Living by Principles

“There's nothing as powerful as a made-up mind.”_Susan Jeffers

I once read about the tale of a successful business man who wholly impressed me with the way he handled a familial situation of potential rage.

Let me narrate his short story to you first:

The man went on vacation with his wife for a little break from the hustle of life. Incidentally, during their sojourn together, the wife somehow lost her expensive wedding ring. Markedly, the cost of the piece of the corrosion resistant jewelry was in millions. The ring was made of rare quality gold.

Reluctantly, she garnered up the courage to inform her husband of the loss her ring, expecting him to be understandably angry. However, the man surprisingly responded—can’t remember his actual words— with tranquility along the line of, ‘No problem, it is well. We can always get another ring.’

This wonderful display of emotional maturity is what inspired the subject of our discussion today, which I title: living by principles.

Without question, unwavering loyalty to a fixed principle is the essence of great character. Evidently, the man must have decided—ahead of time— to live by a tall standard of ethics, irrespective of the situations at hand. And when he was duly tested, he proved true.

Though, the man later confessed he was initially tempted to get furious but he reminded himself that strong men of principles don’t freak out at point of trials. On the contrary, they are generally at their best in such instances. And the English truth-seeker, James Allen got it right when he said: “Circumstances don’t make a man, they reveal him.”

A person of weak internal compass would have thrown tantrums to demonstrate the grade of his rage. But someone who operates at the highest level of consciousness and knowledge will embrace patience and equanimity in every situation that could provoke anger.

The aim of my work here is to encourage us to respond with purpose in all situations, through the help of enduring principles of spirituality, morality and ethics.

To make us realize that when we make a commitment to something worthy, we must follow-through, regardless of the inconvenience. This is the way of all great souls in all of human history.

Do a Mental Checkup by Clarifying Your Values

“Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values, and in no other way.”_ Stephen Covey

Like the narrative of the man above, we can embody any principle that we choose to embrace. But first, we need to be clear of what our values are beforehand. We need to truly know who we are and what we truly stand for, long before a moment of crisis.

This is important because fuzzy awareness and lack of certainty regarding our core values will almost always land us in a fix whenever things get sour, causing us to take a low road instead of the high road of steadfastness and patience.

Moreover, when we have clarified our values, they can serve as a formidable guide for us throughout life. They can provide us with mental stability in the form of a fixed identity.  They can serve as a source of confidence, that, no matter what happens, we would respond from a place of decision, not in volatile reaction to ever changing circumstances.

As it turns out, what is true for lone individuals is true for large nations as well. The former President of United States, Ronald Reagan made this clear when he said:  

“A nation’s greatness is measured not just by its gross national product or military power, but by the strength of its devotion to the principles and values that bind its people and define their character.”

So the take away message here is for you to do a mental checkup by taking the time to clarify your own core values and review them in your personal journal from time to time.

And more importantly, you should—once in a while— imagine yourself being strongly defined by these values in the worst possible scenarios. When you do, no real life situation will ever catch you completely off guard.

With principled-centered living properly understood and applied, we can become immovable rocks amidst all the vicissitudes of life. It begins by putting God first in our lives as a matter of unyielding principle, then aligning our core values with the Absolute Truth, and making a decision to live by them, no matter what.

The Overriding Factor

The ultimate determinant of our destination in life has less to do with what has happened to us in the past but more to do with how we are willing to live, going forward. 

Now, there are many things that people engage in with regards to creating a better future. Some people only think about it, some others only talk about, some more people only hope about it and others merely wish for it to turn out best. 

However, very few people actually do something about making their future truly awesome.  Here, the purpose of this article is to help you make the leap from the majority of passive dreamers into the minority of active designers of their own great future. 

In the words of the essayist, George Orwell: “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”  To take control of our entire lives, we must take control of our repeated behaviors starting now. We can’t afford to merely wish for things to change, if we truly desire to take complete control of our own success.

Our greatest power in shaping our results lies in how we choose to live in the present. And those who decide to live right in the now are the privileged few who have learned the art of not only taking charge of their future but also having dominion over their past experience—whether it was predominantly pleasant or significantly dreadful.

To Change Your Destination, Reset Your Trajectory

We can’t completely change our lives overnight, but we can change our trajectory instantly by altering our current pattern of behavior. And this, fundamentally involves breaking of suboptimal habits and replacing them with super-optimal ones. 

So, if we really want to get better in life, altering our current behavioral pattern is where we need to channel our efforts on self-improvement. Overcoming bad habits is a key element of any personal transformation.

By shattering limiting patterns of behavior that have been holding us back and replacing them with empowering models that can propel us forward, we will be creating a new identity of the kind of person we are capable of becoming. 

However, if we keep repeating the same dis-empowering patterns—in spite of our good intentions—our immediate future is invariably going to be the repetition of our recent past. 

Without new and better behaviors, we cannot have different and better results. As one writer puts it, ‘God will not do for you what He does not do through you.’

In a nutshell: to have the greatest hope for a better tomorrow, we must alter our sub-optimal pattern of behaviors in the present. In other words, we must develop good keystone habits now.

Finally, no matter the glory of our ancestry, the quality of our genes, or our failures and successes in the past; the quality of our future is going to be the aggregation of all our habits. 

Therefore, we need to consciously cultivate empowering good habits and consciously eliminate dis-empowering bad ones, going forward.

The Way of the Tortoise

“We live in a culture full of hares; but the tortoise always wins.”

Dave Ramsey 

Unlike the steady pace of the proverbial tortoise, most people seem to cherish hurry pace of the hare. Most of us live our lives in a mode of haste, preferring to rush through our days at a frenetic flow. 

We assume we can get everything done quicker by merely being busy at an amped up rate of speed. We favor the way of the proverbial hare and we are generally oblivious to the power of age long wisdom of ‘slow and steady.’ 

Yes, the hare may be faster in the short run but the biggest rewards in life do not happen in the short run. The biggest rewards do take a while to amass. You need time and experience to gain true wisdom and durable success in anything of worth.

We need patience in important matters like rearing children, acquiring wisdom, building trust, getting good education, becoming wealthy, cultivating health, gaining spirituality and nurturing relationships. 

You see, persistence is the key to success in all things of great value, and that is why the tortoise always wins. In life, it is not how far but how well; it is not about the speed but about the strength; it is less about the volume of our output but more about the quality of our outcome.

Life is more like a marathon and less of a sprint!

Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world builds his humongous fortune on the foundation of this tortoise principle. He is a classic example of the power of patience on purpose. Warren is a huge believer in the dependability of steadiness in progression. 

He once said: “Successful investing takes time, discipline and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

Adopt the Way of the Tortoise

The way of the tortoise is perhaps the most effective available strategy to ensure quality and consistency in any and all fields of endeavors. 

This is because it aligns perfectly with the way our natural world has been operating for thousands of years with unbeatable regularity. 

In this direction, a poet and historian, Henry David Thoreau observes: “Nature is slow, but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance.” 

By the same token, we can achieve any goal or overcome any obstacle with power steadiness on purpose and the way of the tortoise.

The way of the tortoise is about patient execution of the right things each day. It is neither about getting everything done nor is it about getting the most things done; but it is essentially about getting only the right things done. 

With this approach, we focus only on true priorities, one step at a time. And, as a result of this simple strategy, we can—in due course—accomplish really big things, without losing our balance and sanity. 

While the way of the hare focuses on momentary surge, the way of the tortoise emphasizes progress; while the way of the hare highlights sudden burst of activity, the way of the tortoise prioritizes traction; while the way of the hare celebrates starting, the way of the tortoise accentuates finishing.

At this juncture, B. C. Forbes, a journalist and founder of Forbes magazine makes a relevant contribution to our study in the following words. He said:

“How you start is important, very important, but in the end it is how you finish that counts. It is easier to be a self-starter than a self-finisher. 

The victor in the race is not the one who dashes off swiftest but the one who leads at the finish. 

In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina.”

As you can finally see, the way of the tortoise is about stamina; it is about making progress, and most importantly, it is about staying in the game for as long as it well darn takes. 

Therefore, if we sincerely adopt the way of the wise tortoise in the pursuit of our ultimate vision, there is nothing which may not be accomplished in the end.

Mind Your Own Business

“A lifetime can well be spent correcting and improving one’s own faults without bothering about others.”_Edward Weston

In case you feel slightly offended by the title of my article telling you to ‘mind your own business.’  Please understand that the message is not just directed to you. It is directed to me as well. In fact, it is directed to all of us, and this will be made clearer in the course of my writing.

By ‘mind your own business,’ I mean all of us should channel our attention inward so that we can become our own best version for the good of the world around us. Remember, there is no higher obligation that we owe to others than to be our own highest self.

Therefore, ‘mind your own business’ is about correcting our mistakes and improving our own lives so we can serve as good role models for the generations coming behind. 

It is about seeking serenity through abundant measure of unconditional love and forgiveness for oneself along with anyone who may have wronged one in any way, at any time. 

Clearly, minding our own business, in this sense, doesn’t mean selfishness. It means quite the opposite. It means reformative generosity. That is, being caring enough to seek personal transformation for our own good and for the good of the people around us.

It means being conscious enough to avoid backbiting another fellow human being, no matter what. 

It means keeping our attention focused entirely on what is truly our own concern, and being clear that the vexing affairs of others are their own business and none of ours.

Now let’s underscore three big ideas —from someone who knows what he is talking about—that we can always use to help us mind our own business at all times.

3 Tips to Help Us Mind Our Own Business

The author of the book, ‘Inner Wisdom’ Wayne Dyer counsels us to overcome the urge to meddle in other people’s affairs through the following insightful words.

Dyer writes:

ONE: “Cultivate your own garden and let go of your tendency to examine and judge how others cultivate theirs.” 

TWO: “Catch yourself in moments of gossip about how others ought to be living and rid yourself of thoughts about how they should be doing it this way, or how they have no right to live and think as they do.”

THREE: “Stay busy and involved in your own projects and pursuits.”

You see, the way we live and the peace of mind we exude are ultimately intertwined. We can’t live our lives as busybodies all day long and still hope for maximum state of serenity—at the same time.

The Greek philosopher, Plato even went further to explain the concept as a good definition of justice. He said: “Justice is minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns.” 

To put this in perspective, realize that by refusing to backbite—or even slander— another person, we are preserving that person’s dignity and our own peace of mind— through a singular act of self-control. 

In this case, we are not only demonstrating justice to others but also demonstrating justice to our own soul by a mere refusal to interfere.

Therefore, we should not give our limited attention to what others choose to do or otherwise; rather, we should give it to what we ourselves choose to do or choose not to. 

Remember that sometimes, we are our own worst enemies. And that’s why Robert Heinlein, an American aeronautical engineer and iconic science-fiction author said that ninety percent of all human wisdom lies in one’s ability to mind one’s own business.

Consequently, if we all beam our focus toward making our personal choices better, day after day, we would have a better chance of making the world a beautiful place for all. 

And ultimately, to be change that we wish to see in the world, we must learn to always mind our own business for good.