Be the change you wish to see in the world.

The other day, I wrote about being right and being happy. To do right, to stand up for right: these are positive, constructive, powerful ways to occupy our time and creative energy. Trying to be right and covering our pet arguments in an effort to maintain that we are right is at best a waste of our creative energy and at worst quite detrimental to our own well-being and to our relationships. This is, of course, my view, so I cannot say for certain whether it is the right understanding for you.

As Don Miguel Ruiz says, "I am responsible for what I say, but I am not responsible for what you understand." What is absolutely the truth for me may be totally wrong for you, according to our experiences and understandings of the world. That's cool. But for what it's worth, doing right and standing up for right on the one hand and trying to be right on the other are not the same to my mind.

Today, I want to talk about being the change. A mentor and teacher of mine often refers to this. She says, "Be that change."

I am quite certain most people who read this entry will have encountered this quote in print any number of times, will have heard this quoted in speech any number of times, and may very well feel it a bit trite.

I bring it up here because I first really considered its meaning when I was translating it as part of a friend's speech. She was giving a speech for Rotary International during her time as an exchange student in Japan. She opened with this quote from Gandhi, and it gave me pause to consider the meaning of the words.

For instance, consider the phrase "the world." It can point to all that is on this earth--the geology, the politics, the economic structures, and the myriad systems, both natural and made by the hands and minds of human--or more specifically to interconnected human society.

In Japanese, these two ideas can be "sekai (世界)" and "yo no naka (世の中)." I chose to translate Gandhi's words using the latter term, which means all the people in the world as opposed to the more inclusive world as all that is on the earth.

It was something like "世の中に変化を求めるならば、先ずあなた自身が変わらなければならない。" In English, If you seek change from the world at large (i.e., society), then first you yourself must change.

I was pretty smug with this translation as it was seemed pretty colloquial rather than overly bookish (native Japanese speakers, feel free to take exception!) and represented my take on what I believed at the time to be what Gandhi was conveying. If you expect society to change, you should hgggggggbe the first.

And perhaps this was the intention behind the original quote. However, I would choose to translate it differently now to mean the whole world rather than society. I see that there is so much potential for change in our lives, in our worldview, in our reality. But we have to be the first. We have the be the catalyst for change, the architect of change, and the one who makes certain we do not fall back into old habits and patterns of thinking, doing, being.

Sure, we have to be the first to change if we want greater society to change. In my last post, I talked about hating poverty. I can hate a lot of social injustices. I can get really angry and burn with righteous indignation. And I may be justified in my feelings--or at very least it may seem totally justified to just about everybody--but my anger does not do a single thing to effect change and is therefore of no use to anybody. It just causes me anxiety, stress, and probably more white hair. So, instead of this, I can change and be an example. If I want peace, I have to be peace. And others will surely follow. Ripple effect occurs, world peace happens, and suddenly we are all holding hands and singing. You get the picture.

But the potential for meaning of this quote extends beyond mere human society.

世界に変化を捜し求めるならば、先ずは自分自身が変われば良い.
If you seek change in this world, you need only begin the change in you.

Ah, this means something a little bigger, a little more nuanced, a little more mystical and cool-sounding. If you seek change in your world (not just society but the all-inclusive version of the world as discussed above), you need only begin with you. Change your thinking, change your life, change your worldview, change your world. It's that simple. It is not necessarily an easy feat, but it really is quite simple.

If you wish for a peaceful life, you must practice peaceful thoughts.
If you want acceptance, you must practice acceptance.
If you want a loving world, you must practice to love.

We only have what we give as Isabel Allende reminds us. Clutch it to you, try to hold onto it, and you can never truly have it; it isn't yours because you cannot rest easy with it. You must always clasp at it to ensure it does not depart from you. You cannot enjoy it. But give it generously, use it to increase your own joy and that of others, be magnanimous with it, and it is yours.

We only have what we practice: we get very good at whatever we habitually do. If I rage on the road, I develop road rage and I am very good at being angry. If I always look on the dark side of things, I develop an Eeyore-like personality. If we have awareness, we pay attention to what it is we are habitually doing and see whether this is in the service of us.

And the way in which we give and practice makes all the difference in our inner life and our subjective experience of how the world is. If I give grudgingly, I am apt to feel pretty impoverished. I feel reluctant to give, and once I have done it, I feel like the world's biggest fool at having done so. If I give my time to others and don't save any for myself, putting everyone else before myself and then feeling miserable and like a doormat afterward, I am liable to feel like nobody cares, nobodyr notices, and everyone is using me. Even if these are just my own interpretations and everyone actually thinks I'm swell, it doesn't matter because my view on the world is my filter for reality.

If I seek change in my world, I must change my thoughts. Change my thoughts, and I effectively shake up the emotions that come about as a result of my interpretations of my own thoughts. I interpret reality this way or that and this gives rise to a stream of thoughts. Then, I have an interpretation of these and this produces an emotional charge. It's either feel-good positive or feel-bad negative. And then I think about and interpret this emotion and affix all sorts of meaning and assign all sorts of significance. And on and on and on the chain can go.

If you wish to see change in your world, you need only change your thoughts and your habitual reactions to these. This will shake up that emotional charge and get things moving. And the lucky thing is it does not cost any more than lots of time and attention and practice. And since we only have what we practice, chances are good that the more you try this out, the better you will get and the more you can shake things up. It's like changing up your dinner menu. Maybe you always have pizza on Fridays and now you're going to try making sure you introduce some Thai, some Chinese, and some sub sandwiches (Or hoagies, heroes, or grinders, for that matter). And when you do and things start to move, you just pay attention.

Maybe the menu won't agree with your palate or your stomach. If not, look for something else. There are plenty of thoughts in the store cupboard and no doubt just as many emotions.

So try out a little kitchen alchemy and get changing.

From Joy, From Obligation || 喜んでやること、義務感からやること･･･

What happens when we give freely and generously? Parsimoniously and hesitantly? The objective reality may be much the same, but the subjective experience of the act of giving and its effects on our inner life may be quite different.

I was lucky enough to participate on a walking during my winter holiday while in London in the winter of 2013/2014. The tour was a great way to see the city and gain understanding of its long history, complete with all the amusing and sometimes salacious bits they don't teach you in most history courses. And, what's more, it was offered gratis!

At the end, the guide--quite rightly--forwarded a request for tips. In a burst of gratitude and heady generosity, I fished out a £10 note and dropped it into the coffer.

I was immediately of two minds about what I had done. On the one hand, I had given to our guide a small token when considering that this tour was easily the most amusing and interesting part of that leg of our London expedition; I was pleased to do this. On the other hand, as a little voice pointed out to me, the average person would see this as an imprudent amount. After all, the tour was to be free. What I should have done, clearly, was to offer a pound or two. Some change from my pocket. A Tic Tac. A stick of gum a la Home Alone II.

I felt myself vacillate between experiencing satisfaction at having offered what was in my pocket to someone who shared his knowledge with people in a fun and engaging way and self-reproach for immoderacy.

Now, you might ask: Wouldn't a £5 note have sufficed? Perhaps. Heck, most certainly. But my action here was not a judgment; it was a choice. And this means it was rooted in my values, not in rationalization.

This distinction is something Dr. Steven Hayes talks about in his book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life. He contends that our values are best conceptualized as arbitrary choices we make that are meaningful to us personally. These guidelines become codified to some extent, not as a rationalized list of rules but as our personal point of reference for later choices.

If we accept this operating definition of values, then, to me, a value is not the same as the painstaking process of weighing pros and cons of a situation to come out ahead or of making a judgment in the usual sense of the word. Neither still is it being a slave to a strict list of immutable rules of ethics or decorum that seem to have existed since time immemorial or that move of their own accord, outside of us. Often when we hear the term "value" or "values," the latter comes to mind. My definition of values, influenced by Dr. Hayes and other teachers, requires that a value be a choice we make and then codify because it brings us satisfaction to do so.

We examine our choices--our values--as steps on a path toward a life leading to our sense of fulfillment, our greatest good. And this is as arbitrary as choosing vanilla over chocolate, the pancakes over the French toast. So long as our choice leads us on the path toward our greatest good, our purest light, it's the right one.

So--what does this have to do with From Joy, From Obligation?

Well, everything, really.

When I was acting from my values and passing on my prosperity to someone who had given us his time, expertise, and creative goodwill, I was coming from a place of joy, of spiritual abundance. I may not have as much in my pocket as some, but at that moment, I had more joy in my heart than many. When I allowed myself to turn my ear to the little voice of judgment that whispered, "Oh, jeez, Donny, what is it you think you're doing? Is that really a good idea? What are you going to do at lunchtime?" I temporarily lost my connection to the flow of good experience and abundance the Universe (capital U) had waiting for me.

As it turns out, I found a little corner shop selling a sandwich and drink combo I could buy with my last few coins, and I was fine. I didn't want anything more extravagant than just this.

And I got to give! And, as I wrote yesterday, I love the quote from Isabel Allende that we only have that which we give. I got to exercise my agency, my choice to provide what I had to someone.

This was based in my value--my belief--that people who offer a creative service of value and do so happily should be richly rewarded. Our tour guide gave us the best account of London's history I heard the whole time I was there. And he did so in a way that we could relate to, that delighted the people in our group, and that was easy to grasp for people who knew little about British history or for whom English was a second language.

My act of giving was an exercise of true agency when it was joyful and rooted in my values, an arbitrary choice rather than one based on logic or outside ideas. What may have been superfluous for others was precisely right for me.

How different an experience when we do something out of obligation. Because we have to. Suddenly, handing over even a £5 note or giving a little of our time is agonizing. We don't have that much to give. The cupboard is bare; we are busy. There isn't even enough for us, and yet here this person is, requiring from us some portion of what we ourselves lack. The nerve! The unfairness of it all! The misery...

We only truly have what we give as Isabel Allende reminds us. I would go so far believe we don't really own it anyway. None of it. Not really. And yet all of it is ours. We get to use it when we need it. We get to have it when we allow it to flow through us.

The moment we become convinced we lack, the din of poverty thinking drowns out our joy and inundates us with a miserable and miserly feeling. This, it goes without saying, feels icky.

I made the choice that day to feel happy, joyful, of my choice to pass on what I could. I found a good choice for lunch (brown bread!!!!) and I lived to tell the tale. Handing over my last £10 was not a problem after all. The Universe (capital U, or Life, or God, if you like) had me covered. I just had to be joyful and willing and let it flow through me instead of being avaricious.

Looking back on it now, this was for me an important lesson in operating from joy (love) rather than from obligation (fear). I didn't see the significance of it at the time but now it is quite clear. Passing on my own wealth resulting in my being released that much more from the notion of possessing something that could be lost. Looking at it all as borrowed anyway makes sense to me when considering my values. Amassing wealth or stuff or time--or whatever it might be that seems limited--and keeping it locked away negates its value.

Unless you can swim in it like Scrooge McDuck. In that case, I'll bring my swim trunks and we'll go for a dip.

And so it is. All is well in the world.

Please mind the gap.

My inspiration for this collection of writings came while I was on the Underground, affectionately "the Tube," in London. The Tube comprises the oldest underground railway system, the Met, among other systems that were completed later.

As a result of its aggregate character, there is a rather large gap between the train and platform at some of the stations. Passengers are advised to exercise caution when alighting from the train. This is, to me, a great metaphor for life, a fact all the more clear when I consider that the gaps on the train platforms are a literal manifestation between images we harbor and reality: the discrepancy between our idealized image of a super-convenient, perfect subway station and the reality that things do not always firm up in the way we envision.

When speaking of the Gap, I am therefore not talking about the retailer. Rather, I mean to indicate the disparity between the way we wish things were and the way we find things to be when viewed through our mind's eye. This is different to how things actually are, of course, and I will provide my perspective on this concept as this bundle of writings unfolds.

This collection of musings forms a conversation across several dimensions:

It extends between me and myself, a conversation within my own mind about what I experience, perceive, feel, think, and, ultimately, learn;

Another aspect extends between you and me: I write here to offer you my viewpoint in hopes that you and I can come to some sort of mutual understanding--and not only when we find our opinions in agreement. In fact, it is especially important for us to seek mutual understanding in such times as when we do not see eye to eye. You are always welcome to discuss your thoughts upon reading, challenge what I say, or add to the dialog. I reserve the right to respectfully disagree, but please rest assured that I will take anything you suggest under advisement. The more I learn, the more I realize I have yet to learn;

And the final dimension of this collection extends through time to connect who I am now, at the time of writing--and thus, who I was then--and who I will be tomorrow.

More practically, though, this is a medium through which I hope to keep in touch with those people whose lives have intersected with mine and whom I am privileged to know. And perhaps it will provide me opportunity to become acquainted with new people.

Drop me a line and let me know what you think. I am always ready with an open mind and a ready ear.

So it is. All is well in the world.