I came across the following idea and have been trying to find the source: “A problem is solved not by confronting directly, but by going to a level where no problem exists.” I think it might be Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. This either seems like complete horse shit or perfect sense. Nothing in between.
I’ve been thinking some about fear and happiness recently, so these excerpts from an article by Roger Fransecky (“Happiness Is A Choice”) caught my attention:
“Dan Baker’s book, What Happy People Know, confirms the wisdom of the research into what (Dr. Martin) Seligman calls “authentic happiness” and “learned optimism.” Baker notes that a major barrier to happiness is fear. He writes, “We all have a neurological fear system embedded deep within our brains, a neural network that once helped us survive as a species, but now limits our lives. The biological circuitry of fear is the greatest enemy of happiness.”
We’ve written about how fear binds us, edits our hopes and diminishes our potential for happiness. Baker reminds us that fear is the repository for our past traumas, our fear of the future and our archaic instinctual terrors. Fear can be a gift, our way of staying out of the darkness and moving into the light of awareness and new beginnings. But if our fears own us, we have to break free…by awareness of those fears, and through the courage to challenge our fears to see if they are still real.”
For additional information on “neurological fear systems embedded deep within our brains,” reference the work of Dr. Warren Chapin. Additional insights on Happiness.
A man of character in peace is a man of courage in war. — Sir James Glover
When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends. — Japanese Proverb
Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter. — Paxton Hood
Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny. — Unknown
Civilizations in decline are consistently characterised by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity. — Arnold Toynbee (1889 – 1975)
The character of a man is known from his conversations. — Menander (342 BC – 292 BC)
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)
“My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or team work. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness, and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years.
Such isolation is sometimes bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it, to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions, and prejudices of others, and am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shifting foundations.”
Excerpt from an essay by Albert Einstein (Living Philosophies):
I guess intelligent people could argue about whether happiness is something that happens to you or something you can make happen. Gary van Warmerdam believes and, more importantly, makes me believe, we can achieve happiness. We can make it happen. This is a topic I don’t post on too often. The idea of “changing your life” can sound weird if you’re not “ready.” When you are, Mr. van Warmerdam might be just the guy to help you get there.
Note: Gary was probably the one person most responsible for introducing me to meditation practice.
“It’s an objective fact that life often presents us with choices where the comfortable decision leads nowhere and one that threatens your ego has all the potential in the world. You need a healthy ego to endure the abuse that comes with any sort of success. The trick is to think of your ego as your goofy best friend who lends moral support but doesn’t know shit.”
— Scott Adams
“Most people have at least a few big problems in their life. But the vast majority of life’s problems are the little kind. There are two ways to deal with the little problems.
ROUNDERS: This group rounds things off. A problem that’s a two on a scale of one to ten gets rounded to zero. If a rounder has five problems that are all about a two on a scale of one to ten, he’ll tell you he has no problems.
ACCUMULATORS: Accumulators add up all the little problems until they equal one big problem. If an accumulator has five problems that are each a two on a scale of one to ten, that feels like having one problem that’s a ten.
At the end of this thought-provoking post, Mr. Adams gives his readers an assignment: Describe your own job in one sentence. For example: “I help people hate each other.” (Divorce Lawyer)
That “in one sentence” part makes it very difficult. The best I could come up with is: “I drive one of the Sunday School buses for the Church of the Web.”
“A must read for everyone who will die.” That’s how one reviewer describes Deepak Chopra’s “Life After Death.” I ordered the book after seeing Dr. Chopra on The Colbert Report. The title pretty much describes the book which got a fair amount of highlighter (my measure of good non-fiction). Here’s one graf from page 239:
“In spiritual terms the cycle of birth and rebirth is a workshop for making creative leaps of the soul. The natural and the supernatural are not doing different things but are involved in transformation on separate levels. At the moment of death the ingredients of your old body and old identity disappear. Your DNA and everything it created devolve back to their simple component parts. Your memories dissolve back into raw information. None of this raw material is simply recombined to produced a slightly altered person. To produce a new body capable of making new memories, the person who emerges must be new. You do not acquire a new soul, because the soul doesn’t have content. It’s not “you” but the center around which “you” coalesces, time after time. It’s your zero point.”
I’ve never studied or researched reincarnation, but I’ve always had a curiosity about and openess to the idea. In 1988 I wrote:
“As I think about the idea of a past existence, I feel a fondness for this “earlier me”. A sense of gratitude for whatever spiritual progress he was able to achieve. At the same time, I feel a sense of anticipation or expectation for my “next life”. And some responsibility to that future self. I’d like to move him (or her?) along as far as I can on this “cosmic lap.” To move him closer to…a perfect consciousness? Nirvana?”
“Mixed in with all of that is a sense of relief that I don’t have to complete everything in this lifetime. This is not the only shot I’ll get. And this awareness is vital because we all know –consciously or subconsciously– that we won’t “get it all done” in a spiritual sense. We hope (and work) for progress but a single” lifetime seems hopelessly short.”
Upon rereading the full post, I’m struck by how close I got (to Dr. Chopra’s explanation), given my complete ignorance.
I confess I could never stretch my common sense and logic (and faith?) around many of the stories in the Bible. And my recent read of Richard Dawkins’ case for atheism (The God Delusion) didn’t convince me. But I really enjoyed Life After Death and will read more by Dr. Chopra.
Is it even remotely possible that Scott Adams is reading this blog? In October I offered some thoughts on worry:
We know –looking back– that most of the things we worried about did NOT happen. The really bad shit that happens in life is almost always totally unexpected. Out of the blue (or black, if you prefer). Didn’t see it coming at all.
Today, Dilbert’s dad took the idea up a notch or two:
First, I’m not worried about any problem that we can see coming. If you look at the history of the world, almost any time we thought we knew something bad was going to happen AND we had years of warning, things turned out okay.
I’m just saying…