Welcome to "SIMPLY SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS" - July 28, 2009:
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Helping You Create What Matters MOST in Life and Work --
With Whatever Life Throws At You!
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"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart...
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."
—Carl Jung
Hi Folks,
Ah, we're experiencing the dog days of summer up here in the Northern hemisphere. It's mid-winter in the South. Both are good times to think about the months that have passed and the months to come.
Have you created the results you set out to create for 2009? Some of them?
If not, no worries; there are still 5 full months left in which you can achieve your most important desires.
Regular readers will know that I advocate a process of creating results that is driven by vision, grounded in current reality and focuses on results that honour reality while supporting vision. Step by step, learning as we go, we craft the results we desire to create.
But, recently, I was asked if desire was a good thing. Wasn't it, the questioner asked, what Buddha called the root of all suffering? And that to desire, to focus on results and outcomes is the cause of all our emotional pain and grief?
Far from it, I replied. Desire, fashioned into a clear vision, then grounded in reality and acted on can be transformational. It can change our reality in the direction of our desires, and it awaken us, as Jung suggests above, to our true and higher purposes.
Rather than stumble through a long answer to the question, I sent my questioner the following quote from Eknath Easwaran (author of Meditation: A Simple Eight Point Program for Translating Spiritual Values Into Daily Life):
"The Buddha is sometimes quoted as saying that desire is suffering. A more accurate translation is that selfish desire is suffering -- in fact, the source of all suffering. But desire itself is simply power, neither good nor bad.
"Without the tremendous power of desire, there can be no progress on the spiritual path; there can be no progress anywhere. The whole secret of spiritual transformation is turning selfish desire into selfless desire, transforming personal passions into the overwhelming desire to attain life's highest goal. This is not repression; it is transformation."
So it is selfish desire that leads to suffering, not the desire to create what truly matters. That is why we must heed Jung's advice and look into our hearts for what truly matters to us.
And we must also look beyond ourselves for what matters, to purposes larger than our selves and our little egos. "Life isn't about finding yourself," Shaw said. "Life is about creating yourself."
But he didn't mean creating yourself in a selfish way. Oh, no!
“This is the true joy in life," he proclaimed, "the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being a force of nature, instead of a selfish, feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is not a brief candle to me, it is sort of a splendid torch which I’ve got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
Desire to create the kind and quality of life, work, family, community and world that you truly want -- deep, deep in your heart -- is what creating yourself is about.
As Eknath says, desire is a transformational power.
And when a clear, compelling vision of what you desire is combined with an accurate, objective and emotionally neutral assessment of what you have, where you are, and what you lack, the gap between vision and reality generates the immense power of creative tension.
Working within the framework of creative tension, you can more easily energize your actions, learn from your experience, and gradually bring into being what you most want to create.
So, 7 months of '09 gone; 5 left. Are you working on creating yourself and what's truly important to you? Do you have written goals and maps of the territory you'll have to navigate to get to them? It's not too late.
In fact these dog days of summer can be a good time to start thinking ahead to the fall, preparing yourself to take charge of your thoughts and actions rather than being bounced around by the usual September rush to get back up to speed at work, get the kids off to school, and get yourself back to what you let slip in the summer.
If you need any help, don't hesitate to send me an email. I'm happy to help.
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ARTICLES AND RESOURCES
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Visit http://www.BruceElkin.com and http://hubpages.com/profile/Bruce+Elkin
Feel free to download anything you like. There are articles, booklets, and excerpts from my book, Simplicity and Success: Creating What Matters Most in Life and Work. There’s even some fiction and creative non-fiction.
Help yourself!
One of my faves is Creating Abundance? Or Sufficience? You can access it at
http://hubpages.com/hub/Abundance--Or-Sufficience
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IS COACHING FOR YOU?
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Would you like to simplify your life and create what truly matters to you?
Would you like to feel up, focused, energized, and resilient—
free and excited about your life, work, and future?
> Coaching can help you clarify results—and create them—in a simple, step-by-step way. The capacity to consciously create desired results generates freedom, confidence, competence, and the resilience to handle whatever life throws at you!
"Working with you has been almost magic. I've produced results I'd never thought possible and I continue to do so using the skills and framework. Also, I truly appreciate your follow-up availability."
- Terri Clark, Coach/Consultant, Boston, MA
> My 7-page Coaching Info Package has details, and can help you see if this is for you. Email me with "coaching info" in the subject line.
> I have a couple of spaces opening over the next two weeks. So, if interested, contact me soon.
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QUOTABLE QUOTES
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"The most radical, powerful act ever undertaken by any human being remains the act of committing oneself, beyond reservation, to a worthy personal mission."
-- Christopher Childs
"The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart."
-- Annie Dillard
"The indispensable first step to getting what you want out of life is this: decide what you want."
-- Ben Stein
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."
-- Helen Keller"
A year from now you may wish you had started today."
-- Karen Lamb
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What truly matters to you? What do you most want to create?
What purpose greater than yourself excites you?
Need some help figuring this out, and/or getting started?
I hope you have a great week!
Bruce |
