Daily Gratitude: “Man becomes conscious of himself through his resistance to others.”

This is a good way to gauge if something within you needs improvement or work. If you start to hold up your hand and push back against someone or some idea, it’s a sign that there may be something in you that you ought to examine. It may be that once you do that examination, you’ll identify it and decide you still believe it. Let’s say a person you know never leaves a tip and that begins to bother you. In the grand scheme of this thing we call life, is it really important whether ANOTHER person leaves a tip? Why does it bother you? It doesn’t really matter and that’s why it’s a sign that you should look at it. Something is going against your personal values. I’ll bet that once you look within, you’ll see that it may be just one annoying thing about your friend but maybe it’s made you see other things you don’t like. This is good because then you can decide if your friend’s good points outweigh these minor annoyances. When you realize that you’ll be able to either tell them that this bugs you or you may just decide it won’t bother anymore . But it also possible that you’ll reassess the friendship. That sounds harsh but it’s also how little things can lead to disastrous endings.

Any time you’re feeling the “that bothers me” or the “no way” thoughts and feelings about something, it’s time to examine what it is actually telling you. The “thing” in front of you is a nicely wrapped package but what it’s hiding is buried deep under the wrapping, inside the box and stuffed under a bunch of the styrofoam peanuts. It’s the pearl inside the clam shell. You have to dig to find it but it’s worth it.

Daily Gratitude: “Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”

Boy was Marcus Aurelius a wise man. Whenever I’ve been brave enough to do this, it’s taken the wind out of my sails quickly. And that’s a good thing.

I get lots of practice with it in my neighborhood which is a “cut through” between two major roads. There are stop signs but so many people can’t see them (ha) or can’t read and think they say “slow”. And of course there’s the stoplights at each end of the road. The green light doesn’t stay green very long. So if someone is on their phone during the red light, they will probably realize it’s turned green in time for them to make it through while so many of the rest of the cars don’t.

Instead of blowing my top now I acknowledge the frustration and then think “when I have I done something that has affected others (whether it’s in traffic or otherwise)?” That helps to dissolve the frustration.

The reason it’s important to acknowledge the frustration (or whatever emotion you’re experiencing) is that emotions aren’t really controllable. They happen. What we can and should control is our response- our feelings.

Try Marcus’ question next time you start to criticize someone or something. See how it works.

Daily Gratitude: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face'”

Take a few minutes right now. And I mean right now. Write down your fears. Yes, it may be a long list but do it anyway. No one’s going to see it but you so list them all, even the weirdo ones.

Now list the things you avoid doing because of these fears. This may take a bit more thinking but it’s important.

Look at the list of things you avoid doing and ask yourself how important each of them is to you. You can use a scale of 1-10 or just general categories like very important, medium, not important, etc. I think the more items you have on this list, the finer the scale should be (like 1-10 for example).

Now circle the ones that are important or are above 6 or 7 on your scale (I’m just listing arbitrary values. You’ll see what’s important the longer you gaze at the list).

Look deeply at the ones you’ve circled. List them on a separate page. Next to each put the fear or fears that are keeping you from doing it.

Once you’re done with the lists you can see more objectively what your fears are keeping you from. Now you have to decide which is more powerful – the desire to do something or the thing keeping you from doing it (aka your fear). This is the emotional part.

Sit with these feelings and imagine what you’d feel like if you could take your eraser and wipe out the fears. What would be keeping you from doing that which you desire. Sure there may now be money in the way or lack of time. But if you really want to do something and you wipe away your fears, all the other things are solvable with some creativity. It’s getting past the barrier door, the fears, that are the most essential.