Striking Thoughts

Do you love life?

Then don’t waste time! :)

Reminds me of Benjamin Franklin’s mojo: “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that’s the stuff life is made of.”

And, it’s always a good idea to keep Aristotle’s wisdom in mind as well: “We live in deeds, not years; In thoughts not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs.”

So, how are YOU wasting time these days? What’s the #1 thing you need to STOP doing so you don’t fritter any more of your life away in nonsense?

Let’s actually take a moment and make this official!

Because I value my life and know that time is the stuff it’s made of, I will stop doing this:

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(For me, it’s limiting my Internet time—from constantly checking email + Facebook + Twitter, it’s shocking how much time I can waste mindlessly going back and forth throughout the day!!)

This is a HUGE theme of all these Notes and Optimal Living 101.

Knowing something is nice, but it means NOTHING if we don’t actually apply it to our lives. As we often say, THEORY (or knowing something) is RUDIMENTARY philosophy. PRACTICE (or actually living a truth) is the advanced stuff.

Are you spending all your time in theory—simply talking about all the stuff you believe to be true? Or, are you focused on LIVING it?

Vernon Howard puts it brilliantly in The Power of Your Supermind (see Notes): “You see, knowing the words is not the same thing as living the meaning. Suppose I memorize the printed instructions on a first-aid kit. Does that mean I can give first aid? No. The full meaning comes when I admit I know nothing and then try, practice, succeed.”

Let’s take another moment for reflection.

What’s the #1 thing you KNOW would be great for you to do but you just haven’t gotten yourself to make an essential part of who you are?

* Insert Jeopardy music *

“Upon reflection, it’s clear to me that, although I *know* this is important and would have huge positive benefits in my life, I haven’t yet made this knowledge an essential part of my day-to-day living:

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I hereby commit to rockin’ it. Amen.”

The power of will. As you can imagine, Bruce Lee held it in VERY high regard.

In fact, the power of his will was the supreme court over all other departments of his mind. :)

Science confirms the power of self-control AND our ability to develop it. Here’s how Heidi Grant Halvorson puts it in her great book Succeed (see Notes): “If you want more self-control, you can get more. And you get more self-control the same way you get bigger muscles—you’ve got to give it regular workouts. Recent research has shown that engaging in daily activities such as exercising, keeping track of your finances or what you are eating—or even just remembering to sit up straight every time you think of it—can help you develop your overall self-control capacity. For example, in one study, students who were assigned to (and stuck to) a daily exercise program not only got physically healthier, but they also became more likely to wash dishes instead of leaving them in the sink, and less likely to impulsively spend money.”

That’s cool.

So, bottom line: It’s a good idea to develop your self-control every day. And, as we do that, not only will we see improvements in the specific area in which we’re challenging ourselves but in many other aspects of our lives as well!

How beautiful is THAT?! :)

So much we can talk about here.

This line: “Be worthy, not respectable” jumps out in particular for me. Reminds me of Confucius’ wisdom from his Analects (see Notes) where he tells us: “The Master said, He does not mind not being in office; all he minds about is whether he has qualities that entitle him to office. He does not mind failing to get recognition; he is too busy doing the things that entitle him to recognition.”

It’s easy to spend our time worrying about being recognized and developing our reputation. Not such a good idea. Instead, let’s focus our attention on being WORTHY of any potential recognition!!

Here’s to studying hard, thinking quietly, talking gently, acting frankly, bearing all cheerfully, doing all bravely, and never hurrying as we let the spiritual force of the Divine within come through us moment to moment to moment. :)

Adversity is an interesting thing.

Although we tend to want to avoid mistakes/failing/hard times at all costs, the fact is we actually NEED adversity to fully self-actualize.

Robert Emmons puts it this way in Thanks! (see Notes): “Not only does the experience of tragedy give us an exceptional opportunity for growth, but some sort of suffering is also necessary for a person to achieve maximal psychological growth. In his study of self-actualizers, the paragons of mental wellness, the famed humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow noted that “the most important learning lessons… were tragedies, deaths, and trauma… which forced change in the life-outlook of the person and consequently in everything that he did.””

So, although it’s never fun to be in the middle of a challenging time, the edge can definitely be softened by remembering that it’s these times where we get really clear about who we are, what’s most important to us and how we want to live our lives!

P.S. Keep this Vernon Howard mojo in mind when/if you’re feeling stressed by life: “If your grand purpose in life is to wake up, then whatever happens to you is good, for it can prod you into self-awakening.”

We’ve heard this once or twice before, eh? :)

As good ol’ Shakespeare tells us: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

We can approach life as a helpless Victim or an empowered Creator—seeing the same event as a stepping stone or as a stumbling block.

As we discuss again and again throughout these Notes, the choice is ALWAYS ours.

ALWAYS! :)

So, let’s choose wisely!

Begs the question: Is there anything in your life that’s kicking your butt that you may need to reinterpret?! And, is now a good time to do it? :)

Love that.

Reminds me of Confucius’s wisdom: “As in the case of making a mound, if, before the very last basketful, I stop, then I shall have stopped. As in the case of leveling the ground, if, though tipping only one basketful, I am going forward, then I shall be making progress.”

Here’s to making progress! :)

A mind’s gotta eat and the best way to nourish ourselves is to read!! :)

It’s pretty much impossible to actualize without reading.

In Pathways to Bliss (see Notes), Joseph Campbell puts it this way: “For myself, well, Alan Watts once asked me what spiritual practice I followed. I told him, ‘I underline books.’ It’s all in how you approach it.”

While Twyla Tharp tells us this in The Creativity Habit (see Notes): “When I’m reading archaeologically, I’m not reading for pleasure. I read the way I scratch for an idea, digging down deep so I can get something out of it and use it in my work. I read transactionally: How can I use this? It’s not enough for me to read a book. I have to “own” it. I scribble in the margins. I circle sentences I like and connect them with arrows to other useful sentences. I draw stars and exclamation points on every good page, to the point where the book is almost unreadable. By writing all over the pages, I transform the author’s work into my book—and mine alone.”

Amen.

Here’s to feeding our minds with reading goodness!! :)

Perfection.

The trick is to aim for it AND to know that actually attaining it is impossible. :)

John Wooden and Tal Ben-Shahar articulate this process well.

First, Wooden. In Wooden (see Notes), he tells us: “Perfection is what you are striving for, but perfection is an impossibility. However, striving for perfection is not an impossibility. Do the best you can under the conditions that exist. That is what counts.”

Got it.

Now, Tal Ben-Shahar. In his GREAT book The Pursuit of Perfect (see Notes and if you’re a perfectionist and haven’t read it yet, PLEASE do! :), Tal differentiates between a traditional “perfectionist” and an “optimalist.”

The key difference, essentially, is that the optimalist deals with the reality that they’ll NEVER be perfect. They see that their ideals are much more like guiding stars than distant shores.

I can personally never get enough of this wisdom, so let’s check it out one more time: “Psychologists today differentiate between positive perfectionism, which is adaptive and healthy, and negative perfectionism, which is maladaptive and neurotic. I regard these two types of perfectionism as so dramatically different in both their underlying nature and their ramifications that I prefer to use entirely different terms to refer to them. Throughout this book, I will refer to negative perfectionism simply as perfectionism and to positive perfectionism as optimalism.”

Plus: “Perfectionism and optimalism are not distinct ways of being, an either- or choice, but rather they coexist in each person. And while we can move from perfectionism toward optimalism, we never fully leave perfectionism behind and never fully reach optimalism ahead. The optimalism ideal is not a distant shore to be reached but a distant star that guides us and can never be reached. As Carl Rogers pointed out, ‘The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.’”

So, here’s to rockin’ our optimalism and remembering that the good life is a DIRECTION, not a destination! :)

Love that.

Here’s a question to live with: “How can I be me?”

Seriously. How can you be you?

What are you doing that’s getting in the way of you REALLY being you? How are you pretending to be someone other than who you *really* are?

What’s at the root of your being that needs a little more expression? Get on that!

P.S. As you do that, remember Leo Buscaglia’s wisdom: “You are the best you. You will always be the second best anyone else.”

P.P.S. Keep this Oscar Wilde gem in mind as well: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” :)

—> “Ultimately the greatest help is self-help.”

Powerful stuff.

Samuel Smiles, in the 19th century classic on self-help appropriately called “Self-Help” (see Notes :), puts it this way: “Human character is moulded by a thousand subtle influences; by example and precept; by life and literature; by friends and neighbours; by the world we live in as well as by the spirits of our forefathers, whose legacy of good words and deeds we inherit. But great, unquestionably, though these influences are acknowledged to be, it is nevertheless equally clear that men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing; and that, however much the wise and the good may owe to others, they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers.”

And, gotta love the way Will Bowen shares this truth in his great book A Complaint-Free World (see Notes) where he tells us: “We are, every one of us, already creating our lives all the time. The trick is to really take the reigns and steer the horse to where we want to go, rather than where we do not. Your life is a movie written by, directed by, produced by, and starring—you guessed it—YOU! We are all self-made. When asked about “self-made millionaires,” Earl Nightingale, the twentieth-century motivational master and philosopher, once quipped, “We are all self-made, but only the successful will admit it.””