You’ll need beginner’s mind for this…
Some mornings I have nothing to say. I am likely running on empty.
Two reasons, two causes, two energy leaks:
- 1. reading something that has no substance to fill me up 1 and
- 2. talking to someone whose echo empties me… like a black hole.
So what do I do? I have some “authors”, mostly on Medium.com whose writings are idea-sparkers… without making me a plagiarist or a second-hander.
Even that move didn’t work this morning.
In a course I did 31 years ago, I learned a trick to get some energy when I have none. It’s called “directing traffic”.
But it could also be called: a job completed releases energy… so complete some small tasks so you get energy for some bigger tasks… or, in my case, for creativity.
So I did two loads of laundry, swept the floor, and here I am, I have something to say…
Completion generates energy
Easy-peasy.
So what I want to write about is choosing. The “lost art”.
I looked up my already published articles and found six… and I am going to list them at the end of this article, to support this new article with… I hope it will work.
Because choosing is fundamental to you living the good life, living a life worth living, living a life you can love.
The only good thing in the book series I am now going to stop reading, the soul-sucking, energy-killing one I mention in the beginning of this article, is that the person, I guess the protagonist, is forced to choose, pretty much all the time…
YOU don’t know you can choose, and you don’t know that you don’t choose. And you definitely don’t know that you have, in a way, chosen the situation you are in, the way you feel, the thing you do.
Our attitude towards our lives is BECAUSE… assigning cause to some circumstance
You “choose” and when I ask why you chose what you chose, you have a because… which means that you didn’t choose. The because chose. The reason.
The “I want it”, or “I like it”, or “I don’t like it”… or “It’s cold”, or “that is what is on sale”… Or “I don’t have enough money”…
Millions of becauses choose for you… YOU don’t choose.
Choosing is selecting freely, after consideration. When the reason chooses, you didn’t…
My life turned around when I got choice.
It was about 30 years ago. I sold advertising in my own publication. The advertisers were club owners, and they took pride in cheating everyone out of their money… not paying, or giving me checks drawn on closed accounts, or insufficient fund.
One afternoon I showed up at one of the clubs, carrying my sleeping bag. “I am going to stay until I get paid” I said simply and started to unroll my sleeping bag. The owner immediately found the money to pay me.
And I saw something: Club owners are assholes. But instead of being angry about that, I saw that they are supposed to be assholes. Just like “it is supposed to be cold in winter… why complain! why pretend that it’s a surprise?”
And just like you know what to do when it’s cold (get dressed warmly) I knew instantly what to do when my clients were assholes.
“Your ad won’t even be designed until I have the money in my hand. Cash or a cleared check.”
Now, this sounds easy, but you cannot do it unless you get that it is your choice. Choosing puts the power squarely in your hands, on your shoulder.
Not all club owners are assholes, by the way… I chose my attitude myself. Not because it is true… but because that is what I chose. That is what was making my life work… brilliantly, I might add.
- Employees did what employees were supposed to do: do as little as they could.
- The publication was late when the publication was late.
- I wrote my editorial in a dazed state in the last minute after 72 hours or more not sleeping at all…
- I chose my mother to be the way she was, my brothers the way they were, myself the way I was: warts and all.
I have been able to expand the sphere of things and circumstances I can choose to cover 90% of everything I could choose.
If you decide to employ this amazing method, you’ll start at the beginning. And as long as you are able to maintain a beginner’s mind, you’ll find that you have a lot less annoyance or frustration, and a lot more freedom.
At some point you’ll notice that you can see what’s amiss with people, with government, with systems, with industry, with billionaires, and still be able to keep your head about you by choosing them the way they are.
You’ll stop fighting against anything or anyone… and choose to become the best YOU you can become.
You won’t try to save the planet. You won’t try to change people. You won’t blame, complain, and obsess. Or not as much.
I am finding that even that missing 10% is a lot… hours a week! It used to be weeks, months, years… so it is not THAT much, but it’s still a lot.
It’s a process. You can’t make jumps other than in your mind, in your imagination, but not in reality… you can only choose what is consistent with the laws of the physical universe, no matter what anyone says.
PS: OK, I spoke with two people and I understand that the article on choosing how it is isn’t clear.
I had a conversation over the Talk to me webinar…
Please listen to this conversation.
This is the hardest distinction to grok… it is so counter intuitive.
But it is the ticket to a joyful life. The call is 40 minutes long…
Here is the list of the old articles, all about choosing. You’ll notice how much I have grown, changed, and that makes it very interesting… to me.
https://yourvibration.com/category/choose/
- I am reading a book that Amazon readers rated an average 4.7 stars (out of five) and it is like eating candy or Chinese food… empty “calories” that use your energy instead of giving you some. I have found that reviews can’t be trusted. If 99% of humanity, even readers, are sheep, then their reviews are reviews by sheep… Do I want to read what the sheep likes? No. But at the same time I just finished reading five books by another writer, same star rating, and I learned soooooooo much, I felt sad when the books were over. So you don’t know. You have to take a risk. 50 pages should be enough to know if the book is going to fill you up, or empty you. Same with videos, TV series, movies, friends, parties, trips, courses… Wasting money is better than wasting your energy.
