TBD

TBD on Ning

              I am starting a new thread here mainly for purposes of my own catharsis. It is my intention, at least at this point, to make regular contributions. Of course, if anyone else has anything to add, they are more than welcome. If you have any input, please contribute.

              Over a year ago I decided to deal head-on with my self-diagnosed adult attention disorder, (ADD). The inability to stay focused was becoming too stressful. I found myself sitting around watching the clock tick, yet I couldn’t keep “on task” with any project I started. Nothing was getting done and just starting something was becoming depressing.

              The smart thing to do was probably to get professional help, so instead I decided to try to heal myself, at least as a first try. Cognitive therapy and pharmaceuticals (UGH) might be the approved way to go but I decided to try meditation first.

              18 months and countless self-help books later, I still can’t bring myself to a regular, formal meditation program. But, along the way, I discovered informal mindfulness. Yes, I know it is the “Fad” right now. It is hard to navigate modern social trends without “tripping over” somebody extolling the benefits of mindfulness.

              Let me add my voice to the chorus.

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Mindfulness doesn't promise you will live a longer life, just a deeper life.

Or so they claim. I wonder though. I see two possible mechanisms working for longer life as well as deeper. First of all, one consequence of a deeper experience would be a more satisfying, happier existence, a statistical predictor of greater longevity. And then there is the simple fact that a greater awareness of our surroundings would avert those absent-minded accidents people fall into. Think: falling into a manhole while texting. No really, isn't mindful driving safer than driving while ruminating on some past or future crisis?

"I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become."  ~  Carl Jung

"I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions."  ~  Stephen Covey

No excuses.

"Teach your children well."  ~  Graham Nash

"Everyone you meet has something to teach you."

It's easy to miss the lessons, if you are not looking for them or are not open to change. It's easy to be comforted when we interact with someone we agree with but we miss opportunities for growth when we allow pride and ego to cloud our judgement when they don't. 

Yes

"Do not do to others want you would not want done to yourself."  ~ Confucius, Analects 15:23

"Hurt not others with that which pains yourself."  ~  The Buddah, Udana Varga 5:18

It has been pointed out that every world religion/ethical system has some version of The Golden Rule. I have often wondered why some adherents of this principle have such different ideas about who qualifies for the status of others, or how it is that some "others" can be excluded.

"I want you to be concerned about your neighbor. Do you know your neighbor?"  ~  Mother Teresa

But I have just been made aware of another problem that I had never thought of. Sometimes we don't treat ourselves as well as we might. We eat junk food on the run,  wear ourselves out trying to do too much and drive ourselves into states of anxiety and depression with undeserved worry. We tell others to stop and smell the roses but fail to take our own advice.

"The opposite of every truth is equally true." ~  Hermann Hess in Siddhartha

The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.  ~  Niels Bohr

  • Bohr, one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, was also a scholar of Eastern philosophy. His thoughts were inspired by attempts to understand quantum paradoxes relating to physical reality. I am probably guilty of taking him out of context, but still, I'm thinking, if we can be that flexible with hard physics, how can I be so sure when it comes to opinions, about anything, politics, economics, religion, etc. I mean if I am so certain I am right, does everybody else have to be wrong. I guess it sounds like I am saying everyone is right all the time. Obviously that can't  be true, but maybe I should consider that some differences of opinion reflect how circumstances are different for other people.

Our beliefs are real, but they can be self-limiting stories we have told ourselves, like mental viruses. Sometimes, like a "bug" we caught as a child and never got rid of. OK, back to the story metaphor. Today there is a new editor in town, the person I am today is going to sort through these narratives I have been telling myself in order to see what is working and what needs amended, reversed or abandoned. Tomorrow I hope to do the same.

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