Simple Patient Compassion

●♥● Simple Patient Compassion ●♥●

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

According to legend, when the venerable sage Lao Tsu was leaving China a guard at the Great Wall recognized him demanded that he leave behind a record of all his wisdom before he left.  The learned elder then sat and wrote the Tao Te Ching.  After a lifetime of learning this wise man highly valued three things:  simplicity, patience and compassion; these were his keys for successful living.  Personally, I have seen this same truth resonating across the wisdom of many cultures including the teachings of the Buddhavacana, Tanakh, Bible, Bhagavad Gita and Gitche Manitou.  The Tao Te Ching has stood the test of time and stands today as a globally recognized source for understanding.  It follows that our lives and goals can benefit from consideration of this sensible advice.

Simplicity, we now live in a complicated and intricate world.  Simple letters and writing have been replaced with e-mail, texts, blogs and more.   Simple face to face conversations have been replaced by highly technological phone and video calls.  Simple definitions of relationships, marriage and family have been replaced with increasingly complex and elaborate views.  Simple safe, naïve and innocent childhood is being assaulted by various social and political opinions and fears.  It is safe to say that nothing is simple today.

Yet mankind is born, lives and dies – a cycle unchanged for thousands of years.  This simple fact remains.  What we do between cradle and grave defines our existence.    For all our complicated toys, entertainment and gadgets we still simply need food, shelter, love, acceptance and meaning.  If we can recognize our simple nature and pay attention to our basic needs then perchance we might better handle our more sophisticated matters.  Simplicity understands and feeds our bodies, minds, hearts and souls.  We merely need to take the time to break down the priorities in our lives and see where they fit physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.  Simplifying our lives brings us back to the essence of life itself.

We are advised to exercise patience with friend and foe alike.  In so doing we refrain from struggling against what is and instead harmonize with existence.  We accept the things that change which we would otherwise seek to keep static.  We also accept the unchangeable permanence of other realities like the gravity, time, space and aging.

Patience, in a world filled with ticking clocks patience is a precious rarity.  Time is always running out.  We rush through childhood towards adulthood.  We rush through education towards careers.  We rush through careers towards raises and advancement.  We crave a fast pace, seeking to stuff as much into every second as possible.  We have precious little time to waste… and yet we fill our vacant hours with trivial pursuits and entertainment.  If we slow down then we risk the realization that we are going nowhere fast and turning our days into a forgettable blur.  Ironically, the patience we lack would actually serve to slow down the tyrannical passage of time. 

Lastly, the sage mentions compassion, not for others but towards yourself.  Compassion is not pity.  It is the understanding of misfortune and suffering.  If we can master true compassion for ourselves then the text promises that we reconcile all beings.  To reconcile people is to restore harmony between them.  If we learn how to exercise genuine empathy towards ourselves then we will learn to live in peace with our very being.  To be compassionate is to accept ourselves as we are, a mix of both flaws and qualities together.   Real compassion acknowledges and understands our best and our worst and gracefully embraces them together.

It is evident that we humans crave understanding and acceptance.  The psychologist Abraham Maslow used the term ‘love and belonging’ to describe this fundamental need.  We all yearn for acceptance from other people: our parents, our family, our peers and our community.    This need is so strong that some twisted souls have committed hideous acts of violence when they felt utterly rejected by life and those around them.  Oddly, we actually need to start by truly accepting ourselves, for only then will be able to offer that same compassionate understanding to others.  In contrast, today’s world seems quite harsh and judgemental.  We are taught to self-criticize and  to berate ourselves in the belief that we will whip ourselves into shape.  Instead, we merely generate self-loathing and the disbelief in ourselves. 

Simplicity.  Patience.  Compassion.  Declutter you heart, mind and spirit.  Learn and exercise patience with all things.  Understand the heart of compassion towards yourself and others.  These are the three greatest treasures that we can cultivate within ourselves.

©2018 Scott D. Wilson

Deserved or Entitled?

Deserved or Entitled?

“Nobody is entitled be loved.
Yet we all deserve unconditional love.”
–Anonymous 

Deserving and entitled, I see the world struggling with these ideas.  So much turmoil, anger and confusion surround them.  This world deserves many things.  We deserve real peace.  We all deserve life, liberty and happiness.  Yet there is a huge gap between what we deserve and what we have the rights to demand.  Likewise, there is gap between what we deserve and what we generally receive.

Even that for which we have rights is frequently frustrated.  We say globally that everyone has a right to life.  Yet if this were universally true then everyone would correspondingly be entitled to adequate food and water as a prerequisite for life.  Presently 1.1 billion people lack safe drinking water and another 795 million are malnourished.  I won’t even go into the grim numbers surrounding sanitation and healthcare. We don’t truly provide a right to life itself but rather we seek to offer the right to living, should a person be able to find the means to do so.

I made my statement above because entitlement and rights are truly important things.  Rights must be enforced to have any effective meaning.  However, we have no right to demand something simply because we deserve it.  We may feel that every cancer patient deserves access to the latest and best treatments but that does not mean they are entitled to it. Currently, that would be neither realistic nor could it be considered a right. 

There is no way on earth to enforce or mandate love or even acceptance. Love is either given freely or it is no longer love.  Many people seem to think that they can demand be loved.  They feel entitled to be loved and accepted for who they are.  They are confusing what they deserve with what they are entitled to by right.  Much of the societal pain that we see comes from the mindset that feels we should have a right to what is deserved.  Horrible attacks have occurred by sick and confused individuals because they felt deprived of what they viewed as their right to be accepted and loved.

 Sadly, this world is truly lacking in genuine love.  Much of what passes for love is a cheap imitation filled with conditions…

 - I love you when you behave.

- I love you when you love me.

- We love you when you make us happy.

- We love you for what you do.

 We place terms, conditions and provisos on the love that we offer.  This disingenuous love is what has been handed down to us, sometimes mixed with romantic or sexual overtones.  True unconditional love is difficult to practice and rare.  Instead, we hate with ease.  We hate the things that we fear.  We hate our monsters.  We have no clue how to love the most unlovable among us:  the sick and the depraved.  Loving our monsters and our enemies would seem weak and coddling.

We do not understand that love forgives; it does not absolve. Love may be gentle but it is not feeble.  It is possible to offer unconditional love without becoming a doormat and enabling wickedness.  We have been taught this truth by the greatest of history and yet we seem to repeatedly forget it.

 Yes, you and I and everyone deserve love.  It is not our right, but we do deserve it.  Ironically, the best way to address this matter is to face our fears and to become loving with no expectations of anyone else.  We as individuals must become the love that is lacking in this tired and frightened world. We must of our own freewill choose to act in unconditional love simply because we believe it to be the correct and best choice regardless of our personal losses in so doing.  When it’s hard and painful and difficult – that is when it is most important to practice love. Paradoxically, real love is the one thing we can never truly possess until we learn to truly give it away with no strings or conditions attached whatsoever.

©2018 Scott D. Wilson,P.Eng.

The Victim in ‘Me’

The Victim in ‘Me’

How we use words and what they reveal about us is fascinating. The words we use reveal much about the thought processes and emotions within us. Equally interesting is the fact that the words we use can in turn impact our emotions and our thinking. Thoughts and emotions evoke words and words can in turn evoke thoughts and emotions.

Consider the following statements. You make me so mad. She drives me crazy. Nobody likes me. Woe is me! Why me? All these declarations demonstrate the victimization of ‘me.’ Everything is happening to ‘me.’ ‘Me’ has no ownership of anything. ‘Me’ is the simply the submissive receiver of all these actions and emotions. ‘Me’ is powerless in all these interactions. When we use ‘me’ we tend to make passive statements about what is happening to us and unfortunately we all too often turn those declarations into negatives. We create the narrative of the victimization of me.

Now consider these proclamations. I get mad when you do that. I feel crazy when says those things. I feel like I am disliked. I feel desperate. I don’t understand what’s happening. These mean essentially the same as the previous statements but in this case ‘I’ is making declarative statements about themselves and their thoughts and feelings. ‘I’ is not passive. There is ownership in the declarations. For better or worse, when we use ‘I’ we are making pronouncements about ourselves: who we are and what we are doing. Strangely, we seem to protect the pronoun ‘I’ making excuses like “I didn’t know,” and “I thought that was correct.”

So it seems that we frequently paint ‘me’ as a victim and then we protect and exonerate ‘I’. This mixture results in our feeling and thinking like we are unwilling martyrs to life and the universe. Currently, our entire culture supports this perspective. Popular speaker and advertisements soothe your ego by telling you that none of your troubles are your fault. Your circumstances did this to you. Read this and buy that and you will entertained and you will feel better. Yet these hollow offerings leave us feeling out of control and deprived. In this state we can be most easily manipulated into buying products, ideas and beliefs. That is how most businesses and governments want us to be. This state of mind is not accidental.

There is an alternative to this programmed victimized thinking. First and foremost, verbally and in thought, do not use your words against yourself. Unless you can make your declarations positive then avoid ‘me’ in your thinking and your words. When the word ‘me’ does appear in you words pay attention to how you are using it. Do your utmost to avoid martyring ‘me.’ Next, own your life with ‘I’ statements. Do not try, wish or want. State what you *are* actually doing and what you fully intend to *do*. When speaking or thinking of the past make sure that you do not belittle your actions by stating what you did not know, understand or do.

When you make identifying statements ensure that they are affirming. Declare positively who you are. Own your emotions and feelings, even the negative ones. It’s okay to say that you are angry, sad, upset, confused, frightened or anxious *and* it does not need to be someone or something else’s fault. Let go of fault and blame; they hold no value for you and only work to create further victims in others. Let each one own their action, thoughts and feelings. Seek to understand how all those elements worked together to create the outcomes that followed. Exercise grace towards yourself and others, again in thought, word and action. Through practice of such mindful thinking we can turn the victim in ‘me’ into a champion and ‘I’ can learn to grown and overcome all the tragedies that befall us!

©2018 Scott D. Wilson

Killing Doubt

Killing Doubt 

“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”
–Unknown

We all have dreams.  To a certain extent dreams are what get us out of bed every day.  Having something to achieve and work for is a worthy way to pass our time on this globe.  Without some kind of goal to reach for in our lives we are merely existing… burning oxygen and taking up space and resources.  I do not downplay or belittle the value of existing; existence itself is miraculous and amazing but it rarely satisfies anyone for a prolonged period.  We need purpose in life to bring daily fulfillment.

So logically, we are all out happily working on our various dreams.  Hmm, that does not seem to be the case.  Something is killing the dreams of mankind.  Perhaps it is failure.  People are putting all their efforts into their goals and ambitions but life is just frustrating them and people are failing.  If this is the case then we should see scores of people still striving for their dreams, diligently exhausting all the possibilities before ultimately succumbing to certain failure.  Personally, I do not believe that the evidence within our culture supports this premise.

Sadly, I venture that most dreams never even make it to the runway.  Their pilots look at the skies, point to a cloud and proclaim that the weather is too dangerous and unfavourable for flight today, maybe tomorrow.  They amass many flightless days seeking the perfect weather.  Sure, those pilots visit their dreams in the hangar.  They polish the fuselage and the wings with their plans.  They may even fuel them up with hope and motivate themselves enough to roll them out onto the tarmac, but those clouds, those dark clouds, they always seem to get in the way.

These pilots know.  They have seen other pilots crash and burn.  They have seen other dream battered and broken by storms.  They aren’t about to let that happen to theirs.  Instead, they wistfully remember the flights of their youth when they conquered the skies in early dreams.  They sit recalling victories and promises of childhood, adolescence and youth.  If asked about their hesitation today, they will regale the inquirer with stories of their near misses and malfunctions.  Oh, they have tried to take off many, many times, but it just doesn’t work for them now… too risky.

We have all had goals that succeeded.  We have all experienced the sting of genuine failure.  Though crashing hurt, knowing that we truly did what we intended to do made the effort worthwhile. Circumstance and failures may delay us with maintenance and repairs but they should never truly ground any worthwhile dreams.  Don’t let your dream and ambitions fester in the hangar or moulder on the tarmac.  Fire up the engines and head off down the runway into the headwinds of life.  Our lives are too short to let a little rain and storm keep us from taking to the air.  Face those fears and do not let disbelief shoot down your flightplans.  Know in your heart that it is far better to brave the skies and face real storms of failure again and again than to concede and forever be earthbound by your deadly doubts.

©2018 Scott D. Wilson,P.Eng.

The Blessings of Tribulation

●♥● The Blessings of Tribulation ●♥●

“What seem to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.”― Oscar Wilde

We all tend to rejoice over the golden days of our lives.  We remember the times when everything was going well and all our needs were met.  We are thankful for these periods and we mourn when they are lost to us.  We look with scorn and contempt upon the woe and misfortune that befall us.  When we experience them we forever wish that they would end and when they are done with we wish that they had never occurred.  What possible value could there be in our tribulations?  Some answers might surprise you.

In a seven year period how would you like to lose your mother to a long battle with multiple sclerosis, suffer an abusive marriage and divorce, succumb to clinical depression, and end up as an impoverished single mother on welfare?   No, not for you?  What if I told you that it was just such misfortunes that led to the creation of Harry Potter and his incredible wizarding world?  Yep, had J.K. Rowling been able to forego all these tragedies and pains it is quite likely that Harry would have remained little more than a nice idea shared with family and friends. 

The loss of her mother fueled Rowling’s writing about Harry’s loss of his parents.  We see her understanding of abuse in the cruelty of the Dursleys towards Harry.  The Dementors are physical manifestations of Rowling’s own struggles with depression.  Rowling felt like a failure and it is in that place of desperation she wrote her amazing story of a remarkable boy struggling to find his way in a strange unfamiliar world while facing a vicious and powerful enemy.  Even after she had managed to find a publisher who agreed to publish her book, the editor advised Rowling to get a day job since she had little chance of making money in children's books.

Now we look at this all in retrospect.  J.K. Rowling is a household name, a billionaire in the world of authors.  It would be interesting to ask her if she wishes that any of those tragedies had never come to pass.  The reality is that without them there is a good possibility that the circumstances used to create Harry Potter might never have come about.  Continued employment, a stable relationship and relative economic comfort would easily have dissipated any need to write or publish such a story.  Yes, these events remain painful and tragic but their value in developing Ms. Rowling is real and significant. 

I am not saying that misfortunes should be celebrated.  They are and will remain unpleasant and undesirable.  I am however stating that our hardships can and often do have value and it is important to recognize this.  From the adversity, pain and grief of Bill Wilson’s and Bob Smith’s lives came the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous, an institution that has been responsible for the recovery of millions of lives trapped in addiction. Calamities have many times become the seeds for success.  The legend of the phoenix rising from its own ruin plays out in real life and in many actual lives.  It is an unfortunate truth that change is frequently fueled by pain.  We tend to avoid the discomfort of change until it becomes too painful or dangerous to remain the same.

In the film “It’s a Wonderful Life” George Bailey gets to see the value of his own life by discovering what would happen if he had never existed.  It would be an equally interesting film to see what would have happened if George had been spared many of the disappointments of his life.  For example, had George’s dad stayed healthy a little longer then he would likely have travelled, gone to college and perhaps Mary and their marriage might never have become part of his life.  Our lives can indeed be equally defined by both our triumphs and our tragedies.  

One of my greatest sorrows is the loss of my twin daughters.  Yet without this brutally heart-breaking event I would not have any of the children that I have today.   Death set in motion the possibilities for life that would not have been otherwise possible.  So I must accept that my ultimate grief birthed my greatest joys.  This is a paradoxical truth for me.  Ends create beginnings and creation destroys that from which it is created.  Baking a cake obliterates wheat, eggs, sugar cane and milk.  Personally realizing this truth can grant one significant peace.  As a father, my heart will forever ache for Sarah and Amy but I bless the brevity of their lives for bringing me Jeremiah, Courtney, Allison and Kimberley.

I write these words for two reasons.  First, if you are in turmoil now then understand that you may be at the genesis of something new and beneficial in your life.  Suffering does not guarantee improvements but it can offer the potential for growth and personal change.  You will reap great benefits if you are able find the gains within your losses.  Secondly, when life drags up the pains of your past then do your best to avoid indulging in regret.  Seek instead to remember any lessons that were learned and consider possible benefits that you derived while passing through your trials.  Think on the helpful circumstances, people, places and things that may have entered your life as a result of your difficulties.  Become comfortable with this paradox for we can achieve greater joy when we discover the blessings of tribulation.

©2018 Scott D. Wilson

Choose Your Pain

Choose Your Pain

“Growth is painful.
Change is painful.
Yet nothing is as painful as staying stuck Somewhere that you don’t belong.”
–Author Unknown

In this life, there will be pain.  Some of that pain will be unavoidable.  The loss of loved ones, tragic accidents and unforeseeable disasters are just part of living.  Other pain will be optional.  Being honest helps us to prevent the shame of being caught in a lie.  Acting in a timely manner helps to evade the pain of regret. Living a sedentary lifestyle avoids many physical pains, at least in the short term.  However, many life decisions carry pain on both sides.  Avoiding relationships can avert the pain of rejection but it can lead to the ache of loneliness and solitude.

So in reality, life is careful balance between the pursuit of pleasures and the avoidance of pains.  It is in pursuing this balance that we can fall into grave errors.  Too often, many of us avoid short term discomfort and thereby forego long term benefits.  Growth and change are positive actions that grant long term benefits.  However, growth and change usually involve some painful and unpleasant situations.  Looking back on honestly on our failures, mistakes and errors in order to understand them and learn from them is a very humbling and uneasy process.  However, failure to perform such reflection on our actions results in our suffering the repetition of these same behaviours an incurring the same agonizing results.

Likewise, our desire to maintain our comfort keeps us in places that eventually create anguish and distress.  Abuse of credit to keep a certain lifestyle will ultimately lead to a tormenting situation in the future.  Physically being sedentary is enjoyable for many years but eventually that lifestyle will lead to suffering and illness.  Our bodies were designed to be active and proper activity comes with some inconvenience and discomfort.  If we unwisely ignore the future results of our choices then our decisions to avoid pain or to pursue pleasure will end in unexpected sorrow.

So this is our daily challenge:  Choose your pain.  Accept that life will have some pain.  You cannot avoid it all.  Hedonism will ultimately have to pay the piper one day.  We cannot avoid paying the eventual cost for either our negligence or indulgence.  Pick your pain wisely.  Understand both the benefits and the cost – short term and long term.  Ask if what feels good now will hurt in the future.  Question if the pain that you are avoiding presently might have some ultimate benefit that you require.  Learn from the pain of that past and use that learning and experience to shrewdly pick your pains today so that tomorrow you might evade significant agonies and instead harvest the better pleasures that you so greatly desire.

“Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
― William Goldman (“The Princess Bride”)

©2018 Scott D. Wilson

Await or Create

Await or Create

“My dictionary defines opportunityas a set of circumstancesthat makes it possible to do something.The world has conditioned us to wait for opportunity,have the good sense to spot itand hope to strike at the appropriate time.But if opportunity is just a set of circumstances,why are we waiting around for the stars to align?Rather than waiting and pouncingwith a high degree of failure,you might as well go aheadand create a set of circumstances on your own.If you make the opportunity,you will be first in position to take advantage of it.We don’t have to wait for it.We create it.”–Biz Stone

Without your participation, in the next few minutes, your heart will continue to beat, you will continue to breathe and your existence will proceed.  This is what happens to us in this thing we call life. In this manner, we are similar to the animals who live from moment to moment with no greater aspirations. Yet life is so much more than just what happens to us!

Sure we can go through life reacting to all that comes our way.  In fact, this is what the vast majority of people do, day in and day out.  There is nothing shameful or wrong with this way of living.  If you are content doing what everyone else is doing and more or less getting what they are getting then put yourself in neutral and coast along.  This is the easiest and most efficient way to live within our culture.  The greatest personal energy expenditures will only occur if dangerous or unwanted situations occur.   

However, you may have noticed that this is not the manner by which those who are succeeding choose to live.  They do not wait for life to deliver itself to them.  They pursue what they want and make it happen.  Whether it be health, wealth, fame, skill, power or something else they do not sit passively waiting for it.  They plan carefully and work diligently to create the circumstances that will foster what they wish to achieve.  If you want to be exceptional, that is you wish to be the exception rather than the rule, then you too will need to stop being passive.

I cited Biz Stone in the quote above because it highlighted the fact that the “world has conditioned us to wait for opportunity.”  We sit and hope for the right circumstance to come to us.  We even actively prepare for these situations so that we do not miss them when they appear.  All of that is good. However, it is all passive at its core.  We bemoan when the stars do not align and we curse that others seem to have all the ‘luck.’  Meanwhile, we have missed countless chances to create our own opportunities. I know of no one who has not been guilty of this mindset, myself included.   

A hunter can train to shoot well and buy all the best gear.  They could also learn all the habits and ways of the creatures that they wish to hunt.  Then our hunter might go to the proper environment and the appropriate time and sit in a random promising spot and hope to see their prey walk by.  This will sometimes result in a successful expedition.  The more successful hunters learn various ways to lure their prey towards them.  They use calls and bait to entice the creatures.  They carefully check their hunting grounds for signs of their prey’s activity.  They’ll work hard to understand their target and to encounter it.  The will use their time and energy wisely and will not rely on simple chance and their results will show it.

An aspiring actor who hopes to be discovered would be considered foolish if they did not actively pursue every possible chance to showcase themselves.  Yes, they could take acting lessons and practice with various groups and guilds, but all that would be in vain if they did not actively work to promote their name and reputation in the entertainment industry.  Sure they might take roles hoping to get noticed by someone influential who might happen to attend a performance.  However, they could equally well invite influential people to their shows and provide them tickets.  They could take some well calculated risks to create the circumstances that they desire.

The difference between passive and active may seem subtle but it is significant.  Passive prays, waits and watches.  Active does this and then also plans, creates, pursues, entices, provokes and works.  Passive looks for chances.  Active intentionally takes risks.  Passive hopes.  Active intends and does.  Passive awaits inspiration.  Active gains inspiration through activity.  Passive relies on motivation.  Active relies on discipline and routine. This holds true for all of and all our dreams and ambitions.  We can wait for the universe to arbitrarily deliver opportunities to us or we can work with what the universe has already provided in order to create such opportunities. Health, money, peace of mind… no matter what your goal may be you have a choice:

Live passively and let life happen

or live actively and make life happen.

©2018 Scott D. Wilson