Author: Anne

This author has written 802 articles

SIMPLICITY, PATIENCE, COMPASSION

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and in 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

REFLECTION:

  • Simple in actions…there is a belief that simple is not sophisticated and so we can make things more complex and appear upscale. Do you make things more complex? Is there an easy, simple solution/choice?
  • Patience is a virtue for a reason.  It can be hard yet it can make life much smoother.  Do you have patience?  Is there something you are dealing with now that would benefit from some patience?  What is it?
  • Compassion toward yourself and others.  Easier said than done and yet this is a magic potion that can lead to a more peaceful existence.  How can you have greater compassion for yourself and others today?

WANTING AND GETTING

Full moon rising!

Modern marketing culture is designed to amplify our desires.  To turn faint wants into desperate needs.  As a result, we’re intimately familiar with what we want.  And we strive to get it.  The problem with getting what you want is that now you have a hole, because you don’t want that thing anymore, you have it.  We then are on a cycle, eager to find a new thing to want.  Which means that the thing you used to want but now have fades in comparison.  There’s a more resilient path:  To commit to wanting what you have. 

From Seth Godin’s Daily Blog

REFLECTION:

  • What desires, latest thing did you want and now have?  Has that been replaced by another thing you want?
  • Examine what are you hoping to gain by this ‘latest, greatest’  thing? 
  • Can you want what you have and appreciate it?

CAPACITY TO FORGIVE

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Quote by Martin Luther King

REFLECTION:

  • Are you able to see the good in another?
  • Is there someone whom you just can’t find anything good about them?  
  • This may take some work, but look to find something of redeeming quality about this person. Release yourself from the chains of hate.