You Can’t Win
It’s an odd one, how many people think that the reason something they are doing doesn’t work is that they aren’t trying hard enough. Or, they think that, with a little extra persuasion (from me, from their partner, from their doctor or some other authority figure,) the non-working thing will magically shift.
Maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t work because it’s the wrong approach!
Seeing the Light
It takes both courage and persistence to change what does not and has never worked into something that does work. This is radically different from what I see a lot of. People expecting others to change so they can be happy, for example. Then they learn a few skills and find better ways to talk, but the message is the same: “I expect you to change, or the world to change. I have all my beliefs and affirmations in place, and here I sit, waiting.”
Dropping the Excuses
The Buddha said some variant of, “All that you are is a product of what you have thought.” He meant that how we think determines our self-identity and our view of the world. It’s not the ‘right’ view, but rather how we frame our reality. Once we get the joke that the frame is warped by our perceptions, we can have a laugh and let it go.
Zen Based, Present Living
