The recent posts here and at Nick’s site about not worrying about what other people think of us reminds me of Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements — a Practical Guide to Personal Freedom:
Be Impeccable With Your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
Don’t Take Anything Personally: Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
Don’t Make Assumptions: Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
Always Do Your Best: Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.
Do you think the world would be better off if more people adopted those agreements? Or do you think that would be infeasible because it goes against human nature? Or?
March 11, 2015
Bar a minuscule minority, I submit that most people follow these four principles more or less automatically. There will be some minor variations and exceptions, but it is what is done by the minority that makes us humans sound as though we are monsters.
Ramana, I could kiss you. You nailed my own sentiment entirely, expressed a home truth with such concise beauty. I’ll kiss you again – it being so much more time efficient than squeezing my own lemon.
U
I assume you both are joking. 😉 If not, stay away from con artists. They make good livings exploiting people’s assumptions. You might also talk to people who suffer from prejudice no matter what they do.
No, I am not joking.
Do I detect in your reply to Ramana and me a certain bitterness? A hint that maybe you have fallen for a con artist or been at the receiving end of prejudice? Just a supposition of mine. NOT an assumption.
By way of comforting you: The trouble with falling for a con’s art is not so much any loss incurred to us; it’s the shame. OUR shame. Oh, the shame that we fell for it. I don’t begrudge con artists their guile. As the title says: It’s an art. And more fool me if I fall for it. However, and that’s the con artist’s sad legacy, and I can’t emphasize this enough: It makes some – by no means all – of their victims suspicious of other people and their motives. Suspicious even of the harmless who are genuine and don’t want to con anyone into anything.
As to ‘prejudice’. I am afraid, Jean, it’s something all of us – to varying degrees – will experience ourselves and dish it out to others (even if only in our thoughts).
Hope all is well with you,
U
No, never been a victim of a con artist, just having trouble believing you weren’t joking. Misconceptions abound and they cause all sorts of problems in human relationships. They’re also a great source of jokes, literature, and drama.
Just to clarify, you were saying you agree with Rummuser, that most people automatically follow the four principles and avoid the “misunderstandings, sadness, and drama” caused by faulty assumptions that they haven’t checked out?
To some degree, it’s human nature to gossip, take things personally, make assumptions and only do what’s necessary or what’s in one’s own interest — “That’s not my job.”
I’m helping out with some team-building for operating crews whose members have been shuffled due to promotions and attrition. Some of what is expressed in “The Four Agreements” listed above has been touched on.
I agree. Do you ever touch upon Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication?
No, but I’m not an expert on this team building stuff. Much of it is being done in the simulator and I’m helping run that part, where I am somewhat of an expert.
i love that little book. and i own it.
i especially love ‘be impeccable with your word.’
alas.
i want to believe what rummy says. but we recently had an ugly spectacle of how a “minority group” can wreak havoc right here at home and have far reaching effects.
i always thought my city very open minded and fair … abiding by brotherhood even.
i’m sure recent happenings in my city that have made national or probably world wide news have proved that wrong to everyone. the bus incident by a fraternity.
it’s embarrassing. and degrading. and i’m ashamed to live here.
yet. for every one of those supposedly ‘educated’ idiots… there are thousands of good people here. at least i’m hoping there are.
although one black student at the university was questioned by national news. she said “no… i am not shocked. it goes on all the time. it is a normal thing here. just not recorded.”
that is sad. so i’m not sure i can believe rummy and ursula entirely.
i would like to though.
That must be hard to have the incident linked with your own city. I’m not surprised by the answer of the black student — even “good” people are often prejudiced against other groups. My own family was among them. I disagree with Rummuser and Ursula that people most automatically follow the four principles. It often takes thought and work.
Easy to say, not so easy to do. And anyway, I disagree with two of them. There are times when remarks are meant to be personal, and I take them personally and I’m either pleased or annoyed. If my boss says I’m not doing my job properly, that’s personal and I’ll think about whether she’s right and whether there are things I could do differently. And I benefit from that.
Likewise, there are times when assumptions are valid. When we have to take decisions and we don’t have all the relevant facts and information, then we have to make intelligent assumptions and act on them. Otherwise, we’d be paralysed with indecision.
I must say I get tired of all these glib formulae for improving one’s life, many of them almost impossible to stick to however hard you try. And I bet if you look at the writer’s own life, they break their own principles constantly.
Thanks for commenting! It sounds as if you agree that people don’t do these things automatically. About assumptions — yes, we make assumptions all the time. What Ruiz is saying is don’t believe our assumptions always represent reality. When conflicts occur, try to understand how both parties are looking at the situation. Stone, Patton, and Heen’s Difficult Conversations does a nice job of talking about this.
About not taking things personally: That doesn’t mean not accepting feedback on our performance at work or our behavior with other people, it just divorces that feedback from attacks on our worth as people. I think that’s a valuable distinction. It’s especially powerful for people who were abused/demeaned as children. They often grown up thinking they’re worthless and it helps if they eventually come to realize their parents’ behavior wasn’t about them, it was what was going on inside their parents.
About being glib — I think the last paragraph is the opposite of being glib and assuming people should try to be perfect. I interpret the piece as don’t be nasty to yourself or others, don’t let other people try to tear you down, and if things aren’t going well check your assumptions/get more information. I think that’s practical advice/common sense. Does the book sound pretentious? Oh, yeah, it does to me, but I just tune that part out. I read the book along time ago, and something happened recently that reminded me of it. I don’t need to buy the book again, just reading the four agreements on the cover was enough.
Do you ever do anything to improve your life? I know a lot of people are turned off by the idea, but I figure I’m always changing, so I might as well notice what’s going on and have a bit of say in how it all unfolds.
it sounds snobbish to me – must be simpler ways to say or even NOT to say anything…
I have a feeling you’re objecting to the same thing Nick is, and (assuming I’m right) I understand where you’re coming from. But I like the ideas here, especially the part about gossip, which is the part I remembered and why I looked it up. Are there some things that you like better? Or does most things like this leave you cold? A lot of people feel that way.
probably one #4 would fit…
#1 sounds good
#2 also the reverse. Sometimes things are very much about us.
#3 better: do your best to be aware of your assumptions
#4 dom’t be a perfectiomist
The trick on #2 is to not overreact when someone is attacking you because of their own problems, not because of something you did/are doing.