You can’t decide that until you’re awake.’īeing awake – being aware and unattached – can make a huge difference to the way we interact with the world. Anthony de Mello, a great modern mystic, called it ‘being awake.’ He wrote, ‘ It’s not your actions, it’s your being that counts. What matters most is the way you see the world. Even when taking action, we should not be emotionally blinded by our own involvement. When we observe in a detached way, we are more likely to make the right calls. It seems to me that the key is being detached. At other times, we hold back when, perhaps, we should have acted.Īnd yet perhaps it is not so difficult, after all. Sometimes, we rush in and act when we should not have done so. But when you try and try, the world is beyond winning.” – Lao Tzu Wisdom to know the difference When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, his troops will feel they did it themselves.’ Action is best kept to a minimum and best kept in the background. Lao Tzu, reputedly the founder of Taoism, wrote, ‘ A leader is most effective when people barely know he exists. It is seeing the world at its best, and it is proper action, executed in the right way and at the right time. Courage is not aggression, violence or force. Keeping a positive mindset can be difficult, especially if we are used to playing negative scripts in our head. From this place, we are able to act in ways which will bring about change, often in indirect and surprising ways. Keeping a positive mindset, then, tends to draw positive experiences towards us. We make mental models which enable us to navigate through the world, and we interpret the outside world in terms of this framework. ![]() The world we experience is, essentially, a kind of echo of our inner landscape. ![]() Any sense of direct control we might have over the world around us is almost all illusion, and we would be better to think of effecting change in terms of influence.įirst and foremost, change requires a positive mindset. ![]() Lasting change, however, is rarely brought about by direct action. While much cannot be changed, there are certainly things which can yield to our influence. Often, we are better to accept the limits of our power to change things. This famous (and probably true) story is worth bearing in mind when things don’t go our way. As he commanded the waves to recede, the court looked on and saw that Cnut could do nothing as the water lapped around his feet and got deeper. When the courtiers of the eleventh century Danish king Cnut told their sovereign that he could turn back the tides by an act of his will, the wise king had his retinue carry a seat onto the beach. ![]() To complain about these things or to seek to change them is, at best, a waste of time and, more often, corrosive and self-defeating. The idea was that, like gravity acting on the pen, some things were just ‘facts of life.’ They cannot be changed and you have no power over them. On stage, he had a large version of the pen, and repeatedly dropped it. At one point, he handed out pens with the words ‘fact of life’ printed on the side. Some years ago, I attended a seminar given by an excellent motivational speaker. Serenity to accept the things I cannot change The prayer is now quoted widely, and you don’t have to be a Christian or, indeed, have any religious beliefs to see the timeless wisdom in this simple and profound statement. Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr wrote what is usually called ‘the serenity prayer’ for a sermon in the 1930s, although it is sometimes mis-attributed to other writers. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.
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