Sweeping UU sidewalks

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Carrying water, Chopping wood, Contentment, Diary, Epigrams, habits, Kindness, policy, psychology, Shoveling snow, survival

I just realized I’ve been doing some things beyond Chopping wood, carrying water, and shoveling snow. I’ve been sweeping sidewalks.

The photo above is of the UU front entrance, taken last week, as I departed for home. Notice the sidewalk isn’t covered with pine needles even though there are Ponderosa pine trees directly overhead. Almost every Sunday I sweep the needles, or in the winter clear the snow from this area, and occasionally along the paths to the car parking areas too.

There isn’t any payment for this needed task, and other people do tasks that are certainly more essential to the operations of our fellowship, but I do this. No one asked me to do it, and occasionally people will help. When the snow is a foot or two or three deep, people come to the rescue. It is a real challenge making paths out to the cars and there are several guys that pitch in and do the real effortful labor. The roads are contracted to be plowed, but not the paths; we do the paths.

Occasionally something special happens, and this morning was one of them. A boy  about three years old, whom I barely recognize because he is just one of the three hundred people who walk by, said, “Hi, Charles, thank you for sweeping the sidewalk.” He might have been prompted by his mom before they came close to say my name, but it was the kid who said it and probably added the thank you for sweeping, and that made me feel good.

Some of the adults do say thank you, and I appreciate that, but I am not doing the cleanup for the thanks; I’m doing because it makes everyone coming into this building have a more pleasant experience. And, in a small way, their seeing someone who is simply a member making it look and feel better is meaningful. It is better than if it were cleaned by someone paid to clean it. Out of sight, out of mind, like a rainy and windy act of nature washing the mess away and making it look clean in its own natural way.

When nature has its way, this area looks messy and I clean it up to civilized standards.

Sage tip #35, Value other people’s thoughts.

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7 Sages of Greece, Contentment, Diary, Epigrams, habits, happiness, Health, Kindness, policy, Sage tip #35, survival, Value other people's thoughts.

In the book I am presently working on named Love Your Life – A way to approach health and happiness, there is a section on The wisdom of the 7 Sages of Greece. That wisdom consists of 147 brief suggestions published on a stone before about 500 BC at Delphi in Greece. Those precepts are so brief they require some interpretation and expansion to make them useful to a modern English speaker.

I have used the term “respect” in several of the suggestions, which I have been calling tips to make them less demanding and more friendly. Tip #34 is presently stated, “Respect other people’s space and property,” and that usage of the word respect feels appropriate. However, the next one, Tip #35 was written “Respect other people’s thoughts.” That doesn’t feel quite right anymore because it has the connotation of tolerating other people’s thoughts. Tolerating implies there is something wrong with their thoughts, and with their thinking, and with their personal experience. However, if we had lived their lives and had their experiences, we would probably be in much closer alignment with those thoughts and their presentations of them. In that case, we would have greater respect for those thoughts and statements. Our respect might well move over into the more approving connotation implied by the word “value.”

If we value other people’s statements and the thoughts behind those statements and thus the experiences and analysis of those experiences, then that other person’s whole world opens up to us. We have a more intimate relationship with them and their worldview and thus our personal relationship with our own world becomes more expanded. If we value other people instead of tolerating them our lives become better.

However, if we go away from valuing their worldview, away from even tolerating them, we move into intolerance and perhaps into dislike and even hatred, loathing and animadversion. It’s all bad, both for our feelings about life and for our relationship to them.

But, if we are able to see the world as others see it, then we can have a much friendlier and more meaningful relationship with them. If we see as they see we can find common ground on many and probably most mutually overlapping situations. We can probably find situations where we can have a mutually beneficial exchange of goods and services. The very places where our lives are most different are the very places where mutual exchanges can be most beneficial to each of us. We can trade those things which each of us has an overabundance of for those things which each has a paucity of.  We can find our greatest friend in those who are most different from us. This mode of relating works for ideas as well as the trading of physical goods.

We will greatly benefit by learning how to value other people’s experiences and thoughts.

 

 

Sage tip # 129, Treat yourself with respect and kindness.

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7 Sages of Greece, Contentment, Diary, Epigrams, habits, happiness, Health, inventions, policy, survival, Treat yourself with respect and kindness.

There is much to be said for taking care of one’s self first and then when you have that well secured to use your excess of caring to take care of other’s well being.

A totally self-centered worldview is all that there is for an infant and they are not developed enough to be aware that they even exist outside of their annoying and pleasurable sensations. As a child matures at some point it becomes aware that others exist as separate beings and that to some degree they too must claim rights to maintain their wellbeing. Putting one’s self first is still a reasonable worldview for an adolescent because so much of their real-world interaction is outside of their personal control. This self-centered treatment still makes sense as an operating principle for adults who are making their way in a world which requires their creating and caring for their family. The self-care they previously needed for themselves alone is now transferring to some degree over to their family which is being considered as their extended self. Those people close to them have become part of their self-concept and thus treating those dependents well and supporting their life quests is in a real sense supporting their own life.

Moving on in physical and emotional maturity there comes a time when treating yourself with respect and kindness includes not only your family, and friends, but extends to your whole world. It includes all the people of the world, and the future people too, and thus it includes caring for the whole Earth because that soon becomes one’s self.

Treating one’s self with respect and kindness eventually becomes identical with treating the whole world with respect and kindness. 

The Seven Sages of Ancient Greece – line 51

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7 Sages of Greece, Contentment, Diary, Epigrams, habits, happiness, Health, policy, psychology, research, Shun criminals and murderers, survival

I had a conversation this morning with my friend R about the Wisdom of the 7 Sages of Ancient Greece. He was bothered by line # 51, Shun criminals and murderers.  He was asserting that I was going to get a lot of blowback on all the brief precepts on the list. But he felt that #51 was the most repugnant. Those people don’t want to be put into a negative category and shunned. They are already under a social black cloud and their lives have already been made so difficult they were driven to acts that society considers so offensive they were punished. That punishment he considered enough and too much in most cases. Those criminals and murderers have suffered enough and should now be treated as well as other people.

My idea was to go back to the first suggestions. # 1 Seek and pursue goodness and # 2 Obey all laws. The basic idea running through the 147 suggestions is similar to the very first, # 1 Seek and pursue goodness. Thus, when a person is as good as we wise and sentient beings should be, then we would treat them according to # 15 Empower your friends for good deeds. That would include criminals and murderers if they were friends, but if we followed # 51 we would Shun criminals and murderers, and they would not be our friends. R would assert that everyone deserves to be treated well and everyone should be considered a friend. I would agree and say in line # 97 Give friendly greetings to everyone. And yet, if a person was a convicted criminal and murderer it would seem fair to apply # 116 Walk quietly away from hatred, and it would seem that a murderer had hatred going at some level to have committed so heinous an act. The same could be said for any crime that resulted in a criminal conviction.

The word shun is also used in line # 136 Be happy and shun debauchery. In that case, it is an excessive personal action that is to be shunned, not a person. In our personal actions, we are encouraged to # 12 Behave with discretion, #13 Bring honor to your family, # 14 Avoid improper actions. Debauchery is an excess of some sort and easily leads to difficulties. In every way # 17 Avoid all unnecessary risks. There are plenty of necessary risks in life but we can avoid some of the unnecessary ones, such as debauchery, known criminals, and murderers.

In the end, #91 Be kind to everyone, they have troubles too.

A Dictionary of New Epigrams – Health

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Epigrams, Health

A Dictionary of New Epigrams

Health

Happy, healthy, wise and wealthy are worthy goals and health is the one that is most available to your conscious behavior, but they all support one another.

Happiness comes with the situation of the moment and contentment with the relationship with one’s personal environment, but health can be ruined by risky actions.

The knowledge of how to be healthy is half the way to being healthy.

Most disease and bodily failures are more easily prevented than cured.

It is the height of foolishness to risk one’s health when it is possible to walk away from disease and danger.

The goal of wisdom is to acquire and maintain happiness, health, and wealth.

It is the heart of morality to treat others well, and treating your body is a moral obligation as important as treating others’ bodies well.

With health, you have the energy to pursue happiness, wealth, and wisdom and without it those wonderful things are distant dreams.

That slogan of the 1980s,”Don’t worry, be happy,” might have been more productive of happiness if it were “Avoid worry, seek health.”

Keep your body as healthy as possible; you might need to use it for a long time.

For most of us, health is not something you get — it’s something you don’t lose.

Look ahead! To risk life and limb for silly things is surely to lose important things.

To maximize a long, happy, healthy life, learn how to be happy and healthy when young.

Our bodies are constantly being assaulted with diseases, but if we keep our bodies healthy we can win those battles.

He who has health has the potential for positive action and growth.

With health, we can certainly earn money but with money, we only might possibly buy health.

Money helps you feel good when you are spending it, but health lets you feel good all the time.

Health is greatly improved by eating and walking the right amount.

Sustained worry weakens a man and deep fear sets him up for death.

Health is acquired and maintained by doing the right things and avoiding doing the wrong things and generally, that means moderation in all things.

 

 

A Dictionary of New Epigrams – Teaching

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Bad examples, Epigrams, habits, learning, policy, psychology, Teaching

A Dictionary of New Epigrams

TEACHING

A teacher is a fool on stilts.

Give a hungry man a fish and he will give you a grudging thank you.

Give a man your fishing pond and some fishing equipment and he will sell your fish.

Your personal experience is your best teacher but it’s expensive.

One who refuses to learn will remain ignorant forever.

It is better to be ignorant of facts than fail to use those you have.

A man can concoct fabulous answers but reality has consistent questions.

A great teacher asks great questions.

Watch others carefully and learn from their good and bad examples.

I saw a group of young women with knee braces and crutches today.

I saw a man get out of his car door into close-passing traffic today.

Poor teachers work for little reward, bad teachers work for punishments.

The wisdom you must defend becomes your deepest teacher.

A good teacher’s wisdom stimulates some ennui and occasional laughter.

1 + 1 = 2 by definition.

Most wisdom is obvious.

A Dictionary of New Epigrams – Character

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A Dictionary of New Epigrams, Character, Epigrams, Honesty, Integrity

A Dictionary of New Epigrams

CHARACTER

You create your character with every action, but the most critical ones are those conscious actions where you pause to choose between the possibilities.

Your character is created by your personal choices and conduct and it cycles back into you for better or worse.

We cultivate our character and help it grow by the frequent use of our habits.

Everyone is challenged to rise above their existing character and become an even more moral personality.

Changing your character is not like changing your clothes; it’s like changing your skin.

We rarely think of our character and that’s why it is so important to be very thoughtful when we do think about what we should do about it.

Character is what drives your present actions to be what you have previously decided is the right way to behave.

Confront challenges with open candor because it is in those moments that you have the greatest opportunity to develop the better qualities of your character.

Your character is best demonstrated by your ability to resist temptation.

The measure of your strength of character is how much unearned pleasure you can resist.

It is a noble deed to demonstrate good character in the presence of a child.

Reality may drive you to an action, but your character might mold it to a good end.

Your character is greatly influenced by the environment you choose to reside within.

We form our habits to fit our situations; thus we must be careful as to what situations we let ourselves be subjected to.

With our time and attention, we build ourselves into angels or devils.

Our character is the accumulation of our choices.

I am not what I think I am. I am what I choose to do.

Serenity comes from quiet meditation, and character from responding to challenges.

Character is demonstrated in keeping one’s promises to one’s self.

Out of our beliefs are born conscious acts. Out of conscious acts, we form unconscious habits; out of our habits, we grow our set of habits called character; and on our character, we build our goals; on our goals, we build our accomplishments; and by our accomplishments, we affect society.

Character results in seeing what needs doing and doing it.

Character is our self-imposed integrity.

A Dictionary of New Epigrams – Falsehood

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Epigrams, falsehood, Falsehoods, Identifying falsehoods, Knowing the truth

A Dictionary of New Epigrams

Falsehood

Lying to yourself is the worst thing you can do for your future contentment.

Sometimes it’s hard to be truthful, but ask yourself if the losses suffered when you are discovered to be lying will be worth the gain to be had by the lie.

Wisdom is in foreseeing the consequences of actions and the consequences of being discovered to be a liar can be devastating.

Falsehoods are always dressed in beautiful words so they can be enjoyed, promoted and believed.

Truth is beauty and beauty truth. That is all you need to know… is an example of a lovely lie; it’s an intriguing thought, but it isn’t true, it’s a lie. Accept that and move on.

A false statement repeated infinitely is still false.

Perhaps there is not a single absolute truth, but there are an infinite number of possible lies, and every lie is an absolute lie.

Falsehoods are created to ease suffering, but placing one’s attention on a real truth, even an unrelated truth, will also ease suffering and if chosen wisely will help correct the problem.

A truth will sometimes bring pain, but pain is a real thing that can be coped with and forgotten, whereas suffering is like a spinning wheel of recurrent bad thoughts that never entirely disappear.

Only an exceedingly wise person can go into a garden of lies and find a truth.

A wise person can gain some wisdom from the failings generated by the falsehoods of others.

Many a person has discovered that a beautiful meal with only a tiny drop of poison can ruin a perfectly lovely life.

From the right perspective, truths are always compatible with one another, but falsehoods claiming to be friends usually get into a fight.

Falsehoods may have their rewards but they will have their punishments. If that were the way of the world we honest folks would live longer happier lives.

Trustworthy information may be verified by contentious enemies and still agreed upon to be true. Falsehoods will be hidden by agreeable allies and asserted as true so they can succeed in their deceptions.

The greater the falsehood the greater the eventual suffering.

The greatest source of error is for a wise man to speak a falsehood.

A Dictionary of New Epigrams – Trust

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A life well lived, Daily life, Epigrams, trust, Who to trust

A Dictionary of New Epigrams

TRUST

The most beautiful words you will ever hear. “I trust you.”

Trust actions more than words.

Promises are no more trustworthy than the air they were written upon.

You can trust people with big things who are trying to help others with little things.

Trust a liar in little things to be a liar in big things.

Lies from liars are more reliable than their truths.

Me, myself and I are the only concerns of liars.

Trust a fox to be a fox and a liar to be a liar.

Always trust your gut, especially when it comes to food.

Trust a person to speak from the level of the maturity of their actions.

Don’t trust people whom you can not punish if they fail to perform.

Don’t trust anyone’s words who doesn’t have skin in the game.

Don’t trust someone who can make money by smiling at you.

Trust comes from observing the causes and effects of a person’s habits.

You can only trust yourself when you have created the right habits for coping with a situation.

Don’t trust anyone who is trying to deceive you, and top on that list is you.

How can I trust someone whom I have seen cheat others who have trusted them?

To become more trustworthy, cultivate friends who are trustworthy and avoid cheaters.

A person who can resist a temptation can be trusted.

Without trust, all you can ever have is economic quid pro quo transactions.

Using the word “we” implies trust, but usually, means “me”.

It is more difficult to trust smart people than dumb ones because smart people can see more options for their future actions.

Don’t let a momentary appearance of trustworthiness override a billion years of successful doubt.

Bitter honesty is better for you than sweet bullshit.

A Dictionary of New Epigrams – Risk

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Epigrams, Reliability, risk, Risky behavior, Self-Reliance

A Dictionary of New Epigrams

RISK

Be prepared for your opportunities and the risks that will accompany them.

It is stupid to see the risks and dangers clearly and still to do things that won’t work.

Don’t take stupid risks!

Take risks where the payoff is far greater than the costs.

Avoid risks where the costs are far greater than the payoff.

It is heroic to take big risks for a grand cause and foolish to take even little risks for a silly one.

Our lives have the potential to improve when we take the right kind of risks and the likelihood of failure when we take the wrong ones.

Being kind to another person isn’t taking an unreasonable risk.

It isn’t necessary to take risks to have an interesting and worthwhile life.

Some risks are easy to foresee and avoid like not living on an earthquake fault, or on a low-lying seashore.

Drinking to solve problems and ease pain is the worst risk; it always comes to a bad end in about twenty years.

Taking risks for the adrenaline rush will eventually get you a Darwin Award.

Avoiding stupid behavior is easy if one has cultivated habits of choosing pleasant things to do as opposed to dangerous ones.

There is always some risk involved in doing the right thing but do it anyway.

The easiest wisdom comes from observing the students outcomes in the school of hard knocks.

Learn from the whacks on other people’s noggins.

Wise people don’t risk their money on other people’s words but on their actions.

Avoid risks where there is no recovery if you fail and no guaranteed reward if you win.

Life is risky and you are guaranteed to lose it eventually, so don’t risk it for worthless things.

In the real world risk, reward and punishment all hang together.

It is risky to see what ought to be done and do the opposite.

Taking improv classes gives you the chance to take unusual risks safely and learn from your mistakes.

Avoid thrilling risks; instead take risks for personal growth toward maturity.

To gain wisdom and act wisely requires having the willingness to see every aspect of the reality, even if there isn’t time enough to actually explore it.

A sage is eager to participate in everything available, to take some recoverable risks, so he may clearly know what is to be recommended and done, and what to avoid.

With the forethought of wisdom, you set your goals and assess the risks and then you must put all your efforts into the processes of doing what needs doing.

It is foolish to take risks and be injured when it isn’t necessary so we will be physically able to take risks when it is necessary.

Give it your best where there is the risk of everyone who attempts failing, for then when you succeed you will reap the benefits for everyone.

If you don’t step forward and express your wisdom, you won’t get the feedback from others that will show you where you are wrong and where the risks are to be found.

If there is going to be a thing that needs doing that is at the limit of your abilities there will be risks, but if the task is worthwhile we must take the risks.

Too much caution is just as destructive as too much risk taking, and more dreams are squashed by too much fear-driven caution.

Those who never take any risks never win anything fantastic that’s worth having.

To face risk is to face uncertainty, and most people get the courage to face uncertainty with blind faith in untestable magical ideation, but that is not the way of wisdom. The wise foresee where they are going.

It is risky to reach into the unknown, so say where you are going and why and leave a trail so others can find the limits of what has been discovered.

Life is risky, so choose your options in a way that will benefit you and your friends.