knew each other. How did that happen? Why were some many artists found in one specific geographic area, and among people within the same country and culture?

I believe the answer is that art exploded in areas where the people recognized, honored, and encouraged art. We do the same thing here in the USA, but with sports rather than art. A kid throws a rock in the playground and some father, uncle, teacher, neighbor, etc era will say, “you should try playing baseball. You got a great arm.” A kid runs from the playground when the lunch bell rings, and teachers say, “you should play football. You could carry the ball better than anyone.” In Florence, a kid would draw something on the sidewalk with a piece of chalk, and adults walking by would say, “You gotta good eye, Leo, you could be a great artist.”

I believe that if you aren’t an artist it is because you have chosen not to be an artist. That is the long and short of it. Becoming an artist is not a gift from God, (or it is a wildly disseminated gift of God), and art is not dependent upon some Muse, it is something that exists within most of us, and perhaps all of us. Christy Brown showed us that being handicapped was not a block to creativity. With only the use of his left foot he painted hundreds of pictures and wrote several books. The mentally disabled have artists we unfortunately call idiot savants.

One thing is certain: we are not creating artists in school. Schools are producing athletes, but few schools can take credit for producing artists. What happens more often than not, is that schools end up discouraging artistic pursuits. Eric Hoffer said,

When it comes to creativity, we are still in the food-gathering stage. We don’t know how to grow it.”

As a teacher with 25 years experience in public and private schools, and I say with confidence that teachers do not teach anything. All education is self-education.

Teachers make assignments, and explain concepts, and this is similar to what a coach does with his or her athletes. If the pupil is motivated, learning takes place because of what the student does. If the athlete is fired up, then points will be scored. The success in the classroom, or on the field, or in the studio depends upon the motivation of the student, the athlete, and the artist.

When people find out I write poetry the often same the same thing, “I write poetry too, but only when I’m inspired, and that only happens to me once in a great while.”

The problem with such a statement is that the person has linked artistic actions to inspiration. Perhaps a better way to put it is that writing poetry is linked to that person’s feelings. If they don’t feel like writing they don’t write. The difference between them and me, is that I write almost every day. I rarely miss a day. When I feel like it I write. When I don’t feel like writing, I still write.

Consider the athlete. Do you think that the kids on the football team only practice when they feel like it? Will a couch keep a kid on the team if they attend practice only when they feel like practicing? The team practices daily. Rain, shine, hot, cold, feeling good, feeling bad, whole, or wounded, holidays, and weekends, the team will show up and practice. If a kid links his or her athletic activities to feeling like it, that kid is not going to be on the team, and is unlikely to become a professional athlete.

The job of the coach is to teach the skills, and plays, to set the practices, and to motivate the team to practice, to dream, to try as heard as they can to win. If a coach is fired after a losing season, it isn’t because the coach failed to score. It is because the coach failed to sufficiently teach and motivate his or her team so that they would score.

In the classroom the same sorts of things are at work. The teacher makes assignments (sort of practice) and the teacher does his or her best to motivate the students, but if learning takes place it is the student that learns from his or her doing. If the teacher fails to sufficiently motivate the students they will talk, sleep, clown around, disrupt, argue, and superglue a penny to the top of their desk. If the student isn’t motivated to do the things that cause them to learn, then it doesn’t matter how well the lesson was explained, or how cleaver and thought out the assignment was, the students will not learn unless the student does the assignment.

Everyone has a body, but everyone is not an athlete. Everyone has a brain, but high level thinking is not practiced by every student. Everyone has creative ability, but not everyone will create art.

What most people call inspiration is the feeling one gets when he or she is motivated. If you believe that motivation is linked to feeling then you will be motivated less often than if you link motivation to commitment. The committed student will study even when they would rather not. The dedicated athlete will practice even when they are tired, or stressed, or would rather be doing something else. The artist is different from the non-artist because they practice their art because they have decided to practice their art regardless of how they feel.

Even the occasional poet can write a good poem occasionally. The guy who plays touch football 6 or 8 times a year might, occasionally, throw a fantastic pass. A student who paid attention in class only one time during the semester, might get one answer right on a test, but the rarely motivated people are rarely successful people; the occasionally motivated will only achieve their goal occasionally.

If you want to be a painter, poet, novelist, sculptor, singer, guitar player, etc era, then you must bind yourself to regularly practicing your art. Practice your art on a schedule. The artist does not fit practice into their life, they fit their life into their practice. The artist decides to make the practice of his or her art a priority in their life. You must decide to allow your art to dictate how you will spend your time, energy, and money. The success with your art comes later.

Do you think the first time Michelangelo’s first try at painting resulted in the Sistine Chapel ceiling? Do you think Babe Ruth hit every ball out of the park his first time to try batting? Most of us can walk, but how many of us walked perfectly the first time we tried? IT takes a lot of practice to become a successful _____________________. Fill in the blank. It takes a lot of practice to do anything well.

My wife watched me draw a picture on the back of a place mat in a restaurant, flipped her paper over, and tried to do a drawing of her own. Her effort was crude and to be honest, it looked like it had been drawn by a 4 year old. (If I want her to know I said that I’ll tell her myself.) My wife was immediately frustrated that her drawing did not look “as good” as mine. But she did not do what I have done. I have drawn thousands of pictures. I drew all day in every class. I made Cs and Ds in my school work, but by golly I learned to draw. It isn’t fair to compare your first artistic effort to the work of someone who has been working daily at their art for many years.

Ability does not exist first and then motivation and dedication follows. The motivation and dedication has to be there first and the ability comes later. You can want it to be the other way around, but it isn’t. I wish it rained beer. It’s America. You can want whatever you want to want, but if your wants are unrealistic all you get for your effort is frustration.

Justifying Myself

Alfred Nobel, . . . in 1888 read his own obituary in a French newspaper. One of his brothers had died, but a careless reporter had used a statement prepared for the wrong man.
Alfred, the principal inventor of dynamite, was disappointed with the published account. He was described as a “merchant of death” who had made a fortune from explosives and human exploitation. This haunting image caused him to reevaluate his life and revamp his will. Consequently, his money has made possible awards for individuals who excel in making the world a better place. We call these awards the Nobel Prize.

~ http://www.heartlight.org/timely_truths/repentance.html

Alfred Nobel, apparently felt that his reputation, his value in the eyes of the world, mattered, and that he did not want to be know ONLY as the inventor of dynamite. Did Mr. Nobel create the Peace Prize as his way of trying to justify his existence, and enhance his worth in the eyes of the world? Did Mr. Nobel have to earn his worth, or did he have worth?

The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself. ~Eric Hoffer

What you can say about most of my blog articles, you can say about this one: it appears to be written to others, and for others, but it is actually written to myself. I have admired Eric Hoffer since a teenager, and as I age my admiration only increases. Let’s look at the quote carefully.

THE AUTONOMOUS INDIVIDUAL – does the word autonomous mean individual, the singled-out, the self-governed? All of us are autonomous, aren’t we? Even the most dependent among us, is still just a being that exists within a specific sack of skin. We are all alone, even in a large family, and in a crowed city. A quote I have used before says:

No one will ever breathe one breath for us. No one will ever think one thought that is ours. No one will ever stand in our bodies, experience what happens to us, feel our fears, dream our dreams, or cry our tears. We are born, live, and leave this life entirely on our own. . . . No one else can ever live a single moment of our lives for us. That we must do for ourselves. That is responsibility. ~Helmstetter

So what Mr. Hoffer says in this quote applies to all of us.

JUSTIFY HIS EXISTENCE: Here we have the concept of earning our worth, or, at the very least, that you have to come up with a very good reason for being alive. If you feel your existence must be earned, or rationalized,

This thought reminds me of a debate I heard repeatedly as a kid raised by blackbelt fundamentalists. The topic was salvation. How does a person get into the position where God will save them. Do you get baptized the proper way (by immersion), and attend church regularly, and tithe to the church, and avoid sexual immorality, and spread the gospel, and so on, and so forth. OR are we saved because Jesus paid the price for our sins, and extends to us grace (which was defined by unearned salvation.)

In my church background the matter was DO YOU EARN salvation, or are you saved FREELY, AND WITHOUT HAVING TO DO ANYTHING.

In Mr. Hoffer’s quote he is bringing up a similar issue. about how one will justify his or her existence.
Does existence have to be earned? You exist. If you didn’t exist then there is no issue. If you exist, why would you have to justify what you already have? But having to justify existence doesn’t really matter, because although I don’t have to justify my existence, and you don’t have to justify your existence, my mind, and my emotions are crying out for justification.

Most of the time, I have within me this inner screaming match going on regarding my existence. When I do something that is less than perfect (in other words, everything I do) I feel worthless and in my mind I hear things like this:

=> that was a stupid thing to do, but what can you expect when you are so damn stupid.

=> God is wasting air on you.

=> everyone would be better off without you why can’t you do anything right, you screw up the simplest things

=> eventually everyone is going to find out just how dumb and inept you are, bozo, and you’ll have to go live under a bridge and die from exposure and neglect.

ETERNAL BONDAGE TO YOURSELF-- If I have to earn, or justify my own existence then I will be in eternal bondage to myself. I will be monitoring everything I do, and say, and every decision I make. This self-monitoring is not, in itself BAD, if I am just assessing progress and tweaking my skills, but that is not what is going on, not at all. What is going on is this: I am checking out every action, and thought, and I’m judging myself to be a failure, and being a failure I am wondering why I exist. Anyone living this way is indeed in BONDAGE TO ONE’S SELF.

It is odd that hardly anyone would question the worth of a new born baby. Every baby is born with a value that is beyond imagination. When a ship is sinking the first into the life-boats are children. Women come next I suppose because they are assumed to be the caregivers to the children. Every baby is priceless. The worth of the baby is not earned. The value of an infant does not have to be justified. If this is generally accepted as true, then when does this worth evaporate? When do we stop having unearned value? At what point does a person stop having unearned value, and start having to justify their right to exist?

It would seem logical to assume that IF you are born with worth, that you always have worth, but my mind doesn’t seem to compared that rationale.

Again, Dr. Frank Schultz has given advice that is worth repeating: Be curious about that.

I beg you . . . to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for answers which could not be give to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday, far into the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers. ~Rilke

What’s in a name?

’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
William Shakespeare


It was a 14 year old hotty named Juliet that said a rose by any other name is still going to smell like a rose. Her point was, that her crush on a Montague did not really matter because it was only Romeo’s last name that was the problem. Montague is just a name, just a word, and words don’t matter.

Juliet is quoted often by people making the point that words don’t matter, but people saying this have missed the point of Mr. Shakespeare’s play. The point of the Romeo and Juliet drama is that Juliet is wrong, and that words not only matter, but words can and often do have life and death consequences associated with them.

The children’s chant: Sticks and stones/may break my bones, but words will never hurt me is a cleaver first grader comeback to a school yard slur, but if you live long enough you will come to know this sticks and stones retort is a lie. Words can and very often do hurt and sometimes the pain generated from words is absolutely unbearable.

When the boss says, “You used the wrong form letter when you responded to the claimant,” in the opinion of the boss that may be true, but a depression free response will be appropriate. A depression prone person will immediately start an internal dialogue with himself or herself. Often this mental self-talk goes something like this:

ME: I made a stupid rookie mistake. I am stupid, stupid, stupid.
Now the boss knows just what a loser I am. I’ve been fooling her and everyone else around here, but the jig is up.
If I can’t even do something as simple and fundamental as use the appropriate letter, then everyone is going to know I am out of my league here.
This is just the first trip on the slippery slope of being fired.
If I lose this job I won’t be able to get a job anywhere else.

Without a job, I’ll have no income.
We won’t be able to pay our bills. We’ll lose the house.

My wife is going to leave me, and I’m going to end up a homeless bum living under a bridge.
It might be better if I quit now, that way at least I won’t have being fired on my resume. I’m going to write my letter of resignation right now.”

The response is not appropriate to the rather minor criticism that triggered the internal dising session illustrated above. If you are suffering from the words you hear in your ears and the words you hear in you mind, then consider the following suggestions:

Suggestion 1: When people are critical of you: stop, think, and whatever you do, do it intentionally.

In problems of logic, contradictory statements cannot be true; in the psyche, ONLY contradictory statements are true. Sam Keen

I wouldn’t say, flat out, that any of these three responses are wrong. I would say that all three of the responses are not going to enhance your life and protect you from depression unless they are implemented intentionally.

Usually returning verbal attack with verbal attacks is just going to escalate conflict, but there may be some scenarios where that would be a tactic you use for some psychological, or calculated reason. If it is a tactic it might be effective, but only if you have thought it out, anticipated reactions, and developed a plan B, and maybe a plan C as well.

To flee, or to simply smile knowingly and walk away, can be the most appropriate response to your critics, but fleeing can also end with you feeling humiliated, and your self-esteem may be critically wounded. You can flee and that action may actually protect your inner self but it is better for you if you pick this option intentionally and with forethought.

It is healing to get brought back to knowing what you know. ~Lisa Friedlander

To stand your ground and attempt to disarm the critic can, in some situations, perhaps even in most situations, end with you not only retaining self-esteem, but enhancing it. On the other hand, attempting to disarm an out of control critic can end with you feeling frustrated, defeated, and incompetent.

Never argue with a crazy person because when you’re done, they’ll still be crazy, and you might be too. If you assess the situation and intentionally choose to disarm your critic you will know what is going on, and will be taking steps to protect your inner self.
The good thing about living intentionally is that you remain in control, and you always have the option of intentionally making a different choice when you determine that would be in your best interest.

You can be disarming your critic when you realize that you can’t disarm a lunatic with imaginary weapons. If you find that your critic is incapable of hearing you, that he or she is too out of control to be rational, then walking away may be your next choice.

Suggestion 2: When you talk to yourself always be nice.

The truth is, we all have a voice inside our heads that is constantly mouthing off. Too many of us have allowed the voice to get away with some harsh, insulting, and uncalled for remarks.

Languageshapes consciousness, and the use of language to shape consciousness is an important branch of magic. ~Starhawk

Always be nice to yourself. Never, never, never cut yourself down, make disparaging comments about yourself, do not allow your internal voice to give you an ass chewing ever.

Don’t even cut yourself down in jest. If you want to stop hating yourself, drive depression out of your body, and experience joy, then you can’t even joke about yourself in a negative manner.

If you drop something, you absolutely must not make any jokes about how klutzy your are, no pop off remarks like, “grace strikes ever 5 minutes,” no whispered, “I can’t even carry 9 file folders without dropping the damn things.”

In my own case, I have been giving myself a tongue lashing for over 50 years, so my knee jerk reaction to any thing that is less than perfect is to crush my soul verbally. Sometimes my verbal remarks are inside my head, and sometimes I actually talk to myself and I can be merciless.
I have always been uncompromisingly cruel and ridged when dealing with myself. I say things to myself that I would never in a million years say to anyone else, even someone I don’t like. For 50 years I have been nicer to strangers than I have to myself. Often I have over-reacted to slights that came from people I don’t even like.

One of the most common traits shared by all depressed dudes and dudettes is a sense of worthlessness. Worthlessness has friends: like incompetence, stupidity, an unattractive appearance, hopelessness and helplessness.

Choose to Choose!

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to ourselves. ~Montaigne


What I believe now (that I didn't use to believe) is that we choose to be who we are. We choose to feel the way we feel, we see life the way we choose to see life, we react to life events the way we choose to react. We may have had a lousy childhood, we may even have a genetic proneness to depression, we may have suffered profound losses, and illnesses, but we are not condemned to live in a NOW created by our THEN.

This idea is sometimes difficult to accept. I had difficulty accepting it. The physical abuse, the sexual abuse, the substance abuse were inflicted upon me, I would think, so that’s why I’m messed up, and because I can’t change my abusive history I am condemned to before-ever a damaged being. We might think we are condemned to the life our past created for us, but the truth is, we are depressed because we choose to be depressed.

. . . we easily get stuck in . . . believing. . . that the way we've framed everything in our thoughts is how things actually are. ~Steve Hagen


Now I’ve been a behaviorist ever since studying B. F. Skinner back in college. I believe we do what we get paid to do. I believe there is always some reward attached to our behaviors. Unfortunately, sometimes we settle for less than we could’ve gotten. We eat a can of dog food when a Porterhouse steak was available. What I’m saying is that if I am depressed it’s because I have picked to be depressed and I picked it, because I was getting paid for that depression behavior.


This may be difficult for you to accept.

“I’m miserable. Why would I pick to be depressed? And as far as payoffs go, I assure you there are not benefits from being depressed.”

I once thought this, but then it occurred to me that when I had a major depressive episode I got sympathy (pity) from my wife and friends, and people stopped putting stressful demands on me. These benefits from depression may not seem like much, and certainly there are better benefits available, but when this kind of stinkin’ thinkin’ was going on in my brain, I had a crisis of imagination. I settled for the first benefits I came across and never imagined that there might be something better available to me if I just made different choices.


When you are depressed it certainly feels like you are the victim, but the truth is that the depressed person is the perpetrator. Each one of us is the architect of our attitudes, experiences, and moods. Depression is a cage we design and build for ourselves. We lock ourselves into our own prison of despair and then rattle the bars with a tin cup bemoaning the fact that we have been condemned to this depressive misery, when the key that sets us free rests in our shirt pocket.


Getting free from the prison of despondency does not require years, months or weeks of work. Find the key to freedom and happiness, use the key, and step into the freedom you deserve.

Yes, it may be valuable for some to explore the past to see why we react the way we react, but the goal of such reflection is not to pile your hurts up in one place and then wallow in them. There is only one reason to examine the abuses and losses of your past, and that is to recognize what triggers reactions and to opt to not react.

Happy people live informed, intentional lives, making happy choices.

Compassion starts with making friends with ourselves. ~Pema Chodron

The Prayer of Confession in the Book of Common prayer has the petitioner asking to be forgiven for our thoughts, words, and deeds.


What we think determines what we say. What we say directs our deeds. If you are depressed it’s not because you’re bad, it’s not because your daddy beat you with a belt, depression grows out of our thoughts, words, and deeds. I do not call these thoughts words, and deeds sins. I don’t even think they are wrong, or bad. I think that if we are depressed it’s because of how we think, what we say to ourselves, and the actions we take. If you choose to continue being depressed that’s your choice, go forth and be miserable. If you’re tired of being down in the dumps, if you’re weary of the great gray funk, if you are ready to stop hating yourself and, instead, to experience joy, peace, and love then you can choose different thoughts, choose different words, and take different deeds.


Are there people so severely damaged by their abusive upbringing that they are hopelessly trapped by their past? Maybe, but I don’t think so. I do think that there are mental illnesses that make making different positive choices more difficult. Just because a choice is there doesn’t mean it will always be exercised. I would never pretend that depression will be eliminated from all mankind. Depression will always exist within mankind, but it doesn’t have to exist within you, or within me.


I have two definitions important to mention here: SAD and DEPRESSED. There first is SAD. You can be sad and not be depressed. I say that because when I use the word I mean that a person is appropriately down, blue, saddened by some loss, or disappointment. The key here is appropriate. The degree of one’s sadness fits with the level of loss one has experienced. If you have a flat tire, you can be sad about it, but just a little. Its a pain in the sistabottarinktum, but it’s not all that bad, so the level of your sadness is not all that much. If you just bought a new car and it catches fire and burns up, then it is appropriate that you be sadder than you were for the flat. If someone you love died in the car fire, then it would be appropriate to be inconsolable for a time, to shed tears, pound on the table, and perhaps even curse god, but even with this horrible loss one would not expect a person to stay in that initial shocked howling grief for months.


Depression, on the other hand is a sort of sadness on methamphetamines, a horrible despair that is far too excessive when you examine what has triggered the episode of despondency. If someone breaks a date with you and you lay on your bed and wish you were dead, that response is not proportionately appropriate when you consider the rather minor trigger


Believe that better choices exist, look for them, and choose them. Never accept the lie that you are too damaged to ever get better. Do not accept that you are too old to change. It has been proven by The Dog Whisperer that old dogs can learn new tricks. There is no dysfunction so great that it renders you helpless to choose happiness. If you’re depressed you may not realize it, but you are stronger than you think you are, you have a greater capacity than you imagine, and you can change your life much faster than you could ever envisage.

ME: Do choices exist? Always? Sometimes it just doesn’t feel that way.

THE OTHER ME: You’ve been around long enough now to’ve figured out that feelings are not facts. feelings are just the body responding to the chemicals that were released from glands that got triggered by your thinking.

ME: All I have to make decisions is my perception. I have to trust what I see, think, and then react, then make my choices.

THE OTHER ME: You remember that time you drove to Sebring, Florida and when you got there you knew you’d passed through Avon Park, but you don’t remember it, remember that?

ME: Yeah, but that’s because I was so use to driving down there that I didn’t have to think that much about driving. I was on sort of an automatic pilot. I was thinking of other things. My mind was a million miles away.

THE OTHER ME: Well life is like that. Sometimes we go through life and don’t see things that are around us all the time, because our minds are a million miles away dealing with other stuff. There were dozens of things that you would’ve noticed IF you’d been focused on what you were doing. We always have options. There are always choices we could make if we could only see them, but we don’t see them because too often we go through life on automatic pilot.

Relationships

Relationships are vital to human beings, but it is not a substitute for knowing yourself, and being comfortable in your own skin.

No one will ever breathe one breath for us. No one will ever think one thought that is ours. No one will ever stand in our bodies, experience what happens to us, feel our fears, dream our dreams, or cry our tears. We are born, live, and leave this life entirely on our own. . . . No one else can ever live a single moment of our lives for us. That we must do for ourselves. That is responsibility. ~Helmstetter

I object to most love songs. These love songs promulgate a very bad message. “I can’t live, if living is without you.” The song is saying that unless you have a particular relationship with a specific person, you might as well be dead. How about, “Loving you is easy ‘cause your beautiful.” This song is saying that unless you are beautiful you are going to be very difficult to love. My daddy use to say, “Beauty is only skin deep.” My high school buddies would add, “Yeah, but ugly is to the bone.” This stress on beauty has biological/evolutionary facets, but to a thinking being it is just plain dumb.

"There are two questions you ask in life; where am I going and who's going with me. Don't get them in the wrong order." ~Sam Keen

So there is no substitute for being in tune with your own living essence. But while working on the SELF is the priority, this does not denigrate or devalue the relationships that enhance our live. We need other beings in our life.

One of the oldest human needs is to have someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night. ~Margaret Mead

I have been married for 37 years, and while I would not want to eliminate one moment of this life long relationship, I also will not claim that I have had a fun filled flawless marriage.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence. ~S. Suzuki

Love is not something you fall into. Love is a decision of the mind. Love can exist during periods of great difficulty, loss of sexual desire, worry, stress, frustration, and even anger.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." I Corinthians 13:4-8

Emotional connection is a need. It can be satisfied by making real connections with other people. If sex comes after a connection, awesome, but if a real connection is not made, sex will not create it. . . . Living without sex is entirely possible, but only if you are willing to understand that sex is not a need and resist the temptations to give in to it. ~ Angela S. Young
The problem with sex is that you could have sex1000 times and still be interested in number 1001. You can have ED, be 96, and have so much joint pain that sex would be impossible, and yet often, even under such conditions you are still a little horny. In a way, the more sex you have the more interested you are in sex.

The activity of sex will never ultimately satisfy the desire for sex. ~Buddha
Buddhism takes a strong ethical stand in human affairs and sexual behavior in particular. The most common formulation of Buddhist ethics are the five percents:

I undertake the training precept of:
1. Refraining from harming living beings/practicing loving kindness
2. Refraining from taking the non-given/practicing generosity
3. Refraining from committing sexual misconduct/practicing contentment
4. Refraining from false speech/practicing truthful communication
5. Refraining from intoxicants/practicing mindfulness.

Self Sabotage: the clogs of Confidence

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving and that's your own self.~Aldous Huxley

The word Sabotage comes the Industrial Revolution in France. It is said that the powered looms were damaged by angry or disgruntled workers who throw their wooden shoes or clogs (known in French as sabots, hence the term Sabotage) into the machinery, effectively clogging the machinery. It is an odd fact that unhappy workers have repeatedly destroyed their own jobs to protest poor working conditions, or pay, or treatment. It happens, of course, when the workers no longer feel they have anything to lose. If the job becomes intolerable, and no conventional solutions are found, the hopeless frustrated workers will sabotage their own jobs in protest.

There are many discrepancies between the way things appear and the way they really are. Something that is impermanent can appear to be permanent. ~H.H. the Dalai Lama

The problem I’m considering here is self-sabotage. There are times when we actually clog the workings of our life because we feel so frustrated and hopeless, and see no reasonable solutions available to us. For those French workers there may have been solutions available that were not taken either out of rage or ignorance. The same can be said of the person who uses psychological sabotage against himself or herself. There may be other choices that would resolve the frustrations, but because we can’t see those better choices we choose instead to take a working life and destroy it.

Here are the most common of methods of destroying our own confidence:

1. This or Nothing: If you want it all, and will accept nothing less than total victory, then a 99.9% score is a loss. You might say, “Hey, texarooty, nobody would say something like that." Sadly, not only do some people sabotage themselves this way, but I have been sabotaging myself this way for 57 years. If I sent a poem, or a short story out to Atlantic Monthly and it was rejected then I felt the poem was a piece of crap and no other publication on earth would be interested in this work. The fact that even the Poet Laureate of the United States has had work rejected by The Atlantic, I still have this idea: If I don’t achieve this level of success then nothing else I might achieve is worth trying.This way of thinking is the reason you can’t seem to enjoy even the small wins you’ve been getting in life. You think you are a complete failure when your performance (whatever it is) is not perfect. You’d be confident if you didn’t spend so much energy being so hard on yourself!

2. Expect To Lose. If you expect that disaster hiding behind every corner, you will probably find it at every turn in your life.. If you apply for a job and are not hired you think: no one wants me, I am not going to get a good job, I probably can’t even get a job flipping burgers. Such an attitude shines through in a job interview.

3. Accentuate the Negative -- Eliminate the Positive. There is an old song that has the line: “accentuate the positive-- eliminate the negative,” but to the self-sabotage-ers out there the concept is inverted. If you sabotage your confidence then your confidence will be destroyed and you’ll take the smallest negative molehill and magnify it until it looks like a mountain. If you have 6 first place ribbons and one third place ribbon, you will ignore the 6 blue ribbons and magnify the negative aspects of coming in third.

4. Accepting Your Sensations Unexplored, Unquestioned, Unchallenged. It is hard to not believe what you feel, because what you feel is felt so intensely. It is a fact that feelings are not facts, but we sabotage ourselves by not exploring our feelings, not questioning our feelings, and not challenging our feelings. If how you are feeling does not match up with the truth, but you believe the feeling rather than the truth, then confidence is destroyed. ‘I feel stupid so I must be stupid’ Feelings come and go. Confidence is a decision of the mind, and can and often is separate from our feelings.

5. Use the word SHOULD and you have a SHOULDY ATTATITUDE.” The I should have. . . is a phrase common in the mouth and mind of a self-sabotage-er. When I use the word should I’m actually imagining that people expect something from me that I have not or cannot produce. Should statements create standards that we don’t meet, and often they are standards that no one can meet. For example: I recently read some financial advice that said stuff like: You should save 15% of your annual income for emergencies. You should also save 10% of your income in a long term savings account. You should invest 20% of your income in stocks and bonds. You should save 5% of your income for your children’s education. You mortgage should be no more than 30% of your annual income. Add up all these shoulds and you don’t have enough money left to buy food, or pay the electric bill. When you say should it is almost always connected to something that did not go as well as you would have liked, and the should implies: “There must be something really wrong with me.”

6. Tattoo Labeling. Sadly, the self-sabotage-er tends to label himself or herself, and those labels are tattooed on the forehead. We make it impossible for anyone, including ourselves, from removing those labels. ‘I am a loser. It must all be my fault.’ If you have to put a label on yourself, pick a positive one, label yourself a confident person.

7.The Humility Monster. We sabotage ourselves by being unable to accept a compliment. If someone tells me I am good at art, I immediately say, “Thanks.” (I was taught to always say thank you when people say something nice) and then I say, “ was nothing really. Millions of people could have done it better, but I like to draw, so, thanks for being so kind.” Or, “I love you in that dress?” and you say, “Really? I think it makes my butt look big.”

Self-sabotage is extremely powerful, because, almost always, our sabotaging thoughts bypasses our conscious mind. It’s very difficult to deal with problems that take place mostly in the subconscious. In fact, the only way to work with a subconscious problem is to make it a conscious problem. Be aware. Be conscious. Live in the present moment.

We become our beliefs. We get stuck in our heads. ~Kaufman

Notice when you are sabotaging the self, and say, out loud this confidence mantra, “What I’m doing is hurting me. What I have to do is do, think, and say stuff that will be effective productive, and positive right now, in this very moment!” Every time you notice you are sabotaging yourself repeat this confidence mantra. Tell yourself that you do not have to have a rescuer to save the day. The power and the solutions you need right now, you have within you right now. You do not have to be a victim of your own fears and self-destructive thinking. Notice what you are doing and thinking, and if it is not empowering you right now, in the present moment, in your NOW, then say, in an emphatic voice: STOP~ and then repeat the confidence mantra: Make sure that whatever it is that you are doing is empowering you RIGHT NOW, not at some later moment. This way, you are guaranteed that you are always doing what’s best for you at any given moment.

. . . if we would only look carefully, we would see that the world is not the way we think it is -- and that it can never be the way we think it is. ~Steve Hagen

Be curious

about that.

~ Dr. Frank Shultz

Because we assume that what is going on inside of our SELF is real, we are not often curious about why we are feeling and thinking what we think and feel. For example: If you get a dun letter in the mail, for a bill you have already paid, and you assume that the dun letter and the check past one another in the mail, but you are angry, you assume that you are mad because you got dunned – RIGHT? We assume we are mad because we got dunned, and therefore, there is no need to be curious about why we feel something, when we assume we already know why we are pissed off. This makes sense, doesn’t it?

No matter how we get trapped, our usual reaction is not to become curious about what is happening. ~Pema Chodron

The why question is rarely good when applied to other people, because it makes other folks defensive, but the question why is appropriate when contemplating your own actions, thoughts and feelings, for the very same reason. When I ask myself WHY I get defensive, and when I get defensive, I want to know why I’m reacting that way.

We can’t accept ignorance as an excuse. . . . asking the question, no matter how difficult, is our responsibility. Questioning is how we master the truth. ~Angel Kyodo Williams

Why does a dun letter upset me? Because I paid the bill? No. If that were the reason, the fact that the check is already in the mail and may have already been received, and the concern of our creditor has already been redressed, so my upset-ness is for some other reason. I am afraid that a late payment may affect my credit rating. Why is that a problem for me? Because I am afraid that if I have a bad credit rating and have an emergency financial need I might not be able to get the money I need and that I will suffer. I am afraid that other people will think I’m unreliable, shiftless, inept, bad with money, careless, a freeloader, a bum.

We have two alternatives: either we question our beliefs – or we don’t. ~Pema Chodron

It is better to question our belief.

. . . understanding will guard you. Proverbs 2:11

Why does what other people think about me upset me? Because I may need help from other people and they will deny me that help because they have a low opinion of me, and therefore, I will suffer.

No matter how I look at it, if I follow my Why I end up with fear. I am angry because I am afraid. And fear is anticipated pain. I want to avoid pain, avoid suffering, avoid want, loss, need, loneliness, and death.

The problem is not that there are problems, the problem is. . . thinking that having problems is a problem. ~Dr. Theodore Rubin

Nothing we do is going to eliminate the suffering that is associated with life. On the other hand, nothing we do is going to eliminate the joy that is associated with life. There is cold and warmth, darkness and light, joy, and pain. We need it all. Suffering can be the sign that guides us to joy. Death can be the truth that allows us to have a full and meaningful life. Without shadows the light is blinding.

Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there’s anywhere to hide. ~Pema Chodron

What I find, in my own meditation and contemplation is that my anger, depression, frustration, and fear come from anticipating some form of future pain. You may never know this, without being willing to question what you feel, and why you are reacting the ways you react. If our problems right now come from our anticipation of pain and problems later, then at least one solution would be to live in the NOW and diminish your focus on future troubles.

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. ~Jesus, Matthew 6:34

Live in the now. Live in this moment. Live with a questioning mind. Instead of going with the flow ask yourself where does this flow come from, and if I surrendered to it, where is the flow heading?

So say to yourself, “Here I am, in the best way I can be at this moment.” And that’s all that should ever count. ~Angel Kyodo Williams

Controling How I Feel

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Every action we take is first filtered through our feelings. How we feel about something will always be determined or affect what we do and how we do it. ~Helmstetter

I am certain that what I do, or fail to do determines how I feel. If I do this [whatever this is]I am happy. If I don’t do that [whatever that is] I will be sad. Using this definition shopping is a feeling. Eating is a feeling. In reality, what we do has little effect on how we feel. The truth is that it goes the other way around: What we feel determines what we do.

This would imply that if we want to act differently and do different stuff, then we need to change how we feel, but how do you change how you feel? Other people and circumstances make me feel what I feel. Don't they? Aren’t feelings just there? Don’t feelings come and go at will? It’s impossible for us to control our feelings, isn’t it? I mean, you can’t put a leash on feelings. Feelings respond to what has happened. If we bounce a check, get fired, or the dog dies, we feel whatever we feel and the control of those feelings is out of reach.

If I tell someone that we are in total control of our feelings, all I get are arguments. Hell, I argue with myself when I hear myself say it. What almost everyone believes is that we have these psychological buttons and other folk can just punch our buttons and we feel anger, or fear, or whatever, and these feelings exist because those buttons were punched. We think, “if they hadn’t said this, or done that, I wouldn’t feel like something-greasy-on-a-stick right now.”

If this is true, if there are these psycho buttons that control our feelings, we are still responsible for our feelings, because we allow other folk to punch those buttons.

What most of us think is that something is said or done [a stimulus] and that automatically triggers a corresponding feeling [a response] and we have no more control over that than the 8-ball has control when it is hit by the Q-ball.

But we are not a game of billiards. We may be impacted by what other people do or say, and our collision with their words or actions may hit us hard, yet we are still responsible for what we feel.

A divorce can make some people go into a tail-spin that lasts the rest of their life. Yet a divorce can be the beginning of an exciting new life for another. Similar actions or words from folk can have vastly different feeling responses on the part of the person being hit by those words or actions.

You can give a number of people the same stimulus, and they will have different emotional responses, or the same person may have different emotional responses to the same stimulus on different occasions. We are not pool balls and we do not have to go an a particular direction when the Q-ball of life hits us. In other words, other people can do or say things that give us a pretty strong invitation to feel something, but they are not in charge of how we respond.

. . . circumstances have little to do with happiness. It is also widely believed that we would be happier if we had fewer problems, or that once the problem we are immediately facing is resolved, happiness will result. It is possible to establish a problem-free life for any significant length of time. Buddhism says, NO. ~Woody Hoschswender

Fair vs Unfair

Life is not fair; get used to it. ~Bill Gates

Who has not uttered the words, “It’s not fair.” Maybe that is good. There was a quote from Hamlet where the melancholy prince said:

[Treat]. . . every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? ~HAMLET /Shakespeare

The implication is that if life were fair we might have things a lot worse. Think of how many times you have exceeded the speed limit without getting a ticket. Some people drive drunk, and get home safely without hurting themselves, their car, or anyone else. Sometimes people betray a friend, and that friend never finds out. Sometimes getting what is unfair is exactly what you want.

Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us, came because we actually deserve them? so now I take comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the Universe. ~Marcus Cole

But more often, when we say or think the phrase, this is Unfair, we mean that we did not get what we wanted and feel we deserve.

The concept of fair is a trigger for depression. If there is a fair, then there must be an unfair. If I’m treated unfairly, then I have a right, nay, an obligation to make things go from wrong to right, from unfair to fair.

So?

I’m just saying fairness is a trigger and when that trigger is pulled, depression is fired, and we and our family and friends and co-workers are hit by the ricochet of the jagged fragments of super-duper sadness.

Usually, we think that it is FAIR that we get the food, shelter, sex, and luxuries we want, and often we also think these deserved things should come to us when and where we want it, in unlimited amounts.

Most often, our thoughts of Unfairness come when we feel we have been denied something that we had a right to have. When I am wronged I am not just unhappy about how things have turned out, but my entire universe is out of balance. I get up a whole head of steam called righteous indignation. Behind every law suit, every slander, every squabble, and every war that has taken place you will find someone, or whole bunches of someone’s just oozing righteous indignation..

Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them. ~.Alan Watts

QUESTION: “Fairness and unfairness do actually exist, don’t they dude?”

Yes, if you think so, and no if you just change the way you look at what happens. You see, for most of us, we just believe stuff, but believing is not the same thing as an actual measurable fact. If mommy cuts the doughnut in two pieces and divides it, and if I judges that their half, is a little bit bigger than my half, well, that’s unfair, and no unfairness can be allowed to go unchallenged. If I’ve been treated unfairly then I want that rectified as soon as possible and the costs or consequences be damned.

Have you ever heard of someone who sued another party, and ended up paying out everything they have in order to win, when, if they’d let it go they’d still be rich? Such people will often say they feel the law suit was necessary because they had been wronged? People will actually die in order to right wrongs and to re-establish fairness.

What’s fair about dying to make stuff fair?

What I’ve figured out is that as long as I believe in fairness I have a tendency to be obsesses by my righteous indignation, and I get all revved up to strike a blow to beat back the forces of that evil I call unfairness.

As long as I believe in I see myself in the center of all things and everything that happens is judged by how it affects me. The concept of fairness and unfairness are not just words, they are lenses that magnify the events of our life.

So what are you suppose to do? Be all wimpy, not stand up for your SELF, resign yourself to a life of resignation?

Not necessarily, although that is an option. If I let go of the concept that fairness exists and is deserved, I free myself from the burden of Unfairness. If Fairness and Unfairness do not exist then I am not wronged, I have not been wronged, I cannot be wronged, and the sense of WRONGNESS in my life does not exist.

OK, maybe there are times when responsible people have to stand up against the unfairness in their life and/or the life of those around them. A big strong man ought not to stand around and allow some slime-ball to abducting, rape, and kill some woman or child. To me it is OK to have a police force to protect people and property from other people who threaten. All I’m saying is that as long as I feel I’ve been treated unfairly, it seems to be a trigger of depression. Maybe each of us could or will face unfairness that absolutely must be redressed! If that happens, then open up a big ole can of whip-ass, and get to redressing stuff. But I need to know, and maybe you need to know, that the concept of fairness is a trigger for depression. If you get tired of being depressed maybe you should stop using unfairness as an excuse to stay miserable. Unfairness makes you a victim, and victims tend to stay victims.

If I see some unfair event as just something that happens and not as something personal, not as something unfair to me, I‘ll have the ability to rise above what happens. I am free from the emotions that grow like weeds in the nutrient rich dung of righteous indignation, and the flower beds of victim-hood..

Problems = Challenges

View all problems as challenges. Look upon nativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow.Don't run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence. You have a problem? Great. More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in, and investigate. ~Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, "Mindfulness in Plain English"

After our recent car accident, I have had a problem with guilt. I got the ticket. I turned left, failing to yield, and now my wife is recuperating from her injuries, At times, watching her in pain, struggling to do the simplest of tasks, I let slip some comment about how much I regret that my driving error has caused her so much pain, cost us so much money, and is making it very difficult for us to get on our feet after this move to Oklahoma City.

Kathie will say, “Call Lili” [my recent therapist], or, “why don’t you make an appointment to see a shrink?”

She says this because I have had great struggles with depression in the past. At times, my struggles have been so great that it was actually a life and death problem for me.

I am not opposed to seeking a mental health professional, and I’m not ruling it out, not at all, however, I am postponing this action. I know that losing a job, moving, car accidents, and being suddenly the primary care giver taking on all the responsibilities that once were carried by Kathie, that all these things bring stress to my life, and would be a source of enormous for anyone. At this particular time, I don’t feel I have the money, or the time to be seeing a shrink. Also, I am actually doing OK. I would enjoy having someone to talk to about my problems, but as the quote states, my problems, are challenges that have an opportunity to teach me something that may indeed be very, very important.

I don’t really want these lessons. I don’t actually rejoice and dive in to my problems, but I am investigating.

The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail. ~Ramakrishna

Perhaps the biggest problems I have involve desire, and an excessive focus on the future. I want things to be different. I want Kathie to be able to move without pain. I want enough income to pay my bills with enough extra money to have some luxuries. I want to be working on my art stuff.

When we’re caught up with concerns about things that haven’t happened yet it’s hard to stay in touch with what’s important now. ~Elizabeth Hamilton

Too often my mind is elsewhere. You’ve heard people say, “Sorry, my mind was a million miles away.” What they mean is that they are focused either on the past or the future. The source of my misery comes from grieving my past and bemoaning a desired but unlikely future. If I’m at work my mind is at home. If I’m home my mind is at work. I’m not satisfied where I am because my mind and emotions are elsewhere.

In the search for a meaningful life, it is important for me to find meaning in the present. History does teach, yes, but despite what people say, history does not repeat. I can learn from my past, but nothing is gained from reliving my past except regrets, shame, and self-hatred.

What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. ~Viktor Frankl

Stinkin' Thinkin'

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts. ~Buddha

If you ever went to an AA meeting you would hear the phrase Stinkin’ Thinkin’, but you don’t have to be an alcoholic to be a stinkin’ thinkin’ practitioner. It is common to trust our own thoughts, but our own thoughts lie to us all the time.

Allow me to summarize again: What we think is based upon what we believe. What we believe is not based on facts, but upon our programming. If I think, “I’m a stupid-head loser” it is because I believe that to be true. It is not based upon facts. Say I drop something. Does that prove I am a clumsy klutz? No. But if I believe I am a clumsy klutz, then dropping something stops being something that happened, and becomes irrefutable evidence that I am an awkward, inept, ham-fisted, lumbering, and clumsy honyocker with the grace of an elephant on roller blades.

Of course, I believe I am a kinetic dork because I've been programed to believe it. I was told that this was a fact about me by my parents, siblings, and kids at school. Every time I was the last one picked to play some game in gym, I learn again that I an clumsy, and inept. This is my programing, but it is not a fact.

The fact is that everyone, from time to time drops something.
The fact is that even if I drop stuff more than most people, does not mean I am less worthy to taken in air and sustenance. What if I am a clumsy klutz? Is that bad? When I say it I intend for it to be bad, but why is it bad? Because in my mind grace and dexterity must be perfect to be OK, and if I am not perfect I am not OK.

Buddha is right: my unguarded thinking is my worst enemy. I have failed to know myself, because I am prejudice and bigoted. I judge myself without gathering the facts. I am a bigot because I have been predisposed to hate myself.

Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is. The future has not yet come. Looking deeply at life as it is. In the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom. We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly.How can we bargain with it? The sage calls a person who knows how to dwell in mindfulness night and day, 'one who knows the better way to live alone.' ~Bhaddekaratta Sutta

We are all like cut diamonds – with many facets. I am one person – a single individual being – and yet I am many beings. I am a father, a son, a teacher, a learner, a reader, a writer, active, passive, lazy, tireless, disciplined and out of control, sure and hesitant, graceful, maladroit, obese, but not fat enough for a job in the side-show, moral, immoral, amoral, brave, afraid, social, and a loner.

Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge.Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge. ~Digha Nikaya,