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Why are we afraid to admit our mistakes?
“You can never learn less; you can only learn more. The reason I know so much is because I have made so many mistakes.” Buckminster Fuller
When my niece, Kate was ready to start kindergarten, she had to first go through an interview consisting of ten questions to assess her social skills. Nine of her answers were deemed “correct” but the one she was marked wrong for shocked me.
Question: “What do you do if you break something?”
Kate’s honest reply: “You tell the truth.”
Wrong answer!
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How did my cats know that?
“Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way.” John Muir
We had a lot of thunderstorms in Michigan this year. A lot. It’s particularly memorable to me because each storm, as it gets close, necessitates unplugging all my computer equipment. [Losing a printer in a storm last year was all it took for me to learn that lesson!]
So the drill at my home during a storm is:
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The 30-day “No Gossip” Challenge!
“Gossip is black magic at its very worst because it is pure poison.”
Don Miguel Ruiz, “The Four Agreements”
Years ago I read an interview with actress Susan Sarandon in which she told a story about her daughter’s 11th birthday slumber party. The girls were full of gossip so Ms. Sarandon suggested the ground rule that they not talk about anyone who wasn’t there.
The astonished reply from one of the little girls was, “Then what are we supposed to talk about?”
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Remember Who You Wanted To Be!
“Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.” — Buckminster Fuller
“Remember who you wanted to be” was a bumper sticker I saw recently on my morning walk around the lake — very profound in its simplicity. Most of us had dreams when we were children, dreams of what we wanted to be, do and contribute.
Yet very few of us grew up living our dreams. All too often they were killed by careless comments by our parents, teachers and other authority figures.
But if we all lived by the Original Instructions, there would be no more dream killing. Only support and encouragement.
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Do you know the “Original Instructions?”
“The thing that is wrong in the world today is that people have forgotten their instructions.” Onondaga Chief Leon Shenandoa in “To Become a Human Being”
And what instructions might those be, you ask? Every indigenous person would know: the instructions passed down from the Creator, the elders, the ancestors, on how to live a life in harmony and balance with the world around them.
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Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail and How To Make Them Succeed
“Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.” Fitzhugh Dodson
The concept of making “new year’s resolutions” has become something of a joke in our society for about as long as I can remember — the joke being that people never follow through so the “resolution” will never come to fruition.
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Ancient Wisdom for A Life in Balance
Ancient Wisdom is about sharing those ancient, universal teachings which can be applied to modern life to achieve more balance, health and spiritual inspiration. The world around us has changed dramatically over the past decades and centuries, but one thing has not changed: human nature. We still have the same longings, dreams and desires to […]
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