Opportunity Knocks, and Knocks

“The one thing that all of us have in common is that everyone wants to be happy.”

– David Steindl-Rast

Opportunity Knocks, and Knocks

Andrew Solomon told me that when he was in Rwanda working on a genocide recovery project one of the local leaders said, “We’ve had a lot of trouble with Western Mental Health Workers.”

Andrew was surprised and said, “Oh! What kind of trouble did you have?”

The Rwandan Project Leader replied, “Well, they would do this bizarre thing.  They didn’t take people out into the sunshine where you begin to feel better.  They didn’t include drumming or music to get people’s blood going.  They didn’t involve the whole community.  They didn’t externalize the depression as an invasive spirit.  Instead, what they did was, they took people, one at a time, into dingy little rooms and have them talk for an hour about bad things that had happened to them. We had to ask them to leave the country!”

David Steindl-Rast also just left Africa.  But, he didn’t leave because he was asked to go.  He felt that even though he had gone to Africa to be a teacher, he had learned a critical truth there that he wanted to share with the rest of the world.

David looked out at me and said, “The one thing that all of us have in common is that everyone wants to be happy.  We all know people that have everything they need to be happy, yet they are not happy. We also know people who have lots of misfortune, but they are happy.  So, it is not happiness that makes us happy.  It is gratefulness that makes us happy.”

He went on to explain that true gratitude has to come from something of valuable.  It has to be a real gift.  It has to be freely given.  This is how gratefulness comes to us.  You haven’t earned it; you haven’t brought it about in any way.  “The most valuable gift we all have is the present moment.”

It is most valuable because you have no way of assuring there will be another moment given to you.  And yet, each moment is the most valuable gift that can ever be given to any of us. 

David taught me that each individual moment contains opportunity and that if I didn’t have this present moment I wouldn’t have any opportunity to do anything or experience anything.  Each moment is a gift moment.

There’s an old saying, “Opportunity knocks only once.” 

David showed me that this saying isn’t true at all.  He caused me think about opportunity from a new perspective; every moment is a new gift.  New moments occur over and over again.  If you miss the opportunity of this moment another moment is given; and another; and another.  It’s a new view of gratitude I never considered before.

“We can avail ourselves of this opportunity or we can miss it. And if we avail ourselves of the opportunity it is the key to happiness.  We possess the key to our happiness in our own hands.”  He taught me.

I thought more deeply about my own life experience while David was speaking.  I’ve been rushing through life and the rushing makes it so I never see most of the offered opportunity.  The richness of life comes from the abundance of opportunity.  So, what can we all do to increase the richness of our lives?

David says, “Stop, look, go.”

How often do you stop?  Are you rushing through your life as well?  If so, make sure you take time to get quiet.  Build stop signs into your life.  You can find your own stop signs.  Just leave it up to your imagination.

Look.  Open your eyes and open all your senses to the wonderful richness that is all around us.  That’s what life is all about; enjoy all that’s been given to you.  When you open your heart to the opportunities, your heart will invite you to do something.

That’s the third thing – go and really do something.  Do whatever life offers you at any given moment.  David says, “Mostly it is the opportunity to enjoy.”

Stop, look, go, is such a potent seed.  Try it and you’ll be surprised at the wave of gratefulness that will appear all around you.  It will change your world.  Gratitude changes everything about life.  It will make you happy.

“I don’t think we will ever be able to afford our dream house.  But I want to be able to continue to experience what makes me happy.”

Nancy

Enjoy Your Portion

Since I spend a large portion of my life walking through houses with my Clients, I hear many comments about what people consider when they are looking at homes to call their own.  I’ve been especially interested in a big change in people’s attitudes over the past five years ago.  It used to be that people would be stretching as far as they could to buy the largest, most expensive house they could find.  Now I rarely see that strategy and most people I work with are seeking a comfortable home they can easily afford and be happy in.

I say happy because when people were pushing their financial boundaries they may have been getting a house to make them feel powerful, successful or accomplished, yet it didn’t provide them with happiness.  And, such financial imprudence has caused many people to pay a huge price financially, physically, emotionally and personally.  

Since I spend a great deal of time with my Clients I get to know most of them quite well personally and that’s what I enjoy most about my work in real estate.  As I was working with one couple this week, Nancy made a comment that really made me think about happiness and personal portion.  She said, “I don’t think we will ever be able to afford our dream house.  But I don’t want to be house poor and not be able to do anything else.”  When I heard her say this, I quietly said within me, “It’s wonderful to see a person who clearly understands the concept of personal portion!”

I first began to learn about this concept when I lived and worked in Saudi Arabia.  While there, I made friends with some guys from the Philippines.  We would spend most of our weekends together watching movies and enjoying other activities.  One of these guys was in his mid sixties and had been working in Saudi Arabia as a laborer for more than twenty years.   He was there to make enough money to provide for his family, who he got to visit for a couple of months once every five years.

On one occasion, he came over to me with one of the largest grins I have ever seen on another person. 

“I just finished paying for my house!” He announced.  “Would you like to see a picture?”

 “Yes. I would really like to see it!”  I said.

He immediately handed me the photo and said, “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yes!” I said.  The whole time trying my very best to show genuine happiness while trying to hide my shock.  You see, he showed me a photo of what we would consider to be a shack in the United States.  And, I was genuinely happy for his accomplishment.

This humble man was one of the hardest working, happiest people I have ever met and he was my teacher about personal portion.  I learned that a person can only be happy when they are satisfied with the portion of the world they receive.  All of us can follow his example should we seek true happiness.

If you’re looking for true happiness, look at your portion of the world and be enthused with it; this small change, in your view, will allow your happiness to increase dramatically almost instantly. 

Qualities of Mind

“There is little doubt that Happiness circuits are highly suggestible, and that they are transformable through intention and effort.  They are among the most plastic circuits in the brain.”

Miriam Boleyn-Fitzgerald

Qualities of Mind

I was talking with a friend regarding his children the other day.  He was lamenting the verity that they were unhappy and lacked motivation in every aspect of their lives.  One, a daughter, had all but given up her life and had returned to their nest rarely choosing to leave her small bedroom.

When I say she had given up her life, I mean that she had given up almost all the good that had existed in it.  She had received a good education and had excelled in her classes, she had great friends, upon graduation she received a good job and she also enjoyed good health.  In fact, if one looked at her life from the outside, it was almost impossible to conclude anything except that she was the recipient of great happiness.  But, a closer look would have revealed a different conclusion.

She is lacking, as so many of us are,  life skills such as regulating negative emotions, cultivating positive ones, and building and maintaining healthy personal relationships .  Such skills correlate more closely with happiness and life success than any standard measure of academic or financial performance.  A person’s capacity to cooperate, ability to regulate personal emotions, and capacity to focus attention on such skills is far more important for life success than one’s IQ or grades.  Miriam Boleyn-Fitzgerald calls these attributes, “qualities of mind.”  

Sadly, I find these qualities to be missing in my own life from time to time.  When this is the case I begin to feel lost, alone and hopeless.   So, I have begun to wonder if critical traits such as compassion and empathy are trainable and if I could change my life through practice; if so, it would have transformative implications for how I prepare myself and my loved-ones for the long emotional road ahead.

In searching my mind for the answer, I was reminded of the story of Mingyur Rinpoche, the author of “The Joy of Living.” As a young child he was hardly happy.  From the time he was seven or eight until he was thirteen, he experienced severe panic attacks, despite growing up in a loving family and nurturing spiritual community.  He believes that if he had lived in a Western society, he probably would have been diagnosed with a childhood panic disorder.

An emotional shift for him came as a young teenager during a three-year meditation retreat.  At first his panic got worse, and he found himself caught in one debilitating anxiety attack after another.  He describes that first year on retreat as one of the worst of his life.  He became so deeply unhappy, he says, that he “really decided to apply mediation training.”  At one point he confronted his panic alone in his room for several days, using it as a support for his meditation.  After an intensive period of applying what he had learned from his teachers, to relate to his powerful emotions not as his “enemy” or his “boss,” as he puts it, but as his friend, the panic was gone.  Since that time, he has not experienced another attack.

His story has given me renewed hope; we can train ourselves to live happily by practicing life changing qualities of mind such as compassion, empathy, kindness, gratitude, and capacity for love.  We can be happier and more successful by transforming ourselves through intention and effort; becoming increasingly aware that the cultivation of positive emotions is vital to draw a map of personal happiness free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

Being Present Shows Respect

“Did you hang up? Wow! Thank you!
- Spencer Shaw

Being Present Shows Respect

We all live very busy lives these days! Sometimes I wish I could find a switch to flip so I could simply turn the world off for a while. I was thinking how great it would be to be able to do that and then just sit in a rocking chair on my porch for a while. That way I could rest, enjoy beauty and not get behind all at the same time.

But, I also know that I really enjoy being at the top of my game and working hard every day. I like living a fast paced life. Otherwise I would stop doing what I’m doing; and it’s clear I don’t want to stop working and I really don’t want to lessen my pace because I would miss a lot along the way.

I’ve been thinking for a couple of days, “What could I do to have and enjoy the best of both worlds? The first want being to be able to savor every part of my day and the second part, to keep up a pace that’s exhilarating and fun and bam, there was the answer!

I was working with my friend Spencer Shaw earlier this week without intention to find the answer to this conundrum. We were finalizing the next phase of a project we’ve been working on together for the past few months during a scheduled meeting when my phone rang.

The fact that my phone rang wasn’t unusual. It was my action that was unusual and I didn’t think much of it until Spencer made an immediate comment.

“Did you hang up?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Wow! Thank you!” Spencer exclaimed.

It wasn’t until that moment, when I saw his reaction that I realized how much I had been missing as a result of my “phone addiction.” I say addiction because there are very few times I don’t have my phone turned on and with me.

I‘ve lived that way for so long now that I’ve come to be blind as to how distracting it is. There is always a part of my mind waiting for a call. It is almost as if it is hungering for a call, a text, or the next contact. After all, being connected is justified. I have to do it. I don’t have a choice. If I’m not answering, the business will go to someone else. But at what’s the real cost of this addiction?

The real cost is the damage to personal relationships. Now that I think about it, I am haunted by the look of disappointment of the people I’m with when they see me answer a call. I can see the look on their face when I brush them aside to talk with someone else.

“Is the caller more important than I am?” is the thought going through their mind!

I was taught a similar lesson many years ago as a freshman in college. It was painful then and I’m surprised I didn’t see its relationship to my life now.

I had a group of friends and we’d planned to go out one weekend night. I’d made all the commitments and was excited to go with them for an evening of fun. They were counting on me to go and I knew it. Our activity required an exact number of people. It was going to be fun.

Then, just a couple of hours before we were to meet, I got the chance to go out with a girl I’d wanted to go out with. I was thrilled with the prospect of finally getting to go out with her. I jumped at the chance and made the date. It just so happened that my Father had been listening to my conversations.

As soon as I had completed confirming my new date he said, “You had a commitment! Now you’re saying to your friends that you’re their friend only until something better comes along!”
He was right.

It was too late though so I went on the date. I had a miserable time!

When Monday came I had another miserable time. I went to meet with every one of my jilted friends and apologized to them. My Father was right. I had sent an awful message to them. They had gotten it loud and clear and it took me a long time to repair the damage I had done to the relationship.

Sometimes in life the subtle things we think we do aren’t quite so subtle to those closest to us. We’re sending them little messages constantly. Sometimes it’s through our words, sometimes it’s through our actions. It doesn’t matter how the message is sent. What matters is that it is sent.

Think about the messages you’re sending to the people who are important to you. If you want to know what they are, simply take a significant moment and study the faces of those you love. You’ll see what message they’re getting.

Thank goodness I sent the right message to Spencer this one time. The message was, “Spencer, you’re important to me and what you’re helping me with is important.”

That’s the answer I’ve been looking for. I can savor the time I spend with the people that are important to me and I can get my work done as well. You can too! Make sure you’re giving the people you’re with the right message through your actions and words! It’s as easy as hanging up the phone.