Adam’s Peace

Note: This is the introduction of a 4 part series, not including this introduction and the conclusion.

Here are links to each article in the series:
Virtue 1: Honesty
Virtue 2: Acceptance / Forgiveness
Virtue 3: Awareness
Virtue 4: Responsibility
Peaceful Virtues: Conclusion

I have come to find that there are certain ways of thinking that lead directly to a sense of inner peace. The good news is that applying these virtues in small doses can lead to large changes in your life.

In the short time since I’ve really started applying these virtues, I have found my own life improve dramatically. I have a clear vision of what I want, and for once, I have a real path to achieving my goals.

No, I didn’t change my goals. I’m still selfishly seeking money. I still want to expose everybody to the idea of personal peace, for the admittedly selfish goal of providing world peace. I still want to play games on my computer, watch R rated movies, and listen to my music as loud as is comfortable. (I must be getting old, though, because ‘comfortable’ when it comes to music has been dropping a few decibels over time.)

I’m still the same person I was, just with a different idea of what day-to-day tasks make me happy.

The Virtues

• Honesty
• Acceptance/Forgiveness
• Awareness
• Responsibility

It’s a nice, short list. That’s always a bonus. Also, following this list can be as easy or as hard as you want to make it. You can dwell on your every act and constantly compare it to this list, or you can incorporate this list into your paradigms for viewing the world and make it largely automatic. There is no best method for applying these virtues, except for the method that works best for you. Personally, I find it easier to refer to this as a checklist whenever I’m making a large decision, or whenever I find myself procrastinating. When I’m making my moment-to-moment decisions, I trust that my momentum is pushing me in the right direction.

Honesty

I think of this as the foundation for the other virtues. There are times when I have to ask myself, am I being honest?

This applies both to my honesty within myself as well as my honesty with other people. If I’m not being honest, then I’m not working with reality, whether that reality is objective or subjective. Let me phrase that again: Honesty is our connection with reality, whether we’re working with our inner imagination, the ideas of other people, or we’re working with the physical laws of the universe.

If we lie to ourselves, we create a different reality… one that we can’t live in. I’ve lied to myself many times, especially when it comes to my knowledge of computers. Humility can be good when you’re trying to be diplomatic, but it is not honest, and it drives a wedge between you and reality. People are comfortable around humble people, because they know that they won’t be challenged, and that they can hold on to their own established perceptions of reality. False pride, as we all know, is also damaging. The key here is to find out the truth of your abilities and live that truth.

Acceptance/Forgiveness

Everybody in society has memories. Without memories, we would not be able to learn, and without learning, growth and improvement are impossible.

There are three things that we can do with our memories: We can love them, hate them, or change them. Of course, if we changed our memories, we would be breaking the first virtue, Honesty, and we would be disconnected from reality.

Our memories are a part of ourselves, and we are never separated from them. If we find ourselves hating our memories, we find that we are hating ourselves. Acceptance and Forgiveness change how we feel about our memories, without changing the memories themselves. Acceptance allows us to learn from an event instead of avoiding it. Forgiveness allows us to remove control that we have given to other people.

It is important to remember that Acceptance and Forgiveness are not the same things as complacency, admitting defeat, or condoning a person’s actions. You are accepting that the situation happened. This does not mean that you have to let that situation happen again… Rather, the goal here is to learn what you can and make certain that things turn out in your favor in the future. This goes right back to honesty… If you avoid thinking about a situation because it causes emotional pain, then you are removing yourself from the reality of what happened. Forgiveness is also not done for the benefit of the person being forgiven, it is being done for you. I have talked about this before, but it seems to me that each person creates a ‘paper doll’ of everyone they meet… a version of that person made up entirely of ideas and memories. Just as all of our thoughts and memories are parts of ourselves, these paper dolls are also a part of ourselves. When you forgive, you are forgiving that paper doll… If that paper doll has power over you, then you reduce that power.

Awareness

Just as Honesty is our foundation, and Acceptance/Forgiveness allow us to live with our pasts, Awareness supports our present.

Nothing exists outside of the present. Everything is happening right now. Our memories are just the momentum of our movement through the time which is always Now. The past doesn’t exist anymore in any universe, and we all know that it will never be tomorrow today.

By Accepting and Forgiving, we give ourselves power to act within the only time we can act: right now. By being aware, we can break our momentum and do the things that we choose to do.

If we’re not aware, then we are simply acting according to the script of everyone’s beliefs. By using our Awareness, we can re-write those scripts and be who we want to be.

Responsibility

As Acceptance/Forgiveness deals with the past, and Awareness deals with the present, we can’t be a whole person without also looking towards the future. Our Responsibility allows us to look ahead and lets us make the decisions right now that allow us to work towards the future.

Remember that you are not responsible for the past… You can only be responsible for what you can change, and the past is one of those things that simply can’t be changed. You can use your responsibility to change the present, but the present is already halfway in the past. Fortunately, the present is also halfway in the future, and the future can always be changed. You are directly responsible for your future, partially responsible for the present, and the past only exists to learn from.

So, where is your momentum leading you? How can you act in the present that will change your future? That’s responsibility.

I will have more posts about these virtues later, and I know that these aren’t the only virtues out there… What virtues can you think of that I missed?

Link Love

Jean of Cheerful Monk writes on a weekly basis about emotional mastery topics. Her posting style is different from most other blogs out there: She introduces a topic, relates a personal (or historical) story, and then asks her readers to share their own personal stories. This week’s topic is on The Power of Forgiveness. The way that Jean relates her own stories, then honestly listens to other people’s stories is something that I respect very much, and the conversations in the comments can leave lasting impressions on everyone participating, leading to insights that wouldn’t be possible from just one author.

Even though I don’t ask for personal stories all of the time, it is her ability to communicate with the participants on her blog that has inspired me to ask questions on my blog as well. I can’t call the people who visit her blog ‘readers,’ because they do so much more than simply read. If you don’t want to share your opinion here, then by all means, share your opinion over on Jean’s site… She will love to listen.

It seems that writing the introduction after I’ve written the body of the post works quite well…

Here is a list of my fears.  Of course, it isn’t a list of all of my fears, and some are serious, while some are just passing fears.  For those who missed to comments in the last section, I have written my wants and my fears as an experiment, and in an attempt to understand myself.   Recently, I have been introduced to the Sedona Method for finding peace within ourselves.  (They market success, but the immediate and long term results are peace, which allow you to get more accomplished.  More on them later…  I’m not done with their program yet, so I can’t do a full review.)  One of the exercises in the program is to improve your relationships by listing all of the good and all of the bad in a person, and releasing the feelings that you hold.  (Through releasing, feelings of peace are magnified while negative emotions are diminished.)

Well, what relationship is more important than your relationship with yourself?

Instead of just separating this into lists of good and bad, I’m adding a few more categories, such as desires, fears, accomplishments and failures.  I won’t subject everyone to more lists right now…  perhaps later I’ll revisit my accomplishments and failures later, since I have other things to say.

So, I’m sure we’re all tired of reading the introduction…  Here’s the list:

• I am afraid of Doctor Who going off the air.

Sorry, I’m a sci/fi nut, and I need my weekly fix. In fact, a great present for me for the holidays would be all of the episodes of Doctor Who made before the new series.

• I am afraid of being judged.

I think this is a pretty common social phobia… although, as I type this out, I can’t help but notice that my language drips of fear. First, I list my fear, then I try to make it seem ‘not so bad’ by saying that everyone has it.

Honestly, maybe fearing judgment from your peers is common, and maybe it isn’t. It is something that I fear, and it has been paralizing me to inaction for most of my life.

• I am afraid of wasps.

I think they look really cool. I realize that, chances are, they aren’t going to sting me if I don’t mess with it. Sometimes, though, I have to mess with them; particularly when my wife notices one inside the house. (We have cats that aren’t afraid of wasps… yet. It’s probably best to let them keep their courage.)

• I am afraid of needles.

This is actually a very recent fear that I’ve developed. You see, I used to never feel needles, and I knew it. I could get a shot or blood drawn without a worry in the world. That changed when I joined the Army though. You see, when you first join up, they give you about a dozen shots, then take a sample of your blood. Well, one of those shots contains a lot of pennicilin, and because of the sheer amount that they inject in you, there is only one place that they can. This was the first needle that I ever felt. In fact, I was so surprised by it, I squirmed, which made it hurt more.

Well, after that shot, I went to stand in line to have my blood drawn and I watched the medical assistants draw people’s blood. The next thing I knew, I was being helped into a chair by a drill seargent, who apparantly watched all of the blood drain from my head and caught me as I was about to fall.

I have felt every needle since then, and if you watch me before, I’ll act calm and collected, but I’ll be nervously laughing and shaking. None have put me into shock since then, but I haven’t been able to watch the needles being put in my arms for a long, long time.

• I am afraid of being lonely.

I don’t mind being alone so much, when I actually seek being alone. I’m afraid of people not being there when I seek them out.

And so, because of this fear, I do two things which seem to guarentee that I’m lonely. I either don’t form strong friendships, or I become obsessive.

Okay, honest show of hands… How many people out there feel that I’ve actually sought out their friendship? How many people just saw me being nice to them, like any stranger would be nice? I can think of a small group of people who I’ve triend to be friends with through this blog… people who I hope would call me friends as well. Within that small group, though, I have kept my distance, because I’m afraid of what they might think of me if they knew the real me. (Of course, the recent posts have changed that… I’m trying to write about the real me… but I’m still unsure of what people think of me.)

• I am afraid of minor injuries.

I’m not really afraid of major injuries. I’m just afraid of stinging pain, like from being slapped. I egg my wife on to hit me in the arm to show how tough I am, but if she slapped my arm instead of punching it, it would hurt more.

• I am afraid of my wife.

I know that I shouldn’t be. All that she wants for me is for me to be successful, and to clean out the litter box on a regular basis.  I take the things that she says very personally, because she knows me quite well.  Sometimes, I think she knows me better than I know myself.

As I realize my fear of her, I’m more able to take charge in our relationship…  That doesn’t mean that I tell her what to do, and she certainly doesn’t spend her days barefoot in the kitchen.  What I mean by taking charge is, when I want something, I let her know about it, and give her an opportunity to share it with me.  If she doesn’t want to go to the store with me, of course I’ll give her sad puppy-dog eyes and quiver my lip…  but she’ll just laugh, knowing that I’m only joking.  Probably the most important lesson I have learned from her is to do things right away, or if I can’t, then to set a reminder somewhere, and as soon as I am reminded, do it then.  (In fact, I just set a reminder on my PDA to clean the litterbox daily at 7pm.  I put it off yesterday until I forgot, so obviously I still need to work on my procrastination.)

I’ve said before that I’m afraid of disapointing my wife.  While that is still true, that is only a broad category of specific fears.  I am afraid of forgetting about cleaning the litterbox…  and so, I amplify my anxiety with the litterbox, making it harder to find motivation.  (I know, I can’t find motivation, I simply have to do it…   The problem is, when I’m afraid of something, my automatic reaction is to look for strength outside of myself.)  I am afraid of not finishing my degree, so naturally, the anxiety around that is amplified, causing me to put off calling the student services department.  (Now, I’m not afraid of my school, I’m angry at them.  I’m trying to move towards acceptance, so that I can have my records moved to a different campus, but for once, it feels good to be angry.)

• I am afraid of being absent minded.

Unlike my other fears, where dwelling on it makes the situation worse, it really doesn’t matter how afraid of being absent minded I am.  When I stop recognizing that I’m absent minded, I’m absent minded.

From observing other people, I have found that a good portion of the population is able to keep track of what they want to do in the back of their minds.  If this seems obvious to you, then you are probably one of the people I’m talking about.  This simply isn’t the case with me.  I can not keep track of two different ideas at the same time.  This has its benefits and its drawbacks, and I really wouldn’t want to change the way that I think.  I’m capable of envisioning complex abstract ideas, such as a complete computer program or interactions in the global economy…  but the tradeoff is that, at the same time, I can’t even begin to comprehend that there might be other tasks for me to do at the same time.  While I’m programming, my wife could walk in the room, ask me to do something, and I might even respond, but one minute later, I can’t remember that the conversation even took place.  Laundry often lays around for days before I’m able to remember it, and I’ve mentioned the litterbox quite enough already.

The only way that I have found to get around my absent mindedness is to not procrastinate, and take some time during each day to take an inventory of what I want to accomplish.  Of course, I haven’t actually been taking an inventory of the day’s tasks, and procrastination is still a problem, but at least I know what works.  Since wisdom is the application of knowledge, I’d have to say that I’m very smart, but mst definitely not wise. 

This is a list of things that I want, as I promised in my last post. It is not complete, since I have many desires that come and go, and writing a complete list would take a lifetime.

• I want to write TimeAgent.

For those who don’t know, TimeAgent is the name for a personal information manager that I am programming. I enjoy programming, and I recognize a need within myself to manage the information that comes into my life.

• I want to finish TimeAgent.

This actually contradicts my desire to write TimeAgent. Writing and finishing aren’t the same. When something is finished, you can’t do it any more, so I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the process of writing when I’m already done… Yet, part of the reason for wanting to write this program is so that I can use it, and also so that I can sell copies of it. I’m resolving the conflict of both wanting to write it and wanting to finish it by promising to keep new version after I have a finished product.

• I want to be rich.

Yes, I live in a materialistic world. I don’t think that being rich will mean that I’m successful. Rather, I have a lot of fears associated with being rich, which I’ll expand on in my next post when I list my fears. To me, being rich means that I have to spend a minimal amount of effort to have enough money to meet all of my needs and a fairly reasonable number of desires.

• I want a new computer.

Actually, I want three new computers. One of them would be optimized for editing pictures. The second would be optimized for playing the latest games. The third would be optimized for writing programs. Fortunately, the hardware would all be the same. I have a wishlist on TigerDirect.com of all of the items that I want that would make up these computers. (Some of the items are no longer available for sale on their site) If you would like to buy me something from this wishlist, please feel free to contact me… although the items are somewhat expensive, so I would not blame anyone for taking one look at the list and calling me a hopeless dreamer. (All told, the computer built from those parts would cost just under ten thousand dollars. The single most expensive item is a huge monitor, and I would want two of them for each computer I want to build.) By the time I built it, of course, it would be obsolete, but one can always dream, right?

• I want a new car.

The car that I would want hasn’t been built yet… It is the next generation of hybrid cars, built with lightweight composites and even more aerodynamic. The biggest plus is the gas milage, with some projections stating around one hundred miles per gallon, though most say that it will get a modest sixty miles to the gallon. The up front cost will be high, but with the prices of gas today, well, it will pay for itself.

• I want to be more bold.

Posting my wishlist for computer parts was a good start. If I don’t let my desires be known, then nobody will help me out. If I can’t get up the courage to ask for help, then I won’t get any help. This deals with my fears as well, and will appear on my next post.

• I want more friends.

Sorry, folks, but it is kind of hard to go bowling with someone who lives in New England when I’m living in Arizona. That, and my wife’s friends are kind of boring. It’s time that I made some friends of my own. Preferably ones who don’t think that an octet is a singing group made up of eight people, and who think that every object should have methods and properties. (If that went over your head, don’t worry, I intentionally threw in jargon that only a few select people know. I probably don’t know the jargon of your field of study either.) This will also appear in my list of fears.

• I want to own a house.

Notice that I didn’t say rent a house or have a mortgage on a house. I want to buy a house with cash, and not owe anybody any more money on it (except for the occasional property tax). I have several designs for a house in mind, but perhaps it would be better to get a more popular house. How would I buy a house without a mortgage? Simple: Save up enough money to buy it. That way, I make interest off of what I put in the bank, instead of the banks making interest off of money that I have promised to pay them. Using this system, I could pay for a house in ten years, compared to paying off the same amount in a mortgage over thirty years, without setting any extra money asside above the standard monthly payment. I would have a lot more money left over to spend on furnishing it too, since I’m planning on living in smaller rental houses until I can afford to buy the house of my dreams.

• I want to create a program that would tie all of the child and family development programs in the company I’m working for together.

In fact, that’s what I’m doing now… At least, I’m in the first stage: getting the Head Start program’s data into a new database that is designed to be expanded. Right now, each department runs its own separate database for the children and families they serve. That’s all great and wonderful, except when a family is using services from more than one department. When that is the case, if there is an update to the family that one department learns about, it could take some time for the other departments to learn about it, where with the database system I’m planning, each department’s set of information would be updated automatically.

Also, the older databases were designed by people who only had a rudimentary understanding of database design. I have seen some… problem that should have been avoided in the beginning.

This goal is independent of my goal to get rich. I don’t care how much money I make doing this, as long as it meets my needs and some of my desires. Another great aspect of this job is that I can continue to pursue entreprenurial ideas (such as TimeAgent), because they don’t conflict. The skills that I learn doing these projects will help me with developing software on the side, and the skills that I learn on my side projects will help me with developing the software at my job. It is both a means to an end, and an end within itself.

• I want to decide whether to follow my ego or not.

For quite a while, I have been looking at how I interact with my ego. From one side, I hear that the ego is bad. From another side, I hear that the ego is essential to survival. Still a third, although much smaller, side says that the ego is neither good nor bad, because the ego is what defines good and bad.

Well, the more that I look at the truth of my life, the more that I wonder if I can’t use my ego in a good way. Being humble is a lie that my ego provides me so that I don’t stick out. Being prideful is also a lie that my ego gives me so that I’ll follow the social norms. Something that I have often been humble about in a bad way is my intelligence. I still feel bad saying this, but I’m pretty smart, ranging around the top 90% of the population of the U.S. (based on ASVAB scores and on IQ tests). I’m a very good programmer: I build programs quickly and make them robust. (Of course, that means that I’m not cheap, unless I believe in the cause. To paraphrase some programming guru who’s name escapes me at the moment, you can commision software to be written quickly, robustly, or inexpensively; pick any two.)

At the same time, I have a lot of false pride. I’m proud of how humble I am. Obviously this contradicts itself. I have been proud of being involved in personal development, but if I’m not actually making progress, then just how much of that pride was simply my way of avoiding my problems?

Instead of pride and humility, I’ll move my ego to be based on something that doesn’t change very often… and if my understanding of it changes, then my ego will force me to follow: the truth. Scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth. (”It is the guiding principal upon which Starfleet is based, and if you can’t find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth, you don’t deserve to wear that uniform.” Sorry for the Star Trek quote… It just got stuck there.)