The “Complaint” Ingredient
How I deal with my complaints
In my daily life, I always try
to catch myself complaining about anything, such as the weather—whether
I am making a comment or just thinking a thought about the weather. By not
complaining, I try to avoid putting my mind in a state of unconsciousness that often creates negative energy and denial of the present moment. When I am
complaining, I am in fact saying: “I cannot accept what is, and I am a victim
of the present situation.” Understandably, in the present moment, we all have
only three options in any situation that we are complaining about: get away from the situation; change the
situation; and accept the situation as
it is.
If I want to take any
action—whether it is getting away or changing the situation—I try my best to
remove any negativity first and foremost.
If it is my decision to take
no action, I honestly ask myself if it is fear that stands in my way of taking
any action: I tell myself that any action is often better than no action.
Staying in the present moment does the mental trick of controlling my thoughts: focusing my mind on the present moment, and
looking objectively at the fear that may be holding me back from taking any
action, without letting fear get into my subconscious mind to create any
negativity.
If, after much deliberation, I
still decide to take no action, then I accept it fully and consciously, with no
regret and no “should have” or “might have” because the whole episode now
belongs to the past and is no longer "real" for me. It is important for me not to
experience any inner conflict, resistance, or negativity in the mental process
of deciding to take no action.
The “Stress” Ingredient
How I deal with my stress
Stress is inevitable in
contemporary living. My wife used to complain that I stressed her, and my
spontaneous reply was: “If I don’t stress you, something or somebody would
stress you. Just learn to cope with it!” Yes, everybody has to cope with
stress, and not to deal with the stressor.
Awareness and concentration
are important ingredients in mental clarity and relaxation to de-stress the
mind.
The “Past” Ingredient
How I deal with my past
In my life, I have made many
mistakes, which have changed my life—maybe for the worse, or maybe not. Who
knows? And who cares?
I never let my past
take up my attention. I do not let my thinking process create any anger, guilt,
pride, regret, resentment, or self-pity. Like
everybody else, I do have these negative feelings and emotions, but they do not
last long. I believe that if I allow these thoughts of mine to control me, I
would look much older than my calendar age, and, worse, create a false sense of
self.
Reminiscing what was good in
my past would only intensify my desire to repeat such an experience in the future,
and thus creating an insatiable longing that may never be fulfilled. To recall
what was unpleasant in my past would generate my feelings of remorse and
unhappiness. What is the use? I just let my bygones be my bygones. In my mind, there
is no such thing as ”what if.”
The “Present” Ingredient
How I try to live in the NOW
To me, living in the present
holds the key to stopping my mind from processing my past and my future thoughts,
which is an instinctive and automatic output of my mental process.
The
human mind is cruel and demanding, such that we easily become its slave, doing
whatever it commands us to do without even being consciously aware of it. So, the
only way to free myself from that invisible bondage is to live in the now,
even though just for a short while. Living in the now changes my mind for
the better. Living in the now is my mental state that cherishes my mental clarity, my loving compassion, my deep insight, and my internal peace; it is a strong tool for my mental self-control.
Yes, my mindfulness is my mental
practice that can be performed anytime and anywhere. It is like my daily mini-meditation.The “Future” Ingredient
How I stop myself from worrying about my future
To me, the solution to worrying is
to stop identifying myself with my mind, which is forever projecting itself into the
future, creating imaginary images of myself living in a nursing home, being
totally disabled, and thus creating my imaginary fear. I have learned that the
projected future is "unreal" because it does not exist. It is real only when it
happens. I just have to learn to cope with the present moment, and not with the
future—not before, and not after.
Waiting is a state of mind. I have learned to acknowledge my present reality—where I am, who
I am, what I am doing with my life.
The “Misfortune” Ingredient
How I accept and embrace my tragedies
Misfortune is an ingredient
that one needs to blend with the rest of the ingredients. My life will not be
wholesome without my tragedies, which enable me to appreciate
more what my life has to offer.
The “Right Conduct” Ingredient
How I try to do all the right and righteous things
I believe that the art
of living well is no more than acting in the right way and living in the right
way. Right conduct is tantamount to asking the question: “How should one live
in the right and righteous way?”—the question asked by many ancient Western philosophers, such as Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. There is no definitive answer.
The “Failure” Ingredient
How I deal with my failures in my life
The path of living is
strewn with many failures, big and small. But they should not become the stumbling
blocks in any life journey. Like everybody
else, I have met my many failures: I failed as an antique
shop owner when I set up my retail business, and as an entrepreneur when I
bought a franchised cleaning business.
I look upon all my past failures with
positive attributes: a lesson of humility to show my own limitation and
inadequacy; a lesson that I may never get what I want in my life; a lesson to
strengthen my character as a human being; a lesson to learn about perseverance
and survival from my failures.
If I had succeeded in all my
past endeavors, I would have embarked on a totally different life journey
heading towards a totally different direction. Would I really have been better
off or worse off? Who knows, and who cares? I never ponder on the “might have”
or the “would have” scenarios.
The “Life Purpose” Ingredient
How I look at my external and internal life purpose
I
understand that life must have a purpose, or, more specifically, an external as
well as an internal purpose.
I realize that in life setting
a purpose is important, but not so important that it drives you crazy in
pursuing it or giving it up altogether. As a matter of fact, my external purpose only sets me a direction for the destination of my life.
In that direction, there are many different signposts guiding me along the way.
Arriving at one signpost simply means that I have accomplished one task;
missing that signpost means that I am still on the right path but simply taking
maybe a detour or just longer time because of misdirection or getting lost on
the way.
My internal purpose is more
important: it has nothing to do with arriving at my destination, but to do with
the "quality" of my consciousness—what I am doing along the way.
That Jesus said: “gain the
world and lose your soul” probably said everything there is to say about the
internal purpose of life for any individual.
No matter what you do in your
life, just do your very best and do it well, no matter how insignificant they
may be.
I understand that I have
three options in whatever I have been called to do: do it; not to do it; and do
it while enjoying the present moment of doing it. The “Death” Ingredient
How I look at my death
I am now closer to the end rather than to the beginning of my lifespan. The thought of dying and death has become more and more real with each day passing. I have
come to believe that most elderly people have similar experience. If I could ask but one
question about the future, it would be: “How am I going to die?” and not
“When am I going to die?”
I wouldn’t want to know about
the when. To me, time is not a big factor. My desire to know the “how”
is just out of plain curiosity. Anyway, they are just hypothetical
questions without any answer.
In life, we all ask many
different questions, some of which are practical, some hypothetical, and some
without an answer. To many, living is a search for an answer to many of the
unanswerable questions in life.
So, stop looking for an answer
to every question asked, but continue to ask, and just live if there were no
tomorrow.
Stephen Lau
Author, The Book of Life and Living
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