Articles from April 2008 ↓

A wild animal doesn’t miss much. They are always alert to what is happening within and around them. That attention keeps them healthy, happy, and successful, and we could learn something from them.

A few days ago, I went for a hike in the high dry hills above Lake Okanagan, a beautiful natural area, only minutes from my home.

Despite that fabulous beauty though, after about an hour I found myself physically present in the woods, but consciously absent. I was four decades back in time, reliving fragments of a pivotal memory. Continue reading →

How much of my life is mine to enjoy today and how much belongs to yesterday? I have asked this question of myself many times, and it has taken years to realize that the solution was ever present. And so I ask you…

Are you present in this moment, or are you reliving past emotional troubles, through this moment?

Life is short. When you’re young you feel your life will never end, but as you grow older, the end is palpable; you smell it in the distance.

It doesn’t matter how young or old you are though — your life will end someday — and so you have a limited time to achieve and be satisfied. How will you ever create your tomorrow if you are locked in the past? Your future is 100% dependent on how present you are in your mind and body in this right now moment? Continue reading →

Have you ever looked into the eyes of an infant and felt that you could jump in and go for a swim? They are so open and inviting it’s almost unnerving.

You can’t help but wonder how they see life; that somehow they experience a magical world beyond your vision.

Why do we feel that? It isn’t logical. If you couldn’t walk or feed yourself; if you were incontinent; if all you could do was roll over in bed; if you had no ability to speak or even think in rational verbal terms — wouldn’t you be considered disabled?

Why then are we so quietly envious of these little people? What magic do we sense in them? Does Buddha swim in the depths of those liquid eyes? Continue reading →

Ironically, the simplest route to the good life is through a cliche.

How silly is that? We ignore cliches because, well — they are cliche. Cliches are why we invented the word platitude. Why would we look to one for the good life?

Creating the good life should be a breeze. We are intelligent. We have power. We have resources. For starters, we have money. We can buy the good life.

We all watch television. The formula is simple: work long hard hours, earn plenty of money, then buy the good life at your local big-box store. The timing can be tricky, but you can even out the cash flow with some credit.

Of course, stuff happens: lay-offs, divorces, medical bills. Our loans officer though, is always there to help us out with more credit. Thank goodness for compassion. And when our debt erodes our disposable income, well, we have consolidation loans. Life is good, right? Continue reading →

Have you ever thought deeply about romantic love? Do we use the word love too freely? Is love really the tie that binds, or is it something else, something other than love that connects us so strongly?

We have asked this question about the nature of love for centuries. Surely we know the answer by now. But love is a slippery thing to catch hold of and describe, and, when we finally have it in our mind’s grasp, it’s possible that we aren’t at all comfortable with the answer.

So, because love is difficult to define, and because we might have some fear over what the answer will mean for our relationships, let’s first talk about what love is not. Then, what remains might be love. Continue reading →

Self concept: the wording would imply that it’s a concept about you, by you.

But that’s not entirely true. Other people define you all the time. That might be fine if they kept it to themselves, but they don’t. People you know unconsciously project their opinions about you, onto you. And just as unconsciously you absorb their feelings, subtly reinforcing or altering your self concept.

What if everyone you work with held a negative opinion about you? Would you not feel that? Over time, wouldn’t their feelings cause you to believe that they may be correct, even if they weren’t?

Why do we create concepts about ourselves, or anyone else for that matter? Continue reading →

How many times have you heard someone say, “I don’t have a creative bone in my body?”

Have you ever said that about yourself? When you think of creative people, what sort of person comes to your mind? Most people relate creativity to artists, designers, filmmakers and the like.

We are all creative though, and we express that in as many ways as there are people and circumstance. Our problem is that we often mistake our creativity for something else. We haven’t defined it well enough.

Narrow definitions of creativity that embrace only the arts and design fields rob you of your self worth. The muse visits all of us, not just a gifted few.

If you feel that you aren’t creative, then somewhere in your past, perhaps in early childhood, you’ve accepted some pointless limitations. Remove them and you will be surprised at your capabilities. Continue reading →