Tag: Wisdom

Are YOU the one that everyone finds difficult?

porcupine_CCDrew_AveryGretchen Rubin again. This time on the topic of being an a$$…

We all see the world through our own eyes, and it can be hard to recognize how our words and actions appear to other people. One of the challenges of being a difficult person is realizing that you’re a difficult person. I’ve known many difficult people who, I suspect, have no idea that others find them difficult!

In his excellent book The No A****** Rule (I’m omitting the title not from prudery but from fear of spam-blockers), and also on his blog, Work Matters, Bob Sutton has a quiz to help people recognize if they are a*******.

I was inspired to adapt that material for this quiz. As you answer these questions, be brutally honest with yourself. Don’t make excuses for yourself or other people; just try to answer accurately. These questions apply to family members gathering for a holiday, or to co-workers, or to any group of people who are trying to get along with each other.

Source: The Happiness Project: Quiz: Are YOU the One That Everyone Finds Difficult?

Go to the source if you want to read Gretchen’s quiz. Personally I was disappointed that she offers questions but no recommendations. Fortunately, one of her readers suggested this series of posts from writer Annie Zirkel. Annie says…

We come into contact with prickly people all the time. It might be a scowl, a frosty attitude or a touchy disposition. It might be the choice of words as in ‘What do you want?!’

Sometimes they serve us coffee. Sometimes they sit across from us at work or in committee meetings. Sometimes they live in our neighborhood or even worse! in our own homes.

And sometimes – more often then we’d like to admit – they are staring back at us in the mirror.

Source: How Prickly Are You? Part 1

Me? I often ponder why society secretly venerates a**holes like Steve Jobs, Gregory House of House, MD, and Cal Lightman from ‘Lie to me‘ and why they are a source of entertainment for us. Personally I’m a recovering assaholic [got that word from Steve Jobs’ biography] – deep inside I know I am warm, loving and caring but for reasons I often don’t understand even my best intentions are frequently taken the wrong way. And the results are far from entertaining. Because Gretchen’s quiz got me thinking I’ll be digging into Annie’s series for insight. Join me if you’d like. I’ll report back on what I find…

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"How Do I Avoid Be Dragged Down By Difficult People?"

Gretchen Rubin has some good thoughts on the topic over at The Happiness Project…

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…

Quiz: Are you a “Tigger” or an “Eeyore”?
Quiz: Are you the one that everyone finds difficult?
9 tips for dealing with difficult relatives.
Make people happier by acknowledging that they’re not feeling happy.

Source: The Happiness Project: “How Do I Avoid Be Dragged Down By Difficult People?”

Great use of video blogging as well, wouldn’t you say?

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Do You Need A Happiness Boost?

The ‘bluebird of happiness’ Gretchen Rubin has some ideas for you!

Do you need a happiness boost—right now? If so, take a look at this menu of options and make your choices. Remember, the more you tackle, the bigger the boost you’ll receive.

When you’re feeling blue, it can be hard to muster up the physical and mental energy to do the things that make you happier. Plunking down in front of the TV or digging into a tub of ice cream seems like an easier fix. However, research shows that these aren’t the routes to feeling better.

Try some choices below. The more you push yourself, the better you’ll feel. If you can’t tackle a big task, just do something small. Even a little step in the right direction will give you a lift.

According to my groundbreaking happiness formula, to be happy, you need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth. What’s dragging you down? Is it a lack of fun, of connection? Do you feel a lot of guilt, boredom, or anger? Do you feel that something’s “not right” about your life? Do you feel stagnant or stuck? Focus your efforts on the choices that will do the most to address what’s not working in your life.

Source: Do You Need A Happiness Boost? [BLOG] « Positively Positive

Go to the source if you’d like to see her list…

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Why you’re not getting what you want

Farmer plowing in Fahrenwalde, Mecklenburg-Vor...

I like this perspective from Mastin Kipp at The Daily Love…

Plain and simple, we get what we ask for.

Not just with our words, but also with our actions. In fact, our actions will show us what we are asking for far more than our words. We only take action on what we truly believe, so if we want to see what we are really asking for, let us look towards our actions.

If you say you want to lose weight, but your actions are to eat high calorie food and stay inactive, you aren’t really asking for health.

If you say you have faith but your actions are actions that are faithless, then you don’t really have faith.

If you say you love someone and your actions are unloving, then you don’t really love that person.

Let us be mindful of our actions.

The precursor to action is thought. Sometimes it can be VERY hard to be aware of what we are actually thinking, especially because many of our actions come from unconscious thoughts. If we want to tap into what’s really running us, but are having a hard time, let us see what actions we are taking.

We want love, but we run away when it shows up. There is a misalignment there of desire and thought.

We want weight loss and a healthy body, but we don’t get off our ass and exercise. There is a misalignment there, too.

In this literal Uni-verse, we can LITERALLY create (from the inside out) any type of experience we wish to choose. It is when our desires, our thoughts and our actions are in alignment that this kind of life begins to emerge.

The seed of a desire for something greater lives within all of us, but our lack of action prevents that kind of life from unfolding.

Imagine if a farmer had seeds and land to plant his seeds, but doubted that the seeds would grow if he planted them. So if this doubt were strong enough, the seeds would never get planted. Or, they get planted, but then the farmer can be too impatient and dig up the seeds the next day or the next week because the crop hasn’t come yet.

The farmer still has no harvest. Then a second farmer comes by at harvest time with a full crop of harvest, and the first farmer gets jealous and angry at the second farmer for having abundance. The first farmer may blame The Uni-verse or say, “People like me aren’t supposed to have this harvest”, but in reality, it is the farmers own doubt and impatience that prevents him from reaping his harvest.

We are many times like the first farmer. Our seeds are our desires. Our fields are our daily actions. We must plant our desires in actions and then be patient. If weeds of doubt creep in, we must clear them out. And in perfect time we will be able to harvest the fruit of our faith.

This is how life is. We need to nurture the fertile soil of our actions with faith and patience.

So, today, are you not getting what you want? Look at your desires. Look at your actions. Where is there a disconnect? How can you adjust your actions to sync up with your desires? And, if that feels weird, how can you change your MENTAL habits to allow yourself to take the proper action that is in alignment with your desires?

The answers to the lack you may be temporarily experiencing is all within you. Show up, let go and trust The Uni-verse one day at a time. Get your desires, thoughts and actions in alignment and then let your patience and faith shower down on the fertile soil of your actions.

Your harvest WILL come.

Sorry — I don’t normally curate such a long quote, but I wanted to share the whole post with you. Here’s another perspective on getting what you want…

“1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James 4

How about you? Getting what you want?

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Here’s Your Golden Opportunity!

Waiting to be rescued?

“The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment, it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.”

– Orison Swett Marden

Source: Today’s Quotes: Here’s Your Golden Opportunity!

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Miracles…

English: Walt Whitman. Library of Congress des...

Blogger David Kanigan shared this great Walt Whitman poem…

“Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?”

Source: Miracles… – Lead.Learn.Live.

Go to the source if you’re interested in his perspective. While you’re there, follow him! You might enjoy his posts like I do…

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Upgrade yourself!

Mastin Kipp shares a good analogy today at TDL…

I joke that my goal in life is to upgrade my internal software as often as iTunes upgrades its software! I mean, think about it, how many times does iTunes upgrade it’s software? It seems like almost daily! And why does Apple do this? Because they are constantly improving their product so that it’s better for us to use.

And that is what we must do. Accept who we are, know that where we are is perfect. And then from that place step into constant personal growth, busting through old stories and patterns and upgrading our internal software so that we can be used by The Uni-verse better.

The future is bright. Many people think when times are good that they will always be good, and that when times are tough they will always be tough – instead of remembering that the nature of life is constant change. It’s usually never as awesome as we think it is, nor is it as bad as we think it is.

And when we have a vision for a future that we want to create, we can use that vision as a navigation system when times are awesome or when times are tough. Coming back to your vision and taking action towards it REGARDLESS of what is happening in the outside world – that is what separates people.

Source: Here’s Why Your Future Is FULL Of Radness!

Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of his post…

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The Million Dollar Question

Million Dollar Question

Expectancy theory states, that which we focus on expands. If we continue to allow ourselves to focus on problems, we will actually have more problems. Conversely, asking and answering the question—what is one thing I can do differently that could make this better?—within sixty seconds of a problem arising, literally causes our level of optimism and success to grow.

Any time you catch yourself thinking about what is going wrong in your life, be relentless about asking this question (what is one thing I can do differently that could make this better?). Keep asking until you identify a potential solution to your problem.

The mere identification of a potential plan for a solution is helpful, as it breaks the negative cycle of thought. You will obviously need to put energy into the execution of the solution, but the essential first step in getting started is realizing that something can be done to improve any situation.

Source: The Million Dollar Question [BLOG] « Positively Positive

Go to the source if you’d like the rest of author Jason Selk’s perspective. I’m trying to apply this to a situation that happened yesterday; I received a horrible, hurtful, hateful email full of shame and blame from a friend. The worst part is that I actually have to consider whether or not some of it is true, and if so, what should I do about it. I’ll have to think about what Jason says…

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A Declaration Of Deserving

Danielle LaPorte shares this today…

A Declaration of Deserving:

You are worthy of your desires. Really wanting what you want gives you the power to get it. You were born free. (The more you try to earn your freedom, the more trapped you become.) You are worthy of love and respect. Lovable.

You deserve

: eye contact

: smiles in the morning

: food made with pure intention

: clean drinking water, fresh air

: Hello, Please, Thank you.

: time to think about it

: a chance to show them what you’re made of

: a second chance

: an education

: health care, including dental

: multiple orgasms

: weekends and the summer off

: eight hours of sleep

: play before work

: to change your mind

: to say no

: to say yes

: to have your deepest needs met

: to be seen

: to be loved for what is seen.

You deserve all this just because you showed up.

Yep, you’re that monumental.

Source: A Declaration Of Deserving…Just Because You’re Here [BLOG] « Positively Positive

Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of her thoughts on the topic…

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Healthy Relationships

Icon from Nuvola icon theme for KDE 3.x.

I stumbled upon this this morning…

Communication is a key part to building a healthy relationship. The first step is making sure you both want and expect the same things — being on the same page is very important. The following tips can help you create and maintain a healthy relationship:

  • Speak Up. In a healthy relationship, if something is bothering you, it’s best to talk about it instead of holding it in.
  • Respect Your Partner. Your partner’s wishes and feelings have value. Let your significant other know you are making an effort to keep their ideas in mind. Mutual respect is essential in maintaining healthy relationships.
  • Compromise. Disagreements are a natural part of healthy relationships, but it’s important that you find a way to compromise if you disagree on something. Try to solve conflicts in a fair and rational way.
  • Be Supportive. Offer reassurance and encouragement to your partner. Also, let your partner know when you need their support. Healthy relationships are about building each other up, not putting each other down.
  • Respect Each Other’s Privacy. Just because you’re in a relationship, doesn’t mean you have to share everything and constantly be together. Healthy relationships require space.

Source: Healthy Relationships | www.loveisrespect.org

Go to the source if you’d like to know more…

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Using Others to Stop Our Pain

Cover of "The Language of Letting Go (Haz...
Cover via Amazon
Melody Beattie has some thoughts I wanted to share with you this morning…

Our happiness is not a present someone else holds in his or her hands. Our well-being is not held by another to be given or withheld at whim. If we reach out and try to force someone to give us what we believe he or she holds, we will be disappointed. We will discover that it is an illusion. The person didn’t hold it. He or she never shall. That beautifully wrapped box with the ribbon on it that we believed contained our happiness that someone was holding — it’s an illusion!

In those moments when we are trying to reach out and force someone to stop our pain and create our joy, if we can find the courage to stop flailing about and instead stand still and deal with our issues, we will find our happiness.

Yes, it is true that if someone steps on our foot, he or she is hurting us and therefore holds the power to stop our pain by removing his or her foot. But the pain is still ours. And so is the responsibility to tell someone to stop stepping on our feet.

Healing will come when were aware of how we attempt to use others to stop our pain and create our happiness. We will heal from the past. We will receive insights that can change the course of our relationships.

We will see that, all along, our happiness and our well­being have been in our hands. We have held that box. The contents are ours for the opening.

God, help me remember that I hold the key to my own happiness. Give me the courage to stand still and deal with my own feelings. Give me the insights I need to improve my relationships. Help me stop doing the codependent dance and start doing the dance of recovery.

Source: March 1: Using Others to Stop Out Pain | Language of Letting Go

Here’s the dirty little secret. This blog is only a public scrapbook of the things I need to remember for myself. If it happens to resonate with anyone else that’s a blessing as well. Did anyone else need to hear this today?

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You Are Not A Victim

Todd LohenryHere’s a kick in the pants from Kute Blackson…

You are not a victim.

Regardless of what might have happened in your past.

You have a choice in this moment to choose what your experience of yourself and life will be today.

Now.

If you want to be happy, being a victim doesn’t serve you in any way.

It takes real courage to forgive and let go. It takes courage to take responsibility for your inner experience, especially when someone has wronged or hurt you.

The degree to which you take responsibility for your inner experience determines the degree of freedom that you will experience in your life.

So how much freedom do you want to experience?

You choose

There are many things you will never be in control of in life. This is a fact.

The weather.
The Traffic.
Other people’s opinions of you.
The government.
The media.
Your spouse or lover.
The stock market.

But you have the choice to choose your interpretation of what happens. And to choose again until the choice you choose serves your true happiness.

Source: You Are Not A Victim. Own Your Power!

Go to the source if and read the rest of Kute’s post if this resonates with you. Own your own power!

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Say good-bye to past trauma and hurt…

 

The time evolution of the probability density ...

Mastin Kipp shared something that I know someone needs to hear…

Let us review the definition of trauma from the good ole Merriam Webster’s:

Trauma (N):  A disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury.

A lot of people get so identified with what happened, that they stay there, always identified by what happened and, in many cases using that identification as an excuse not to grow.

Now, I am by NO MEANS diminishing that fact that crazy shit happens in life. Bad things happen to good people. There is all kinds of suffering in the world. But that doesn’t have to be where we LIVE!

You see, there are some key words in Webster’s definition. The first word is “state”. The state you are in changes during the day. Sometimes you are in a sleep state, sometimes you are in a groggy state, sometimes you are in an excited state, and if you are lucky enough to be with a partner you Love and end up getting busy with them, you can be in a pretty excited state, too.

We humans can be in all kinds of different states. The state that we go into when we experience a trauma is totally normal and natural. But afterwards, because we are co-creators of our life, the state we stay in is up to us. This is why I love it when Tony Robbins said that there are no such thing as victims, because once the event happens it’s up to us to choose to stay in a victim identity or choose an empowered story and become stronger.

I can hear some of you right now screaming, “YES MASTIN BUT I WAS ________” and then fill in the blank. I’m not saying that these things didn’t happen and that in that moment you aren’t a victim. Of course you are. But after that moment happens, how you live your life, where you choose to live emotionally is up to you and the meaning you give the events of your life! Moments of victimhood happen, a life of being a victim is chosen and we become a victim of our choice to identify with that moment, instead of growing past it.

The goal is not to avoid pain or to deny what happened to us; the goal is to learn that we have the power within us to change and that starts by not letting an event define us. Instead, we know that painful events happen and when they do, we give them an empowering meaning and choose not to relive and make our identity the trauma that we felt.

Source: Bye Bye Past Trauma & Hurt! Here Comes The Sun Baby!

Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of his post. Choose life!

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The magic in your mind

Have you read this? I only recently came across it thanks to blogger David Kanigan @ Lead. Learn. Live.

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7 Signs you are in an emotionally abusive relationship

Cover of "The Emotionally Abusive Relatio...

If the title caught your eye, you may need to read this post from Shannon Cook…

Let’s face it – relationships are tough and always require work to succeed. If both parties are invested and make an effort, the reward can be a mutually satisfying, long lasting union. But what if one of the partners is abusive? It is possible that the problems you are having in your relationship and the dejection you feel over it is not your fault. You may be partnered with someone who is an emotional and psychological abuser.

This type of abuse can be trickier to detect than say, physical abuse. The effects of verbal and psychological abuse can be more subtle.   Fortunately, there are some clear signs to look for if you suspect that this type of abuse is happening in your relationship (or someone else’s you care about)…

Source: 7 Signs You Are in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship « Just say NO to Toxic Relationships

Go to the source if you’d like to know what the 7 signs are…

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How Safe We Are

This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetz...
Charles Spurgeon

John Piper shares some good thoughts on the Desiring God blog…

Matthew 10:30:

But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

Charles Spurgeon:

You all take care of yourselves to some extent, but which of you ever took so much care of himself as to count the hairs of his head? But God will not only protect our limbs, but even the growth of hair is to be seen after. And how much this excels all the care of our tenderest friends!

Look at the mother, how careful she is. If her child has a little cough, she notices it: the slightest weakness is sure to be observed. She has watched all its motions anxiously, to see whether it walked right, whether all its limbs were bound, and whether it had the use of all its powers in perfection; but she has never thought of numbering the hairs of her child’s head, and the absence of one or two of them would give her no great concern. But our God is more careful of us, even than a mother with her child — so careful that he numbers the hairs of our head. How safe are we, then, beneath the hand of God!

Charles Spurgeon, sermon #187: “Providence.”

Source: How Safe We Are – Desiring God

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Getting love

The Rolling Stones' "Tongue and Lip Desig...

Some good thoughts from Melody Beattie that I wanted to share with you this morning…

I know. We didn’t get loved the way we wanted. Some of us have spent years picking through the messy issues of parents who had unusual ways of showing love or who didn’t show love at all.

We may have had spouses who were dreadful at showing love. Issues like alcoholism and other dysfunc­tions can genuinely interfere with a person’s ability to love. Some of us took that personally.We looked around and the only conclusion we could come up with is that we weren’t lovable.

Some of us need to grieve the absence of love in our family of origin. We may have missed an important emo­tional lesson while growing up, and we barely realize it. That lesson is understanding how lovable we are.

Some of us learned to protect ourselves by caring for others, while refusing to let love into our own lives. We found that it is easier to shut down and not be open to love, rather than be denied love.

After a while, we stop seeing the love that is there for us. We refuse the small gestures that may mean a tremen­dous amount to the person offering them. These gestures include words of concern, support, understanding, assis­tance, kindness, or a genuine expression of like or love. If we don’t believe we’re lovable, if we’re not open to seeing and receiving love, we’re going to miss more than just the love we missed in our childhood. We’re going to miss the love that is available for us now.

Challenge: The hardest part about letting people give us love can be softening that tough shell enough to let the gentle words and acts of love sink in.

Source: February 24 | Language of Letting Go

I have found, too, that expectations can be a problem for me. If I’m expecting more, sometimes I miss what is there. Remember the words of the great philosophers The Rolling Stones “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.”

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Carl Jung’s five key elements to happiness

In 1960, journalist Gordon Young asked Jung, “What do you consider to be more or less basic factors making for happiness in the human mind?” Jung answered with five elements:

1. Good physical and mental health.
2. Good personal and intimate relationships, such as those of marriage, the family, and friendships.
3. The faculty for perceiving beauty in art and nature.
4. Reasonable standards of living and satisfactory work.
5. A philosophic or religious point of view capable of coping successfully with the vicissitudes of life.

Jung, always mindful of paradox, added, “All factors which are generally assumed to make for happiness can, under certain circumstances, produce the contrary. No matter how ideal your situation may be, it does not necessarily guarantee happiness.”

I did disagree strongly with Jung on one point. He said, “The more you deliberately seek happiness the more sure you are not to find it.” I know, Carl Jung vs. Gretchen Rubin, who is the authority? But though many great minds, such as John Stuart Mill, make the same point as Jung, I don’t agree.

For me, at least, the more mindful I am about happiness, the happier I become. Take Jung’s five factors. By deliberately seeking to strengthen those elements of my life, I make myself happier.

Source: The Happiness Project: Carl Jung’s Five Key Elements to Happiness.

If Gretchen can disagree with Jung, so can I. My issue? The list appears random – I think there’s a sequence to these 5 steps that is important. I would reorder the list like this;

  1. A philosophic or religious point of view capable of coping successfully with the vicissitudes of life.
  2. Good physical and mental health.
  3. Reasonable standards of living and satisfactory work.
  4. Good personal and intimate relationships, such as those of marriage, the family, and friendships.
  5. The faculty for perceiving beauty in art and nature.

Maybe I had too much of Maslow and his hierarchy of needs but it seems to me that there are certain items in the list that need to build upon the other, in other words, 1 affects your ability to do 2-5.  How about you? What’s your take on Jung, Rubin, Maslow and me?

Open-mouthed smile

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Do You REALLY Have What it Takes To BE LOVE?

Here are some more good thinks from Mastin Kipp of The Daily Love…

When we take time to actually understand people, our lives will change. There seems to be a theme in many of my clients lives lately, where they will complain about someone – and make them wrong for what they are thinking or how they are feeling.

Let me tell it to you straight – YOUR EMOTIONS ARE VALID AND REAL! Don’t let ANYONE tell you otherwise!

When we begin to have respect for the thoughts of others and we begin to cherish the feelings of others, as we do our own – we step into a larger world. Think about it. If you made a list of all your character defects – and saw that part of yourself loud and clear, would you say that even though you know you are that way, you let yourself off the hook? Well, then let us see others with Love and compassion and let them off the hook, too.

This doesn’t mean we have to tolerate abuse or anything like that, but it does mean that we can choose to see and encourage the best in others. And when we do that, a strange thing starts to happen – the best of who they are begins to emerge.

If we are constantly looking for what’s wrong, if we are constantly trying to see how someone messed up – we miss the miracle and we miss the blessing that is his or her presence in our life.

So when it comes to other people – I have a question, and answer honestly… What are you looking for in them? Are you looking for what’s right? Are you seeing them as doing the best that they can – are you giving compassion to them at the same level that you give to yourself or those that you Love?

AND – if you feel that other people are only looking for what’s wrong in you – can you send them Love and Compassion because you know that this is nothing but a projection of how they feel about themselves and has NOTHING to do with you? This is how we are being called to see the world – with the eyes of Love. We see the innocence; we see the pain of others and we do not take it personally because we know it is just a part of their projection. And, we know that we also project onto others, so we do our best to stop that and to send only Love. Sometimes, you have to send Love from a distance, but send Love anyway!

Do you have the courage to see life this way? Can you let go of the past hurts and step into the brandnew-ness of this now moment? Can you feel the Love within you that is dying to express and know that when it is expressed it will be returned to you 100-fold?

Source: Do You REALLY Have What it Takes To BE LOVE?

I don’t right now but maybe this will help. I’m thinking about how to apply this…

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How Much BLISS Can You Handle?

How Much BLISS Can You Handle?

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To Be Happier, Write Your Own Set of Personal Commandments

Cover of "The Happiness Project: Or, Why ...

One of my favorite authors is Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project. Recently, she shared her thoughts on having your own set of personal commandments…

One of the most challenging—and most helpful and fun—tasks that I’ve done as part of my Happiness Project is to write my Twelve Personal Commandments. These aren’t specific resolutions, like make my bed, but the overarching principles by which I try to live my life.

It took me several months to come up with this list, and it has been very useful for me to have them identified clearly in my mind. It’s a creative way of distilling core values.

To get you started as you think about your own commandments, here are my Twelve Commandments:

1. Be Gretchen.
2. Let it go.
3. Act the way I want to feel.
4. Do it now.
5. Be polite and be fair.
6. Enjoy the process.
7. Spend out. (This is probably the most enigmatic of my commandments.)
8. Identify the problem.
9. Lighten up.
10. Do what ought to be done.
11. No calculation.
12. There is only love.

So how do you come up with your own list?

Consider phrases that have stuck with you. When I look at my Twelve Commandments, I realize that five of them are actually quotations from other people. My father repeatedly reminds me to “Enjoy the process.” A respected boss told me to “Be polite and be fair.” A good friend told me that she’d decided that “There is only love” in her heart for a difficult person. “No calculation” is a paraphrase of my spiritual master St. Therese (“When one loves, one does not calculate”), and “Act the way I want to feel” is a paraphrase of William James.

Aim high and fight the urge to be too comprehensive.I’ve found that my commandments help me most when I review them at least daily, to keep them fresh in my mind, and to do this, it helps to keep the list short and snappy. I suspect that Twelve Commandments is too much. Maybe I only need two, “Be Gretchen” and “There is only love.”

Think about what’s true for you.Each person’s list will differ. One person’s commandment is to “Say yes,” another person’s commandment is to “Say no.” You need to think about yourself, your values, your strengths and weaknesses, your interests.

Source: The Happiness Project: To Be Happier, Write Your Own Set of Personal Commandments.

Is happiness an issue for you? You might benefit from Gretchen’s work. I have!

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