Self control, a dying art

“You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.”
- Brian Tracy

This is a tough one for most of us, myself included. Self control needs to be used in many situations, in this article I am going to focus on arguments.

So why do most arguments begin? There are a number of reasons, but the most common one is a difference of opinion. When you are in a relationship, whether it be a friendship, marriage, family or business there will always be differing opinions. Arguments normally start when you have a different opinion to someone else and one of you is trying to enforce your point of view on the other. An argument can be resolved on the spot or it can become very heated, even abusive (emotionally & physically), depending on the topic of the argument. And when the argument is over and all the wrong things have been said and done we adopt a blame mentality, if we got frustrated or angry we blame the other person. “You made me say …...” Or “You made me angry.” Or “Why can’t you see things my way?” The main reason we do this is that accepting responsibility for our own actions means we have to admit we lost control, and that takes a lot of courage.

When there is a difference of opinion, is it really that important that the other person agree with your opinion? Is your opinion the only one, and is it right? Why?

As a matter of fact, you have no right to force someone else to see things your way; it goes against the whole concept of free will. Respect the other persons individuality, and if your opinion is the right one, the other person might agree with it one day, they might not, it’s really not that important.

I am learning to adopt a new attitude which is very difficult for all my friends and family to accept. I voice my opinion, if someone agrees that’s great, if someone doesn’t that’s also great, but I am not going get all emotionally worked up about it. And if I’m wrong, I’ll admit it, there’s nothing wrong with being wrong, none of us can be right ALL the time no matter how much we would like to believe it.

Start exercising the art self control today and see how YOUR life changes.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” - Galatians 5:22

Save our home

“Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.”
- Dr. Carl Sagan

Save our home, and by home I don't mean the building you reside in, I mean our home, planet earth.

Here is something to think about....

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I've realized that you are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment. But you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus."
- Agent Smith, from "The Matrix"

Agent Smith refers to us as a virus, I think we behave more like parasites. Here is the definition of a parasite or parasitism taken from the wikipedia:

Parasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species in which one, the parasite, benefits from a prolonged, close association with the other, the host, which is harmed. In general, parasites are much smaller than their hosts, show a high degree of specialization for their mode of life and reproduce more quickly and in greater numbers than their hosts.

Very similar to what agent Smith said.

So how do we start behaving like humans again and develop a mutual relationship with our planet, which is actually what God has given us the responsibility to do?

I believe we need to change our attitude, it seems to me that we have become extremely selfish as a species. The planet won't be destroyed in our lifetime so why should we worry about it. What we don't realize is that what we teach our children, will be taught to their children, and so on.

Here is another analogy to ponder. Planet earth has got cancer, and the cancer cells are known as humans.
Here is the definition of cancer taken from the wikipedia:

Cancer (medical term: malignant neoplasm) is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display the traits of uncontrolled growth (growth and division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood).

I know this whole subject it pretty morbid, but we need to wake up eventually and take responsibilty for our actions. If every person did something small to give thanks to our planet for providing all we need, well, a whole lot of small things leads to one big thing. All you need to do is treat the planet the same way you would treat the home you live in. Start today!

Free will, gift or curse?

“One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, its remarkable how often their picture turns up on your driver's license.”
- P. J. O'Rourke

Free will is the greatest gift given to humans; it is also the greatest curse.

The reason it is the greatest gift….., it gives us the power to create the life we really want.

The reason it is the greatest curse….., too many of us don’t know how to use it wisely and therefore get stuck in a ‘blame’ mentality.

A quick note:
When I refer to God, it’s by no means excluding any other belief system. I believe he is known by many names; Source, Infinite Intelligence, etc. So wherever you see the word God, feel free to insert your own word if it makes for easier reading. And by referring to God in the masculine, I’m by no means being sexist, God is not male nor is he female, he’s both and he’s neither… It’s the same as referring to cars or ships as ‘she’, its just way I’ve always done things.
(And if you don't believe in anything, well then your whole existence must be one huge accident, are you an accident?)

As humans we possess three things, our mind, our body and our spirit. Our mind and body are temporary, they will eventually pass, but our spirit will continue to live forever. Unfortunately most of us neglect all three, or we pay attention to one or two of them, but to look after all three is just too much like hard work.

Mind
Our mind controls our body. The sub conscious mind is responsible for your bodily functions; breathing heart beat, the five senses, all the things we take for granted. The conscious mind is responsible for our thoughts, and we are thinking machines. Try and stop thinking for while, just sit there. And sitting there saying to yourself, ‘I’m not thinking’ means you are still thinking. It’s a lot more difficult than you think. (excuse the pun). If you hold on to a conscious thought for long enough, it eventually filters into your sub conscious, and if it is an unhealthy thought, it will create some form of disease in your body. More about that in another article.

Body
Our bodies are vessels for our mind and spirit; it’s the only one we’ve got. And how do we treat it? Mostly very poorly. God has provided everything we need for good health right here on planet earth, and yet we are still pumping our bodies full of chemicals and harmful products, and not only our bodies, but our home, planet earth.

Spirit
Our spirit, now that’s what we’re all about, it’s who we are beyond our ego. It’s the part of us that is connected to every other living thing in the universe and very closely connected with God. Can you remember a time when you saw something so beautiful it seemed that some of your senses switched off, can you remember how much joy you felt? Imagine being able to feel that kind of joy whenever you wanted to. Now that’s the real you, in that moment you had no worries, your mind and your ego were quiet. Sadly, very few of us know our spirit, our mind and our ego are too busy and we don’t set aside time to quieten them.

What does all this have to do with free will?

Well, whenever something goes wrong in our life, it’s usually because we have been neglecting our mind, body or spirit.

And there’s always a GOOD reason;
I don’t have the time.
I don’t have the money.
I don’t have the energy.
I’m too old.
I’m too young.
I’m too fat.
I’m too thin, etc.

And if none of these excuses are good enough, as a last resort, we blame God. It is actually the easiest thing in the world to blame God, he can’t defend himself against you, and it’s far easier than taking responsibility for anything yourself.

When you give someone a gift, and they don’t use that gift correctly, it’s a bit of a waste of a gift. Someone else could have benefited far more by receiving that same gift.

So my question to you is…… Has God wasted His gift of free will on you? If not, are you using this incredible gift wisely?

Remember, every time you make an excuse or blame someone / something for your situation you are giving away your free will & your power.

“God created the law of free will, and God created the law of cause and effect. And he himself will not violate the law. We need to be thinking less in terms of what God did and more in terms of whether or not we are following those laws.”
- Marianne Williamson

“There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.”
- Agatha Christie

“God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us” - Niccolo Machiavelli