You Cannot Change Another. You Can Only Change Yourself

 

No one can persuade another to change.
Each of us guards a gate of change
that can only be opened from the inside.
We cannot open the gate of another,
either by argument or emotional appeal.
- Marilyn Ferguson

You cannot teach a man anything;
you can only help him find it within himself.
- Galileo Galilei

The truth only irritates those it enlightens,
but does not convert.
- Pasquier Quesnel

I cannot teach anybody anything.
I can only make them think.
- Socrates

The greatest roadblock to a great relationship
is trying to force a partner to change through bribes or threats.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Live and Let Live

The Problem with Advice

My thoughts on meddling in the affairs of others

Questions To Ask Yourself Before Offering Helpful Advice
    

Approach Life with Perspective, Understanding, and Patience

 

Begin with your own inner peace.
Then use that inner peace
as a platform from which
to approach the outer world
with perspective, understanding, and patience.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is those who have a deep and real inner life
who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.
- Evelyn Underhill

We're so engaged in doing things
to achieve purposes of outer value
that we forget the inner value,
the rapture that is associated
with being alive, is what it is all about.
- Joseph Campbell

The outer conditions of a person's life will always
be found to reflect their inner beliefs.
- James Lane Allen

Further reading: Master of My Emotions

What Really Matters

Your Attitude is Your Window

Renewal

Mastering Time

Life Really Is Good
      

Declare Today to be a New Beginning

 

 

What's done is done.
- William Shakespeare

All life is change.
Release your attachment to the way things have been,
and wend your way joyfully
through life's unfolding majesty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There's a trick to the Graceful Exit.
It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage,
a relationship is over - and to let go.
It means leaving what's over without denying its value.
- Ellen Goodman

Stop holding on to the past.
1) Release your regrets about whatever you may have done or failed to do that turned out poorly.
2) Forgive others for whatever they may have done or failed to do that caused you harm.
3) Declare today to be a new beginning.
Let go of the past and move on with creating a joyful new future for yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Before moving on, you have to clear away your cherished beliefs.
- Dick Raymond

Further reading: Let Go of Your Attachment to Your Plans

Illusions Lost

A Better Plan

Don Miguel Ruiz: The Four Agreements - The Wisdom of the Ages in Four Sound-Bites 
      

Contemplate Existence...

 

I remind you, as I often do, that these daily emails are intended to inspire deep thinking about the subject matter, and not to dictate answers intended to satisfy everyone's individual needs and perspectives.

The world is perfect.
It's a mess. It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

The world is perfect.
As you question your mind, this becomes more and more obvious.
Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes.
A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed.
It can never be fooled into believing that there is one speck out of order.
- Byron Katie

Your life within God's arms,
Your dance within God's arms,
Is already Perfect!
- Hafiz

If you want something to be different than it is,
you might as well teach a cat to bark.
Wanting something to be different than it is, is hopeless.
- Byron Katie

It is not our place to know the mind of God.
Spirit knows what is best in the long run -
best for each of us individually,
and best for humanity as a whole.
This is often very difficult to accept
when we see war and disease in the world
and experience physical and emotional suffering
in ourselves, our family, and our friends.
I consider this belief in God's infinite power
and ultimate wisdom to be the true test of faith.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What does it mean to say "the world is perfect" when clearly the world is full of suffering?
For someone who believes that God is both omnipotent (infinitely powerful) and omnibenevolent (infinitely good), the world MUST be perfect because an omnipotent omnibenevolent God would by definition create a perfect world -- and if we mortals do not see this world as perfect, it must be our own failure of perception (for example, accomplishing God's longer term goal for the world). See the Wikipedia article on the "Problem of Evil" for more on this.

For those who don't believe there is a God (or believe in multiple gods), the world is "perfect" simply because this is the way it is. We can change the world over time, but at this exact instant, the world is as it is, and the "perfect" way for it to be right now. This viewpoint eliminates the suffering associated with demanding that the world be different than it is. Read more at Byron Katie - No one can give you freedom but you.
     

The problem with making assumptions...

 

Everything is not as it appears to be.
- Proverb

About most subjects, there is not "The Truth;"
there is merely one's personal truth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth.
- Ludwig Boerne

The problem with making assumptions
is that we believe they are the truth
- don Miguel Ruiz

A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted
for insight and understanding.
- Marshall McLuhan

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
- Oscar Wilde

What if it were only an illusion?
Perhaps life is not as threatening as it appears.
Perhaps the greatest threat to our serenity
is our fear of the future -
our fear of the unknown.
Perhaps, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said,
"The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's image shows a Müller-Lyer perceived length optical illusion.

Further reading: Question Your Questions

Belief - Point-of-View

When Life Looks Hopeless

Maybe So, Maybe Not. - Ancient Taoist Proverb
    

Trust Your Own Common Sense Rather Than "Belief"

 

Since you are the one who has to live with your choices,
be sure they are your own.
- Alan Cohen

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it,
or who said it, no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense.
- The Buddha

Don't follow any advice, no matter how good,
until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think
in your mind that the counsel is wise.
- Joan Rivers

The ultimate authority must always rest
with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Each man is the architect of his own fate.
- Appius Claudius

Don't believe me.
I don't want you to believe me
but I want you to listen and make choices - your choices.
If what I say, doesn't work for you, leave it.
But if it works for you and that's what you want, then make it yours.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Further reading: To Thine Own Self Be True

Don't Take It Personally

Encourage Me

True to Your Best
    

Examine, Inquire, Don't Make Assumptions

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

- Mark Twain (attributed)

If you would be a real seeker after truth,

it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt,
as far as possible, all things.

- Rene Descartes

The more opinions you have, the less you see.
- Wim Wenders

About most subjects, there is not "The Truth."
There is merely one's personal truth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The problem with making assumptions
is that we believe they are the truth
- don Miguel Ruiz

Examine, inquire.
Look into the nature of things.
Search out the grounds of your opinions,
the for and against.
Know why you believe, understand what you believe,
and possess a reason for the faith that is in you.

- Frances Wright

Everything is not as it appears to be.
- Proverb

People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
- 1997 Comedy Movie "Men In Black"

Further reading: Question Your Questions

The Illusion of Knowledge

Maybe So, Maybe Not.

Expectations

Truth isn't True

Assumptions
     

Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known

 

What does it profit, my brethren,
if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
Can faith save him?
- James 2:14

Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want.
It is the belief that God will do what is right.
- Max Lucado

Trust in God's goodness.
Be wary of what humans do in God's name.
Not everyone who claims to speak for God is righteous.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A person who is fanatic in matters of religion,
and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe,
becomes a person who has no faith at all.
- Alan Watts

I don't doubt God. I have firm faith absolutely in God.
It's religion I'm doubting.
- Bono

To know a person's religion
we need not listen to his profession of faith
but must find his brand of intolerance.
- Eric Hoffer

Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
- Michel de Montaigne

Further reading: Where there is Great Love

Know that You have been Blessed

Heaven on Earth

Thank You Prayer
    

What You DO Tells All about You

Begin with your own inner peace.
Then use that inner peace
as a platform from which
to approach the outer world
with perspective, understanding, and patience.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is those who have a deep and real inner life
who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.
- Evelyn Underhill

We're so engaged in doing things
to achieve purposes of outer value
that we forget the inner value,
the rapture that is associated
with being alive, is what it is all about.
- Joseph Campbell

The outer conditions of a person's life will always
be found to reflect their inner beliefs.
- James Lane Allen

Further reading: Master of My Emotions

What Really Matters

Your Attitude is Your Window

Renewal

Mastering Time

Life Really Is Good
      

Leave the Past in the Past

 

What's done is done.
- William Shakespeare

All life is change.
Release your attachment to the way things have been,
and wend your way joyfully
through life's unfolding majesty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There's a trick to the Graceful Exit.
It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage,
a relationship is over - and to let go.
It means leaving what's over without denying its value.
- Ellen Goodman

Stop holding on to the past.
1) Release your regrets about whatever you may have done or failed to do that turned out poorly.
2) Forgive others for whatever they may have done or failed to do that caused you harm.
3) Declare today to be a new beginning.
Let go of the past and move on with creating a joyful new future for yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Before moving on, you have to clear away your cherished beliefs.
- Dick Raymond

Further reading: Let Go of Your Attachment to Your Plans

Illusions Lost

A Better Plan

Don Miguel Ruiz: The Four Agreements - The Wisdom of the Ages in Four Sound-Bites 
      

The Nature and the Meaning of Life...

I remind you, as I often do, that these daily emails are intended to inspire deep thinking about the subject matter, and not to dictate answers intended to satisfy everyone's individual needs and perspectives.

The world is perfect.
It's a mess. It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

The world is perfect.
As you question your mind, this becomes more and more obvious.
Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes.
A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed.
It can never be fooled into believing that there is one speck out of order.
- Byron Katie

Your life within God's arms,
Your dance within God's arms,
Is already Perfect!
- Hafiz

If you want something to be different than it is,
you might as well teach a cat to bark.
Wanting something to be different than it is, is hopeless.
- Byron Katie

It is not our place to know the mind of God.
Spirit knows what is best in the long run -
best for each of us individually,
and best for humanity as a whole.
This is often very difficult to accept
when we see war and disease in the world
and experience physical and emotional suffering
in ourselves, our family, and our friends.
I consider this belief in God's infinite power
and ultimate wisdom to be the true test of faith.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What does it mean to say "the world is perfect" when clearly the world is full of suffering?
For someone who believes that God is both omnipotent (infinitely powerful) and omnibenevolent (infinitely good), the world MUST be perfect because an omnipotent omnibenevolent God would by definition create a perfect world -- and if we mortals do not see this world as perfect, it must be our own failure of perception (for example, accomplishing God's longer term goal for the world). See the Wikipedia article on the "Problem of Evil" for more on this.

For those who don't believe there is a God (or believe in multiple gods), the world is "perfect" simply because this is the way it is. We can change the world over time, but at this exact instant, the world is as it is, and the "perfect" way for it to be right now. This viewpoint eliminates the suffering associated with demanding that the world be different than it is. Read more at Byron Katie - No one can give you freedom but you.
     

Look Beneath Superficial Assumptions

Everything is not as it appears to be.
- Proverb

About most subjects, there is not "The Truth;"
there is merely one's personal truth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth.
- Ludwig Boerne

The problem with making assumptions
is that we believe they are the truth
- don Miguel Ruiz

A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted
for insight and understanding.
- Marshall McLuhan

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
- Oscar Wilde

What if it were only an illusion?
Perhaps life is not as threatening as it appears.
Perhaps the greatest threat to our serenity
is our fear of the future -
our fear of the unknown.
Perhaps, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said,
"The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's image shows a Müller-Lyer perceived length optical illusion.

Further reading: Question Your Questions

Belief - Point-of-View

When Life Looks Hopeless

Maybe So, Maybe Not. - Ancient Taoist Proverb
    

Don't Believe, Use Reason and Critical Analysis

Since you are the one who has to live with your choices,
be sure they are your own.
- Alan Cohen

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it,
or who said it, no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense.
- The Buddha

Don't follow any advice, no matter how good,
until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think
in your mind that the counsel is wise.
- Joan Rivers

The ultimate authority must always rest
with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Each man is the architect of his own fate.
- Appius Claudius

Don't believe me.
I don't want you to believe me
but I want you to listen and make choices - your choices.
If what I say, doesn't work for you, leave it.
But if it works for you and that's what you want, then make it yours.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Further reading: To Thine Own Self Be True

Don't Take It Personally

Encourage Me

True to Your Best
    

Examine, Inquire, Don't Assume

 

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

- Mark Twain (attributed)

If you would be a real seeker after truth,

it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt,
as far as possible, all things.

- Rene Descartes

The more opinions you have, the less you see.
- Wim Wenders

About most subjects, there is not "The Truth."
There is merely one's personal truth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The problem with making assumptions
is that we believe they are the truth
- don Miguel Ruiz

Examine, inquire.
Look into the nature of things.
Search out the grounds of your opinions,
the for and against.
Know why you believe, understand what you believe,
and possess a reason for the faith that is in you.

- Frances Wright

Everything is not as it appears to be.
- Proverb

People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
- 1997 Comedy Movie "Men In Black"

Further reading: Question Your Questions

The Illusion of Knowledge

Maybe So, Maybe Not.

Expectations

Truth isn't True

Assumptions
     

True Faith does Not Make Demands

What does it profit, my brethren,
if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
Can faith save him?
- James 2:14

Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want.
It is the belief that God will do what is right.
- Max Lucado

Trust in God's goodness.
Be wary of what humans do in God's name.
Not everyone who claims to speak for God is righteous.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A person who is fanatic in matters of religion,
and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe,
becomes a person who has no faith at all.
- Alan Watts

I don't doubt God. I have firm faith absolutely in God.
It's religion I'm doubting.
- Bono

To know a person's religion
we need not listen to his profession of faith
but must find his brand of intolerance.
- Eric Hoffer

Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
- Michel de Montaigne

Further reading: Where there is Great Love

Know that You have been Blessed

Heaven on Earth

Thank You Prayer
    

Without Fear

 

True faith needs no guarantees.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The attitude of faith is the very opposite
of clinging to belief, of holding on.
- Alan Watts

Faith is much better than belief.
Belief is when someone else does the thinking.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

Faith is not belief.
Belief is passive.
Faith is active.
- Edith Hamilton

Can you imagine a life with no fear?
What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats?
- Max Lucado

Further reading: The Power of Faith

The Edge of All You Know

Stop Worrying about Tomorrow

Release the Struggle
    

Actions, not words, reveal a person's beliefs

 

Begin with your own inner peace.
Then use that inner peace
as a platform from which
to approach the outer world
with perspective, understanding, and patience.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is those who have a deep and real inner life
who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.
- Evelyn Underhill

We're so engaged in doing things
to achieve purposes of outer value
that we forget the inner value,
the rapture that is associated
with being alive, is what it is all about.
- Joseph Campbell

The outer conditions of a person's life will always
be found to reflect their inner beliefs.
- James Lane Allen

Further reading: Master of My Emotions

What Really Matters

Your Attitude is Your Window

Renewal

Mastering Time

Life Really Is Good
      

What's Done is Done, Let it Be

 

 

What's done is done.
- William Shakespeare

All life is change.
Release your attachment to the way things have been,
and wend your way joyfully
through life's unfolding majesty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There's a trick to the Graceful Exit.
It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage,
a relationship is over - and to let go.
It means leaving what's over without denying its value.
- Ellen Goodman

Stop holding on to the past.
1) Release your regrets about whatever you may have done or failed to do that turned out poorly.
2) Forgive others for whatever they may have done or failed to do that caused you harm.
3) Declare today to be a new beginning.
Let go of the past and move on with creating a joyful new future for yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Before moving on, you have to clear away your cherished beliefs.
- Dick Raymond

Further reading: Let Go of Your Attachment to Your Plans

Illusions Lost

A Better Plan

Don Miguel Ruiz: The Four Agreements - The Wisdom of the Ages in Four Sound-Bites 
      

What does it mean to say "The World is Perfect?"

 

I remind you, as I often do, that these daily emails are intended to inspire deep thinking about the subject matter, and not to dictate answers intended to satisfy everyone's individual needs and perspectives.

The world is perfect.
It's a mess. It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

The world is perfect.
As you question your mind, this becomes more and more obvious.
Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes.
A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed.
It can never be fooled into believing that there is one speck out of order.
- Byron Katie

Your life within God's arms,
Your dance within God's arms,
Is already Perfect!
- Hafiz

If you want something to be different than it is,
you might as well teach a cat to bark.
Wanting something to be different than it is, is hopeless.
- Byron Katie

It is not our place to know the mind of God.
Spirit knows what is best in the long run -
best for each of us individually,
and best for humanity as a whole.
This is often very difficult to accept
when we see war and disease in the world
and experience physical and emotional suffering
in ourselves, our family, and our friends.
I consider this belief in God's infinite power
and ultimate wisdom to be the true test of faith.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What does it mean to say "the world is perfect" when clearly the world is full of suffering?
For someone who believes that God is both omnipotent (infinitely powerful) and omnibenevolent (infinitely good), the world MUST be perfect because an omnipotent omnibenevolent God would by definition create a perfect world -- and if we mortals do not see this world as perfect, it must be our own failure of perception (for example, accomplishing God's longer term goal for the world). See the Wikipedia article on the "Problem of Evil" for more on this.

For those who don't believe there is a God (or believe in multiple gods), the world is "perfect" simply because this is the way it is. We can change the world over time, but at this exact instant, the world is as it is, and the "perfect" way for it to be right now. This viewpoint eliminates the suffering associated with demanding that the world be different than it is. Read more at Byron Katie - No one can give you freedom but you.
     

Not As It Appears

 

Everything is not as it appears to be.
- Proverb

About most subjects, there is not "The Truth;"
there is merely one's personal truth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth.
- Ludwig Boerne

The problem with making assumptions
is that we believe they are the truth
- don Miguel Ruiz

A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted
for insight and understanding.
- Marshall McLuhan

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
- Oscar Wilde

What if it were only an illusion?
Perhaps life is not as threatening as it appears.
Perhaps the greatest threat to our serenity
is our fear of the future -
our fear of the unknown.
Perhaps, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said,
"The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's image shows a Müller-Lyer perceived length optical illusion.

Further reading: Question Your Questions

Belief - Point-of-View

When Life Looks Hopeless

Maybe So, Maybe Not. - Ancient Taoist Proverb