Purposeful Growth

Our minds love to judge–assess, evaluate, and decide. Give events a label, put people in categories–that’s what minds do. Many times we use our minds when using our hearts would serve us better. Use your mind to solve a problem–such as what to wear to a party, how to invest the raise you just received, what to do about the funny noise in your car, or how to prepare for a forthcoming job interview. But don’t use your mind to assess, evaluate, and decide that events and other people are good or bad. This is an improper use of the mind–a use which robs you of the natural joy of life.

If you want an easy life, a life without struggle, then judge nothing–no event, no circumstance of life, and no other person–

regardless of how foreign the observation may be to you. Observe the facts of a situation, but refrain from drawing conclusions that label the situation as right,
wrong, good, or bad. Deciding that something is right or wrong for you–given who you choose to be–is one thing, deciding what’s right for another is something to avoid. 

An example may help. Let’s say you see an older man with long hair–hair down to his shoulders. The factual observation you can make is, “that man has hair down to his shoulders.” Taking it one step further, such as, “what’s he trying to prove?” or “there goes another 60’s hippie”, or “he must be gay,” is a step that contributes to the difficulty of your life–not his life, but your life.

Why? Well, as soon as you make that judgment, your mind will start a process of justifying, rationalizing, and confirming. This process will consume surprising amounts of emotion and creative energy, and will extend well beyond the initial observation and judgment. You’ll point out the long-haired offender to others, explaining the offense committed, and seeking approval and confirmation. You’ll be on the lookout for other behaviors from the offender that further reinforce your judgment.

Catch yourself going through this process some time, and then do the following: observe how you feel and notice the tension in your muscles–especially your facial muscles. You may find you feel slightly superior, but I doubt you’ll feel
anything close to joy or love. Notice that your face is tense, your mouth is grim and determined, and your teeth may even be clenched. See the problem now?

If you want an easy life, accept what is and trust that it’s simply perfect. Know that every person is being who they must be at this time–and doing their very best at it. Just as you are

doing your very best at all times–even when it’s not the best you can do–so is everyone else. Use your
mind’s natural problem-solving skills to solve problems. For everything else in your life, use your heart–simply accept and love–unconditionally. 

I promise you that you’ll feel lighter–judging others is a burden.

Related Article:

Ten Steps to an Easy Life

Yesterday, July 27, 2006, I modified my feed process to utilize Feedburner. Feedburner offers several advantages to me as a publisher and to readers. BUT, I fear it negatively impacts those who established a feed prior to this change. Though this site has only been live for about a month, several dozen feeds have been active each day.

It appears there is no easy solution, for which I sincerely apologize. I had hoped that the feedburner plug-in would take care of previous as well as new feed subscribers. Not so. I’ve been reading the FAQ on Feedburner’s site, but confess I’m a bit intimidated by the steps suggested there. If you have any advice to help me work through this I sure would appreciate your input to jerry@purposefulgrowth.com.

I will be working to find a solution for feed subscribers prior to July 27, so that you need not re-subscribe. But my techie skills are somewhat limited. I hope for your patience and continuing support. For now, I suggest you subscribe again using either of the two Feedburner features described next.

EMAIL Feeds: By subscribing with an email address in the yellow box, top right of this site, you will receive a daily email if new information has been posted. The email will show posting title, brief summary, and a link to read the full article if it’s of interest. The email will come from jerry@purposefulgrowth.com, so put that in your safe list if you subscribe to feeds this way. The other way to keep up to date on new material on this site is…

FEED Aggregators: Clicking the small orange button, lower right side of the site, will subscribe you to feeds through existing aggregators such as My.Yahoo, MSN, Google, etc. When you subscribe you will get the choice of aggregators to use. Use this process if you already get RSS feeds and want to add my site to your existing feed summaries. Again, the update is daily and includes a title, link, and brief summary of the new material.

Thanks for your patience and support. My intent is to provide you with useful personal development information. I’m encouraged by the level of early support for this site and hope to retain you as a regular reader as well as to reach new readers.

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Though comments are turned off because of Spammers, I answer all email sent to jerry@purposefulgrowth.com.