Posts Tagged ‘becoming’

Working On Yourself This Year

December 29, 2016

The real motorcycle you’re working on is a cycle called “yourself.”  — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

There were weight-loss ads on TV yesterday. Getting ready for New Year’s Resolution season.

I bet you are contemplating a list of resolutions for next year. 

New Year’s Resolutions are great. They give you something to talk about at New Year’s Eve parties. Maybe they last until as late as January 10.

My Yoga class will double in size the second week of January. It will return to normal by the fourth week.

The study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself. Working on a motorcycle, working well, caring, is to become part of the process, to achieve an inner peace of mind. The motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Making a list, even in classic goal-setting language, is merely a list. “I will lose 10 lbs.” “I will read more books.” Whatever. Doesn’t work.

As Pirsig discussed using motorcycle maintenance as a metaphor, you really need to change you.

Jesus knew. If you want to change, you must change your heart.

It begins with a decision.

What sort of person do I wish to be?

Write that image. Embed it in your mind–conscious and subconscious.

Each time you are faced with a decision, remember what kind of person you are.

Should I go to the gym? I am the type of person who exercises for optimum health and fitness.

Should I work on this service or mission project? I am the type of person who helps others.

Do I stop and talk with God every morning and/or evening? I am the type of person who lives with God.

Within 60 days, you will become that person you wish to be. Not completely, of course. You won’t lose 50 lbs. But the change will be noticeable to both yourself and to others. 

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Distractions Steal Your Awareness

May 28, 2015

They had important guests. A bunch of guys they knew had dropped by for a couple of days of relaxation and conversation. These were friends. But still, one had to show appropriate hospitality.

Two sisters and a brother lived in the house. One sister was busy doing the right thing. She was being hospitable. She asked the guests what they wanted to drink. She scurried around assembling a dinner for 13 guests.

Like most women in the situation, she was a bit frazzled. And a bit upset. No, more than a bit.

What was that worthless sister of hers doing sitting there talking with the guests leaving her with all the work? Doesn’t she know that men sit around and talk. Women prepare the meal. That’s the way it was then. That’s the way it had been for 1,000 years before.

So, she goes to the head guy and asks him to tell her sister to go help.

“Martha, Martha,” Jesus replied. You know you’re in trouble when he repeats your name. “You are distracted by many things. Your sister Mary has chosen the better way.”

Mary was focused on learning and growing and on the relationship they had with Jesus.

There Martha was, a chance to learn from the world’s greatest teacher. Right there in her living room. And she was distracted.

The guests would have been happy with whatever they could pull together to eat.

Distraction steals from your awareness. It therefore steals from the future. Awareness leads to focus. Focus leads to becoming. By focusing on the right things, a person can grow to be all that God created them to be.

What is today’s distraction? Or, even what is the distraction of the minute?

I sometimes need noise around in order to focus better. I can sit for two hours at a noisy coffee shop and focus better than in the quiet of my office. There are all those opportunities for distraction that I can tune out. In the quiet of my office, I can glance up at a familiar painting or at my bookcase, and my mind can go off on some tangent. I’m distracted.

Then I remember, don’t let distraction be a thief.

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