Seeing the Seven C's In Others

A colleague of mine just recently commented on how interesting it is that once we really start to reflect on and consider each of the Seven C's--Competing, Comparing, Chasing, Controlling, Complaining, Criticizing, and Clinging--we immediately find our self seeing them so predominantly in the behaviors of others.  I also noticed this tendency in myself when I began my journey with the Seven C's.  We think, "oh look at so-and-so complaining and criticizing once again".  Or, "look at how the so-and-so's are never satisfied with all that they already have".  Maybe its "so-and-so is always trying to control everyone else around him or her".  Examples like these go on and on of course.  In order to effectively Sail the Seven C's, we have to be able to recognize these observations, these thoughts, for what they most likely are, our ego, and therefore some of the C's coming right back in our back door, in our very thoughts, without us even realizing it.  When we think or say things like these, aren't we simply standing in a place of judgment (by 'Criticizing' what we think we see), or 'Competing' and/or 'Comparing' (by thinking I or we would never do that).  Sailing the Seven C's isn't about what others are doing, though we sure as heck will start to more easily see these behaviors in others and hopefully our self.  Our egos will guarantee that we will see it in others with further thoughts like "too bad I can't help them to be better" or "If only they would see what they are doing and stop".  Sailing the Seven C's is rather about looking at and doing the hard work on our own self, our own thoughts, and own behaviors and choosing to take the helm of our ship, sailing toward a different course for our self.  In the times we are able to do this for our self, we might be afforded the opportunities to help those around us if we genuinely care.  Just like we do, those around us have their own ships to sail, on a course different than our own.  So, let's strive to keep our focus squarely on our own ship and leave the navigating of others' ships to their captains.

Less Is More

Isn't it cool how Pope Francis has chosen to live a life of simplicity, even going so far as to continue in his vow of poverty for life?  No matter your stand on Catholicism, religion in general, or whatever, you have to admit that's pretty darn different.  In a time when it seems everyone is 'Chasing' after something, to somehow get better and better, more and more, bigger and bigger (remember Dr. Seuss' "Biggering" from the 'Lorax' story?), more desirable in the eyes of the world, he chooses a simpler life.  With all the means at his disposal and an already in place expectation to travel in limousines and stay in lavish spaces, he chooses the opposite, driving around in a little Fiat and staying in modest abodes, preferring to spend his time with and serving the poor than hobnobbing with rich elites. 

Kim and I have always enjoyed our efforts to simplify all aspects of our lives, giving away as much as we can bring ourselves to part with and throwing away the clutter and junk that seems to build up in our life.  People often come into our home, who haven't been over in a while, to exclaim, "Wow!  Where is all your stuff?"  We prefer the empty space and the peaceful, content feeling that comes with less and less.  While we have a long way to go and quite frankly, even for a family of five, we know we could certainly downsize the size of our home.  "Honey, where is that tiny house article I was looking at?"  It does feels so awesome to have less and less to take care of and we find that we can really appreciate more the things we do choose to hold on to and use.  While it is sometimes difficult to simplify completely (after all, we still need a car to get to work, dress appropriately, continue to live in the world around us), we have found there are a never ending stream of ways to simplify and each step is better than before.  Truth is, less is more and more is less.  Haven't you found that the best things in life really are free anyway?  Why not trade striving for arriving?  Tough we know, but wow, what a ride.  Ahhhhhhhh! 

FYI - A really great book that helped us begin our journey of simplifying our lives is The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. 

 

Share Your Sense of Humor

NPR had a report about the great Yogi Berra passing this morning of natural causes.  When his wife asked him some time ago where he wanted to be buried when he died, he replied, "I don't know.  Surprise me."  Now I don't know about you, but I love a good sense of humor, and I think this is a great example of just that. Joking around when able, staying on the lighter, less serious side, even when speaking of the tougher aspects of life and death.  Seems to me that 'Being Positive and Playful' rather than 'Complaining' about life is a lot easier when we find and zero in on our sense of humor, even in tough circumstances.  And yes, if you're wondering, we all have a sense of humor.  So, please share yours.  You can never have too much to laugh about in the world.

 

Time to Get Right Back On the Horse

So jazzed from today's Sail the Seven C's workshop.  We had great engagement, discussion, and insightful comments and questions throughout.  For example, a good friend there noted how it often takes a tragic incident, maybe even life threatening or losing someone very close to us to bring us out of our daily habits where we typically fall victim to one or more of the C's--competing, comparing, chasing, controlling, complaining, criticizing, and clinging.  Significant life challenges do indeed have a way of bringing us right into the present moment, where we suddenly realize what life is really about and how the things we constantly fret about really don't matter all that much.  He went on to question how we might maintain this conscious awareness more often, day in and day out, where perhaps it wouldn't take these unfortunate moments to wake us up from our sleep walking through life.  For me this is very hard to do.  It takes diligent, daily practice and moment-to-moment conscious choices to Sail the Seven C's.  Yet I believe its well worth the effort.  Far from perfect as humans, no matter how hard we work, we will of course continue to make mistakes like the one I made just yesterday where I yelled at our two oldest boys, with unfortunate profanity to boot (so much for "Be Kind and Compassionate" in my handling of the situation).  Our boys were fighting once again, this time leading to a physical altercation.  Wish I would have handled this much better than I did and we have all since discussed it as a family.  I sincerely apologized several times to each of them for how I handled the situation and thanked Kim for her help in prompting me to "Stop, Drop, and Be" when I first reacted with anger (Although, I must admit I was annoyed at her for saying that in the heat of the moment....there she goes again Competing and Controlling!  HA!)  Was it perfect?  No.  Was it better than it would have been just a few years ago before daily efforts to Sail the Seven C's?  Yes, no question.  Bottom line, we just have to keep practicing, cut our self and others slack from time to time.  Thank you family.  Now, time for me to get right back on the horse.  Our time on Earth is far too fleeting not to.

Smile for No Reason

Whenever I get up in the morning somewhat less than happy, I do something that will sound ridiculous.  I smile.  Not once, not twice, but over and over again, sometimes holding the smile for long periods of time.  I find that no matter what my starting mood, it soon gets better.  Don't believe me?  Check out the research on the benefits of smiling often, particularly the health benefits through the release of feel good hormones, lower blood pressure and immune system boost.  Better yet, simply try it out for yourself.  It might feel silly at first, but what do you have to lose?  Simply smile for no reason and choose to make your day far better than it would have been had you done nothing at all.  And the best reason of all to smile is, its contagious.  So please pass it on.

Who Is the Real You?

As hard as I find this is, I’ve been working a very long time at trying to be just who I am, the genuine or real me like when I was a young kid, no matter who is in a room with me.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve found it too tiring to try and appear to be who I think other people want me to be, or simply trying to be perfect and without flaws in front of others.  Don’t believe that’s you sometimes?  Well think about it for a moment.  Do you speak and behave the same whenever a senior person in your organization, perhaps it’s your immediate boss, is in the room as you would if it were your spouse or best friend?  For most of us, when we are really honest, we probably have plenty of room to grow here.  We grow up learning to ‘compare’ ourselves and our sense of worth and value with how we stack up against others.  Perhaps its grades, athletic abilities, our physical appearances, or how much money we have, what position we hold, what car we drive, or where we live.  If we aren’t tops there, we look for being tops somewhere else or if that doesn’t work, we learn how to appear as if we are.  We hope that no one will find out the truth.  And, if we don’t match up in others, much less our own eyes, we feel less than worthy of love. 

The truth is we are all fine just the way we are, intrinsically of equal, honestly infinite, value as a human being.  The diversity and uniqueness of every one of us is simply miraculous.  Can’t we simply embrace this magnificence in all of us, foibles and strengths, and not work so hard to hide the real us?  Truth is, I’m a complete mess.  Just ask my wife and colleagues.  HA!  Yet I’m confident I have a few strengths to offer others as well and I’m seized by being able to serve others in this way as much as possible.  While I may not always show love toward myself like I should, and consequently show love to others, I know deep down that I’m worthy of my own love, as well as that of others.  I know I can’t truly love others unconditionally if I can’t even love myself.  I promise you we are all plenty enough and more, certainly worthy of anyone’s love, certainly our own.  So, I challenge you to first love yourself so you can unconditionally love others. 

Answer me this:  Who is the real you?  Are you willing to show yourself to whomever is in the room with you?  I hope so, ‘cause when we do, it’s like magic.

What’s On Your Gratitude List?

I wrote a short post a few days ago, “Choosing to See the Extraordinary in the Ordinary”, and today felt compelled to expand upon it just a bit by discussing a great tool, a personal gratitude list, that we can use to counter our ego’s tendency toward C-sickness.   When finding myself caught up in any one or more of the C’s, I have found that reflecting on my gratitude list is immensely helpful in getting to a more positive frame of mind. 

 

The truth is we really do have so much to be grateful for, such as the simple things that we hardly notice in the everyday press of life.  What a shame that we sometimes don’t see these everyday things and truly appreciate the immensity with which we’ve been blessed.  Things as basic in our society as our homes, clothes, and food to eat, that so much of the world goes without and we take for granted.  The truth is, most of us, even of modest means, live better than kings and queens not too many decades ago and yet we don’t even realize it.

 

What a powerful exercise it is to take time occasionally to write down or revisit a personal gratitude list that notes everything, however simple, that we are truly grateful for.  My own list brings me such joy and peace when I focus on it rather than the more often trivial challenges my ego is fixed on in my life.  If you do this one thing, creating and focusing just a few minutes daily on your own personal gratitude list, I’m confident it will be near impossible not to have a more positive attitude on life.  Struggling a bit on what to write down on your list, well how about some of the following from a never ending universal gratitude list, available to us all? 

 

• The sun shining its light and warmth, asking nothing in return
• The chance to take a peaceful walk wherever we find our self
• The chance to be truly present with life’s continuous moments, feeling our senses in action
• The chance to see the wondrous manifestations of life all around us
• The chance to smell and taste all the wonderful foods we are lucky to have available
• The chance to breath with awareness and really appreciate this wonderful, if brief, opportunity at life we have

 

Aren’t these simply amazing?  Now, what’s on your gratitude list?

"What's for Dinner?"

My wife Kim is such an amazing woman.  Just one of the things I really appreciate is her kindness and generosity.  Ever since I've known Kim, she has bent over backwards to help others anyway she can.  At the same time, it frustrates me how other people will occasionally take advantage of her generosity, asking for more and more of her help over extended periods of time, despite having alternative options available to them.  It's as if they know she will never say no to their persistent requests.  Rather than just say sorry I can't help, she will drop what she calls "polite hints" that suggest that maybe there might be another, even better, source of assistance.  Nevertheless, she is always willing to continue serving others should they not pick up on her hints.  Can you believe it?  Even when she is overwhelmed with to-dos and honestly doesn't have anymore time to spare, she will find a way to do so...

..."Oh...heh babe, what's for dinner?"  "I'm not sure Preston, I haven't had one second today to think about it."  DOH!  Guess I need to stop 'Complaining' and 'Criticizing' others and check my own attitude and behaviors toward Kim.  "What can I do to help sweet-pea?"     

Make Yourself C-Worthy

One day sometime ago after Kim was sharing some of our thinking around Sailing the Seven Cs with our middle son, Jonah, he came up with a clever way of expressing what she was conveying to him.  Kim was sharing how we really must be diligent in making conscious choices, trying our best to choose our thoughts and behaviors throughout our day in order to avoid falling into one or more of the C behaviors.  She shared examples like sitting down to write a gratitude list, calling or helping a close friend, sending thank you notes, smiling and laughing more often, getting enough rest, eating healthy, going for a walk, etc.  Jonah called this “making your ship, or yourself C-worthy”.  If you think about it, he makes good sense.  We know from countless great thinkers through the ages that we get back from life what we think about and focus our attention, words, and behaviors on.  In focusing, conscious or not, on one or more of the C’s—complaining, criticizing, clinging, controlling, competing, comparing, and chasing—we in effect slowly grow bigger and bigger holes in our self, our ship if you will, letting more and more water seep into the hull of our ship.  If we aren’t careful, taking on too much water, we might one day find that we are thoroughly “C-sick” or worse yet, “lost at C”.  HA!  I know, cheesy right, but so true.  One thing is for certain, if we don’t choose better, like some of the examples Kim shared with Jonah, we might just find our self or our ship, sunk, in effect overstressed and overtaxed, with all kinds of resulting consequences to our health over time.  Is our effectiveness at Sailing the Seven C’s really important to our overall health?  You bet!  That’s how important it really is.  Okay Jonah, let’s keep working together with our family and friends to make ourselves C-Worthy.

Choosing to See the Extraordinary in the Ordinary--A Sunrise With Kim

 

     

How often, in failing to be truly present to life, do we fail to see the countless, incredible miracles everywhere around us?  Are we ever able to discern the extraordinary in the ordinary, for it is always there?  Just last weekend Kim and I pushed ourselves to get out of bed extra early to watch the sunrise from our back deck, something we ordinarily sleep through.  So quiet, so peaceful, the amazing sun slowly rising as it does each and every day.  What an absolutely beautiful morning Kim and I shared together.  How often do we just pause to reflect on the magnificence of this occurrence and be grateful for the life it provides us all?  Sometimes its not easy to make conscious choices like this, especially when it means getting our butts out of bed early.  HA!  How often do we take these simple things in life for granted?