Living in the Solution

All too often it seems easy to see the things that are going wrong, yet ignore what's going right. That applies to people and life in general. This is partly due to the conditioning we've lived under since childhood. Another influential factor is self-esteem. And another piece of the puzzle is that we can tend to live backwards towards our past, rather than this moment which is going to make our future.

When I notice that I'm catching people doing things so-called "wrong." I intentionally change my mental policy and commit to catching people doing things right. Living in that state creates opportunities to not only interact with others in a different way, but myself as well. I'm reminded of Buddha's words "as you think, so shall you become." Put another was, "What we think about expands and magnifies."

We might say to ourselves, "I think that person is trying to hurt me," or "These people always make mistakes, they probably don't care about what they are doing," or "I'm not a trustworthy and lovable person." In that moment our brain reaches out and attempts to prove that thinking so-called "right." It starts to verify that people are trying to hurt us or making mistakes or that we are not trustworthy and lovable, giving us Howard Cosell like play-by-play's. And as we focus on these negatives, the positives dim as if the sun had been eclipsed by the moon. But like a lunar eclipse, if we shift our attention, we can remove that object blocking our vision or ability to see what's right and okay. The brightness returns.

To keep my mind, zig-zagging forward into the solution and what is "going right," I do a lot of different things. Obviously Zen is one piece of the jigsaw puzzle. I listen to podcast like Genjo Osho from Choboji's and Shugen Sensei from Zen Mountain Monastery. I read, read, read - and not just books on spirituality and self improvement. I'm currently on the last book of "The Dark Tower" series by Stephen King. It allows my mind to rest. I hang out with my wife. She laughs easily and proves to be a good friend. I play with my kids and share time from Xbox "Rock Band" to playing "Super-Hero's." For some odd reason, they like to dress up, using towels that are really capes and pillows that are power shields. And I write to you, which encourages me to have things "worthy" to share.

I'm not sure if people so-called "find happiness." My experience is that we "make happiness." And it seems that how we get there is by living the solution as opposed to living the problem. One last thing that I might share on this. When I begin to observe myself leaning negative, I focus on the 80/20 rule. I allow myself to spend 20% of my time entertaining the problem, but I have to spend 80% of my time developing and then living the solution.

Love and Respect,

Jaye Morris, Curator
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