In the normal course of events, we have times in which we feel happy and stress free, and times in which we feel down and worried. One of the main differences between our happy state and our down state is that in our happy state we have an expansive consciousness. We are aware of the sky, the passing clouds, bird song, children’s laughter and the smile on the bus conductor’s face.

In our down state however, the world shrinks until it is no larger than the patch of pavement on which we are walking, and sometimes it is not even as large as that. We close in on ourselves and become locked into a very small world that has no room for happiness and laughter.

We tend to oscillate between these two states, to a greater or lesser extent. A positive experience will boost us into our bright expansive mode, a negative experience will send us tail spinning into our inner straights.

How we can increase our propensity to be aware of the joyous tinkle of life, and stay away from the doom zone?

 

Beauty

Upon reflection, many of the experiences wherein we feel the spirit of life, are experiences that we would describe as beautiful. Being aware of the sky and the passing clouds, hearing bird song, watching children’s laughter and seeing the smile on the bus conductor’s face, are all experiences to which we could apply the word beautiful as an adjective.

Let us assume then, that experiencing beauty makes us feel positive and alive. Subsequently it should follow that if we make a conscious effort to associate ourselves with beauty by seeking out beautiful experiences and by increasing our awareness and appreciation of them, that we will thereby enhance our “up” state and increase the length of time for which we are our great happy selves.

But what exactly is beauty?

 

Natural balance

It is often very hard to put a finger on exactly why we find something beautiful so evocative. A glorious sunset or a field full of of wildflowers can bring happiness into our hearts in a way that makes the whole world seem a more cheerful place. There is something in these scenes that resonates within us and which says, “Life’s not as bad as that, let’s look forward to a bright new tomorrow.”

But where does that cheerful voice come from?

In a sense, beauty is an expression of the essential healthfulness and vivacity of the natural world. When we experience and appreciate beauty, we align ourselves with the harmonious balance of which that beauty is representative. By internalising beauty, we internalise the glowing harmonious balance at its source, and through this internalisation, we are transported to the world in which that harmony exists.

For example, when we perceive the backlit multi-hued clouds of a spectacular sunset, we are transported to the world of wide vistas and serenity that exists beyond the confines of the tower blocks which we call home. When we perceive the beauty of a wildflower, we are transported to the world of primal colour and design which is formed from the elemental building blocks of earth, sunlight and rain. A world which is far removed from cereal that grows on supermarket shelves and from milk that comes from plastic bottles.

The world’s raw beauty is an interface through which we connect to the goodness and vitality of the natural world.

 

Artificiality

As natural beings, our mood is synchronised with the cycles of the primal world. We are influenced by the cycle of the seasons, by the constant change between day and night, by feeling sunshine and rain, wind and snow, by seeing the new growth of the forest, and by smelling the sweet smell of earth and listening to the rushing water of the river after it has rained.

In the modern world, we are alienated from these cyclical influences. Street lighting and electricity blur the difference between day and night. Air conditioning blurs the difference between winter and summer. Digital clocks control our schedule by the hour and the second, and blot out our awareness of the passage of the sun across the sky. And the vast expanse of the tarmac and concrete cities in which we live, dulls our connection to the earth and its mysterious vitality.

The more artificial our lives become, the further we grow away from the life force that fills every detail of nature. And the further we grow away from nature’s life force, the further we grow away from our own inner natural life force, for we too are part of nature. We are born to be as natural and vital, but we are trained to see no further than the house across the street, to look no higher than the skyscrapers in the CBD, to venture into no greater jungle than the city streets and to hunt for food with a credit card.

Eventually we formulate a plastic self image of our artificial veneers, we make life decisions which are incongruous with the sweet well springs of inner life and finally we wonder why we are not “feeling well”.

 

Homework

Find something natural which is not a product of man’s efforts. This natural thing does not necessarily need to be something of “outstanding natural beauty”. It could be as simple as filaments of moss growing on a tree stump, a pretty pebble on a beach or a flower growing where no-one ever planted it.

Pause for a moment to ponder what you have found, and use it as a gateway to connect to the natural and unaffected world which it comes from. After a day, a week or a month, go back and ponder the same item again. Think about the deep calm and the natural balance of nature, and then compare this mood with the experiences you have had since you first pondered on this corner of the natural world.

Was all that stress worth it? Are we taking life too seriously and missing out on what really counts? Are we missing out on opportunities for personal satisfaction and fulfilment that will never again repeat themselves so that we can get ahead in the concrete jungle?

Take a step back, and wonder.

 

The big print

I am OK

This applies

• Regardless of what I do or do not know.
  
  
• Regardless of whether or not I have a job.
  
  
• Regardless of how much I earn.
  
  
• Regardless of my looks or of how attractive I am.
  
  
• Regardless of anything people may say about me.
  
  
• Regardless of how well I relate to people and of how socially adept I am.

The small print

I am OK as is

Every person in the world is formed by the unique set of circumstances in which they grew up, the unique set of experiences they have been exposed to, their unique capabilities, their unique way of perceiving the world and their unique way of thinking and feeling.

OK’ness means that I am OK just the way I am, and I do not need to change or become like anyone else in order to be OK.

In other words, my OK’ness means that every single part of me is OK. I do not need to delete any part of me or change any of my thoughts, feelings or opinions because someone else thinks that it is not-OK for me to be like that.

I am a package deal, either like all of me or pass me by (and that’s fine as well).

I am unconditionally OK

People look for reassurance of their OK’ness when they are feeling down, which often happens when they are “losing the race of life”. However, it is equally important not to fall into the trap of conditional OK’ness.

If we feel OK only because we are winning at the game of life then we are hiding not-OK’ness behind our accomplishments. By making our OK’ness dependent on a winning streak, we are saying to ourselves, “In reality I am not-OK, but because I can prove to the people around me how good I am, I can live off their positive impression of me and I can trick myself into feeling OK.”

Besides being unfulfilling, this attitude is also not very practical. If we make our OK’ness conditional on continuing success, then our happiness depends on other people’s actions, on favourable circumstances and on getting it right every time. However, life has its ups and downs and it is unreasonable to assume that we will go on surfing the wave of success always and forever. If we only feel OK because we are riding a high, that places tremendous pressure on us to stay on a high, because we cannot fail under any circumstances. This pressure is likely to take its toll on our relationships, on our health and on the people around us.

Sure it is important to be successful, and success brings happiness and fulfillment. However our success must augment our OK’ness, not act as a smokescreen for feelings of unworthiness and insignificance.

I can give myself a pat on the back because I achieved something significant, or because I made someone happy, or because I gave away something precious to a cause that I believed in. But I cannot be OK only because of something that I did, rather my OK’ness is absolute and unquestionable.

OK’ness creates energy

OK’ness means that I am a living, pulsating, growing person who is in harmony with the world and with the people around me. OK’ness means that I can be down and out, but I am still worth something. OK’ness means that every single part of me is valid, beautiful and acceptable, whatever anyone thinks or says.

OK’ness means that I am utterly OK without reference to any personal accomplishment or acclaim. And my OK’ness fills me with energy, with laughter and with joy, which I share with the world and with the people around me.

Suggested growth plan

We grow the most by facing our challenges and proving to ourselves that we can overcome the obstacles that previously seemed insurmountable.

Think about a situation in which you tend to feel not OK, then think about how you would ideally be able to manage the situation. Think about the point at which you assume a not-OK attitude, and then decide that you will remain OK when that point of decision arrives, you will face the situation and you will win.

Looking out from the house you can see acres upon acres of farmland, with sheep and highland cattle grazing on it. In the spring, new born lambs run around next to their mothers, charging underneath them to drink the milk, their little tails wagging excitedly.

The mountains reach so high the tops are swallowed up by the clouds, like stepping stones up to the gods themselves. The ocean with shades of deep blue hails the sun’s rays as they shimmer like diamonds on the water. The breeze sails through the grass, reviving this wild, beautiful land…

I couldn’t recognise who I was, but here I could see myself again. The world looked magical once more and I held onto this euphoric paradise as tight as I could. But the more I relaxed, the more I realised I couldn’t stay here forever. I couldn’t just run away as much as I wanted. I had to go back and face everything that had made me so sad for so long. I needed to face those dark times and hold my head up bloody high. I think at this point I realised I had grown up. Running away from bad situations is an easy thing to do. It’s painless. Happier. The real difficult task is going back to that same dark prison, and fighting it head on. Standing up to the demons that haunted you for so long and saying “Look at how strong I am, stronger than you ever will be.”

The Broken, By Siobhan Mackenzie

By consciously maintaining a state of OK’ness you can release the strength, positivity, constructiveness and creativity which will allow you to transcend the constricting feelings that are hemming you in.

Decide, overcome, feel good about your accomplishment and then look for your next growth challenge.

Self-determination

We can sometimes feel trapped and unable to get out of a situation in which we find ourselves, often when this happens we find ourselves using the word “because”. For example, we may tell ourselves that our situation is “because” of something that happened to us, or that it is “because” of someone else’s actions.

Even if we are correct, by concluding that we are caught up in someone else’s designs, we have made it impossible for us to change our situation. This is because if we assume that we have been adversely affected by something that is out of our control, then we have assumed that it is also out of our control to improve our position.

A story: (There are various versions of the following joke, the following is the non-politically correct one.) An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman were all working on the same building site together, and they always stopped at the same time to eat their packed lunches.

One day the Englishman opened up his plastic lunch container and screamed, “Oh no, not ham sandwiches again! If I have ham sandwiches again, I’m just going to have to… kill myself.”

The Scotsman opened his lunch box and, like the Englishman, screamed, “Oh no – salmon sandwiches again! If the wife makes me these one more time, I’m just going to have to… kill myself!”

The Irishman then opened his lunch box and exclaimed loudly, “Oh no – cheese sandwiches again! If I have cheese sandwiches once more, I tell you, I’m surely going to kill myself!”

Next day, lunchtime came round again. The Englishman opened his sandwiches only to find ham sandwiches. With a loud cry of “Ham sandwiches, I can’t bear them anymore!”, he ran along the roof of the building and flung himself off, falling ten floors to his death.

The Scotsman then opened his lunch box, found salmon sandwiches and screamed, “Och no, salmon again. I can’t bear it anymore!” and in turn flung himself off the building to his death. Finally, the Irishman opened his lunch box and, faced with the prospect of Irish cheddar sandwiches yet again, he leapt off the roof to his death.

At the funeral for the three men, held a week later, the three widows were weeping together.

The English wife sobbed, “I don’t understand it – I thought he liked ham.” The Scotsman’s widow cried, “I don’t understand it either. Jack would have said something if he really didn’t like salmon.” Finally, the Irish wife sniffed loudly, “I just don’t understand my husband at all – he always made his own sandwiches!”

The Moral: It is always within our ability to change the situation which we find ourselves in. Whether this involves deciding against self-defeating behaviour, looking for new opportunities or letting go of a familiar but difficult way of living, only we have the final say in the way we will live our lives.

Where I am today, we tell ourselves, is a consequence of what other people (our parents, for example) and circumstances have done to me. In blaming other people and events, we weaken our power. We argue, “Not my fault…”

As soon as we subscribe to this line of thinking, our chances for any kind of success dramatically decline…

The problem with this line of thinking is that if we don’t accept responsibility for where we are right now, we have no hope of changing our future. I promise you: if it’s the president’s fault, if it’s our neighbor’s fault, if it’s our spouses’ fault, if it’s the government’s fault, if it’s the weather’s fault, then we truly are stuck!

What are you going to do about the president! What are you going to do about the weather? What can you do about your neighbor? I’ll tell you: nothing! But if you can find the answer to your problems in the mirror—if the solution lies within you—well, there’s boundless hope, because you can start working on yourself today!

Mastering the Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success, Andy Andrews, page 4

We all make our own sandwiches, and it is always within our ability to change what will be in our sandwiches tomorrow.

Workplace ethics – Appreciating the people behind the scenes

This guy is on the side of the road hitch-hiking on a very dark night and in the middle of a storm. The night is rolling in and no car goes by. The storm is so strong he can barely see in front of him.

Suddenly he sees a car come towards him and stop.

The guy, without thinking, gets in the car and closes the door, only to realize that there is nobody behind the wheel. The car starts rolling forward slowly. The guy looks at the road and sees a curve coming his way. Scared, he starts to pray, begging for his life. He’s still in shock when, just before he hits the curve, a hand appears through the window and moves the wheel.

The guy, paralysed with terror, watches how the hand appears every time they get to a curve.

Gathering strength, he gets out of the car and runs to the nearest township. Wet and in shock, he goes to a bar and asks for two shots of tequila and starts telling everyone about the horrible experience he went through.

A silence envelopes them all when they realise the guy is crying and isn’t drunk.

About half an hour later, two wet and weary men walk into the same bar and one says to the other, “Look, Mfwetu, that’s the idiot that got into the car while we were pushing it down the highway.”
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=K5jLEovdQk8C&dq

Moral: We sometimes take things in our lives for granted, whereas in reality it is only because people are putting in a lot of work to keep everything functioning smoothly, that we get the impression that “everything works by itself”.

During a discussion of gratitude in Garnett House, the girls started thinking about all of the “hidden ” people who support their life at the School. First they thought of obvious people who work behind the scenes to make the community run smoothly, such as the staff in the kitchen and offices.

They then started to delve more deeply and ask questions about what happened behind the scenes to keep the school functioning. Through this exploration the students identified many less obvious but very important people such as security staff, maintenance staff, and staff in the sewing room.

The students cut out and decorated “gratitude people” from stickers, and wrote messages of appreciation on them for each of the different groups of staff members. Together the Garnett girls scurried around at night under cover of darkness and placed the gratitude stickers around the school community, so that they would be a surprise in the morning.

The next evening the students thought about even more important people within the community, so more messages of gratitude were created and displayed. The feedback to the girls was really wonderful. One security man said that he had cried because he was so happy that we had noticed what he and his colleagues did for the community.
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ALuyBwAAQBAJ

By showing gratitude to the people who work hard to keep the show going, we can generate good feeling and create a pleasant working environment.

 

This man had a flat tire next to the insane asylum. He jacked up his wheel, took it off, put the nuts in his hubcap, and put it up on his hood. They fell off into his grill, and he couldn’t get them out. He thought, “Oh, Lordy. What am I going to do?”

Across the fence one of the inmates was watching him and said, “Just take one nut off each of the other wheels and put them on that one, that way you’ll have three nuts on each wheel, and it’ll get you where you’re going.”

He said, “That’s a brilliant idea. Why, you’re not crazy. What are you doing in there?”

“I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid.”
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=8Oazh6WQrIEC

Moral: In order to maintain a balanced view of the world, we need to assimilate information from people who have a different approach to life than we do. If we only tune-in to people who provide the sort of advice that we want to hear, we can make it impossible for us to develop our thinking abilities.

It is evident that one needs humility to learn from everyone, especially those whom we perceive to be beneath us in status or qualification. Confucius explains that Kong Wenzi was given the title of ‘cultured’ because he was ‘diligent and loved learning, and not ashamed of asking advice from those below him’.

The possibility of learning from everyone… reminds us once again that learning, for Confucius, is an active, lifelong and life-wide process that is intimately linked to real-life application.
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=HlCCBAAAQBAJ

By considering ideas that do not fit into our preconceived notions, we can give our minds the agility to simultaneously grasp diverse ways of thinking about a situation.