Daily Ramblings – Wednesday Wisdom – Attached to Suffering

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Advertising, Attachment, Buddha, Marketing, News, social media, Suffering, wisdom

“Attachment is the source of all suffering” – The Buddha

Is there something in your life that you do not like? Does your job suck? Are you not making enough money? Are your relationships toxic? Are you unsatisfied with your image in the mirror? Final question: Why?

In most cases we have what we need. We may not have what we want, but we have what we need. We have a place to lay our heads at night; we have enough food to eat, and we have some means of making a living. Why are so many people suffering?

We suffer because we are resisting change. We resist changes to our body as we age. We resist changes to our employment when it’s time to move on. We resist changes in our relationships (i.e. it’s time to move on or accept that we weren’t right for the person who left us).

I used to suffer. I used to suffer from want and need. Then, I ran across this quote above and decided that I should change my mindset. I took a few times to understand this. Greed caused my two bankruptcies. I wanted things I could not afford and borrowed more than I should have to get the things I wanted, which today, I don’t even own.

Why do we buy things? Because we are unsatisfied. We are missing something. Both feelings come from being bombarded by marketers who are fighting for our attention and money. They show us pictures and videos of things we should have, places we should go, the diet we should be on, the food we should eat, the supplements we should take, the deals we’re missing out on. All this advertising has a huge effect on our psyches. It is constant, persistent, and all-encompassing. If you think this does not impact you, think again.

How do we avoid it? We can avoid social media, we can avoid the news, and we can avoid mindless surfing of the web. We can choose the sources of information we use and get rid of the rest. I enjoy social media but only spurts. I’m literally on social media for a few minutes in the morning and the evening. The same goes for the news. I scan the news for about 10 minutes in the morning while I enjoy my first cup of coffee. The rest of the day I am spending my time on the tasks that are important to me: Reading, Writing, Programming, Meditation, and Exercise. These are my Big 5. Everything else is secondary.

We can also develop a sense of gratitude and thankfulness. It takes time to develop this habit because we are told constantly that we don’t have enough and told we aren’t enough. We are missing something that the couple in an advertisement has. That couple by the way aren’t a couple, their bodies aren’t that perfect but photo-shopped, and that sailboat they are on is not theirs. It’s all made up. It’s all designed to make you feel you are missing something. If they convince you that you are, you just bought what they are selling or something like it to fill in this “make believe” gap in your life. A gap that isn’t even real. Do you understand how insidious this is?

Look, don’t get me wrong. I understand that marketing and advertising is needed. They tell us what is out there in case we are looking. What I’m describing is the effect these advertisements have on us and why they are so harmful. They create the suffering the Buddha talks about. We become attached to the idea that we don’t have enough; we aren’t enough, and the only way to fix us is to pursue more money, more things, which require us to work harder and harder to pay off the bills we keep adding to. It is a vicious cycle that most people never, ever get out of.

If you are tired of feeling crappy all the time, tired of running subconsciously on a rodent’s exercise wheel, take charge of yourself and your life. Take time to take inventory of what you have and express thanks for your life, your health, your family, your place of residence, and the job you have. None of them are perfect, but they are yours. You really don’t need another pair of shoes, a brand-new car, a new sound system for your home, or yet another bottle of protein or some powdered meal that will sit in your cupboard for the next year and gather dust.

Life is good. Be grateful for all you have. End your suffering by detaching from ideas and things, realizing that it will all change. It will change because everything in this life does. We change, our things change, our attitudes change, our ideas change, our relationships change. If you become detached, change is variety. Change is refreshing. Change is exciting.

Until next time…

Dave

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Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – The Simple Things

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Peace, Reading, rituals, Simple Things, solitude, Tranquility, wisdom, Writing

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”―Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I took quite a few years to realize the wisdom Paulo Coelho refers to in this quote. Like, all young men, I sought fame, glory, and riches. I had a terrific military career in the Army, spanning 20 years. When I retired, I transitioned into technical recruiting, my second career. This career was very lucrative and set me up for an early retirement. Now I am pursuing a third career in writing, teaching, and writing programs for the web and mobile devices.

I enjoyed making a lot of money but discovered it was empty, at least for me. When my Dad’s illness kicked in, I returned home to help my folks. My days are simple, yet productive. I work through my daily routine, enjoy a few cups of coffee and good meals (I love to cook), and really enjoy the solitude and peacefulness that accompany my morning journaling. During the winter months it is even more special because the warmth of my coffee is a stark contrast to the cold on the other side of my living room window.

I used to use a desktop computer only for my work. Now I find my laptop to be a better companion. It allows me to enjoy different parts of my home as I work through my daily rituals. My core activities are exercise, meditation, journaling, working on my book projects, and working through various online courses, pursuing my varied areas of interest. I take my laptop everywhere, especially the coffee shops I enjoy going to.

My life is simple but rich. I take comfort in my routines and my little joys. I enjoy a warm cup of coffee in the morning. I enjoy the peace that accompanies my writing. I am engaged when I am learning new coding techniques and other topics. One of my greatest joys is relaxing while I read. Reading is a true joy, particularly when I am learning something new, or engrossed in a story.

When you slow down, you notice the little things that make life a grand experience. Petting the family dog, eating a meal with your family, conversations in the morning over coffee, looking at the snow, and enjoying those moments you realize how terrific life is. The simple things in life are the things that make life worth living.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Doing Your Best

Tags

Doing your Best, Effort, Harold Klemp, Love, Meaning, Purpose, wisdom

If you make a meal, put love into it instead of the frustrations of your day. Because whatever is put into the food is a reflection of what you have inside yourself, and it goes out to your family, it goes out to your friends. And it makes a very real difference.—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

This quote advises us to put love into everything we do. Love builds. Love gives meaning.

I remember my first few years in the Army. I thought I had made a mistake, shortly after I arrived at my first duty station. I was going through the motions. I did what I had to do to avoid getting into trouble. I realized one night that this was not working for me. I put more of myself into the job. I read field manuals and regulations. I put extra effort into my uniform and appearance. I put in more time into exercise. My Army career changed for the better. Instead of biding my time, I embraced my career. This made all the difference.

Love what you do even if your current job is not a perfect one. You will find, like I did, that the more you put into the job, the more rewarding the job becomes. Your job will have more meaning. Love is active. Love is doing. Love requires you to give your best. What you give to the world returns to you.

Do the best you can in every situation. Take the time to do things right. Give everything your best effort. You will find what I have found—the more you give, the more you get.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Saturday.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Socialism: Learning from the Past

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Cold Weather, Confucius, Redistributing Wealth, Socialism, Universal Income, wisdom

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”―Confucius

Today is a cold one. The United States Post Office is not delivering mail until Friday. I don’t remember the last time the USPS cancelled deliveries of mail. If you are in the Mid-West in the middle of what they are calling a polar vortex, stay inside, unless you just can’t avoid it.

Today’s wisdom is provided by Confucius. I find it fascinating that so many of today’s problems are a result of ignoring what so many have already discovered. Look at socialism, for example. If you look at the USSR, North Korea, Communist China, and Vietnam, it would be easy to see how broken a system of government socialism is, yet it appears our younger generations are seeking just that. Why are so many ignoring the experiences of socialism in the 20^th century?

Socialism and communism are attractive sells if you avoid the atrocities these systems caused. In the 20^th century, socialism has easily been responsible for over 1,000,000 deaths. Why would anyone want to bring that system back? I think many crave the beauty of utopia, where we are all equal, we all participate, we all contribute, and we all benefit equally. The main issue with this is the primary tenet of Socialism, which is equality of outcomes. How do you achieve an equality of outcomes? You enforce it.

Socialism destroys production. Say you have a productive worker. This worker comes to the job everyday giving everything they have. Over time this worker realizes that other workers don’t put in the same effort they do but still get the same pay. Then it happens. The productive worker falls in line and lowers his production to meet the bare minimum, along with his colleagues. When you live in a system that does not reward innovation, productivity, and efficiency, you destroy these things.

You hear all this talk by many in politics today. Let’s tax the rich. Let’s take their money. They earned it unfairly, they stole it from the poor, they cheated the system. No one should have that much money, they should give it to others. Charity is one thing. No one has a problem giving their money to charitable causes. Taking the money of a productive person and giving it to someone else without their consent is theft. Does this improve society? Does it motivate someone who is not making any money to make more? No. It perpetuates poverty.

Redistributing wealth does nothing but keep people poor. Imagine a universal income, another platitude of politicians today. What do you think a person would do if you paid them say $1000 dollars a month for doing nothing? They would do what you are paying them to do—nothing. It really is that simple. Are we improving outcomes? Are we lifting people out of poverty? No.

Over taxing the rich will also result in rich people leaving the country. Why should they stay when they can keep their money living somewhere else? Then guess what happens? Those tax revenues are pushed down into the lower tax brackets and now you have people being taxed at exorbitant rates that cannot afford them.

The same thing occurs when you overtax companies. They will move their enterprises overseas, taking advantage of lower tax rates and cheaper labor. Along with these strategies, they will push the taxes down to the consumer. Companies must be profitable in order to attract investors. When the government passes legislation that increases taxes or affects their profit margins, these companies push these increases down to the consumer. You and I pay more money for a product because of these taxes and regulations. These regulations and taxes don’t hurt the company–they hurt us.

Let’s keep in mind the quote from above. We have gained wisdom surrounding socialism. We have seen it fail. We have seen the results of these systems repeatedly—stagnated economies, human atrocities, and the elimination of freedom. Let’s not go down that road again.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday: When to help and when to listen.

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Complaining, Empathy, Fixing, Listening, problem-solving, psychology, wisdom

“As we come out of our childhood of spirituality into greater states, we learn to let people be.”—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

I have always struggled to empathize with people who complain. I always want to jump in and fix whatever is ailing them. What I have discovered is that people do not want to have their problems fixed for them. They want to be listened to, in most cases.

Today, I still struggle with this. In hindsight, I guess I have discovered that I am uncomfortable with people complaining. Complaining is a very negative and victim-like act, in my opinion. It is very frustrating when you run across someone who continuously complains about the same thing endlessly. It’s like these people are frozen in time, trapped in an endless loop without end.

I was watching a YouTube video a while back. I cannot recall the person’s name or even the YouTube video that I was watching but a conversation came up about one of the things he did to get along better with his wife. He said, “We came up with a way to identify what type of conversation we were in. I simply asked my wife whether this was a listening conversation or a solution conversation.” This was ingenious. The husband literally asks his wife whether he was to listen and empathize or listen and help her solve a problem. What a great way of doing things. If we are aware, we can pick up on these things and use them in our own lives.

Here’s a link to a great article about complaining: Psychology Today Article

If you continuously find yourself complaining about the same things, this article will help you understand the fruitlessness of this act. This article also explains how you relive what you are complaining about each time you complain. Talk about driving something deep into your psyche.

So, what are the lessons for today? Complaining is harmful if you are not using it to affect change in your life. There are two types of conversations: 1) Conversations where a person wants to complain and be listened to and empathized with; 2) Conversations where a person wants to complain in order to seek an answer to a question or find a solution to their problem.

If a person complains and asks for help, help them. If a person complains and does not ask for help, listen and empathize. People evolve and grow in unique ways. We have no right to jump in and advise, judge, or fix something they are totally capable of fixing. Let them be.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesdays

Tags

Achievement, Focus, Lewis Carroll, Meaning, wisdom

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” – Lewis Carroll

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/lewis_carroll_165865?src=t_wisdom

One of the challenges all of us face is the ability to choose what we want to do—what we want to achieve. Obviously, we cannot do everything. We must choose. This fact was recently emphasized as I was reading The One Thing by Gary Keller. This book teaches that the best way to achieve success is to determine the most important thing to do each day to push you forward toward your goals.

We all have areas of focus. Health priorities, relationship priorities, learning priorities, and spiritual priorities. Of these we will also have priorities that we deem most important. According to Keller, this is our one thing. This is the thing you dedicate your time to. I enjoyed reading this book but offer a caution—each of us has multiple priorities we need to pursue in order t maintain a balance in our lives. You cannot neglect your physical priorities, to pursue a business interest. You cannot forego a business interest to pursue a spiritual focus. We must attack multiple areas in order to succeed. We must maintain our relationships, our bodies, our spiritual pursuits, and our focus on learning new skills.

If you neglect any of these, you will suffer. Make a lot of money, while sacrificing our families, our religious practices, and our physical health is not tenable. Balance is key and is attainable. Just pick something you can do to push each of these areas forward in a given week and you’ll achieve what I’m talking about.

Spiritually, you can attend a religious meeting once a week or read your religious text daily. Socially, you can set a date with your wife or significant other. Learning can be achieved by setting a consistent schedule for reading or writing, online tutorials, or one of many free online courses. Physically, you can workout a few times this week. If you plan out your week you can make sure you pick one or two things to do in each of these areas to continue pursuing your goals that are specific to each of them.

What happens if you have no focus? You’ll end up spending your time on a lot of worthless activities. You’ll be spending your time on entertainment and other time wasters. It’s OK to have some downtime, watching a good movie or moving through one of the many television series that are available, but without focus, you’ll spend more and more time on activities that will result in nothing moving you forward. This is truly a wasted life.

The best book I can recommend to you if you are lost is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. This book will provide you with character building habits and provide you example after example of what to do to move your life forward in a productive and balanced way. This book changed my life.

Once you are focused on certain things you want to pursue—pursue them. This self-motivated purpose will help you achieve a great deal of meaning in your life. Purpose provides meaning. Meaning gives us a reason for living. Meaning gives us something to look forward to and enjoy—a means of transcending mediocrity and suffering.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesdays

Tags

Dr. Jordan Peterson, Gary Keller, Life-long Learning, Maps of Meaning, The One Things, wisdom

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.” – Neil Gaiman

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/neil_gaiman_676237?src=t_learning

As many of you know, I love to learn. I ran across this great video series on YouTube, called: Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. In this series, Dr. Peterson teaches us how human beings have used stories to communicate to one another and map out the key features of our belief systems. The lecture series is composed of 12 lectures that last about 2 ½ hours each. This is a fascinating series filled with lots of ideas and things to think about. I’ve provided a link below if you are interested in checking it out.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22J3VaeABQAT-0aSPq-OKOpQlHyR4k5h

This year, we are all going to experience new things. We are going to learn new things. When we are truly learning something new, we make mistakes. Mistakes are part of the learning process as our brains rewire themselves to a new way of doing things. Make mistakes. Learn from your mistakes. Build on your mistakes. Do not be afraid of making mistakes.

I’m also reading a great book called: The One Thing by Gary Keller. It’s a book that describes a process for focusing on the very best action we can take to improve our lives. He also provides a great way to categorize our lives into areas of focus that I found to be quite fascinating. I recommend this to anyone who is interested in self-help books. It adds to the books I have read in the past and fits in nicely to the way I am rewriting my life daily. I think you’ll find it to be yet another book you can add to your yearly lexicon of reading.

We are what we focus on. If we focus on the right things daily, we will build a life of meaning. We will build a life that is exciting and filled with learning, building new skills, and increasing our marketability so that we can live a life that is fresh, ripe with variety, and productive. Isn’t this what all of us want?

Gary’s way of speaking is down-to-earth and easy to understand. He provides a way of pursuing a balance in life so that we can tackle all facets of our existence each day and build our relationships, maintain ourselves physically and financially, pursue our spiritual interests, and develop an individual curriculum of learning that adds to our skills and continuously pushes us to greater heights.

I hope each of you is having a great week so far! Take a look at The One Thing and Dr. Peterson’s lecture series. I think you’ll enjoy both.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday

Tags

Daily Actions, Executing, Goals, Integrity, persistance, Self-trust, wisdom

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Mastering yourself is about keeping promises you make to yourself. I wanted to address this early in the year because this is the time of year we all begin to pursue all of those things we have established are important to us. You, like anyone else, will suffer if you are lied to—even if you lie to yourself!

When you consistently fail to do what you tell yourself you will do, you begin to lose confidence in yourself. You begin to believe that you cannot achieve anything because you have always failed to achieve what you set out to do. This compounds over time and after while you’ll find that you have lost control of everything. You’ll find that you are always taking the easier route. You cannot and will not do what you need to do.

I know this place because I was there. I love video games. I love them so much that during this dark time I could literally get up in the morning and play those games from morning to midnight and beyond. I was out of control. I couldn’t make myself exercise. I couldn’t make myself eat right. I couldn’t make myself do anything—because I didn’t believe that I could or would. If it was easy, I did it. I pursued anything that followed the path of least resistance.

I knew deep down that this was not the way to live and began to look for some answers to turn this around. I ran across a book called Mini-habits and that was all I needed. I started doing small things each day. Each day I did these small things I began doing more than I was required to do. This is called a bonus activity and this is a natural offshoot of Mini-habits.

I combined my knowledge of Mini-habits with other books and began implementing a ritualistic strategy of tackling the things that are important to a balanced life. I began reading, writing, learning, exercising, socializing, and performing my religious duties each day, even if it was just a little effort, I kept doing a little in each of these areas each day.

After a while, your internal self will begin to believe what you say. You will begin to trust yourself again and realize that what you say is what you will do. When you begin to actually do what you say you will do, the bulk of the battle has been won. Now, you can establish goals, set plans, and execute a little each day. This execution reinforces trust in yourself and edges you ever closer to the goals you set. It is just this simple.

Don’t be the person that goes to the gym in January and stops going in a month.

Don’t be the person who wants to write their book and gives up in a few weeks

Don’t be the person who sets out to lose weight and gives up on their diet within a week.

Be the person who can do anything they set out to do, through deliberate, consistent, and daily action. You can do it, just like I did. Start doing little things that build self-trust and you’ll wake up one day doing more than you thought possible.

I wish all of you well as you pursue this year’s goals. I hope all of you succeed!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Persistence

Tags

involuntary change, Paulo Coelho, Perseverance, Persistence, voluntary change, wisdom

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”―Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

If you’ve never read this book, I highly recommend it. I read through it in a few days and it is a wonderful story. Today’s Wisdom Wednesday is about persistence. As I work through developing the character trait of forgiveness, there is one thing that is important about adding this character trait to my toolbox–persistence.

Each change that is introduced into your life will be accepted or fought against. Those changes that come about voluntarily, like my pursuit of 12 new character traits over the next year, are easier to deal with because you volunteer. You are the one instituting change. If you institute a change in your life it is much easier to deal with because you can always abandon the change, whenever you wish.

The changes that arise in our life like a job loss, the loss of a loved one, or the loss of health, are all much more difficult to deal with because they arrived uninvited. They are also not going to go away because they are changes to the outside of you. You cannot control your employer. If they economy goes into the gutter your employer will be required to tighten their belt. This tightening sometimes requires the elimination of people who are typically the highest cost a business has. This change requires us to find a new employer.

Losing a loved one to disease, old-age, or in the case of romance, are also involuntary changes to your life. They hurt because people who leave us, particularly those that we love, leaves a hole in our lives. Having someone in your life 24-hours a day to not having them in your life causes upheaval. In some case, this upheaval is too great for a person to handle and they do all sorts of harmful things to compensate. Others will take stock of their situations, alter their lives to compensate for this person being out of their life, and get on with it.

Losing your health to an injury, old age, or a disease that is incurable are other types of changes that we must deal with. If we’ve been injured, we heal. We compensate for the injury or ailment and get on with our lives the best way we can. Involuntary changes are hard to work through because we have no choice. We have to adapt to the things that happen to us.

Change is inevitable. Throughout our lives we learn which things we habitually do that are beneficial and which ones are not. When we take charge of our lives and decide to get rid of certain habits or activities that are not in our benefit to continue, we voluntarily opt to make a change.

If you’ve thought about all of the necessary things that warrant a change, stick with them. You put a lot of work learning about the detrimental effects a habit has on you. Persist as you begin the process of learning a new habit, a new way of doing things. If you miss a day or two, don’t beat yourself up. Just pick up where you left off and continue to move forward. At some point you’ll feel a shift and you’ll know you’ve adopted this new thing. You’ll know because it will feel uncomfortable to not do that thing you’ve established as a habit. This is when you know you’ve internalized a new habit in your life. Persistence is the only thing that will get you to this point.

I hope everyone is having a great Wednesday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday

Tags

Action, Intention, John Burroughs, mini-habits, Stephen Guise, wisdom

“The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.” – John Burroughs

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_burroughs_120946?src=t_wisdom

First off, I totally screwed up timing this week and posted my Thinking Thursday yesterday (oops 😊). So, here’s Wisdom Wednesday on Thursday to make up for my date mix-up.

We all have intentions. We intend to do good. We intend to do right. We intend to think about others before we think of ourselves. But…

Intentions like dreams mean nothing if they lack action. Actions are much more meaningful, even if they are small. Serving someone, even slightly, will have an impact. Taking one step on that walk will have an impact. Reading one page in your book will get you closer to the end.

This is one of the greatest challenges that face us as individuals. This is why I really enjoyed the book Mini Habits by Stephen Guise. This book truly changed my life. It showed me how to get started—how to execute. The price for the Kindle version is $5.99. I highly recommend this book to you if you are having difficulty sticking to anything.

Stephen emphasizes starting small. He began his exercise program doing 1 push-up a day. He began his writing career writing 1 sentence a day. All of this is backed by some studies on willpower, habit formation, and how the brain works. I hope some of you pick this book up and read it. It is easy to read and not too long. When I read it for the first time, I finished it in a day.

After finishing the book, I started putting his suggestions into action. I started my routine with 1 push-up a day. I started writing 1 sentence a day. I read 1 chapter a day. I meditated 5 minutes a day. One thing I would like to be clear about is that I did not start all of these at the same time. Stephen suggests starting out by creating one habit. You can do more if you wish but if you’ve been living a life of intending to do something and never getting around to it, starting with one habit will be a huge leap for you.

Get this book. I am not affiliated with Stephen Guise or Amazon. The book is just that good and will help you if you give it a chance. I hope this helps some of you get “unstuck” and gets you moving towards your goals. I wish you a great Thursday. The weekend is only two days away!

Until next time…

Dave