Just now I read a post in a popular blog entitled “A Beautiful Method of Finding Peace of Mind.” There was the obligatory photo of the obligatory angelic young girl in the obligatory prayer pose, and the piece carried the weight of being penned by a well known new-agey life-Guru. The post suggested this mind-tweak: Go through life deliberately seeing everything as already broken so that when things don’t go as planned, there is less disappointment. The wording was careful and sensitive. Beautiful, really.
The reader-comments were so…”oh my God, another gift for my gentle mind…thank you so much!”
Gag me.
For two reasons, from deep in my belly, I disagree with this all-is-crap approach.
First, everything isn’t “already broken.” In fact, in the real mechanical world, almost everything works perfectly. Do this: Take a deep breath, pause, and then really examine the systems around you. Most of them are complex, and yet the vast majority work very well. The TV, the car, the tree outside the window, the community, the planet. Consider your body and the billions of cooperating cells, and trillions of simultaneous bioelectrical signals. The near-perfection in this body that carries you around is not just a beautiful thing, it’s a miracle! This is not Pollyanna positioning, this is fact. And so, why would anyone want to go through life trying to convince themselves of the opposite?
Yes, of course there are problems in the world, but look at the numbers and see that these inefficiencies are but a very small percentage of all the near-perfection that’s out there – and, anyway, most of what is wrong in our lives is only wrong because it’s not what we want it to be. Think of the fans of both the winning and losing sides of any baseball game.
The other reason I take issue with the everything-is-broken approach: Broken or not, what a lousy way to go through life, expecting things to go wrong. It’s not a beautiful way to approach life. It’s an erroneous way to approach life. Again, overall, this world is an incredible place, full of amazing peace and beauty, consistency and opportunity. When we can’t see (or refuse to see) the perfection, it’s our own attitudes and in-head manipulations that have gone sour.
Go with me to Northern Pakistan, to the heart of Jihad, and see that the huge majority of locals live lives of love, caring, hope and joy. Go to rural China and see the same thing.
The reality is that this world remains a garden whether or not we chose to call it a landfill.
Me? I walk this planet having the standard emotional ups and downs but, overall, know absolutely how incredibly fortunate I am to have this life on this beautiful planet. It’s a gift. My brief existence here will never be sullied by a deliberate mind-game ploy of twisting it into something it isn’t.
Here’s how it is in my life: It’s clear to me, deep down, that 99.9% of everything works perfectly and when something goes wrong, I subconsciously say to myself, “this particular irregularity is nothing—a minor deviation from the perfection that surrounds me!”
And what of the things that are not perfect? An adjustment must be made…and a caution taken against those that would throw everything out to start all over. If the mechanism has basic functionality and overall it’s working, don’t kill it and start over with an experiment. (Some current national politics come to mind.) Instead, just “tweak the innards.”
Gentle people: We are weaned on negativity, and the media and popular culture relentlessly reinforces it throughout our lives and so, simply, we assume that all is not well. I stand outside this mass misconception. This is a beautiful world and it’s a privilege to be here because, truth is – if one just looks around and gets out of one’s head– it’s amazing how much goes right.
Will you join me?
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Totally agree. I had to comment on this one…
This author is a passive-income guy (making all his money online), so it’s easy for him to sit in his chair pontificating to an audience of people who live that same lifestyle. But the rest of us who don’t largely live in our minds must act otherwise. But that’s a separate issue.
I think life can and should be enjoyed (not just “balanced”) without having to trick your mind into enjoying it.
You can see an opportunity for improvement without having to first see something as broken. You can certainly see people as imperfect (late, clumsy, forgetful, impatient, etc.) and that doesn’t mean they’re broken either.
Seems much healthier to appreciate the good in the world and to give people a good reputation to live up to while also accepting imperfections. Imagine telling someone, “It’s alright that you lost this important client. I expected you to,” or saying to one of your children, “It’s okay that you were rude to your brother, I expected you to be. You’re broken.”
And imagine others adopting this concept, looking at YOU as though you’re broken. Unhealthy perspective, and a strange way to gain peace of mind, in my view.
Brandon: Not true that I make “all my money online.” I have a brick and mortar business (www.centratel.com) with 30 employees, and I am decidedly uncomfortable “sitting in a chair pontificating.” On December 1st, I will have had the business for 25 years. In fact, I have zero on-line income. Thanks for your other comments.
Sam,
I took Brandon’s comments to be about the new-agey life guru you were commenting about, not about you and your business. I read WTS and I have to say the similarities between the bad old days at Centratel and the past few years at my business are striking. I read your book as sort of a manifesto for us entrepreneurs who are to dumb to know the odds against us. Your outside-and-slightly-elevated point of view is very helpful in dealing with the clamor that besets me every Monday. Thanks Sam.
George
I am tired of all the new agey garbage floating around our whole country these days. There is nothing new or liberal about these ideas, they’ve been wrecking society for a long time.
This kind of thinking, is the same thinking that the one worlders use to say we are running our of air, water and room.
I’ve flown and drove across the USA, we’re not running out of room. The world is beautiful, and man hasn’t ruined it.
Life is special, and if we don’t treat it as such, well then we’ll just get repeats of other liberal ideology, like Nazi Germany or the USSR.
I am liberal. I am neither “New Agey” nor “conservatively religious”. I may not believe in a lot of things that some may subscribe to. I am not broken either. I am one man trying to live his life as honestly (not anyone else’s view of what is honest) as I can. I don’t have any visions of going back to where things were. I am not nostalgic for those years. I accepted what ever came my way–positive or negative.
I think life is what it is. I look at people…everyone has dreams…desires…it is difficult to put things together at times…struggling realizing those dreams.
“Life is special, and if we don’t treat it as such, well then we’ll just get repeats of other liberal ideology, like Nazi Germany or the USSR.”–Mike Key
Liberal ideology is neither Nazism nor Communism based. Nazism and Communism have oppressive conservative tenets. CHECK YOUR HISTORY BOOKS.
“Liber” is the greek prefix meaning “FREE” or “OPEN”. Whereas, conservative means:
“disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conservative) .
The United States Constitution and its amendments are a liberal ideology. Capitalism (free enterprise economic model) is a liberal ideology.
I’m buying Mike’s quote, so just go ahead and call me a conservative, interested in promoting individual responsibility and freedon, and discouraging the nanny state which, no question, is the liberal ideal. -s
“call me a ‘conservative’, interested in promoting individual responsibility and freedon”–Sam
I am not a conservative and I believe in individual accountability and freedom.
About the “nanny state” and it being an liberal ideal…I dunno, Sam.
“Nanny state” is a pretty abstract notion…room enough to be a conservative ideal, don’t you think?
“nan·ny state (plural nan·ny states)
noun
Definition:
patronizing government: a government that brings in legislation that it considers is in the people’s best interests but that is regarded by some as interfering and patronizing.” (SOURCE: http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_561505575/nanny_state.html)
“n. Informal
A government perceived as having excessive interest in or control over the welfare of its citizens, especially in the enforcement of extensive public health and safety regulations.”
(SOURCE: http://www.answers.com/topic/nanny-state)
Ian: We can get bogged down in semantics. When I find myself in that kind of discussion, I go back to the system mechanics of my own life. So, without philosophy and word-definition muddying the water, here’s a simple yet major mechanical problem I am experiencing that should help to explain my position: In income taxes next year, I will be sending damn near 50% of my earnings to the government. Here is a large part of the reason for this: 50% of the population pays no taxes at all and in fact, most of these folks are receiving subsidies on one kind or another from the government. And, on the other end of the spectrum, the largest corporations (GM, AIG, etc.) are receiving mega-subsidies from the government. In the middle, paying for all the largess, are people like me.