Forgiveness

Somebody done you wrong.

Black list 'em for the rest of your life, right?

Tempting, I know. But what is this forgiveness thing all about, and how does it benefit me?

It makes you a better person in two ways. In the superficial sense, people will look up to you for it. Good people are forgiving. Therefore, people reason, if you are forgiving then you are a good person.

There is a famous Bible verse that points us in the right direction:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I
am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and
understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to
remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my
possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have
love, I gain nothing.

Ok, so what does that have to do with forgiveness? Well, not much, directly, but it is a paralell example. If I utter the words of forgiveness, but do not mean them, I have missed most of the good in it. If I am successful in hiding the fact that I don't mean it, perhaps I made the other person feel better -- and that is good, but I am not the person it may lead them to think I am. I may fool them, but I cannot fool myself.

This gets back to the original core of "How to Live a Good Life" -- and that is #1, to be someone you would like.

Why is forgiveness -- real forgiveness, so important?

Because to be able to do it and mean it, you have to recognize that you yourself are not perfect. That you, perhaps despite good intentions to the contrary, have hurt other people. In forgiving others, you forgive that in yourself. It is an act of humility, an act of acceptance that you have weaknesses. You stumble.

The truly strong recongize their weaknesses, and those who recognize their weaknesses can work against them, fortifying their lives with barriers around those weaknesses so that they are not so easily fallen into.

It is not that the strong have no weaknesses, it is that they know what they are and how to avoid them. Even the best of the strong will fail at this occasionally, but if we're not trying not to fail, we will surely fail much more often.

So it's not just new-agey schlock that says that forgiveness is healing, and it heals the self. It really does. It's step #1.

Love is...

Love.

It gets talked about a lot. In all kinds of contexts, with variations on the meaning from lust to mere fondness. And it's no wonder -- lust is a very base form of intense, limited fondness. And fondness is the foundation of Love.

Love doesn't have a good definition, hence the confusion about it. There are all kinds of nuances and edges and corners and it looks different when you look at it from different perspectives.

So how do you know you actually, really love someone? Or if they love you?

Have you ever felt obligated to do something for someone? Has anyone ever done something for you because they felt obligated to do it?

Well, that's not it.

When you find yourself wanting to do things for someone to help improve their lives or bring them a moment's happiness, and getting something from them in return doesn't even factor into the equation -- that's it. When you want someone to be happy because it makes you happy to see them happy -- that's it. That's the stuff. That's what you're looking for.

If you're trying to manipulate someone into behaving in a way that benifits you -- be it by them showing you affection or doing things to make you happy, or even just to get their approval -- that ain't it. Same in reverse.

The love is in the wanting - if their happiness is what you want in return for your efforts... That's IT!

True love is a hard thing to find when you're looking for it. Many of us move right on by true love without even recognizing it.

Love doesn't obligate you to behave in a certain way toward another. The love is in the wanting to behave that way on your own.

You Get What You Focus On

I know it sounds like one of those motivational speakers "focus on the goal" (usually financial) "visualize success". Well, poppycock.... sort of.

There is some basis in truth for that gibberish, and here it is.

If you have a positive outlook, you try to make things happen. (You don't always succeed, but sometimes you do) You take control of the things in your life you have some control over. You steer. As one of my favorite unknown modern-day philosophers Paul Lutus says,

"You can't steer a boat that's not moving... sort of like a life."

You look for opportunites. You go through hardships as a means to get somewhere else.

When you have a negative outlook, you're focused on gloom and doom (and maybe hate, because you're so frustrated) and ... that's what you get out of life. You do not take control of anything in your life. Your life is out of control. Nothing is up to you. All your problems are someone else's fault (that's where the anger and hate comes in). There's nothing you can do but wait for fortune to accidentally come your way at best, or at worst -- feel sorry for yourself and lash out at "them" so "they" know your pain. Which gets you nowhere. Sometimes less than nowhere.

Spittin' in the wind, you know?

Generosity

We've talked a little about generosity. Generosity is basically giving where you don't have to, and not expecting anything in return.

In today's "what's in it for me?" mindset, it's too often an alien concept when applied to the self. Of course, we love it when other people are generous to us -- except that it often makes us suspicious ... "what do they want from me?"

Why would we think that? We tend to project our thought processes onto others. By default, we think everyone else thinks just like us. So if we wouldn't do something without expecting something in return, we don't think anyone else, would, either. This is sad.

Now I've heard the argument that nobody is altruistic. In the strictest sense of the concept, this is true. So once again we're back to "what's in it for me?" or "Why should I be generous?".

Remember "Spittin' in the wind?" Well, the opposite is true, too.

The smile you send out comes back to you 1,000 times.

Not necessarily from the people upon whom you have smiled, mind you, although often that is true, too. Think of it as antivenom. You produce antivenom to counter the toxic hate and gloom others produce. You're just "putting it out there", and it IS appreciated, trust me. Ripples in a pond.

Even if the person you gave to doesn't appreciate you, you've made their life a little better than it would have been. And maybe they won't be quite so short with some people in their lives today. Which makes those people's lives a little better. And eventually, some of that will get back around to you.

You reap from your surroundings, so make your surroundings as nice as you can make them, and your harvest will be better.

Honor

What is Honor? Honor is basically trustworthiness. It means you're true to your word. You honor your contracts. It also means you're true to the unwritten contract you should have with others... that whole "Golden Rule" thing. That's kind of "your word" as well. People trust you (or should be able to trust you) to treat them with a certain amount of respect.

Trust! Why should you trust people? You can't trust people, right? Not true. You really can't get through life without trusting people. You do it every day. Best example: every time you get out on the road, you trust that the people in the other lane won't swerve into your lane. You trust that people will stop at stop signs and red lights. Sometimes we actually put a little too much trust in this, but it's true -- do you ALWAYS look way down the road in each direction before you step on the gas? Admit it. Much of the time you just push the pedal when the light turns green unless you happen to catch a sign of danger out of the corner of your eye.

You put your money in the bank, fully expecting to get it back when you want it. You go to work for a week or two or a month trusting that you will get paid. Oh, sure, it's backed up by contracts and laws, but you also trust that the contracts and laws will be enforced if you don't get your money.

You trust people every day. You like the ones you can trust. You don't like the ones you can't. So you should be a person they can trust. Everything works better that way, and you are then a part of making a better world. Something as simple as showing up when you say you will makes the world a better place for those waiting on you, and it all eventually comes back to you.

Being untrustworthy, or not honorable is like spitting in the wind. In the words of an obscure band (Radiator) I once stumbled across...

It's like spittin' in the wind
It all comes back on you
It's like spittin' out the window
You're all right now, Jack,
But it all comes back
On you

By being honorable, you add to the reservoir of good will in the world. By not being honorable, you are a drain on the good will in the world.

If you're not a part of the solution.....

Keys to living a good life, Part 2

Why be a person you would like?

Well, for one, you are the only person that will have to live with yourself 24 hours a day, 7 day's a week, 365 (or 366) days a year. For the rest of your life.

Another reason is that more people will like YOU better and thus treat you nicer making your life easier than it would otherwise be. There is of course no guarantee that any single person will not treat you badly, but it greatly increases the odds for people being nice to you.

So, what qualities in other people cause you to like them?

"They give me stuff" is an instinctive reaction, especially from those who have been somewhat spoiled. But there is something to that. It's called Generosity. We like generous people, especially when they're generous to us. We also admire their generosity to others, especially to those in need.

I'll add the other biggie here - it's actually more important than generosity.

Honorability. It's trustworthiness with a halo around it.

There are others. Humility. No, I don't mean go around wearing sack cloths and smudge up your face and beat your own back with a cat o' nine tails... it means acknowledging you're not now, nor will you ever be perfect.

From humility and generosity spring patience. You know you're not perfect. You know nobody else is, either. When someone else behaves in a manner that we disapprove of, especially if it directly affects us -- we need to understand that that person, even if they're trying to improve, will fail sometimes. There is a limit to patience. If the person isn't trying, your patience will understandably run out quickly.

Patience is closely tied to forgiveness. If you give a person a chance to improve and you can see they are trying and really don't want to cause you any harm, it's a good thing to let go of whatever pain they have caused you. Stop holding a grudge. Holding on to it will only eat in to your patience and humility and generosity. Which are things we're trying to nurture here, not rot off.

So here are the basic keys

Honor
Generosity
Humility
Patience
Forgiveness

There are other keys, probably, but most people will have their hands pretty full with these alone. If you can get a handle on these, you'll do fine, and much better than most people.

Keys to living a good life, Part 1

The first, and most important thing is to be a person you would respect and love. It really takes the complexity out of the rest of your life. For years I struggled with my self-image. I couldn't understand why I felt so inferior to everyone else. I was a real Charlie Brown.

It had a lot to do with what I thought others thought of me. And I think it's pretty much the same with everyone who hasn't dealt with this and put it behind them. Our self-image, no matter what smoke and mirrors our minds put up to disguise the fact, are almost always based on how we think others perceive us.

It occurred to me, though, that if I met someone just like me, I'd like him and want him to be my friend. That turned out to be the big revelation that over time, turned my life around.

It sounds so simple. And like most basic truths, it is simple. The first key to happiness is to like yourself. And, like other basic truths, it's not QUITE that simple. You can't just say "I like me" and have it done with. You have to know what you're saying, and understand it, and mean it. If there's something in your behavior that you don't like..... guess what? You won't like yourself until you change it. The good news is, you have the power (and you're the only one with that power) to change it.

Too critical of others? Change it! Find yourself needing to feel superior to others? Get over it! Find yourself often rationalizing why it's ok for you to do unto others as you'd never have them do unto you? Cut it out!

We are all guilty of these things and others like them to some extent. Acknowledge that, and vow to try harder. And follow through. Nobody's perfect, but the person who can honestly say that they try to improve on their shortcomings is as near to perfect a person as I know.

Don't have any shortcomings? If you think that, that's the worst shortcoming of all. You know better. That one shortcoming is the one that will keep you from trying, and trying is the best you can do. You won't succeed all of the time. But if you try, you will succeed most of the time.

Maybe not at first, but success breeds success.

Be the change you want to see in the world. - Mahatma Ghandi

If you're still interested, move on to Part II