What's most important to you?

If someone was watching you on a hidden camera, what would they say is most important to you?

Your schedule has to match your priorities

If something is important to you, shouldn’t you spend your time on it? 

Spending time thinking about what is MOST important (a continual reevaluation) is the first step.

Then, spend your time on what is most important. 

If something is to be left undone, let it be the less important things.

So, what is most important now? 

The Science of Fear

I’ve been reading this book called the Science of Fear.

In it, the author reveals the approach that advertisers and politicians use to get us to take action.  They create a problem/crisis/fear and say they will save you from it.

In a world where people are safer and healthier than ever, they have to create a problem, distort statistics, exaggerate, edit the data and scare you into thinking that life without them will be horrible.  They of course, are the answer.

This means when you expose yourself to their messages, you are being bombed with the idea that the world is not good and you are at risk.

Can you see that is happening wholesale today?

Behavior causes emotion

People that act from their emotions don’t get very far overall.

People that discipline themselves to take just action, and action that takes them toward their worthy goals, feel emotion from the action. 

They go far.

Do it, and you’ll feel like doing it.

The Bhagavad Gita and the bees

As a contractor that works in attics a lot, we encounter bees.  The knee jerk reaction is to spray (kill) them before they sting you.  Last week I noticed bees had made a nest in the ground very near to the front entrance of my house.  Not wanting anyone to get stung, I instinctively went for the bee spray.  It’s just a hole in the ground, and I managed to kill a half dozen, but a few hours later they were busy going in and out as normal.

I decided to try a natural way to make them go elsewhere and I turned the hose on and flooded the area, thinking maybe they’d decide it was a bad spot to make a nest.  No dice.  Miraculously, they were unphased.

In the morning I read and journal.  I was reading a summary of the Bhagavad Gita, which was written between the 5th and 2nd centuries BC.  The Gita consists of a conversation between Krishna, the supreme manifestation of the Lord himself, and the warrior-prince Arjuna, before the start of the Kurukshetra War.  Krishna is advising Arjuna as he hesitates in moral confusion over the challenges of going to war.  

Viewed allegorically, the war represents the perennial struggle between good and evil within each of us and Krishna’s wisdom points the way to following the yogic path of living in harmony with universal laws as we strive to live our highest truths.

Anyway, in my reading I came across these words “He alone who truly sees the Lord the same in every creature, seeing the same Lord everywhere, he does not harm himself or others.”

Reading and learning the right stuff is one thing.  Applying it is quite another.

I thought about the quotation.  I pondered it.  Then I thought about all the beautiful flowers I had planted in front of my house and how I enjoyed seeing different ones bloom each month.  I thought about my friend Roy Spencer who keeps bees in a hive and the honey he gave me.

I decided to let the bees alone.  Now each day I’d walk by and say hello and make sure they were ok by seeing them busily go in and out of the little hole in the ground.

I feel better, they feel better, I have less to worry about and feel more in harmony with the universe and its perfection.

Let me leave you with this from Albert Einstein – 

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us “universe”; a part limited in time and space.  He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of spiritual delusion of his consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to affection for a few persons nearest us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison.”

You are being watched

People watch what you do and how you do it.  They notice how you behave in various situations.  Even when you are alone, they can see the results of what you have done or not done on your alone time.

Based on what they see, they will give you opportunity or not. 

Work with you or not. 

Go along with your ideas or not.

Speak to you with respect/kindness or not.

You are the cause; your experience is the effect. The world is responding to you.  Be your best, always.

Living to your potential takes courage

Living to your potential takes courage.

You must get out of your comfort zone.  Take on challenges.  Risk. Do things you have never done before on a regular basis.  Face adversity.  Overcome problems.  Endure ridicule and criticism.  And get hurt.

If you are timid, play it safe, or let fear run your show, you will not live to your potential.

Be courageous (which is different than not being afraid), and go out there and see what you can really do.

It's ok to not be perfect

When we try to get better at something, whether it be a specific skill, a score, juggling schedules and getting everything done, or just being a good person, we strive for perfection and use it as our model.

As we do so, we must understand that we will never likely achieve perfection, and not let that get in the way of striving to be our best.

When smart phones become all you do

So many people are glued to their phones.  Phones are useful tools – and lots of entertainment and chewing gum for the mind. 

When something TO DO, becomes WHAT YOU DO, you fill spaces that would and could be used for something else.  

There is 100,000 times more information online than you can ever pay attention to anyway.

Leave space.

How to have a breakthrough

In order to have a breakthrough, you have to break something.

-the bonds of a bad relationship

-bad habits

-old beliefs and ideas

-a part of your identity

A Phoenix doesn’t just rise from the ashes.  First, something needs to burn.

What is it for you?