Little Deep Thoughts

Practice being awake in the present moment. Make the most of your awareness of this hour. Don’t live in the past (unless you want guilt) or worry about the future (unless you want fear), but stay focused on today (in case you want happiness). "Until you can put your attention where you want it," said Emmet Fox, "you have not become master of yourself. You will never be happy until you can determine what you are going to think about for the next hour." There is a time for dreaming, planning, and creative goal-setting. But once you are complete with that, learn to live in the here and now. See your whole life as being contained in this very hour. Let the microcosm become the macrocosm. It's amazing what can be done by people who learn to relax, pay attention, and focus, appreciating the present hour and all the opportunity it contains. It is said that in America we try to cultivate an appreciation of art, while the Japanese cultivate the art of appreciation...

So, why do I claim we have no willpower? Is it a misguided desire to protect myself? Is there a secret payoff in saying I have no willpower? Maybe if I absolutely deny the existence of willpower, I am no longer responsible for developing it. It’s out of my life! What a relief! But, here’s the final tragedy: The development and use of willpower is the most direct access to happiness and motivation that I’ll ever have. In short, by denying its existence, I’m shutting my spirit down. Many people think of willpower and self-discipline as something akin to self-punishment. By giving it that negative connotation, they never get enthused about developing it. But author William Bennett gives us a different way to think of it. Self-discipline, he notes in The Book Of Virtues , comes from the word disciple. When you are self-disciplined, you have simply decided-in matters of the will-to become your own disciple. Once you make that decision, your life’s adventure gets more interesting. ...

Our society encourages us to seek comfort. Most products and services advertised day and night are designed to make us more comfortable and less challenged. But, only challenge causes growth. Only challenge will test our skills and make us better. Only challenge and the self-motivation to engage the challenge will transform us. Every challenge we face is an opportunity to create a more skillful self. It is up to you to constantly look for challenges that motivate you. It’s up to you to notice when you’re buried alive in a comfort zone. It’s up to you to notice when you are spending your life, in the image of the poet William Olsen, like a flower “living under the wind.” Use your comfort zones to rest in, not to live in. Use them consciously to relax and restore your energy as you mentally prepare for your next challenge. But if you use comfort zones to live in forever, they become what rock singer Sting calls your “soul cages.” Break free. Fly away. 

Most people do not see themselves as being creative, but we all are. Most people say, “My sister’s creative, she paints,” or “My father’s creative, he sings and writes music.” We miss the point that we are all creative. One of the reasons we don’t see ourselves that way is that we normally associate being creative with being original . But in reality, creativity has nothing to do with originality- it has everything to do with being unexpected . You don’t have to be original to be creative. In fact, it sometimes helps to realize that no one is original. If you believe you were created in the image of your Creator, then you must therefore, be creative. Then, if you’re willing to see yourself as creative, you can begin to cultivate it in everything you do. You can start coming up with all kinds of unexpected solutions to the challenges that life throws at you. 

When I am happy, I see the happiness in others. When I am compassionate, I see the compassion in other people. When I am full of energy and hope, I see opportunities all around me. But when I am angry, I see other people as unnecessarily testy. When I am depressed, I notice that people’s eyes look sad. When I am weary, I see the world as boring and unattractive. Who I am is what I see! If I drive into Phoenix and complain, “What a crowded, smog-ridden mess this place is!” I am really expressing what a crowded, smog-ridden mess I am at that moment. If I had been feeling motivated that day, and full of hope and happiness, I could just as easily have said, while driving into Phoenix, “Wow, what a thriving, energetic metropolis this is!” Again, I would have been describing my inner landscape, not Phoenix’s. Our self-motivation suffers most from how we choose to see the circumstances in our lives. That’s because we don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. In every...