7 Steps To Living At The Speed Of Life
Always Bear In Mind That Your Own Resolution To Succeed Is More Important Than Any One Thing. by: Abraham Lincoln
7 Steps to Living at the Speed of Life
by Jim M. Allen
Unfortunately, too many of us these days mistake living fast for living well. They aren't the same things. Rather than spend your time rushing around not enjoying life, make the decision to do just the opposite. Choose to slow down.
Below I've listed 7 steps that will help you get started "gearing down" to a calmer, more enjoyable pace: your own, personal, speed of life.
1. Stop rushing
No matter how much you do or don't do, time passes by at a steady rate. Second by second, minute by minute. You can't change that. So accept it and pace yourself.2. Stop being rushed
Of course, you'll need to spend some time telling the people around you that you're not going to rush anymore, but it's worth it. Take a stand: don't let others force you into fast forward mode.3. Do less
It's natural for you to start rushing about when your list of activities is jam-packed. If you really want to slow down, reduce your commitments --it's okay to say "No" when people ask for your help and/or participation-- and free up some "spare" time.4. Do nothing
Better yet, take #3 even further. Do less than less.... do nothing! Plan "nothing days". These are days when you have absolutelynothing that must be done -- days when anything you choose to do is the right thing to do.5. Do one thing at a time
If you can't bring yourself to doing less (or nothing), then slow down by simply doing one thing at a time. You'll focus more on each task you do (and you'll probably complete it faster, too).6. Do things now
Not everything, just the stuff that really must be done today. Pay your bills when they arrive, not the day they're due. Take out the trash when the trash is full, not just on the day the garbage truck comes by.7. Do something for someone else
Spend an hour each week helping your favorite charity . You'll quickly see how valuable time really is and you'll feel great by focusing on helping others._____SELF CONFIDENCE
Self-confidence is a character trait that is essential for success in any career. It can also be argued that a life experience without self-confidence leads a person to miss out on valuable opportunities. Think about the people in your life who exhibit quality self-confidence. These people are generally fun to be around, possess many friends and are often successful in their choice of career.
It is a mistake of many people to believe that you either have self-confidence or you don’t. Just like any skill that can be learned and improved upon, your sense of self-confidence can also be improved. Employers are interested in self-confident individuals as they are more apt to produce high-quality work under pressure. A self-confident person believes in his or her strengths and abilities and does not become overwhelmed by low self-esteem and doubt. People who exhibit self-confidence do not seek the approval of others but are ambitious and seek challenges.
Self-confidence articles in this section assist an individual in improving upon self-confidence, avoiding overconfidence, the connection between self-confidence and career growth or decision-making. A self-confident person is a natural leader and strongly believes in his or her principles but is open to other points of view.
Most commentators would agree that the road to authentic life begins with an examination of the self. Being honest about our fear, our anger, and our shortcomings is the beginning of maturity. When we are open and trusting enough in our relationships to confide in others about our shadow side, then we are on the road to authenticity and peace.
It is important at least to tell from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are--even if we tell it only to ourselves--because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our lives and where we are going. It also makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about. Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell.
--Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1991) 2-3.
I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and the values at the heart of my identity, not the standards by which [I think] I must live--but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.
Behind this understanding of [self] is a truth that the ego does not want to hear because it threatens the ego’s turf: everyone has a life that is different from the “I” of daily consciousness, a life that is trying to live through the “I” who is its vessel. This is what … every wisdom tradition teaches: there is a great gulf between the way my ego wants to identify me, with its protective masks and self-serving fictions, and my true self.
It takes time and hard experience to sense the difference between the two--to sense that running beneath the surface of the experience I call my life, there is a deeper and truer life waiting to be acknowledged. That fact alone makes “listen to your life” difficult counsel to follow. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that from our first days in school, we are taught to listen to everything and everyone else but ourselves, to take all our clues about living from the peoples and powers around us. ...
But if I am to let my life speak things I want to hear, things I would gladly tell others, I must also let it speak things I do not want to hear and would never tell anyone else! My life is not only about my strength and virtues; it is also about my liabilities and my limits, my trespasses and my shadow. An inevitable though often ignored dimension of the quest for “wholeness” is that we must embrace what we dislike or find shameful about ourselves as well as what we are confident and proud of. …
Our lives are “experiments with truth” (to borrow the subtitle of Gandhi’s autobiography), and in an experiment negative results are at least as important as successes. I have no idea how I would have learned the truth about myself and my calling without the mistakes I have made.
--Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, (Somerset, NJ:Jossey-Bass, 1999) 4-7.
To live well in this world, we must steep ourselves in the mind of God. We must ask what God wants for the world, rather than simply what we want for our private and personal, our public and national and political selves. We have bartered the future for the sake of the comfort of a few, but no peoples have the right to gobble up the world for their own sakes. We must all come again to fear God. We’ve made ourselves the gods of the 21st century to whom the rest of the world pays tribute, from whom much is sacrificed by those least able to sacrifice it, and because of whom both blessing and chaos happen. …
No doubt about it, there’s great room for fear of God here. The arrogance of those who make themselves the center of the universe is destroying our world, and our technology has outstripped our souls. No, superiority has not saved us. We need the wisdom of humility now. We need that quality of life that makes it possible for people to see beyond themselves to value the other, to touch the world gently and peacefully and make the whole world better as we go.
Peace is a Benedictine value, and we need it now. Benedictine spirituality is a spirituality consciously designed to disarm the heart, to soften the soul, to quiet the turmoil within. It is a vision of nonviolence in a world for which violence is the air we breathe, the songs we sing, in our national anthems, the heroes we worship, and the business we do. ... Be soft with others, the [Benedictine] Rule teaches, and you will have peace. Be simple in your needs, and you will have peace. Be humble in what you demand of life, and you will have peace. Be giving in what you take to life, and you will have peace. Refuse to make war on the innocent others in order to vanquish your political enemies, and you will have peace. And stop the wars within yourself, and you will have peace. Peace comes from not allowing any part of us to control the better rest of us. Peace depends on our being gentle with ourselves, gentle with the earth, and gentle with the other.
It is important at least to tell from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are--even if we tell it only to ourselves--because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our lives and where we are going. It also makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about. Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell.
--Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1991) 2-3.
I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and the values at the heart of my identity, not the standards by which [I think] I must live--but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.
Behind this understanding of [self] is a truth that the ego does not want to hear because it threatens the ego’s turf: everyone has a life that is different from the “I” of daily consciousness, a life that is trying to live through the “I” who is its vessel. This is what … every wisdom tradition teaches: there is a great gulf between the way my ego wants to identify me, with its protective masks and self-serving fictions, and my true self.
It takes time and hard experience to sense the difference between the two--to sense that running beneath the surface of the experience I call my life, there is a deeper and truer life waiting to be acknowledged. That fact alone makes “listen to your life” difficult counsel to follow. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that from our first days in school, we are taught to listen to everything and everyone else but ourselves, to take all our clues about living from the peoples and powers around us. ...
But if I am to let my life speak things I want to hear, things I would gladly tell others, I must also let it speak things I do not want to hear and would never tell anyone else! My life is not only about my strength and virtues; it is also about my liabilities and my limits, my trespasses and my shadow. An inevitable though often ignored dimension of the quest for “wholeness” is that we must embrace what we dislike or find shameful about ourselves as well as what we are confident and proud of. …
Our lives are “experiments with truth” (to borrow the subtitle of Gandhi’s autobiography), and in an experiment negative results are at least as important as successes. I have no idea how I would have learned the truth about myself and my calling without the mistakes I have made.
--Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, (Somerset, NJ:Jossey-Bass, 1999) 4-7.
To live well in this world, we must steep ourselves in the mind of God. We must ask what God wants for the world, rather than simply what we want for our private and personal, our public and national and political selves. We have bartered the future for the sake of the comfort of a few, but no peoples have the right to gobble up the world for their own sakes. We must all come again to fear God. We’ve made ourselves the gods of the 21st century to whom the rest of the world pays tribute, from whom much is sacrificed by those least able to sacrifice it, and because of whom both blessing and chaos happen. …
No doubt about it, there’s great room for fear of God here. The arrogance of those who make themselves the center of the universe is destroying our world, and our technology has outstripped our souls. No, superiority has not saved us. We need the wisdom of humility now. We need that quality of life that makes it possible for people to see beyond themselves to value the other, to touch the world gently and peacefully and make the whole world better as we go.
Peace is a Benedictine value, and we need it now. Benedictine spirituality is a spirituality consciously designed to disarm the heart, to soften the soul, to quiet the turmoil within. It is a vision of nonviolence in a world for which violence is the air we breathe, the songs we sing, in our national anthems, the heroes we worship, and the business we do. ... Be soft with others, the [Benedictine] Rule teaches, and you will have peace. Be simple in your needs, and you will have peace. Be humble in what you demand of life, and you will have peace. Be giving in what you take to life, and you will have peace. Refuse to make war on the innocent others in order to vanquish your political enemies, and you will have peace. And stop the wars within yourself, and you will have peace. Peace comes from not allowing any part of us to control the better rest of us. Peace depends on our being gentle with ourselves, gentle with the earth, and gentle with the other.
How to Be True to Yourself
We must all be true to ourselves. If we are not true to ourselves we cannot be true to others. Unless we are true to ourselves, we can never find total happiness, peace, or fulfillment.
Things You'll Need
A open mind
Ability to look at things objectively
Realize that nothing is done in secret, because it is not. God is always watching.
1
1.Know yourself. Study what you like and what you don't. Study who you are and who you are not. Act accordingly.
2. Identify your strongest interest and ability. Cultivate this 'special' skill/talent. This is something special that God has given you. This is what you are suppose to give back to the world. Invest money in this skill/talent. You won't be sorry. God will bless it.
3. If you keep trying to do something and it is not working, and everything is falling in, give it up. There are some things that weren't meant to be. Accept this and move on.
4. Stand for what you believe. Even if it is as simple as knowing what you want to eat for dinner. Stand for this. Don't allow others to talk you into doing something that you don't like to do or want to do.
5. Don't allow others to put you down. Speak up, in a calm, firm voice and state your opinion.
6. Don't listen to the negative comments from others. We seem to pick up on negative comments and use these to mold our behavior. Study the "Self Fulfilling Prophecy," which is "we will pick up from others and become what they want us to be." Stay away from negative people and people who put you down. Surround yourself with people who are supportive and value what you value.
2
1. Put the past in the past. You can't change it, so don't keep dragging it along with you. The past, if negative, will pull you down.
2. You must remember the past, what happened, and learn from it. Don't make the same mistakes, nothing more.
3
1. Don't associate with those who have different values. By associate, I mean spend free time with them. You may have to work with them, but you don't have to 'drink' from the same water fountain.
2. Examine whom you choose for friends, and you who are 'getting' close to. Don't look through 'rose colored glasses.'
3. Look at friends openly and objectively. If the people you are running with don't make you feel better about yourself, they are not your friends.
4. In any relationship, you should receive as much as your give. If you are not, move on.
3. Be true to your values. An apple does not fall far from the tree. If you don't appreciate some things about your parents and how they did things, you may have to seek out professional help to overcome some of things that your parents have passed along to you.
4.If you have siblings, and they are not treating you right, examine the past. They may be responding the same way that they did when growing up. Humans are creatures of habit. If your siblings cannot reach an adult level of interacting, don't associate with them. You cannot allow your siblings to continue to upset you. You must protect yourself.
4
1. Recognize your own limitations, faults, and failures. This life is a learning experience. We must 'learn' from mistakes. Do so. Pick your self up, dust yourself off, and do better.
2. Pretend that this is the last day on earth that you have. You know there are areas of your life that need to be cleaned up. Do some house cleaning this very day.
3. What do you really like to do? What helps you to relax? Does this action hurt anyone? If not, indulge yourself. We must all have something to do that we like to do. Not engaging in our special interest will make us unhappy.
A good friend allows you a safe space to share your deepest thoughts and needs without worry of being judged, criticized or made to feel silly for feeling the way you do. Friends cheer each other on, laugh and cry together, and just plain commiserate and listen to each other.
I've learned that no matter how much I care, some people
are just idiots. I've learned. . . that we don't have to change
friends if we understand that friends change. I've learned
that no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt
you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
The friends who grew up with you deserve a special respect.
The ones who stuck by you shoulder to shoulder, in a time
where nothing was certain, all life lay ahead, and every
road lead home.
Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say
disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy
become.
