Good morning! Here’s hoping more and more of us are remembering to use the time right after we wake up to remind ourselves that we intend to have a good day. The people that have good days are the people who create them.
In today’s meditations we’ll be focusing on the value in each of our lives. It’s a common human frailty to underachieve due to only a lack of self esteem. It’s a term worth thinking about.
Do you have self esteem? Do you respect yourself? Because some really solid people do respect and love you, so that’s an indication that you’re not being egotistical by owning your self esteem. Yet most people have so much trouble giving themselves credit.
The Meditations
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Let’s each think of three examples of cases where we were notably kind to someone who had little chance of returning the favour, and even though no one really knew about what we did, (or if they did, it was only the possibly the person we helped, and maybe someone to facilitate what happened).
Maybe we made a payment for a stranger on an expired parking meter, or we secretly paid another table’s restaurant bill. Maybe it was us that left those groceries on the out-of-work neighbour’s doorstep.
Maybe we kept a secret the other person doesn’t know we’ve kept. Maybe our friend got dumped and we sent flowers from a ‘secret admirer’ just to help them feel beautiful and to prompt themselves to look at the world with more hope.
Whatever it is, the point is to really think about what we did. Seriously ask yourself the question: what motivated me? If almost no one knew, and it did not elevate our status in society, then the only explanation for doing it is that we really are compassionate, empathetic, deeply decent people.
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List the three most important things you need to get done today and, as much as possible, insert the time to do them into your schedule.
Then, book at least one hour for you to do nothing but relax and enjoy yourself between daily life and bed. Remember, filling up or charging the car is a key part of driving anywhere.
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Due the pandemic it can be on TV if need be, but live is better even if it’s through a window at a distance. We just want to watch for five examples of basic kindness we see happening around us.
It can be the mail carrier stopping for a friendly chat with the neighbour walking their dog on the other side of the street. It could be someone holding a door for someone else, letting us into traffic, or someone taking a circuitous path around us to maintain social distance during the pandemic.
We’re looking for those ordinary daily examples of human decency that we forget to pay attention to. The news and social media tell us primarily about things that are going wrong. To counter that impact, we need to be conscious about reminding ourselves that humans are at their core, good.
That’s it. If we do these we’ve treated our life and selves with respect. We have reminded ourselves that we are a decent person. And we have reminded ourselves that others, like us, are also decent. Because that’s the real world.
For anyone paying attention it’s not hard to see that humans being kind is far more common than them being selfish. We just tend to pay more attention to the selfish ones, which is part of what this meditation tries to shift. A healthy person pays more attention to the best in people –including ourselves.
There we go. We’ve done our work in this regard for the day. We can take a feeling of accomplishment away with us, and with that let us enjoy the rest of our day –intentionally.
peace. s
PS If you’d like to get these earlier, please note that I have been working to get the care of my parents under COVID into enough order that I can ensure these are available to you earlier in the morning. I appreciate your patience until then. s
A serious childhood brain injury lead Scott to spend his entire life meditating on the concepts of thought, consciousness, reality and identity. It made others as strange to him as he was to them. When he realized people were confused by their own over-thinking, Scott began teaching others to understand reality. He is currently CBC Radio Active’s Wellness Columnist, as well as a writer, speaker and mindfulness instructor based in Edmonton, AB where he still finds it strange to write about himself in the third person.