Adam’s Peace

Note: This is the conclusion of a 4 part series. The introduction is titled Peaceful Virtues, and has links to the rest of the articles in the series.

To recap the series, we talked about virtues that lead to peace. These virtues include Honesty, Acceptance and Forgiveness, Awareness, and Responsibility.

This is a road-map that I’ve found that has led me to my first true inner success. This is only the first of many successes that I’m sure to accomplish in my life, and each additional success will require modifications to these virtues.

There are two appropriate analogies that I could use. One would be climbing several flights of stairs, and the other would be climbing different mountains. Out of those two, it seems that climbing different mountains most closely matches the process.

In each post, I’ve explained how each virtue builds upon the last one. What I didn’t explain is that each virtue builds upon the others no matter what order you put them in.

Virtues Building Other Virtues

Honesty is the foundation for all of the virtues. It is what ties us together with reality and the rest of the universe. Naturally, the other virtues are built upon the foundation… Yet, the other virtues also build Honesty. Acceptance leads to understanding what is in your past, which leads to being honest about who you were. Awareness leads to understanding the world right now, and just like Acceptance, this leads to being honest about who you are now. Responsibility puts order to our future and utilizes our imaginations. Again, this also leads to honesty, by being true to who we want to be.

Acceptance, of course, is built on the foundation of honesty, yet it ties directly with Awareness, giving us an anchor and context so that we can tell what events happening right now mean. It also leads into Responsibility, by showing us what has worked in the past, where we have learned the hard lessons, and giving insight into what we should do next.

Awareness, while naturally being built upon honesty and building it as well, gives us the power to use our memories and imagination. It is while we are being aware that we can accept our past and be responsible for our future.

It follows that Responsibility gives us a purpose… With Responsibility, we have a reason to be Honest, a reason to Accept and Forgive, and a reason to be Aware.

I gave each of these virtues an arbitrary order, putting the foundation first. I did this more because it is impossible to describe all four virtues together, than because any one should be built before the other. When we are building the house, we see the foundation being poured, followed by the frame, then the electrical system, then the walls, and finally, the carpets and paint… Yet, the lumber is cut before the foundation is poured… Without that lumber existing first, or at least without being certain that the lumber will arrive, it is futile to build the foundation. The wires for the electrical system are built before the foundation is poured as well, and the carpets and paint are also created first.

And, interestingly enough, the plumbing is put in place both before and after the foundation is poured. It becomes part of the foundation, then is contained within the walls, and finally, as the sinks, toilets, and showers are installed, it extends out of the walls. The plumbing is built upon throughout the process of building the house.

None of these pieces, by themselves, are the house… Just like none of these virtues, by themselves, ensure peace and success. We can not take on the virtue of honesty, our foundation, without also pursuing the virtues of Acceptance, Awareness, and Responsibility. Without combining the virtues, each one is useless.

Building the House

Making concrete for a foundation is easy… Simply mix the right ingredients with water, pour it on the ground surrounded by a wooden barrier, and smooth out the top. Time will harden it, you’ll be able to remove the wood, and you’ll have a foundation. A lot of the work is done automatically, simply by letting time take hold. Honesty works the same way: Figure out what it means to be honest with yourself, set limits, and start being honest. As honesty becomes a habit, it becomes harder and harder to be dishonest, and you can remove those limits.

Making the frame for the house is a little more complicated. For our analogy, the frame is acceptance. First, you need to have the lumber… Since we all have memories, we already have all of the lumber that we need. Next, we need to anchor the lumber to the foundation. In terms of our memories, that means being honest with what has happened, which can only be done by accepting and forgiving. We also need to anchor the frame to itself. This is a process that takes time… Just as each piece of lumber has to be nailed to its neighbors, our memories have to be associated with each other.

There is a trick in building frames, however, that greatly speeds up the process. Instead of anchoring the lumber to the foundation first and building up the frame from there, most walls are built laying flat on the ground, then are tilted upright and anchored as they’re completed. Roofs are often built in factories well away from the construction site, and simply anchored to the walls and neighboring roof pieces… The roofs can be seen as an analogy for formal education… They’re pre-built for a wide variety of circumstances. Religions also serve this purpose, with their various mythologies providing common points of reference.

The wiring… the power for the house… can be put in when the frame is stable enough. Yet, the wires themselves aren’t built at the same time as they’re installed. We all have experienced moments of awareness, where we suddenly realize that we’re not thinking, just observing and acting. We already have all of the wires for our house… we can provide as much or as little power as we want. We simply have to turn on the switch.

The drywall (gypsum board, etc.,) keeps us from walking through the frames, giving us privacy and structure as we live within the house. It removes chaos, allowing us to plan and have purpose as we live within our house, just as responsibility gives us purpose.

Gathering the Materials

Now, all of this can’t be done in a day, and it can’t be done all at the same time. Before we can build our house, or combine all of our virtues together, we need the tools and materials. Simply combining all of the materials together takes time… We need to figure out what honesty means to us personally before we can apply it, just as we need to know the ingredients in cement before we can mix it. We need to figure out how to accept and forgive, and we have to practice, before we can start using acceptance in our daily lives. We need to recognize awareness before we can expect to expand those moments of awareness. We need to know the tricks of personal development before we can apply them and be responsible for our lives.

It has taken me nearly two years to gather all of the materials together, yet I was at a disadvantage: I didn’t know what virtues I should work on, and it took me a long time to realize when I had practiced the right virtues enough to put them together.

Once I realized that I had all of the right materials sitting at my feet, it was a simple task to put them all together… Yet, just looking at a pile of wood beams, cement, wires, and drywall didn’t mean that I thought I should build a house… Looking at honesty by itself, I don’t think about inner peace… I think fairness in dealing with other people… business and trade. Looking at acceptance by itself, it doesn’t seem to lead to inner peace, it seems to lead towards political power. Awareness leads towards action, and responsibility leads towards money.

Now that I have put them together, it seems obvious how they fit, and how perfectly they apply to inner peace. As separate parts, though, it is hard to image the whole process.

Climbing Mountains

Back to the analogy that I mentioned earlier.

I see this as simply the first of many successes. Each success can be seen as trying to climb to the tallest mountain. Sometimes, when climbing a mountain, we have to travel back down because a path that we thought would be easy was really just hiding a cliff that we can’t climb. Backtracking and finding a different path is common, especially on larger mountains because these cliffs are more common.

Once we reach the summit, we gain a clear picture of the world around us. We can see into the valleys around us… but more importantly, we can see how high the other mountains around us extend. Our normal, human reaction is to want to climb to the highest point… Yet when we reach the highest point of this mountain, we often find other mountains that are even higher.

That’s where I am right now. I can see the path that I took, and I know that I made a good climb… but I also see how much higher I can go. In order to get there, though, I have to climb down the mountain I’m on.

Fortunately, I don’t have to return to the valley I started in. Instead, to get to the next highest mountain, I can walk along the ridge between mountains, still staying quite high and conserving my energy for the next climb. I expect to do this many times… To get to a peak in my development, then seek the next peak.

Each mountain has its own terrain… Each one needs a different map, although many maps will have the same qualities. The details will differ, but the general shape of a mountain doesn’t change, so experience climbing one mountain will help in climbing its neighbors.

Perhaps future mountains will need completely different approaches. After all, climbing a hill is a lot different from climbing a glacier-topped mountain… Yet, people who are just starting to climb mountains should not attempt the snow-capped ones until they have attempted the ones local to their area.

I am putting a mark down right here, and I am saying that this is the map to the first mountain. It is a two-year climb for the unprepared, perhaps faster for those who have studied the map and know what to expect. It is a huge victory, but now, I am going on towards taller mountains.

I came across an article on boosting willpower recently which cites some interesting scientific findings.

It seems that our willpower, that intangible factor of whether we’ll follow through on a decision or not, behaves more like a muscle than most people would expect.

Unfortunately, I could not read the study itself, because I would need to either pay $29 for that one journal article, or I would need to subscribe to the entire journal. I was able to piece together many of the findings by reading various other articles, however.

The Experiment and Findings

The basic experiment goes something like this: Gather two groups of individuals. Give the first group a task that requires self control, and give the second group a neutral task. Then, give both groups another task which requires self control.

If willpower were an emotional state, then we would expect the group that had been ‘primed’ by already showing self control to perform better on the second task. An analogy would be comparing the moods of people during a comedy show, and having half of the audience come in directly from another comedy show… The expected result is that the group that is already happy would continue to be happy throughout, or even become more happy, while the group that simply walked in from the street would have to work up to being happy.

In these experiments with self control, though, we see the opposite happening. The group which already showed restraint and discipline did worse on the second activity than the group which was free to do as they wished before hand.

The analogy behind this behavior would be asking two groups to run up several flights of stairs, except that one group would first have to do several sets of push-ups. The group which did the extra work before hand would have a lower blood sugar level, so would perform worse on their second task, if everything else were equal.

Now, keep in mind that this only shows one out of many different factors behind our willpower. This study isn’t creating a new model for what motivates us, it is simply adding more insight to an already huge model.

Other Findings

The study also found other factors. Those who have developed their willpower over time were less likely to get burned out and will be able to have more intense bursts of self-control. This is similar to a muscle developed over time becoming stronger and gaining more endurance.

Blood glucose levels play a seemingly direct role in revitalizing willpower. One experiment gave different groups a drink containing either real sugar or a sugar substitute, and those who had the real sugar performed better.

Mood plays a role as well. Those who are generally happier tended to perform better than those who were unhappy. The conclusion drawn from this, however, is still wildly debatable, as it only shows a correlation and not a cause. Perhaps mood directly reinforces willpower, or the factors that increase mood also increase willpower.

How to Apply This

Well, don’t give up your current self-motivating routine. Remember, this is just further insight into willpower, and is not a replacement of current knowledge.

With that being said, though, it seems that the best way to apply these findings is by treating our willpower the same way that we treat our muscles. That is, if we want more intense bursts of self discipline, we should perform a sort of ‘weight training’ routine. If we want to resist burnout, then we could apply something similar to a cardio routine.

As with any exercise routine, proper stretching is vital, and for those whose health prohibits the main routine, the stretching itself can be used as conditioning so that we can eventually start a main routine.

When applied to willpower, the best “stretching” would be a morning routine. For me, this routine would be, first, wake up at the same time each day, then eat breakfast, which improves the blood sugar levels, allowing me to get direct energy to feed my willpower “muscle.” During breakfast, I would evaluate my goals and plans, and set up a very-short-term plan that would extend until my next meal. After breakfast, I would clean the litterbox (first activity to get my muscles warmed up), and get completely ready for the day.

Once I have done this section of my morning routine, since I’m currently doing a 30 day trial to wake up early and work on TimeAgent, I would move straight to programming until it is either time to leave for work, or on the weekends, I would work until the sun comes up.

At this point, my main day would begin, and I would work on the various tasks in front of me until lunch, when I re-energize, “stretch” again, and plan my day until dinner. After dinner, my cool-down exercises would be straightening up the house, followed by doing whatever I want to do at the time.

Also, just as with exercise, it is important to work up to your limits gradually. Also, know which limits can not be improved. Just as a person can cause damage to their muscles from attempting to lift weights when they’re not ready, it is also possible to hurt the willpower “muscle” by attempting feats of discipline that are beyond a certain level. Personally, if I were immediately thrown into a CEO position of a large company, I would drive that company into the ground, and the fear of failure would likely keep me from ever trying again. Each time I fail to quit smoking, it gets hard for me to quit the next time… I’m damaging my willpower by lifting weights that are too large. That doesn’t mean that I can never lift those proverbial weights… It means that I have to improve my self-discipline by being successful in other areas first.

The bottom line: Train your self-discipline like you would train for a marathon: Start by jogging around the block.

As far as knowing which limits can’t be improved… I’m injured from running too much. If I simply started running again, I would quickly aggravate my injury and end up in worse shape… As I said in Wednesday’s post about Financial Peace, if I paid myself first and pay the people I owe money to last, I would end up running away from the problem as the stress builds, again making the situation worse. Instead, I work around these two problems. I work around my physical injury by riding an exercise bike, and I work around my avoidance issues by paying myself and the people I owe at the same time.

Perhaps, in time, my hip will heal enough that I can run regularly again… and perhaps by increasing my willpower in other areas, I can be more resistant to the urge to run away from my debts. Ideally, I can work on my avoidance issues directly, so that I won’t have to worry about it later. Right now, though, they are limits that I simply can’t push against without making the situations worse.

Link Love

I’d like to thank Scott H. Young, writing on his eponymous site, for bringing attention to the study. His article, Sprinting Theory: How to Have Self-Discipline on Steroids, is a great example of a clear writing style combined with a definite goal of improving oneself. Together with his various tips on how to manage specific aspects of your life, his site is certainly one worth paying attention to, from an information junkie point of view.

Week-End 30 Day Trial Report

For those interested, here’s how I’ve done so far.

This weekend, I slept in until 7am on Saturday and Sunday, and did not program. In fact, I did much of nothing the entire weekend, and it felt good. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the most productive use of my time, but I was certainly more alert on Monday.

Mon through Wed: I woke up at 4:30 instead of my promised time of 4:00. I did less work in the mornings as well, and was less alert during the days, although with my no-worries weekend, I was far more motivated after lunch on Monday.

Thursday and Friday: I woke up at 4:00. Thursday, instead of programming first thing in the morning, I did research for this post and wrote most of its content. Today, I finished off this post’s content, cleaned the litter box,

The rent is paid, and we bought enough groceries to last us through this next week, barely. This leaves us with around $60 in our main account. This needs to last for one week from today, until I get paid again… Fortunately, the only expenses we expect are fuel, maybe groceries, and cigarettes, although with fuel prices taking at least $30 out of our account each week, we are admittedly cutting it closer than I would like.

This being the third day of our budget awakening, we of course have no savings, no stocks, no IRA… nothing. We have about $10 scattered in our two savings accounts and the less-used checking account.

Today is also our Big Budget day of the month… I don’t expect to have anything new to report, though, as we have to wait until next month to have a fully accurate list of our spending habits. Tomorrow, I’ll be taking $40 out of the ATM for fuel for the coming week, and will be using the rest on cigarettes, although we will be using our debit card, as I don’t want to completely empty out the bank account too early.

I just wrote about my spiritual history, and the cusps that have lead me to where I am now. I’ve been on the move for most of my life, searching for something outside of myself, in the past and future. I have finally found what I have been looking for. Inner peace is here and now.

The post that I wrote two days ago, on how I could not find that sense of peace, nor a sense of anything else, was indeed the calm before the storm… and the storm is only beginning. It prompted me to travel my past, to understand why I came to where I am now. It prompted me to travel my future, to understand what I am doing now. These last two days, I have retraced the steps around the world that I have made as a soldier.

I know guilt and sin. I am not a perfect person. I know peace and forgiveness. I am whole.

After writing on how I didn’t have a sense of peace two days ago, at how vague the whole experience was, I was strongly compelled to write to Slade and Jeff to ask them for help. The email that I sent each was short and simple, explaining that I didn’t know what to do next… They gave two different replies, and individually, they do not equal what they had both come up with together.

I had the energy… Slade provided me with the method to use that energy… Jeff provided me with the direction to apply the energy. I realize that this seems a bit vague and ambiguous, but I’ll explain shortly.

My life purpose is to bring peace to everybody… Since taking on that purpose, I have started this blog in the hopes that I could bring peace, so that I could find peace myself. I realize that I had it backwards, and I knew at the beginning that it was backwards as well… Peace is not found outside of yourself. However, the clues to finding peace could indeed be external.

Take care of your body, for it is your vehicle to finding these clues.

Take care of your mind, for it is there to find the riddles behind the clues.

Take care of your environment, for it is the tool through which you experiment, to work through these clues.

Take care of your spirit, for it holds the key to unlocking peace.

Without your body, mind, environment, and spirit, you can not find the door within yourself that leads to peace… If one is lacking, then peace can not be obtained.

Take care of your body the same way that you would make a sword… Give it good ingredients, or the foundation will be corrupt. Stretch it, beat it, and strain it, but also let it rest… If you do not apply enough stress, it will be weak and soft. If you do not let it rest, it will be brittle, easy to break. Eat healthy food and exercise often, but do not push past your limits.

Take care of your mind the same way that you take care of your body… Give your mind good information and challenge it with puzzles. Avoid the bad, such as uninformative television and fear-based propaganda. Read books, write, and pick up a hobby that makes you think, such as the currently popular Soduko puzzles. If you are addicted to TV, and don’t want to give it up, watch trivia game shows and informative documentaries, such as those found on The Science Channel. Play as well… Letting your mind rest helps it to sort things out. Of course, also get enough sleep is important as well, but too much sleep can cause just as much trouble as not enough.

Take care of your environment by keeping it clean and orderly, and by maintaining and strengthening your relationships. Don’t be afraid to cut off relationships that are harmful or abusive, but don’t be afraid of gaining new relationships either. Manage your relationships judiciously as well… Don’t take responsibility for other people’s thoughts, since you can’t control what goes on in their head, but do recognize how their thoughts and resulting actions affect you. There are many, many self-help books out there that are devoted to finding equilibrium with your environment, whether it be financially, romantically, or organizational.

Take care of your spirit… There’s a tricky one. More than anything else, spirituality is subjective. There is no single right answer for everybody… but at the same time, there is no wrong answer either. The best advice that I can give everybody is to simply pay attention. Just like you can’t not communicate, and you can’t not practice, you can’t not grow spiritually. You can, however, slow down to the point where it seems like you’re standing still.

Taking care of the mind and body may seem to be concentrating on opposites… Taking care of the physical and spiritual may seem to be exclusive as well… but it is only when they are all together that you can find peace. Just as many depictions of the tarot card Temperance show fire being mixed with water, it is through combining the earthliness of our environment, the fieriness of our spirits, the airiness of our thoughts and the watery needs of our bodies that we arrive at a whole being… (I’ve heard it described before, by a computer engineer explaining a diet plan he hacked together, of all sources, that in its most simple terms, the human body is simply a highly inefficient water pump. Appropriately, the tagline on the diet plan is “How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition.”)

Now, I’m a big fan of cycles… but dwelling on them really hertz… (Please, pardon my puns.) If I do finally write the piece of fiction which has been stuck in my head, it will contain 21 books, of seven stories retold three times from the same person, as his past present and future. The world is made up of cycles, from the changes of tides every six hours, the day/night cycle, the lunar cycles, and even the yearly wheel, cut into quarters with spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Even the sun has a cycle, with its magnetic field being twisted and bent every eleven years, finally settling into a new equilibrium. There is a 20,000 year cycle of ice ages and warm periods, and even our view of the heavens have a cycle, as constellations move over hundreds of thousands of years.

Fortunately, these cycles serve as a good way of dealing with the different elements of ourselves. A full moon can remind us to accept the bounty before us, and a new moon can remind us to be more giving. If you can’t run, then learning how to walk might be more appropriate… If you can’t combine the spiritual with the worldly, or the mental with the physical, then you could work on them in cycles, shortening the length of each cycle until they overlap.

Having all of the pieces together doesn’t guarantee inner peace, though… It only makes it easier to find, and easier to maintain. That is what I realized yesterday, with the help of Jeff and Slade. Having your body, mind, environment, and spirit in tune gives you the energy to push forward into a state of peace, but without knowing how to apply the peace, or having a direction for your energy to go, peace eludes you.

Slade’s response was that I act in the present only. I can plan for the future and remember the past, but I can only act now… I can only be at peace now. (What he wrote was much longer than what I’m putting in here… but the parts that weren’t specifically saying to live in the now were specific to my situation.)

Jeff used divination to find his part of the message… He pulled three cards, The Hermit, The Sun, and The Hierophant, and aligned them as he did in a recent spread… The Hermit was on the bottom left, the Sun was in the top middle, and the Hierophant was on the bottom right… I was represented by both the Hermit and Hierophant, with the Hermit being myself now, and the Hierophant being who I’ll be when I’ve reached my goal.

That gave me the means to work, and the direction to work towards. I realize that the Hierophant has made a pretty bad name for himself… Thoughts of persecution at the hands of the Inquisition spring immediately to mind, but the Hierophant has another side to him, especially when you leave out the prejudice that both those dealing with him, as well as the Hierophant himself, seem to enjoy.

The purpose of the Hierophant is to bring spirituality to the world at large in practical terms… The Hermit simply explains things whenever you are lucky enough to find him, but you don’t need to be lucky to find the Hierophant when you’re looking for him, since you always know that he’s firmly entrenched within his palace of gold spartan cloister.

Just as with the Hermit, I’ve been wandering around searching for knowledge, and I have been trading answers in exchange for questions to ponder over… I have helped many people, on an individual basis, but I wouldn’t stick around to see the results, or to offer any follow-up help. I was hard to find, and it was often random fate which allowed me to find the people to help.

Now it seems that my direction is to become the Hierophant, however the role plays itself out. I’ve got my golden palace spartan cloister here in the form of this web site, with a contact form that is well guarded from spam, and public message boards in the form of comments; as well as a couple of back doors in the form of instant messengers and forum private messages, for those who know where to find them. (The keys to those back doors are not on this website… That should be enough of a clue for those who have followed me so far.)

So, what is the role of the Hierophant? To be an easy to find source of inspiration, who takes complex or spiritual ideas and simplifies them into worldly knowledge, and who can be a stubborn jerk at times. I promise that I’ll only be stubborn when it really matters.

Oh, and the Astrological basis for the Hierophant is Taurus… mooo.

The one thing about a Hierophant is that he attracts acolytes. I don’t want acolytes, I want people to go out and spread their own message. The best way to help me is to not be a “yes man,” but to go out and use your own words… Argue with me and point out what I’m doing wrong… Be my friend, not what you think I want in a friend. If you haven’t already, go out and make your own blog and write about what you feel is important. Stop waiting and just do it. Yes, you. Go, make a blog. Now!

Since finding the role, the means to fit within it, and gaining the energy and discipline to follow through, I’ve found a measure of peace far greater than I’ve felt before. Welcome, everyone, to Adam’s Peace. It isn’t a place, it is every place. It isn’t a time, it is every time.