Overheard:
"Is your cup half full or half empty?"
"Well, depends on whether you just poured something out or poured something in."
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
What you believe is not nearly as important as how you believe.
All christian churches, congregations and worship halls look to scripture for support and clarity of purpose. Yet, all disagree. If they didn't disagree there would be one church.
Isn't it clear that how these christians believe is their defining identity? Surely.
How is more defining than what because the quality of life is the real issue.
There are people of faith who cannot allow themselves happiness, for example. They view christianity as a crown of thorns to be borne in misery and self-chastisement. Proving their own endurance is their purpose like monks who dwell in damp and drafty cells and who submit to scourging with a whip. Faith is a crucible.
For others, faith is an expression of joy and giving, sharing and community. Bright-eyed wonder follows their belief and an expectation of blessings and happiness seem to abound. These faithful believers have found the "how" lies in an optimistic use of one's energy in in spreading a positive message of hope and freedom.
Yet, both the monk in the cell smarting from the sting of scourging and the bright-eyed community volunteer may be of the same faith.
What is at work here?
We fool ourselves easily if we imagine we are transformed by our beliefs or by any information we receive from outside of ourselves! What we know immediately changes into HOW we deal with it in our thinking and behavior.
When I was a child I sprung from my bed in the morning and couldn't wait to go to school. I'd even pretend to be well when I was sick so as not to miss a day. Other kids, my fellow classmates, seemed to be absent alot and to mope around in the classroom and avoid participating.
Should I imagine it was the school that was different for each of us? Hardly!
How we see ourselves prepares us for how we make the journey from here to there. A road trip is what life is all about. A constant whine about "Are we there yet?" makes death the destination! Certainly death is not the purpose of our life!
What is it about one person that finds life unbearably depressing while another person is full of energy and boundless enthusiasm? Is it heredity? Is it hormones? Is it how they eat or exercise? Is it their belief system? No, no, no and no! The sharpest answer is ATTITUDE.
Attitude is the framing device that surrounds every mental picture in your head. It comes from habit. Your habit may have been strongly suggested by your family life or events which shaped you as a child--but; habits can be made and habits can be broken!
As long as we possess any kind of will, volition or autonomy we can shape our view of how things are and what they mean to us.
I recently had a sudden attack of startling depression that I didn't see coming and I had to leave work for two weeks and go to both a psychologist and psychiatrist.
I'm convinced from my consultations with both that I had neglected my own joy in pursuit of duty.
Duty does not bring joy.
Being responsible as an adult is taking part in the maintenance of the effects you cause.
Debt, for example, is an effect caused by over-spending.
Debt isn't something which simply happens spontaneously!
Over-work is an effect caused by personal failure to take time off.
You wouldn't drive your car without oil and you can't drive your body without rest.
Simple maintenance should follow from a balanced attitude about one's self.
This applies in every aspect of our life!
We form habits of mind and those habits run like background software programs which can take over our life.
(As for myself; I was drinking moderately. It was every night. Alcohol is a depressant! I was skipping meals. Lack of proper balance in nutrition has physical effects. Simple maintenance was being neglected. I was not taking sick days or using vacation time for anything but events surrounding my kids. It was simply like not putting gas and oil in a car and expecting it to run perfectly!)
When it comes to God we have a program running.
When it comes to family, spouse, children, work, health----there are programs running.
All these programs were downloaded (in our head) and launched at some point WITH OUR CONSCIOUS PERMISSION (if we take responsibility).
In my case, the depression event was my body's signal to my brain that I had abused it by running Malware. (Just self-medicating by consuming alcohol before bedtime, for example.)
This got my attention!
Your best indication of whether you are actively choosing the life you are leading is the quality of happiness and fulfillment you experience at the end of the day. (At the end of my day I was over-tired and over-wrought.)
If you live in the moment and are aware of where you are and why you are doing what you are doing--you are consciously able to direct your own behavior. Otherwise, you are a victim of your own lifestyle!
Do you seem to float or drift from event to event as though carried by a tide? You have become a victim of your own default programs formed by bad habits.
Every single thing you do in your day consists of a HOW and a WHAT.
Yet, we have been conditioned to see life as purely WHAT and not HOW.
WHAT car do you drive?
WHAT clothes will you wear?
WHAT time do you get up?
WHAT will you eat?
Try substituting HOW in each of the above and see how the focus shifts suddenly!
HOW do you drive (the car)? Are you in a hurry by not leaving on time? Do you speed? Are you nervous and constantly changing lanes and yelling at other motorists? Are you fiddling with the Radio dial and talking on your cell phone and trying to make through a yellow light before it turns red?
Ask yourself which would create a more peaceful day: WHAT care you drive or HOW you drive when you drive?
See the difference?
HOW will you wear your clothes? Will they be worn comfortably, affordably and practically? Or, are they overspent fashion items that hardly fit and create wardrobe choices that make you nervous and anxious? How many women wear outrageous shoes that destroy their feet? Bad shoes make your back hurt and give you a headache.
HOW will you get up in the morning? Will you give yourself time to relax out of bed? Will you have your clothing laid out from the night before? Will you give yourself enough slack to enjoy a relaxing bath? Or, will you wake up and fight the day from the moment you are conscious?
HOW will you eat your meals? Will you find a quiet place outside to enjoy the sound of birds or to feel the caress of the wind on your cheeks? Will you take your time to savor the flavors and taste the ingredients? Or, will you wolf it down like a starving animal and give yourself a lump in your stomach that leads to heartburn?
You see, everything that makes life worth living starts with HOW.
The Japanese have made behaviors of everyday living into artistic rituals that have a beginning, middle and end.
Each of us can bring an artistry into our own lives. We can stop. We can pause and reflect. We can consciously decide if WHAT we are doing needs to be changed by us into HOW we are doing it.
The end goal should be quality of life that is pleasurable, meaningful, rich and pleasant.
After all, this is your life and you are the one who gets to make the rules.
Don't fall into the duty treadmill, the grind, the ratrace, the endles thankless loop of WHAT you must do next and next and next.
The evil of the Jehovah's Witness life and lifestyle is the awful disparity between the promise and the reality.
The promise given newly inducted baptised dedicated publishers is that their lives will take on a purpose that leads to everlasting life of fulfillment with Jehovah's organization supplying support and strength.
The dismal reality is that all their lives will consist of is an endless list of WHAT they must do next. They will be straitjacketed with duty, repression, forced activity, monitoring and precious little downtime for relaxation and recharging.
The JW lifestyle will drain away their finances, their leisure, their education and their social identity. It will subject their children to deprivations as they give up one thing after another which makes them fully functioning members of their neighborhood, school and community.
HOW they live will deteriorate into a public spectacle of holier-than-thou perfectionisms brought on by an obsessive focus on WHAT MUST BE DONE to please Jehovah.
The best indicator of a life well chosen and well-lived is the quality of satisfaction it brings to the one living it.
You cannot fake joy. You can only fake duty.