This time I’ll go a bit more religious than I have previously. I’m a Christian, as you may know/have figured out. So today I’ll present another way of looking at things from a Christian perspective. this is NOT to say that this is the view of most, or even many, Christians.

Let’s start out with how I think most people view others right now. Most of us think of each person as a completely independent individual, with possible exceptions of some sort of tie to immediate family. There is, however, another fairly interesting way to look at it, one that I think may be closer to how God sees it.

That view consists of looking at all humanity as something like a tree. It all started with Adam and Eve, and spread out from there. Each person is an individual branch on the tree… but it’s all one interconnected living thing. That helps explain why we need other people so much… what happens to the branch of a tree if you cut it off of the tree?

There are all kinds of interesting ideas that can come from this view. It makes all of us connected, every single person. It even makes us “more” connected to people to whom we were already connected, like grandparents. It’s one thing to look at them as individuals who happened to have a child who happened to have you. It’s quite another to actually look at them as being part of the same living being as you, and a pretty close part, at that.

It also makes it easy to see how hurting anyone causes hurt back to you. After all, if you cut your finger, it affects your whole body. If you cut your wrist badly enough, your whole body can die. Now you may be tough and be able to deal with pain, even a great deal of pain, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t inflicted, or that it isn’t doing any harm.

Another thing it can make it easier to see is how people who are seemingly unrelated to each other (in the independent view) can still make a huge impact on each other. You could yell at your child, who then is unpleasant in school, which makes the teacher cranky, who then yells at their spouse, who then gets drunk and goes out and gets in a wreck. That’s not to say that you’re legally responsible, or even that you bear the blame morally, as all the people involved made choices, but your one choice (good or bad) traveled through the “branches” of the human organism and affected someone severely who you don’t even know and will likely never meet.

And this happens more often than you think. Your choice to smile at someone (a real smile, just for them) can brighten someone’s day, which can affect other people, and be generally uplifting to a whole place. Being good to someone can even do something as drastic as making them choose not to commit suicide, thereby extending their branch and causing unimaginable changes to the lives of all they touch. Being bad to someone can have equally far reaching consequences.

So, in light of the human organism, be aware not just of how your choices affect you, but how they affect those around you, and how that can affect those around them, and how that can affect those around them, and how that can affect those around them…

One of the best helpers for achieving your goals is to have accountability and measurability. Goals that don’t have a measurable result are not terribly effective at moving you forward. Having a measurable result and someone or something to which you hold yourself accountable provides much reinforcement to your self-discipline.

For example, if your goal is to lose weight and become more healthy, that is a laudable goal. It is not, however, all that easily achievable. It has no measurable, quantifiable steps along the way. If, on the other hand, you set out to lose 20 pounds and 5% body fat, those are specific goals, and you can set a goal of 1 pound a week, or whatever is achievable for you, until you reach your goal. This way you have a sense of progress along the way. “Oh, I’m 1/4 of the way there”, “I’m halfway there!”, etc.

Even better is having someone to whom you’re accountable. This can be a weight loss partner, with whom you exercise or whatever, a spouse whom you keep updated on your progress, or sometimes even more effective is someone you’re paying, ie a physical trainer. Most people have a strong subconscious impulse to not waste money. “Waste” has a widely varied meaning when it comes to money, but paying someone to help you lose weight and not working at it would generally fall into that category.

Possibly the strongest motivator of all, which I briefly mentioned above, is a sense of progress. There is nothing that makes a goal feel more achievable, more inevitable, than being able to see progress toward that goal. It is much easier to move ahead toward your goal when you can look back at the ground you have already covered. It’s much easier to walk five miles to reach your goal when you can look back and see you have already covered ten. Then you’re on the downhill slope, the easy part.

The hardest part of reaching any goal is taking the first few steps. Once you’re in motion, then you have inertia on your side, instead of working against you. So set specific, measurable goals, set up someone to whom you are accountable, and keep track of goals reached along the way. These things, done together, will help keep you motivated and moving toward your ultimate destination.

There are really two versions of selfishness. One is the kind most people think of when you say the word: someone who puts their own needs ahead of the needs of others. The other, more severe version, is the type of person who doesn’t really understand that other people are real. This doesn’t mean that they consciously decide other people are figments of their imagination, it’s more normally subconscious, but where the first type of person considers other people’s wants or needs and chooses their own, the second type never has the fact that other people HAVE wants or needs register on them.

The unfortunate part for both of these people is that human beings are meant to have interactions and relationships with others. Selfish people are very, very seldom happy. The second type of selfish person is even less likely than the first type to be happy. The reason for this is that physical things can only bring temporary satisfaction. As you become accustomed to having them, they fade into the background, and no longer bring much pleasure.

People are different. People are always changing, whether they want to or not. You simply can’t have the same person in your life (or, indeed, BE the same person) next year as this. This makes it much more difficult for people to fade into the background as objects do. It is very difficult to become accustomed to something which is never the same.

Since selfish people, especially the second type, dismiss people, they are left more with objects, which do not change over time, and therefore become boring and fade out of notice. One of the only ways to “reset” this fading out is to take away substantial amounts of the objects someone has. The most common form of doing this is to lose substantial amounts of money, especially if you go bankrupt.

Many times, besides making the person appreciate the objects if and when they re-acquire them, this also has the effect of making them less selfish, as they can now identify more with other people. Which in turn makes them happier. I don’t know, really, any easy way to help someone become less selfish. The only thing that really seems to work is either loss, or very real belief that loss may happen.

If you do happen to know something that works, please leave your answer in the comments.

Are you in the right job for you? As you become more aware of your choices, and find your calling, the answer to this question should become more and more obvious, as well as what the right job is and how to get there.

Essentially, you can tell if you’re in the actual right job for you (not just the right job for right now, but the one where you really belong) by whether you’re excited to go to work, and thinking of all the possibilities of what you can do today, or wishing you weren’t at work and thinking of how you can avoid what you should be doing. Once you’re at a job for more than a few weeks, one of those two possible feelings will become an obvious trend.

Your right job may not involve working for someone else. It may be writing books (or a blog, if enough people read it), or it could be owning and running a small restaurant, or a number of other things where you tend to be self-employed. It could even be something where you don’t get paid at all, provided that you can set up enough recurring income to take care of your needs.

The wrong job is draining, in all aspects of your self. It makes you mentally tired, physically tired (and sometimes sick, if the fit is bad enough), emotionally drained, and spiritually worn out. The right job, however, energizes you. You enjoy it so much that you feel almost more like it’s a the reward to do the work, rather than just work to get a reward.

So step back, find your calling, and start working on getting the right job. Oh, and you’re unlikely to be in the right job if you haven’t figured out your calling, your purpose in life, yet. It’s very difficult to tell what the right job is without that information.

Peace is a wonderful thing. External (as in no war between countries) and internal (as in no war within) peace are both desirable. Neither, however, is the highest good. There are times when nations must go to war, and there are times when you must have conflict within yourself in order to grow.

When I speak of internal conflict being necessary, I’m referring to when you have made a decision to change, but it hasn’t really permeated through you yet. Something like working out every day for at least thirty minutes… you will have conflict between your choice to do so, and your habit and natural tendency to not want to work harder than necessary. This conflict is necessary in order for you to grow in the path which you have chosen. And once you have that working out pattern set, it will no longer be a conflict, but a source of greater peace.

Any change brings with it conflict, though some bring much more conflict than others. Avoiding conflict completely means avoiding change completely. And if you’re avoiding change, you can’t be growing. You become stagnant, stuck in a rut, and that is very definitely not conducive to human happiness. So don’t avoid conflict at the cost of avoiding change. Embrace the conflict that you choose, absorb it, make it part of you, and let it help you grow.

Meditation means different things to different people, but there remains a common thread: meditation is about bringing your whole self together, aligned and powerful. Some people chant, some people may perform yoga or tai chi, some people simply sit in silence. The means of doing so isn’t important, as long as it works for you.

For me, I usually meditate with quiet. I let my mouth go quiet, my brain, and finally, my emotions. I try to let myself be as open as I can, letting emotions flow out of me and peace flow in to me. I let all my muscles relax, and just generally let go of all the little stresses I have been keeping inside.

In reality, I don’t even do this every day, though I really should. In fact, in an ideal world, I would probably do it at least two or three times each day. Ten minutes spent meditating (how long you need varies, even in an individual) is usually enough of a performance and mood boost that you get vastly more done in a day than you would have had you spent those ten minutes working on something.

So try meditating. Try one technique, and if it doesn’t really work for you, try another. Once you find one that DOES work for you, you will soon be wondering how you went without it for so long.

When you are focusing on your expectations, having a timetable can have beneficial or harmful effects on their achievement. It all depends on how you set the timetable.

If you have a long term timetable, like what you want to accomplish in the next year, or five years, and your goals (aka expectations) are reasonable, then a timetable can actually help you to work toward them. It can keep you from slacking off, help you to continue to take action to move toward them. It can help make clear to you what you need to do to make it happen, or make certain choices more clear as certain choice that don’t necessarily prevent you from reaching your goals may still take you off the path toward them long enough to disrupt your timetable.

On the other hand, they can be harmful when you set unrealistic timetables, or set in stone shorter term paths. If your timetable absolutely requires you to get this done today, and that tomorrow, and the other thing the next day, then unforeseen circumstances can disrupt your entire timetable, bringing much stress and possibly fear of failure into your life. Setting unrealistic goals can do much the same thing. You don’t want to set goals that you have to strain with all your effort to barely reach them, you want goals that you have to work toward, but have no doubt you can accomplish.

So, if you’re setting goals and timetables, go ahead and set short term goals, even daily ones are good for you, but don’t make your timetable so tight that if you miss a single daily goal it messes up the whole path and plan.

Expectations (as I mentioned in a previous post) are powerful things. People tend to live up to their expectations of themselves. For the majority of people who are not living consciously, this often involves absorbing the expectations of others. For those who ARE aware, though, this linking of expectations and outcomes can be of enormous benefit.

You can set your own expectations. There are some things you can do to make it easier to set and reinforce the expectations you choose. First of all, thinking about specific things will influence your expectations. For instance, if you constantly think about failure in a certain venture, you start expecting to fail. The opposite is true, as well. If you think about the success of a project you are working on, especially if you think about it as a foregone conclusion, you will start to expect it to succeed.

This tendency is even more powerful when you go beyond thinking in words to visualizing. This, however, is not a bad thing. In fact, it makes it easier to intentionally set your expectations. Any time you start thinking negative thoughts about something in your life, immediately change the direction of your thoughts. It doesn’t have to be going from negative to positive immediately on the same topic, you can simply think about a different topic where you are NOT having negative thoughts. At the same time (not literally as in the same second, but as in don’t worry about having eliminated all negatives first), start visualizing positive things about that topic.

For instance, you can use this to improve relationships. Any time you find yourself thinking negatively about your relationship you want to improve, change your train of thought. You can either try to think of the positive aspects of the relationship, or if that’s too hard, you can think of something else that is good (maybe you just watched a good movie and you can just think about that, instead). Then, when your head is clear of the negatives (not permanently, just for the moment), you can work on visualizing positive developments in the relationship. You can picture spending more time together, doing something fun together, or whatever… as long as it’s positive to you. If you keep doing this, you will eventually change your expectations so that this better relationship is what you are sure is ahead. This will make a difference in many ways, such as affecting your choices in regards to your relationship, improving your mood (which sometimes can improve a relationship all on its own!), etc.

You can reinforce this change even more by saying what you want in a positive way. For instance, don’t say “We’re not arguing any more.” Instead, say “Our relationship is more peaceful and loving.” If you repeat this, and especially if you intentionally put emotional energy into it, it can have a very strong effect in a very short time. When you combine these things, clearing out negative thoughts, visualizing positive results, and speaking the words as if it were already done (especially with the emotional energy in it), the results can be nothing short of astounding.

This topic fascinates me, so there will likely be more posts on it in the future, and it may even eventually get its own category, but for now just try the above techniques for at least a week, and watch what happens (for many people, it takes far less than a week… one day is frequently enough to see a difference)!

Does your mind keep going off on its own, thinking about things that have nothing to do with the task at hand? Do you have trouble coming up with solutions to difficult problems? Do you feel stressed out and overwhelmed? If you follow the steps outlined below, you can overcome these problems.

Step One – Early Morning Quiet

Every morning, after you are up and have gotten ready, but before you start working, take a few minutes to yourself. Let whatever comes to mind drift in and back out until you have internal quiet**. Let yourself be quiet for a few moments, then repeat (it can be out loud, or in your mind, as long as you think out the whole thing) what you want to accomplish both that day, and any overarching goals you are working on. Visualize achieving these goals as well as you are able, then take another minute or two of quiet, and you’ll be ready to be on your way, sharp and focused for your work day.

** A note on this: The time it takes to achieve internal quiet varies with the amount of time between attempts to reach it… in other words, the more often you seek internal quiet, the easier it is to achieve each individual time.

Step Two – Mid-Day Review

At lunch time, take just a moment to look back over the morning and see what you’ve accomplished. This can help you feel like you’ve gotten something done, as well as helping you to focus your energy on what’s most important in the rest of the day. Take this opportunity to again repeat whatever goals you are pursuing… repetition helps to set them more firmly in your mind.

Step Three – Evening Quiet And Review

In the evening, when you’re done for the day, take a few moments again to review what you did that day, what got accomplished and what did not. Form a general idea of what you want to accomplish the next day. Repeat, again, the goals that you want to accomplish. Take a few moments to seek internal quiet again, letting the days events go. This should clear work from your mind so that you can focus on your home life, connecting easily with friends and family.

Step Four – Just Before Bed

After you do your preparations for bed, brushing your teeth and such, you’re ready for the last step of this process. Think back over the events of the entire day, what you liked, what you didn’t, what you got accomplished and how you felt… just a general review so that you can learn from what happened. When you’re done, repeat one last time your goals, then take a few deep breaths and relax your body, while once again finding your internal quiet. This shouldn’t take long, as you’ve already done it three times this day. Now you should be able to easily drift off to sleep, and you should sleep well, awakening the next day refreshed.

Conclusion

If you do all of these things, adding them to your daily routine, you will find that your mind is much clearer. You will be able to respond to new situations and problems more easily. You will learn new skills faster, achieve your goals better, and keep your mind more focused. Stress will fade out, and you will very seldom feel overwhelmed.

When you first start, this may add 45 minutes to an hour to your day, but the time it takes will quickly drop. Most people, once they’re started, take less than 30 minutes. Really accomplished practitioners can do it in 10. Any time you skip a day or more, it make take extra time to get back into your groove, driving up the time it takes (not to mention the fact that you’ll feel your clarity fade away), but you can simply start doing it again and the time it takes will go back down.

All those benefits for a grand total of approximately 30 minutes per day… not a bad bargain!