Never The Situation

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but your thoughts about it.

-- Eckhart Tolle

“What's It All Mean?”

I recently saw a reference to a new book by Luke Norsworthy called, How to Love the Life You Already Have.

While routinely I see such things, the title of this one stuck around with me. Perhaps the title intimates that too often we don't...love the life we already have. That we are often living in a twilight zone of a life we'd like to have, but don't.

I don't know a lot of details about where this book goes.  But, what is it about our lives that creates a tension between the life we have and the life we'd like to have. Is it a healthy tension? I'm guessing it could be, if we really engage the question.

How about you, are you living the life you want to live?

I overheard this 'Yoga with Adriene' admonition this morning: "Trust you have everything you need — don’t decide where it ends."

Obviously, put together, there are lots of directions to potentially unpack here.

And then, on my way to work, I heard the NRP Tiny Desk rendition of Philharmonik's "What's It All Mean?" which, among other things, at least got me moving:

One version of the question above is about the age old grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side trope.  It tends to reflect a pattern of thinking or feeling that we can often fall into.  The common lesson there is that, often, whatever is better about the greener grass isn't always better.  In fact, it can often be the case that it really isn't better over there than it is right here.  It just looks better, for some reason.

But, can I really trust that Adriene's assertion is true, that I have everything I need?  Maybe not everything I want, but everything I need.  For some reason, we don't really like the effort involved with distinguishing between the two, do we?  We too often just don't want to think about it.  We just want what we want and live in that zone, not really addressing what all is going on.

Maybe we're just too lazy.  Perhaps we're in an effect of trauma.  Perhaps it's something in between that keeps us to asleep to the kind of work that is needed.  To asking questions like, how fulfilling is the everything I want, relative to what I really need or…what's it all mean?

We can smile and relax.  Everything we want is right here in the present moment.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

LT: Lead Yourself

Lead yourself, and then you can lead others. And if you're going to lead yourself, you better know yourself. If you're going to know yourself, you better know your strengths and weaknesses.

-- Arthur C. Brooks

A Way That You Live

I’m wondering…if humility is as much a way that you live, as it is a state of mind and spirit.

Wisdom Begins in Wonder

In Honor of Good Mothers

Our moms are troves of wisdom — and we can all learn from them:

"My mother taught me that it is never too late to change your opinion and always to be thoughtful about the world around me." 

-- Amy P., Eaton Rapids, Michigan

"Don't judge others. Never consider yourself better than anyone else, and don't assume you know what they've been through — you don't." 

-- Mary Ann T., Santa Monica, California

"Respect everyone's independence and intelligence — even children." 

-- Mitchell T., Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Continue here.... 

Among other things, I often see mothers (including my wife, kids and their spouses) wonderfully desiring and creating opportunities for a sense of being home.  The practice in this meditation well describes the power of doing so here....

And then, there's this beautifully poetic version of the intersection of motherhood and the wisdom and beauty of its earthiness.

Immigration Concerns & Housing Inventory Shifts

 GALLUP - Front Page

FASTCOMPANY

3 Observations & A Question

There are things that we simply need to learn over and over — perhaps this is not so much indictment as wisdom.

Sometimes we really have to consider (if not address) what things keep us asleep to a lot of life.

We have to set aside the time to identify the sacred around and within us.

When is the last time you actively considered that there is more than one perspective (yours or mine) that is legitimate?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question….

On the Lighter Side: Body by Brisket

On the Lighter Side:

Wits

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

-- Eden Phillpotts

Baking Bread & Tending Flowers

How much more wisdom is there than that gained from baking bread and tending flowers?

Just throwing that out there....

Of course, there is probably a little more involved.  Wisdom, after all, often seems a little more targeted at how to navigate things — what to do, dealing with people, meaning of life...to name a few.

But, what is needed even for those things might likely be addressed by the hands-on learning we gain from rather simple things...like learning how to bake bread and fostering beauty.

After all, at a most basic level, what beyond daily sustenance and enjoyment really is there (besides tragedy, suffering, existential threat, etc.)?

The baking of bread is a simple and mysterious example of such things. Comprised of the most basic elements of life (water, flour, heat), it is a rather smirking example of non-complexity, at least in terms of ingredients. And, yet, something else is involved that is often nothing short of confounding, until you've understand the dynamics (beyond the ingredients) involved. In a rather fascinating way, they even require a kind of submission to effectively cooperate with them.

Which then leads to a kind of enjoyment that seems to nearly touch the most basic elements of our existence — our need for daily sustenance and our ability to relish something like flavor and texture so deeply that groans are about the only means of adequately expressing our enjoyment of it. Fresh baked bread is pretty close to the top of nearly everyone's best-thing-ever list.

And, then, there's flowers.

Even though there are some pretty basic scientific explanations involved for their effective contribution to a variety of eco-systems, there is also something about flowers that seems extravagant — bordering on wastefully so. Whether it be color, shape, aroma (though some actually can be pretty stinky...or so it seems to us), the way they collect themselves, the seasonality of their unveiling...their list of wonders is also breathtakingly endless. They are a marvel, not only individually, but also collectively. They co-exist with many things almost as if they don't care. Delicate, vulnerable, and resilient all at the same time — they also seem to respond to care, either from that of their environment or the gentleness of human touch. Few can withstand blunt-force trauma (at least in the moment) and they also can merely cease to exist in an environment that no longer supports them.

And, yet, they seem at times larger than life itself. We can almost worship them (or use them to worship something — or someone — else). We have much to learn from the combination of forces surrounding the beauty of flowers — both from a how-to-cultivate perspective to a how-to-let-them-be perspective. They, too, require something from us...for us to truly enjoy them for what they are. In other words, it takes a wisdom to work with and relate to them. And their reciprocity is, at times, more than we could ever have imagined.

And, so, the dynamics involved with both baking bread and tending flowers enable our tangible participation and wider understanding. Sure we can just hastily grab a loaf at the store or mow everything down (flowers included) with our lawn mowers as we rush to get the yardwork done. Or (should we choose to truly engage them), these can be the very teachers we learn from about the depth and range of the goodness that surrounds our lives as they provide us opportunities for wisdom about the whats, hows, and whys of much of life itself.

Being Human

Being human takes practice and hard work. Being inhuman, unfortunately, comes all too easy.

-- Simon Sinek

How You Feel Changes

Ever noticed...how much how you feel about yourself (and life) can change over the course of just one day (not to mention, how variable it is from day to day)?

Walking Away From Christianity

4 Observations (from Others)

Long-term thinking eliminates a lot of poor behavior.

-- Shane Parrish

When my ego recedes, there’s more room for God.

-- Tony Jones

One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.

-- Henry Miller

We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.

-- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

Let's make a toast to the ways you keep calm and carry on

Your breakfast toast is not just a carb. It can be an inspiration.

The impetus for this callout came from an article we published earlier this month. We asked some of the attendees at the Skoll World Forum, dedicated to "accelerat[ing] innovative solutions," what they do to "keep calm and carry on" when things get tough.  

A grandmother's advice: 'Listen more, talk less'

Karen Lembo of Morristown, New Jersey, writes: "I try, very hard, to stay curious about people. It is not easy, and it is coming to me much too late in life, but I 'listen more, talk less.' My beloved grandmother, Nana Rete, would quote 'God gave you two ears but only one mouth for a good reason, Karen.' It took me years, but gosh I see how much more I learn daily by asking questions and then listening, REALLY listening."

Lembo adds, "I keep calm by staying close to my grandchildren — their wisdom, joy, humor, love and kindness knows no bounds."

Continue here....

-- Marc Silver

We Suffer More

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

-- Seneca

Joy - Where Do You Find It?

Where do you find joy?

One aspect of joy often seems to be that it includes an element of surprise.  We weren't expecting it and...it happened.  Perhaps, this is common when we have given up hope about something and then it happens and what we feel is a sudden kind of...joy.  What we had hoped for did happen after all.  Or, maybe it is a reflection of what we feel when something even better than we hoped for...happens.

But, while this seems like a fairly accurate description of how we often experience joy, I'm not sure it is the only way we do...or could.

What if joy is something we need to seek out?  Like, perhaps, we don't have to leave it exclusively to surprise.

Like with many things, it seems that how we have arranged and live our lives significantly impacts the quality of our existence.  If we do things that are harmful (to ourselves or whoever or whatever is around us), we reduce our capacity to experience what is good.  Likewise, when put or keep ourselves in a position to experience what is good, we often do so.  There seems to be a spiral-effect involved, in either direction.

Joy, it would seem to me, operates consistently with this dynamic.  If I put myself in contexts where good things can happen, the opportunity for me to experience joy goes up.  The opposite also seems true.

We often think that things like joy should be constant and over-the-top.  But, few things are really like either of those.  More often, it seems, the best things live among the smallest and (seemingly) most insignificant things in life.  And, perhaps, they are found most by the way we dwell with those kinds of things.

And, so, I'm thinking that joy is among the wonderfully inconspicuous things that we find when we're most in a position to notice them.  Not (at least too often) when we're in a hurry, rushing everywhere, or when we're trying to manage our stress with the many harmful things our society offers us to avoid them.  Perhaps, it is when we commit ourselves to simple ways of living, making enough room to discover something already around us that is good for us, that we find valuable things...like joy.

Where do you find joy?