Paradoxical Commandment #8

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build Anyway.

I find this commandment difficult to take in because it is so harsh. Nothing lasts forever. However, I believe that this commandment speaks to the act of building for that is what brings joy and satisfaction. Consider the sand castle. What is more temporary than that? In one day your castle complete with moat and tower is melted away with a miniature tidal wave. You knew this would happen but you built it anyway. Why?

Perhaps you were building for the joy of creating something with your family or friends. Perhaps you were building memories.

Are you building your business to last forever? Have you thought about that? What kind of legacy are you building or will your business die when you do?

When you develop something of substance or value, whether it be an organization of people or a building made of stone and glass, it is the intangible things that will be remembered long after.

I think Kent Keith explains this commandment perfectly when he says:

“Of course, it is gratifying when what you have built last far into the future. But don’t forgo building just because it may not last. The joy and meaning that come with building will last. They will be yours forever.”

Write it down,

Carma

Anyway

Sylvia at Sylvia’s Insight asked the question “What kind of friend do you want to be?”

We cannot be personal friends to every person we meet and it takes courage to be a friend in this crazy world when nothing seems to make sense. However, YOU can make sense in this crazy world by finding personal meaning.

Today I picked up a little book titled Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments: Finding Personal meaning in a crazy world by Kent M. Keith.

Paradoxical Commandment #1 People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered – Love them anyway

The uniqueness of this book is that it doesn’t focus on wealth, success or fame. Instead it focuses on the personal meaning we get when we perform good acts because it is the "right thing to do."


In his introduction, Author Kent M. Keith says, “The Paradoxical Commandments are not morbid or pessimistic. If you do what is right and good and true, you will often be appreciated for your contributions. But if you can find personal meaning without the world’s applause, you are free. You are free to do what makes sense to you, whether or not others appreciate it. You are free to be who you really are. You are free to be who you were meant to be.”

We all know people who are unreasonable, selfish and demanding and just plain hard to love. Does this mean they are not worthy of love? What if we loved them anyway?

Love comes in many forms; affection, friendship, fondness and passion to name a few. Also when experiencing extreme difficulty with other people who are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered, remember this simple saying, “There are three answers to every question: Yours, mine, and the right one.”

“Anyway” teaches a great lesson. The good that you do in life will become a source of personal meaning for YOU even when others forget. This does not mean that you look at life through “rose colored glasses” it just means that you can make the world a better place with out depending on applause.

Join the Anyway challenge, click here to download "The Anyway Challenge" Certificate.

Tomorrow I will post Paradoxical Commandment #2.



Write it down,

Carma

Forgive and Forget

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Emerson’s quote captures an essential activity. Forgiveness of the past. What is missing from Emerson’s quote, of course, is any hint of how does one ever manage successfully to do that?

The words are easy to say but what if you can’t forget them in any amount of time? Or, worse, what if “forgetting” means simply shoving them down into some dark space in your subconscious where they will fester for years... or even decades and eventually erupt in some outpouring of incomprehensible babble?

How can one finish each day with no resentment and forgiveness unless they have the necessary qualities of mercy and forgiveness already present within to make the act of getting rid of “my old nonsense” effective or possible? Learning to honestly admit failures, inadequacies and resentments, first to yourself then before the universe, seeking the sense of forgiveness and release that will make it possible to “forget them” as Emerson says you must.

It is possible, perhaps even necessary, to engage in forgiveness as a fundamentally selfish act—forgiving people or more importantly, forgiving yourself because you desperately need to become free from the acids of resentment that will otherwise burn into your soul. Resentment and bitterness will kill your creativity as quickly as a fire doused in water.

However, the process of forgiveness can empower you to deny permission to your old habits that keep pulling you down. Also this act empowers you to not keep repeating day-after-day tiresome and depressing patterns of personal failure and resentment.

Do Not give permission to your old habits and depressing patterns of personal failure to drag you down. Let each day of your life become an upward spiral. Repeat this mantra every day:

“I ain’t what I ought to be and I ain’t what I’m going to be, but at least I ain’t what I was.” (unknown)

Write it down,

Carma

If Only I'd Written.....

It seems today that the theme is about accepting criticism. Suzanne Lieurance touched on this at her site today. Yes the wider the audience you write too the more criticism you will receive and as Suzanne says, that is good.

What is not good is too much self-criticism. Now, mind you we all do it but let's be careful how much of it we listen too. Self - criticism can go on and on and it is highly unlikely that you are going to share every negative thought you have about yourself with others. Therefore when you do talk all this negative junk to yourself, no one is around to refute it because we fool ourselves into believing that we are more objective of ourselves than "outsiders" because, after all they are only "being nice".

Next time y0u feel you "bombed" ask yourself what you can learn from this experience. Are you a 100 percent a 100 percent of the time?

Above all, let's try to remember that the most important thing about any critique of yourself or others-- is that it inspires the wirter to go back and try again. If your self-ciritcism doesn't accomplish this then you have deprived the world of your continuing growth and achievement.

Write it down,
Karma