“Who Says You Can’t Teach an Old Dog a New Trick or Two”

Today I was watching a show on farmers in India and last year alone over 200,000 farmers killed themselves because they could not make ends meet. They killed themselves because they considered themselves failures and could no longer bare to think of what they thought others were thinking about them. Most certainly they never thought about how their actions would affect their family or others.

Obviously to kill ones self must be associated with insanity, because it makes no logical sense at all – why – because the person is so consumed with self they no longer have an objective view of what is real and they are basing their decision upon an illusion that they have created in their own mind.

Sadly we are all 99% consumed with ourselves so we don’t really have much time to think about others – so to think that others are thinking poorly about us is crazy – truth is other than a little verbal attack or compliment here and there most people could care less about anyone other than themselves (unless they are planning revenge – but even there they are thinking about themselves) The problem is that once we allow ourselves to be consumed by ourselves there isn’t much else to think about other than ourselves so we think everyone else must be thinking about us too.

Gotta love the ego – NOT – oh ya it protects us from pain – and in most cases from facing the honesty, which is the pain that we need to overcome so that we can address the real pain and find inner peace. So what does the ego effectively do – assists us in delaying the inevitable – Facing The Truth!!

Therefore the hardest step we will ever take is to open our mind to accepting why we say and what we do unto others. Once we face this truth we are able to find the compassion to see why others act the way they act and where they are coming from. The key is to give up the need to be right. By taking this action the ego loses its power – primarily because we are no longer focused on ourselves.

The interesting twist comes from the fact that we can not be harmed by that which we do not fight. You see the pain comes in the resistance, when we disagree. Whether a person agrees with our thinking or we agree with theirs is not important – I know that’s a killer to accept because most of us still want our turn to be right – but what’s important is to understand that the way others think applies only to them and our thinking only applies to us and if we can separate us from them and accept this difference – life will be filled with peace.

Ultimately we must accept that we are not a reflection of the thoughts of others, so that we may focus on the task at hand and those things that appear desolate and beyond repair will immediately begin to improve.

Our life will always be a refection of our state of mind.

It has been said by the wisest men of our time that the greatest feat a man can obtain is the ability NOT to judge another human being.  So why then do we feel so compelled to judge when at best our chances of being correct are only 50%.

Is it the excitement of being right – is it the need to be important – is it the need to justify our existence.

Consider the percentages – is there anything in life so import that we need to risk a 50% chance of being regarded as a fool or would it be better to sit back and purely observe?

The Cookie Thief

A woman was waiting at an airport one night,
With several long hours before her flight.
She hunted for a book in the airport shops.
Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

She was engrossed in her book but happened to see,
That the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be.
Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between,
Which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.

So she munched the cookies and watched the clock,
As the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock.
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,
Thinking, “If I wasn’t so nice, I would blacken his eye.”

With each cookie she took, he took one too,
When only one was left, she wondered what he would do.
With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh,
He took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half, as he ate the other,
She snatched it from him and thought… oooh, brother.
This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude,
Why he didn’t even show any gratitude!

She had never known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate,
Refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.

She boarded the plane, and sank in her seat,
Then she sought her book, which was almost complete.
As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise,
There was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes.

If mine are here, she moaned in despair,
The others were his, and he tried to share.
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.

Valerie Cox