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037 Considering Wisdom
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A weekly newsletter from BobBarnardnm.com
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Thoughts on the intersection of Society/Culture, Productivity/You, and Wisdom/Knowledge.
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Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech. Benjamin Franklin
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Please share this with your friends so we can encourage others to consider wisdom.
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My WEEK
It has been a different week. I went to the periodontist on Tuesday, and he trimmed the two growths off my tongue. I had one on each side. Lots of needles, but the removal went well. So, I had a fat tongue and sore mouth for the next two days. Now, the hardest part is no piping hot coffee for three weeks while everything heals. Two other highlights were my best nine-hole score since I started golfing once a week. However, it is still too high. The other is I successfully paid my first bill for my new treasurer’s job. Besides that, I have been trying to catch up on my writing.
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Considering Wisdom.
What matters most is not what our obstacles are but how we see them, how we react to them, and whether we keep our composure. Ryan Holiday
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We live in a world of obstacles. Not a day goes by for me that some question comes up or something happens that is out of my control. Some examples are the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a driver changing lanes erratically, the weather, inflation, etc. These can all cause a variety of emotions and responses, but they are all out of our control. Yet I worry about them because they may affect my life. But these obstacles are easy to dismiss. Once my emotional response dies, they are gone, and life continues.
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Let’s look at some others that are harder to dismiss. For me, the difficult ones are internal- fear of sharing my true feelings, fear of rejection, only doing the easy stuff, and procrastinating on the hard stuff. These are much harder to overcome and require much more introspection to understand. They need reflection and mindful meditation. These, like most obstacles that affect us, our internal manifestations that aren’t always real.
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To overcome our fears, we must understand why we are afraid. Having someone say no is my fear of all fears; even though no won’t kill me, it won’t make me sick and won’t cause a long-term disability. But it will cause my self-image to take a hit.
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Such a hit is not irreparable but painful for a time. And we are all about protecting our self-image. Self-Image or lack of may explain why bullies are bullies; they want to improve their self-image.
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As Ryan Holliday says in his quote, it’s not what obstacles we face but how we see them that matters and whether we keep our composure. We like to think we are in control of our lives, but there is very little we control except our reactions to life. So, what can you do once you realize that we are not in total control of our lives?
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First, continue living your life. Then, continue placing one foot in front of the other and take action. Don’t hide.
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Second, learn how to control what you can and forget about the rest. What we feel is real, but we can control our responses through meditation and mindfulness.
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Third, accept you are not perfect. I’m not everyone’s answer to living a better life. What I think I know may turn out to be wrong. But we have to learn to accept ourselves, warts and all.
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- What obstacles did you face this week?
- Do you think more about what you can control or can’t?
- Why do you spend so much time thinking about what you can’t control?
- How do you hold yourself back? What do you fear?
- List those things that caused you to become emotional this week.
- Which things were under your control?
- Make a list of the top things you worried about last week and cross out those that are not within your control. The remaining inventory will be very short.
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