I happened to see an interview of the leading “life coach” guy in a magazine. Despite the white-smile-suit-and-tie look I decided to see what he had to say, because being impractical causes me a fair amount of anxiety. Most of it was the typical North American “inner giant” type of self-help that I can’t say I exactly relish but one thing he said really struck me both as a human being and a spiritual practitioner: The most important thing is that you keep your promises to yourself. Sounds very simplistic, but after I started paying attention to that principle in my everyday life, I realized how much we cheat ourselves. “I’ll do it tomorrow”, sounds familiar? So many of the modern lifestyle problems come from not being able to keep promises.
Starting projects, keeping a good schedule, updating your blog, and above all, flossing daily (!) can deteriorate surprisingly fast into a random mass of anxiety-driven last minute frenzy.
Postponing duties and other boring obligations is just another symptom of the 21st century mindset: a search for a quick fix. But I’ve come to realize from erring time after time that a more sustainable comfort and satisfaction comes from self-discipline. This really holds true with spiritual practice as well. It so easy to slap your practice always into the following day, or do a little less every day, or even multitask while “meditating”. But if I don’t keep my promises to myself, I can’t expect too much from anything I do.
It just really seems like our times are plagued with a kind of an instant satisfaction- thinking. Paradoxically it has lead to a massive amount of dissatisfaction and a loss of focus. Especially within serious spiritual practice the effects of the times show, because there are no instant fixes to the problems of material ignorance. I did see an add once that said, “learn to meditate like a guru in 45 minutes!” but that’s just a sad example of how out of touch we are.
To balance this all out, it’s not so hard to go to the other extreme either by making too demanding promises. And in no time the constructive self-discipline turns into destructive self-loathing. I guess my next promise to myself could be that I will be reasonable with myself regarding my spiritual practice. Now that’s a tough one.
Recent Comments