Monthly Archives: March 2009

How to Control Your Happiness

Once there was a tiny field mouse. He was scurrying around, hurrying up to catch up with all the other field mice. He lived kind of far from the main mouse activity center, so he always felt like he was running late. He would always show up on time, and even as he put his socks and shoes on, while his wife was telling he had plenty of time, he still felt like he was late.

One day he had a day off. It was a Tuesday, so he didn’t really get a three day weekend, but it almost seemed like it. Because Sunday night, instead of getting depressed like he usually did when he started to go to bed, he actually felt pretty good. Because even though the next day was Monday, it was really like a Friday. So he was in a pretty good mood. And he played a little extra with his kids, and they all had a fun Sunday night. Because the little mouse kids were in the same boat. For this particular week, Monday was the new Friday.

As he was laying in bed, he started having a conversation with his wife. Because like every other Sunday, he knew that he had to go to bed at the same time, and the kids knew they had to get up at the same time, but they all seemed a lot happier than a normal Sunday.  The little mouse couldn’t really understand it, because even the same programs were on TV that night. Everything was the same, but it felt different.

Of course his wife, being the wise mouse that she was told him that it was because of his state of mind. She was saying that when you have a state of mind based on positive expectations about the future, you can feel better and happier, and enjoy life more. It doesn’t really matter what the future brings, because the future actually never comes. It’s always now. Mr. Mouse seemed a bit puzzled by this, but Mrs. Mouse explained it thusly:

The future is only a guess of what is to come, and the past is only an incorrect memory. Most mice think that the past is solid and it happened just as you remembered it, but if you dig into your memories, you’ll realize that not only are they not entirely accurate, but sometimes they are completely made up. Which is why it’s good to always try something a little bit before withholding judgment.

But Mr. Mouse still wasn’t convinced. He said he was happy, of course, because he knew there was an unusual holiday coming up. That was why everybody was in a good mood, because they all had a holiday coming up on Tuesday, when they didn’t have to go to work or school.

Of course, Mrs. Mouse, not to be outdone, countered by asking Mr. Mouse why he allowed other people to tell him when he was permitted to feel happy or not. Why do you let a bunch of mice you never met before to decide on a holiday for you to be happy inside your own mind? Did they plant a robot chip inside your brain when you weren’t looking, so they could control your thoughts from a secret building outside of the Mice Territory? Of course not. Your thoughts belong to you, and you can think them any way you want. You can even choose not to think them, if you think that will help.

Mr. Mouse seemed a bit confused, but he knew better than to blame his wife. She usually knew what she was talking about.

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Listen to your Fears and you will be Free

Once there was a little chipmunk. He was a very nervous chipmunk, and he was always worried about what was going to happen. Every day he would get up and scurry down the bark of his tree that he lived in, so he could collect enough nuts. Winter was coming, and he had to stash enough nuts inside his tree to last him through the whole winter. Because nuts don’t grow in winter, if he didn’t save enough nuts, he would die. He wasn’t old enough to have his own chipmunk family, but he was old enough to have to collect his own supply of nuts to carry himself through. Not yet a provider, but no being provided for. He lived in the neutral zone between receiving and giving.

He had just barely made it through last winter. He’d remembered how close he came. He had thought that he’d collected enough nuts to last him the winter, but as he kept waking up, to check his supply he continuously grew more and more worried that he wouldn’t have enough to last. His biggest fear was that he’d wake, and there wouldn’t be any nuts left, and he would starve. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the occasion to experience this, but when you wake and feel nothing but fear of lack and poverty, it’s hard to go back to sleep.

He wasn’t going to let that happen again. He was going to make sure that he prepared enough nuts for this winter. He used his fear from last winter to spur him on to make sure that he wouldn’t feel that horrible feeling of lack when he woke up in the black cold dead of winter. As he collected the nuts he began to rage at mother nature. Why did she come and destroy all the plants every winter? Was she doing this just to exert her power over the lowly creatures that inhabited the earth? Every time he imagined waking up, he was reminded of his terror from the previous year. And he grew angrier even still. Several chipmunks didn’t make it. Would he be one of them this year? Is why winter came ever year? Did nature revel in her ability to kill a select few every year? Was she angry at them? Did they fail her in some way? He continued to collect nuts, and raged at the heavens.

Finally the time came. He was proud. He was content. His supply of nuts were more than double than what they had been last year. He was sure that he’d have enough nuts to last him though the winter. He began to feel remorse for his anger at nature. Nevertheless, the time came, and he slept. Only this time, every time he awoke, he was comforted by his large supply of nuts. The storehouse in his tree that gave him such fear and despair last year only made him feel content with the abundance that he’d created. And during his long winter sleep, he had a wonderful dream. The goddess of nature came to him, and spoke:

Young chipmunk, you have done very well. You did not fall into the trap of your friends that didn’t make it through winters past. You were spurred to action by your fears, and not distress. Your fears are a gift from the heavens. Because you were able to listen to them, and heed their guidance, you were successful. Because you were able to use your fears to propel yourself forward, you now have a great stockpile of abundance that will be waiting for you when you awake this spring.

The chipmunk awoke in the spring, filled with abundance as the dream goddess had foretold. And as it happened, the chipmunk met a lady chipmunk and started a chipmunk family, to whom he could pass on his lessons to.

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How to Tap the Power of Perception

One of the most common emails I receive from people that have benefited from reading my articles is how it helps to be able to see things differently in life. People can really begin to realize the abundance of life when you simply look around at the things that you normally see in a new light. Viewing things from a different perspective is not only liberating from whatever prison that you’ve built for yourself, but it can liberate others as well. And as I’m sure you know, liberating others is one of the greatest joys of being fully human.

One technique that has helped me enormously in this regard is the power of perspective. This is really nothing more that imagining you are in somebody else’s shoes. I’m sure you’ve heard that before you judge someone, walk a mile in their shoes. The reason this simple saying has spanned many generations and cultures is because it is one of the most fundamentally sound principles that can really open up human communication.

Now the tricky part. How exactly do you do that? You can’t very well go and physically borrow the other person’s shoes. One way to do this is to imagine that you are actually watching yourself when you are talking to other people. Next time you are having a conversation with somebody, while you are talking, really imagine that you are watching yourself out of the other persons eyes. If you can find a partner to practice doing this with, fantastic. Otherwise, I would advise at the very least doing this with a friend whom you are comfortable with. When you do this at first, it can seem a little strange imagining that you are watching yourself from the eyes of the person you are talking to. After you practice this a few times, you’ll be surprised at what you see, and you won’t be able to help changing how you communicate with others, if only a little bit.

Once you master this, you can begin to imagine seeing other things from even more expanded perspectives. And the greatest thing about this is once you start to practice on a regular basis, you’ll be thinking of new ways to apply this idea almost automatically. And that can help in more ways than you can imagine.

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How to Catch The Big Ones

I went on this fantastic fishing trip once. It was in Mexico, in the sea of Cortez. We hired a fishing boat, captained by an extremely knowledgeable man who knew the waters well. He would drive us to just the spot where we could not only catch really nice sized yellow fin tuna, but experience a plethora of other sea life that we wouldn’t get a chance to experience otherwise. Before then, I had never been deep sea fishing before. I had done plenty of fishing in lakes, and off piers, and in some streams, but never deep ocean fishing where you can expect to catch some really big fish. I wasn’t prepared for the differences in fishing for big fish versus fishing for small fish.

I have a friend that fishes for rainbow trout. He prides himself on his ability to catch a fish, and then release it without doing any harm to the fish whatsoever. He and his cousins get together and have these “hook modification” parties. They systematically go through all their fishing gear, and take all the barbs and elements of the fishing tackle that is designed to keep the fish on the hook. That way, they can remove the hook from the fishes gills without doing any damage. His philosophy is that if you aren’t going to keep it, you might as well make an effort so that you don’t harm it.

Which reminds me of a friend I used to know. He used to study a lot of really esoteric and metaphysically based martial arts. He was telling me that this one class he took, there was a really interesting instructor. He said that the secret to winning in any conflict is to completely detach yourself from the outcome. The reason is, when you have a thought of what you think is coming, your body naturally tenses in expectation, even slightly. What this does is telegraph what you are expecting to the other fighter, and if he has been able to develop enough skill, he will sense your movements. Because he knows what you expect, he knows what to defeat you. This guy said that when you completely release all expectations, you free yourself up to be open for whatever comes. That way your opponent will not be able to read you, and you will actually gain more power. The paradox is at first, when you release expectation, you feel like you are actually giving up power. And this guy said that the most experienced fighters realize the opposite is true. The more you release, the more you receive.

My friend says that the “hook modification parties” are one of the best parts of his yearly fishing parties with his cousins. They get together, hang out, and because they aren’t in any rush they can just relax and share stories and experiences. It’s really fun when you can allow yourself to do that.

Of course, those of you that have been deep sea fishing know that it’s important to let the fish run a bit, then reel him it a bit, then let him run, and then reel him in. You can’t just feel the tug, and immediately reel him in like smaller fish do. If you want to catch the big ones, you have to let their actions dictate how you will bring them in.

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Plant the Right Seeds in Your Mind to Claim the Fruits of Life

I was watching my neighbor the other day work in her field. She has a small field that has a couple rows of cabbages, and some kind of long white turnip that only grows around here. She was spending a lot of time preparing the ground for the spring planting. She needed to start mixing this stuff into the soil, and then she goes out to add this other stuff. She explained it all to me, but it sounded really involved. I always thought that you just planted some seeds, and hopefully remembered to water them, and then like a month later you’d have an apple tree or an orange bush or a bunch of tomatoes or something. I guess growing stuff is kind of complicated. I’m sure glad some people know to do it, because I would get pretty hungry otherwise.

Which kind of reminded me of that old commercial for Carl’s Junior. It showed a guy in the supermarket looking for food, and he was wondering how to cook it. And then the tag line of the ad said “If it wasn’t for Carl’s, people would go hungry,” or something like that. I thought it was clever tag line, pretty funny. It’s amazing what ideas people can come up with to grab your attention. When you think about it, they have  really tough job. You’re sitting there, watching TV, and then the show stops, and you know a commercial is coming, so you automatically fire up your anti commercial defense shield. And every commercial you see is mixed in with every other commercial. These marketing guys know there stuff, because they can come up with something entertaining and capable of blasting through your anti commercial defense shield, all in thirty seconds for less. I don’t know if that is a wonder of modern advertising, or a result of the modern day short attention span.

I was hanging out at this yoga class a friend had talked me into going to. (Of course I was supposed to meet her there, and she didn’t show up, but that’s another story,) and he started talking about how important it was to cultivate your thoughts. He said underneath your everyday thoughts are base thoughts. These base thought contain your beliefs, values, how you think about yourself compared to the rest of the world. He was saying that these base thoughts are very powerful and can make life exceptionally easy and rewarding, or exceptionally difficult, depending on the quality of the base thought. The problem is that not only is your base thought difficult to change, but most people don’t even know that it’s there. He said the clearest indication of the quality of your base thought is the quality of your life. And like a gigantic ship, it takes a while to turn. And most people just don’t have the discipline to keep feeding your base thoughts consistent surface thoughts on a regular basis. He said these surface thoughts are like giving water to a plant. You have to feed your base thoughts with consistent surface thoughts in the direction you want your life to move. The problem is most people get this, and try to do this, but they give up after only a couple of weeks. He said it would be like planting a seed and then digging it up every couple of weeks to see if it had sprouted yet. You need to be patient, and most importantly, you need to be consistent with your surface thoughts that you feed your deeper self with positive ideas about your future that is coming true for you, now.

I especially like watching the Superbowl, specifically because they have such great commercials. And one of my favorite things to do when I’m bored, is look up good commercials on Youtube. You can see my current favorite if you go there and type in “Nike let your game speak.” I find that one especially inspiring.

And my neighbor was telling me that although now is the busy time, getting the soil ready, getting the seedlings ready, getting ready for the spring planting festival, the best part is the waiting. Because once they plant the right seeds in the right soil, it is inevitable that the right fruit will come up.

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Play with Your Mind

If you’ve ever had the pleasure, or unfortunate task depending on your outlook, of following a two or three year old,  you know how incredibly energetic they can be. Try as you might, you can never predict entirely what their next move will be. They can be completely absorbed in something fascinating, like a doorknob, then suddenly shift their attention to something colorful. It can be wonderfully refreshing to see how much joy and happiness that mundane objects we adults take for granted can bring to a young mind bent on the thrill of discovery. Of course, being adults, (unless you are a full time care provider) we usually have other things on our mind than chasing around a three year old all day long. It can be fun.

I was in sitting in a coffee shop last weekend, the kind that is inside of a large bookstore. I like coffee, and I like books, so for me it’s a great combination. The bookstore itself was inside of  a fairly large mall. A woman came walking in with her daughter. She appeared to be about four. As soon as she walked into the bookstore, her eyes lit up as she was hit with the incredible cacophony of colors and shapes and unlearned words on display.  When she first walked in, she had a look of slight boredom on her face. This quickly shifted to an open sense of wonder, then to a pure blissful look of discovery as she took off running towards the treasure. Her mother on the other hand, had a look of delight at her daughters pleasure, mixed with a “here we go again,” expression of knowing.

Sometimes when I’m out walking, I’ll be thinking of something, kind of letting my thoughts drift here and there. It’s almost like when you are laying in bed at night, your thoughts meandering around different ideas and memories. Then your thoughts can shift, and you begin to follow them and wonder where they are going. And sometimes you realize what has been happening here, and you kind of wake up, and think, “huh? How did I get here?” When this usually happens to me I usually just give in and let my wandering thoughts take over. But when I’m out walking, I like to follow my thoughts and try to figure out what they are trying to tell me. Sometimes I’ll have to stop, and backtrack to the preceding thoughts to see what led to what I’m thinking about now. And sometimes it’s amazing when I can discover the metaphor that my mind is trying to tell me about something.

And the great thing about most book stores nowadays, is they have whole sections for kids to play in. They have all kinds of fantastic books for kids. And toys that can help you learn and spread out your mind to be able to grasp and understand the world around you. One of the biggest mistakes that people can make is to forget how fun it is to learn and play. Because when you are a kid, learning and playing are really the same thing. Imagine how cool your life will be when you realize that you never have to stop learning and playing. What if you were to discover that learning and playing is really what life is all about? Wouldn’t that be fun?

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How to Decide Properly

I had a friend who was always buying the latest kitchen gadgets on tv. He bought everything he came across whenever they showed those infomercials. I have to admit some of that stuff looks pretty good, but my friend would buy things, and then never use them. Or he would buy them and then use them only once. He would get really excited when the package arrived, and would usually open it, get all excited, go to the store and buy a bunch of stuff, usually more stuff than he needed to make whatever the contraption was supposed to make. I don’t know if you’ve ever done something like, but a bunch of stuff that you didn’t need.

I remember once he was talking about taking a trip to Australia. He had just a commercial sponsored by the Australian department of tourism, and they made it look pretty interesting. I’ve never actually seen a kangaroo in the wild. One thing though, is that he is afraid of flying. So he kind of looked into buying a boat ticket, but he couldn’t’ really find anything other than cruise lines that went down there. He had a bad experience on a cruise once, where he spent way too much money on things that you are not supposed to spend a lot of money on. Luckily, it was before he got married, so he didn’t get into any trouble with his wife.

It’s weird when you stop and think, because the reason those infomercials make so much money is from impulse buyers. I remember when I was a kid and I had a allowance, when you had to save for what you wanted. You couldn’t rely on impulse to guide you. You had to take a step back, and consider what it was that you wanted, because you only made a quarter a week, or whatever your allowance used to be. And when you focus on what you want, and save your money or find odd jobs to do (I used to mow lawns), it makes it easier to enjoy this, when you are able to buy what you want. Instead of being suckered into something that you don’t even know why you are buying it in the first place.

And he actually never went to Australia, because the time he took trying to find a boat other than a cruise ship took longer than his excitement lasted. So patience won out, as it usually does, because something like that knows how to wait. And when your brain decides to have a contest between two emotions, the one that doesn’t mind waiting around is the one that is going to win.

Which is eventually what his wife did. She enforced a strict rule where he wasn’t allowed to watch TV and hold a credit card at the same time. It wasn’t like she gave him pin money or anything, but he knew that if he bought something from TV, he would have to ask her permission, and if he still wanted it by the time they got around to going to the electronic store, then they bought it. She got to save them money, and he got to realize that a lot of things that he was buying were things that he really didn’t want in the first place.
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Ants with a Choice for a Better Life

Once upon a time there were these two ants. They were busy bringing crumbs of food back to their nest, where the food would be broken up into it’s components, and given to the various elements. The workers would get the parts that had energy for immediate use, so they could continue to work and bring back even more food. The small aphids would get the food that would be transferred into short term storage, that could be later used for nourishment for other ants. The queen would get the best stuff. She would get the most long lasting and densely nutritious portion of the food. She needed to save as much energy as possible, because she was going to give birth to the next generation of ants, who would go on and build their own colony.

But this story is about the two worker ants. They didn’t’ have names, because worker ants generally are not given much thought other than what they can produce. They only know how to follow one another, pick up a piece of food from the same source as the person who picked up the food before them, and turn and follow the trail back to where everybody else was going. Had they had the capacity of reason and the time to contemplate it, they would realize that all this was predetermined by nature and genetics. They didn’t have much choice in the matter. Food, trail, deposit, return to source. Over and over and over. They never got breaks, they couldn’t go out drinking on Friday night with their friends, they couldn’t wear shoes that didn’t match the rest of their outfits only because they were in a particularly festive mood that day. Food, trail, deposit, return. Such was the life of ants.

Until one day. One ant decided that he would stop, just for a little bit. Something inside of him spoke. Perhaps it was a genetic mutation, perhaps it was a voice that you never listen to. Perhaps it is a voice that you have inside you that is telling you to stop, and look around. Because when you stop, and look around, you might be able to notice things that you weren’t able to notice before. You might be able to see things that you hadn’t been able to see before. And you might have an idea, you might even create a new idea. The great thing about new ideas is that you can try them out, and nobody will really know what you are doing. Because it’s a new idea, even if it doesn’t’ work, you can still learn from the experience.

And when this one ant stopped, and took a break, he was completely surprised to see that all the other ants did the same. One second before, he felt depressed and angry and lonely. It’s not much fun being an ant. But when he decided to take a risk, and stop for a break, something amazing happened.  When he saw all the other ants following his lead, looking to him for guidance instead of that automatic scent they had been following, he changed. He transformed from a mindless worker ant to somebody with a choice.

When the queen gave birth to the new colony, she had to choose a leader. Because everybody knows that when a new ant colony is born, they are sent off into new and unknown territories, and must depend on the experience and guidance of those who came before. So naturally, the old queen, who was now advanced in years and failing in health, chose this young upstart ant to lead the new kingdom, which would undoubtedly flourish and prosper for generations to come.

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Harness the Ancient Power of Words

I just finished reading this book about evolution. Evolutionary psychology to be exact. This is rather a new science, one that has as many ideas and angles as their are scientists in this field. You can really go back in time and do a psychoanalysis of a cavemen, so it’s kind of hard to back up your theories with hard evidence, which is what scientists are generally supposed to do. But there are several theories that I think are very intriguing.

One is the reason that man developed a big brain. Some say to build tools. Some say because we needed language to navigate the ever changing environment filled not only with resources but dangerous predators. One interesting theory is that sexual selection is the main driving force behind our increasing intellect over the last million years or so.

Like gorillas that have the silver back get all the girls, and the peacock with the brightest feathers is the don juan of his community, in our human species, he with the biggest brain was the guy that scored all the cave girls back in the day. But how did the cave girls know? Female gorillas and peahens can see the silver backs and the bright feathers. How did human females know which guys were smart, and which were not so smart?

Remember, this all happened way before big civilizations were born, even before the agricultural revolution. The agricultural revolution happened around ten or fifteen thousand years or so ago, and the big civilizations didn’t start springing up until a few thousand years after that. So what happened in those hundreds of thousands of years before they knew how to plant and harvest? When they only lived in groups that were fifty people large or so? How did the girls know who was smart, and who wasn’t? What did the guys do to show off their intellect? They couldn’t paint, they couldn’t build cathedrals, writing hadn’t been invented yet, so they couldn’t write poetry.

How did the forces of sexual and natural selection manifest themselves to drive the brain of homo sapiens bigger and bigger. I have a thought, and idea that I’d like to think is at least partially true. I think I have an idea how those ancient cave men impressed the ladies of their day.

Language, and emotions. I say language because I think language developed far sooner than most people think. There are a few who believe it started a hundred thousand years or so ago, but most are of the opinion that it only started around thirty thousand years ago. I disagree. I think it started at the very least a hundred thousand years ago, or even sooner.

I say emotions because when you can adequately describe your emotions, your feelings, and you are skilled enough to move the emotions of the people you’re with, that makes you incredibly attractive as a suitor to women, and a leader to men. And these are the guys that passed their genes on to the next generation. Not the guys that sat around silent, and waited to be discovered.

I think the lady killers of the past were the ones that would later turn into the painters, the artists, the writers. But before all that stuff was invented, all they had were their words. And with their words, they were able to charm women, and lead men. 

I know there is absolutely no proof of this, no secret recordings that prehistoric men made when they were on their hunting expeditions, but I think that the creative source that predates art and literature and even religion itself, is a mastery of simple words.

Even one of my favorite religious texts, the book of John, starts out: “In the beginning was the word…”

Be careful and respectful of the words you speak, for they are ancient.

And powerful.

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Choose the Positive to Erase the Negative

I remember when I was in Junior High school. I used to play golf with my friends after school at the local nine hole course. It was around seven bucks, so we could afford to play once a week. The first four holes were pretty easy. Big. Wide. I could slice and shank the ball all over the place and not worry. The sixth hole was where I had problems. I was a water hole. I could never figure out why I almost always plunked the ball in the middle of the water. Sometimes I could even catch any air, I would just burn if off the tee straight into the drink. I never had that problem on other holes. I could always hit monstrously long towering drives if I had a big patch of green in front of me.

Some grass, of course, is greener than others. I had to help my friends put in new grass, or sod as they call it, in their backyard once. I never knew deciding on a grass was so involved. You can choose based on the weather, how much effort you are going to plan on putting into it, how much money you have, how much money you want the neighbors to think you have. I never knew that there was so much choice. I guess when you don’t put yourself in situation where you realize that you can choose, you don’t notice all the choice that is around you.

My friend was telling me that choice is a funny thing. You can choose which direction you want to drive, you can choose where you want to sit, and you can choose where you place your focus. Some people only place their focus right in front of them, which can cause problems, while others tend to take a longer view of things, placing their focus off in the distance or the future, to see things they hope to create instead of focusing on things they fear. Because usually, whatever you place your focus on, becomes your reality.

I guess the only real good thing about helping out friends with home improvement projects is you usually get treated to a really nice meal afterwards. He bought some really good steaks that he barbecued on their new barbecue. Rib eye’s. And she makes this secret recipe which is mouth wateringly fantastic. She gives me bottles of it sometimes, but she’ll never give me the recipe. It was the thought of that which kept me going through the whole sod planting ordeal. And all this time I thought grass just kind of grew on its own.

My friend had  really good idea. He told me, and I’ll never forget this, that just before I tee off, to close my eyes and imagine that the lake is really a big green fairway, and I wouldn’t have a problem. I tried it, and much to my surprise, it worked. Metaphysical advice in junior high school. Its always good to realize that when you focus on a postive outcome, the negative has a way of disappearing.

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