Happiness As a Spiritual Practice

Last week we talked about Terry Starbucker’s article on the power of putting our goals/philosophy in writing. I quoted the whole article except for three paragraphs:

The last line of my letter said this - “The Best is yet to come - Believe!!”

I did believe. And I still believe.

And you should too - in yourself and the incredible potential of the human spirit.

I’ve been thinking of that a lot lately. I do believe in the power of the human spirit, but I’m not convinced the best is always yet to come. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to learn to live fully in the present rather than thinking we will only be happy if we achieve future goals.

That’s one of the lessons taught by one of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read: Flying Without Wings by Dr. Arnold Beisser. Dr. Beisser was a brilliant man and a great athlete…he worked hard but really lived for sports, that was his reward. Then after becoming a doctor at the age of 23 and a national tennis champion when he was 24, he was struck down by polio. He was paralyzed from the neck down and confined to an iron lung for a couple of years. For the rest of his life he was completely dependent on other people for his survival.

That didn’t keep him from having a happy marriage and a career as a well-respected psychiatrist. The book is basically the story of how he acquired the age-old wisdom:

Life isn’t always the way we think it should be. It’s how we handle it that makes the difference. And life is in the here and now…the best preparation for the future is to live deeply in this present moment.

Life isn’t always smooth sailing. Storms happen and some of them do extensive damage…it’s still up to us to learn to steer our ship. I for one am grateful I have Dr. Beisser’s book as a resource.

What resources do you use?

 

 
I do love the internet. I was cleaning out some old files a couple of weeks ago when I came across a piece of writing that moved me. I had saved the content but not the source. So I Googled the first few words, “I was going through some personal papers yesterday” and found they came from a 2007 post by
Terry Starbucker. Terry gave me permission to include it here, so the post, except for three lines which I’ll talk about next week, is as follows:

I was going through some personal papers yesterday and came across a three page letter that I had written in September of 1992. The letter was addressed to me.

At that time I had hit professional bottom - I was in a dead-end job and was feeling miserable and worthless. What made matters worse was that the project I was working on was stalled and I had too much time on my hands.

On that particular day I decided to take control of my life, so I used the time I had to write myself that letter. In hindsight it was my personal declaration of independence, describing who I was at the time, and more importantly, who I wanted to be and how I was going to get there.

I came up with 8 “rules” that I pledged to follow going forward - a few of which were tough medicine. Here is how I wrote them, word for word:

1. Don’t worry about that which you cannot control- 1st tenant to rehab
2. Work on those things you can control
3. Sometimes, s— happens - get over it and move on
4. Don’t give up (life is difficult, remember?)
5. Try to take some useful satisfaction over previously trivial matters
6. Stay in touch with family and friends - those are the people who can bring you joy and laughter
7. Keep smiling - everyone will always wonder what you are up to - rise above it!
8. Don’t take life seriously, ’cause no one ever got out of it alive (how soon you forget)

Did I follow these rules and get my “mojo” back? Eventually I did, and when I read my letter again I realize how significant this day, and this piece of paper, was to my recovery.

[Three lines to be discussed next week.]

It’s amazing how things can happen if you just write them down.

Putting It in Writing
Essentially what Terry was doing was committing himself to take responsibility for his life. He was putting it in writing. Before blogging I was a dedicated journal writer because I too had discovered the power of putting things down on paper. Even if our conscious minds forget, our subconscious will remember.

Have you ever had this experience? If you like Terry’s post, please visit him and let him know.

cheerfulmonk. Creative Commons license.
 

cheerfulmonk. Creative Commons license.
 

Last week over at Transforming Stress we talked about “mountain-top” experiences, where our viewpoint suddenly expanded and we looked at life differently. Mike commented that his memories of real mountains were more vivid. In particular he remembers the cold, the wind and the exhilaration. In fact, my experiences with hiking are vivid too. And even though the views added to the experience, the exhilaration came more from the exercise involved in the climb.

I love to walk uphill, and if a good hiking place isn’t available I’ll walk up stairs or on my inclined NordicTrack treadmill. It always gives me a high and I can’t understand why people need alcohol or drugs to elevate their moods.

I feel the same way about projects. It’s fun to have a goal to aim for, but that’s really just an excuse for making the effort. It’s the small steps that excite me, not the ultimate goal. When I achieve the goal I’ll just have to set a new one, so what’s the big deal?

Does anyone else ever feel this way?

 
Recently I told our friend rummuser I would like to know more about him. I asked if he could send some pictures or else tell us about his daily life.

This was his response:

My everyday life is incredibly dull. It is mostly, extending care for my father and son, solving four to five cross word puzzles, reading four newspapers, lots of books, evening outing to the local joggers’ park and meeting up with my friends there, blogging in the evenings and sometimes in the mornings too, as I am just now doing as I came to send an email and got involved in incoming ones too. In between, I get phone calls from my principals and customers of the small agency that I run by phone from home.

Except for the evening outing and phone calls that I receive from my family and friends, I tend to prefer just being alone with myself and my reading material. I listen to satellite radio simultaneously and depending on my mood listen to Indian classical music, Country and Western, Blues and some modern jazz. I often listen to old Indian film songs as also old English songs.

I have simplified my life to the extent that I hardly need to leave our home and since my friends and family know that, I get a lot of visitors. My life line is my computer and telephone and with very little wants in my life, it is quite a nice and comfortable life that I have made for myself.

Life is however evolving, and I have just accepted two invitations for outings. One today for lunch with an alumnus to investigate prospects of my doing some backroom work for local politics, and the other for high tea tomorrow with some dear friends who are convinced that I need some feminine company now that I am back to being single! I did not have the heart to say no to either and shall do both knowing fully well, that I will simply return to my original way of living.

I shall send you some photographs, and even post some on my blog. I just need some time to get myself organized a bit more.

Trust that this gives you some insight into my very exciting life! Thanks for wanting to know.

The next day he added,

In my earlier mail to you, I had omitted two vital pieces of information. I meditate every morning for about an hour and also perform Yogasanas for about 45 minutes every morning.

These two activities, I am convinced are responsible for keeping me sane and reasonably fit to live my ‘incredibly dull daily life’!

Thank you, rummuser…I love hearing how people spend their time. But I’m sorry , you haven’t convinced me. That doesn’t sound dull to me…it sounds rich and fulfilling. What does everyone else think?

What are your daily lives like? How would you describe them?

point-shoot-edit. Creative Commons license.

I received the above e-mail message last Monday, along with the English translation:

Dear friends,
      For the last several months I have received a lot of your e-mails. I highly appreciate your interest in my sculpture in Bayonne, New Jersey and would like to thank you for your sincere words of gratitude to me and the people of Russia. I have been deeply touched by your feelings. They give me confidence in the victory of Good over Evil.
Zurab Tsereteli

The sculpture in question is To the Struggle Against World Terrorism, shown in the picture above. It was a gift from Tsereteli and Russian people in memory of 9/11 and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

I did a bit of research about the monument last month. (See Why Didn’t We Know About This Before? at Transforming Stress and One Nice Change here at Cheerful Monk.) I had read some posts asking why we hadn’t been informed about the work, and the question intrigued me… so I started poking around. The writers had implied that either our media was negligent or else prejudiced because the gift came from the Russians. That didn’t seem to be the case. Some articles had been written about it, even though it hadn’t gotten a lot of national attention. A woman I talked to at the agency in Bayonne responsible for the site thought they had received their fair share of attention given all of the 9/11 monuments in the area.

But there was another aspect of the situation that bothered me. Why the focus on what the media did or didn’t do? If the issue was we were given a gift and it was largely ignored, why didn’t we just say thank you when we did hear about it? So I did. If anyone else would like to do the same, Tsereteli’s e-mail address is info@tsereteli.ru

One of the principles I try to live by is

When we spend our energy and attention blaming other people, we’re throwing away our personal power.

Our energy and attention are limited, so let’s use them wisely… by trying to make a positive contribution, no matter how small, to the causes we believe in. A simple thank you is sometimes a good place to start.

cheerfulmonk. Creative Commons license.

I’ve been pondering a comment Evan made on I’ve Been Thinking:

One of the paradoxes I confront repeatedly is that there is a skill of being present and getting out of the way. Focusing on skill I think is a great place to start, but we also need to be able to leave this behind. Hope this makes sense.

I agree. In my post I had written:

Even when I felt pressed by a deadline I was focusing at least as much on developing needed skills as I was on preparing a specific talk. I still took time out to experiment with, and practice, new techniques so they would be there for me when I needed them again.

I think that’s what Evan meant by focusing on skill being a good place to start. I was talking about building a solid foundation, not simply focusing on the immediate goal. But I was talking only in terms of building competence in practical skills. He was saying (I think) that we need to go deeper than that.

In fact, that’s where the real action was for me in preparing that talk. I was thrown by the project because a big part of me didn’t want to do it. I wanted to be doing other things. I was annoyed at the request because the woman who asked me sounded as if she needed a speaker to talk about stress management, but she wasn’t interested in the topic herself and didn’t want to be bothered about the whole affair. She had done her part by getting me to agree. Why should I do so much work for people who didn’t care?

The answer, of course, was that it didn’t matter if she cared or not…the topic is connected to my deepest values. I just had to take responsibility for the decision I had made (saying yes) and practice what I preach: Play your part well and let go of the results.

It was a good chance to practice the Traits of Stress, Hardy-Resilient People and the art of Optimizing Stress… in other words, to strengthen my foundation one stone at a time.

schmeis. Used with permission. Owner reserves all rights.
 

Thanks, Evan, for raising this issue!

I created the above graphic to remind myself of how I used to prepare my speeches years ago when I was in Toastmasters International. It may seem strange to start by writing the conclusion, but that’s why the method is so powerful.

Mike’s comments about PowerPoint in last week’s post reminded me of this method. He started me thinking about the pros and cons of PowerPoint. I’m impressed by the power and intuitiveness of the program, and I think it’s a helpful way of organizing complicated technical information. See, for instance, this example. But, thank goodness, my talk a couple of weeks ago was not a technical one.

If I were to prepare the speech again I would ignore the suggestion that the first or second slide should be an outline of the presentation and that we should follow the order of the outline for the rest of the talk:
 

Presentation Tips

 
That’s a fine left-brain approach, but if we’re trying to have an impact on the audience we need more than logic. I discovered the following suggestions when I was in Toastmasters and found them to be invaluable:

1. What effect do I want to have on the audience? Am I giving a speech to inform, to persuade, to entertain, or to inspire?
2. What main idea am I trying to convey? (This will be my conclusion.)
3. What will I say first to get the audience’s attention and lead into my subject? In other words, how will I open my speech?
4. What specifics or examples do I have to support my conclusion? What handouts, audiovisuals, anecdotes, jokes, etc. can I use to keep my audience’s attention as I move forward to my conclusion? Does everything in my speech relate to the purpose and main idea? Will I be able to keep the audience’s interest throughout the speech? Does my speech flow smoothly from one point to the next? Does it present the audience with a unified whole?

The trick was indeed to start by writing a strong conclusion.

Once we know the message we’re trying to convey, we can write a punchy introduction to get the attention of the audience and… this step is crucial… to include something that will echo in the conclusion. I’ve given many a speech where I did that and had no idea exactly what I would say in the middle. But I always had a wealth of possibilities and I had culled them in advance so they supported the purpose and main idea. The talks were short…usually only five to seven minutes…so it was easy enough to keep them unified. Not having them rigidly outlined in advance kept them fresh and spontaneous, and it helped me practice thinking on my feet in front of an audience. Again, the trick was to have the conclusion echo the opening so the speech had a solid feeling of completeness.

The speeches did take a long time to prepare, but that was all right. I always learned a lot by giving them.

So thanks, Mike, for reminding me to ditch the outline and instead begin with the end in mind.

I’ve been thinking about the picture in last week’s post:

billbalance - busy. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

 
At the time it seemed to capture the feeling of the previous week–a precarious balance. But after thinking about it more, that was only a part of what was going on. I don’t like to live my life that way. This picture is a closer match:

schmeis. Used with permission. Owner reserves all rights.
 

It’s not nearly as spectacular, but I like having a solid foundation. Even when I felt pressed by a deadline I was focusing at least as much on developing needed skills as I was on preparing a specific talk. I still took time out to experiment with, and practice, new techniques so they would be there for me when I needed them again.

My main problem with the talk was I had too much information and had trouble figuring out what to include, what to leave out, and how to organize the mess. Power Point was a blessing. Even though I had never used it before, when I went poking around on the web for some ideas, I came across these tips on how to create a good slide show. The tips not only made it easier for me to get started with an outline, they also gave me a template to use.

Power Point Tips:

 
My Talk:

Once I had the template and outline all I had to do was to liven the talk with some cartoons and pictures from Flickr.

The talk went well, which was fine, but even more importantly, if I ever have to do something like that again it will be a lot easier. Yes, I do believe in skill development. I feel a lot happier knowing I have a solid foundation to build on.

What About You?
How important is skill development to you?

billbalance - busy. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

 
(To see a video of how pictures like this are taken click here.)

It’s been a busy two weeks:

• I finally switched my video editing over to the Mac, which meant learning Final Cut Express,
• I gave a 40-minute presentation on stress management, which meant making my first Power Point slide show, and
• I had to fix a problem with my web site.

All in all a slightly overloaded but rewarding time. I’m now restoring my balance by watching some videos and resting. That’s an important part of a balanced life, but one that our culture often ignores.

Enough for now! Back to my R & R.

Michael Hodge. Creative Commons license.
 

Michael Hodge. Creative Commons license.

Two caterpillars were crawling along when a butterfly flew overhead.
One of the caterpillars looked up and said,
“You’ll never get me up in one of those things!”

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
—Richard Bach

This little caterpillar is one of my new role models. The world is changing fast, and sometimes I feel small and a bit clueless. He’s a great reminder to keep trudging along and trust the process of life.

There’s an old American saying:

There are three types of people in the world:

1. Those who make things happen,
2. Those who watch things happen, and
3. Those who say, “What happened?”

I don’t know about you, but I’m each of these in different parts of my life. There are some areas where I try to make a difference, and there are areas where I have no control but try to watch what is going on. Yet the world is so complex I’m confident there will be some surprises… times when I say, “What happened?” And that’s all right too. I’ll keep trudging along and see how it all turns out.

Having a bit of humility and a sense of humor helps a lot.