Life handed me a basket of lemons and I do not want to make lemonade. I want to be mad! I want to pout. I want to cry. I want to scream out loud, “YOU’RE NOT FAIR…YOU SUCK!!!!!!” Life’s unfair!

Ever feel this way? Me too. We face the fairness dilemma every day like clockwork. The lack of fairness shows up in our lives in many forms of dishonesty, bias, superiority, injustice, or blame.

We were not born pre-equipped to handle fairness and be compassionate. Nor are we entitled to these character traits. We must develop these values through life experiences as we emotionally grow up.

A lot of frustration and sadness we experience comes directly from our perceived lack of fairness in the world. We transform these experiences into negative feelings. Negativity may provide some short-term sense of satisfaction, but it does not benefit us in any way shape or form. All destructive reactions do is reinforce our unwanted perceptions and expectations. Their continued presence propitiate more and more self-inflicted wounds.

Negative feelings suck all the motivation and momentum out of our forward progress. Negative feelings are the opportunity we have been waiting for. If we act quickly, we can locate the driving force behind what triggers this repeated experience. We have an opportunity to change the story we have been telling ourselves.  Change will restore our energy and enthusiasm for all the good that is in our lives.  Change will restore our forward progress. 

Consider this story.

Steve plays on an all-star travel team. He works hard and trains non-stop. He dominates practice, but cannot get playing time during the games. He is stuck behind the coach’s son (John) on the depth chart. Steve felt he was being treated unfairly.  He is angry with the coach. He is rude and mean to John. Steve believes   nothing is fair in life. No matter what he does, he will not get to play. He punishes himself and quits the team.

How could Steve have addressed his issues with fairness?

He could have… 

• Shared his feelings with his coach, parents, etc.
• Accepted and respected his coaches decision
• Accepted responsibility for his actions and behavior
• Thought about how his decision affected others
• Played by the rules

Unless Steve takes action to change his belief about this life event, his decision will most likely haunt him the rest of his life.  When he fails to get a promotion at work, he will probably emotionally checkout and find another job. He will continually see biased behavior in his life whether it is there or not. 

This one experience will be continually reinforced in his life because he expects it to occur. The pattern will continue until Steve puts an end to it.

People who proactively address their negative emotions are more aware of when their emotions are clouding their actions and judgment. They stop themselves from committing unforced errors. They accept people and situations for what they are. They accept themselves as they are. Compassion rules the day.

Compassion breaks down any judgment we hold and allows us to open our hearts to those around us.  We see ourselves as one with our fellow-man. We take proactive action to help each other practice these principles.  We find freedom in compassion.

Honor your feelings. Explore them. Have compassion for yourself and fellow-man. 

How has fairness influenced your life?

Related posts:

1. New Perspective
2. Go ahead…give your life away…its your choice
3. Being a Dad changed my life forever

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the same old same old. Get up, go to work, come home, sleep, and repeat.

Let’s do something different. Something fun. Something creative. Something we can laugh about. Something we can share with others. Something we can be proud of.

What ideas are percolating right now? Write them down. Share them in the comment section.

I’m imagining a day filled with spontaneous adventurous activity. A day to remember. A day that will only be trumped by tomorrow’s unplanned insanity.

What can you do break your daily routine? What small step can you take to remove the boundary lines and move beyond the electric fence?

Boundaries are limits we place on what is possible. A healthy lifestyle consists of healthy boundaries. The lines we create subconsciously lock us into limited behaviors. By removing these lines, we can access our creative right brain. Freeing us to visually explore our world and spontaneously play.

Do you miss play? I do.

Play sparks our senses. We feel, taste, smell, imagine, hear, and follow the bliss of the moment. When we play…we prioritize every moment through curiosity, adventure, and fun.

Isn’t that what life is all about?

Ask any 5-year-old what they want to do today….the answer will be unanimous…PLAY

Its time to play!

I’m ready to play.

Let’s play together.  Let’s build a playground together.

Are you ready to play?

Meet you on the playground.

No related posts.

In early October, I saw Cami Walker on the Today Show. She has written a wonderful book entitled “29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life .”  As the titled suggests, you can change your life in 29 days.

While I have not tried giving a gift a day for 29 days, I recently completed a month of tweeting something I am grateful for everyday.  This conscience daily effort has raised the bar on my feelings of gratitude.  I have been inspired to more deeply embrace all the good that is in my life.  I have expanded my recognition beyond the obvious things into to a greater awareness and appreciation for all the great things in my life.  I have more energy, love, and happiness. Better yet, I bring this energy to every conversation. As the saying goes, “Life is Beautiful.”

On Dec 1st, I will start my 29 days of offering a gift to the world.  You can follow my gift offerings on Twitter (@davidmcgraw).

If you feel inspired to do the same, please join me in the 29 day challenge. I promise you will be inspired to do bigger and greater things.

I look forward to hearing about your experience.

For more information on Cami Walker’s 29 Gifts program, please visit 29Gifts.org

Related posts:

1. Re-gifting: Offering our gifts to the world
2. Are you ready to unwrap your gifts?
3. Opening the door to our cares

We all say that some day things will change; we will take that vacation when we have more money or when we have more free time. When we have more confidence in ourselves, our job, our partner, we will be happy. When we get the new {fill in the blank}, we will be happy. We will have enough.

And yet I wonder – is that really the case? I look at my mobile phone and remember the feeling, just a few months back, when I was so excited about the convenience it would provide: faster reception, clearer connections, longer battery life; the smaller size was perfect for any purse. Yet today, I long for a newer model, a sleeker, faster version of this one. Each dropped call or slow connection to the net frustrates me and reminds me of its limitations.

The same is true of my house. It is so easy to focus on what is wrong with it and what needs to be repaired. A portion of the back yard is more weeds than grass. The half-finished flower bed needs to be finished. The closet door knob needs to be replaced so we don’t have to reattach one of the handles every week. The list is endless. Or is it?

At one time, I would have seen my current situation as only a dream. Had you asked me ten years ago if I would be satisfied with what I have and who I am today, I know what my answer would have been: Absolutely; I would be so appreciative. I would have more than enough. Who wouldn’t be happy?

Enough, at least in my world, is always something ‘out there’, and it exists in the future, without any sort of a boundary or frame of reference. It is not something we touch, much less remain in. It is an amorphous concept that we talk about as if it were real, thinking that when we get there or attain something, we will know it and experience satisfaction. And that little idea, which seems so very simple, puts us in perpetual forward motion. Like my cat chasing his tail, I am on a never-ending quest for ‘enough’, which will give me what I really long for: satisfaction, and peace.

I would be lying if I said that making my backyard into a showplace would give me more than a moment’s satisfaction. I would quickly find other things that needed to be done. More, better, faster – I have a lot of practice with those. I can measure them, touch them, see them. Once they are real, though, they become the new standard. Satisfaction and appreciation disappear as quickly as they appear. Sure, I can blame the advertising industry, our culture, the media, but that isn’t really fair. I am a human being, an adult, and I have a choice. I can choose to practice more, better, faster, or I can practice enough. And it all depends on the lens I look through.

I say that, because I know very well that there have been moments when I had enough, when I experienced satisfaction, and with it, peace and joy. When I reconnect with those moments, the current ‘feelings’ of not enough float away. One such moment was a few years ago as my husband underwent surgery for prostate cancer. When I think about that time, I can still connect with the visceral emotions I experienced that morning as I sipped coffee in the hospital cafeteria. My emotions were raw, and my thoughts raced through so many wasted opportunities,, arguments, choices, and decisions that separated us in one way or another. In that moment, any problems or imperfections, with him, our home, our relationship – even with me – melted away. I was focused on and appreciative for all the joys in my life, and it was enough. By focusing on what was good, I experienced satisfaction. When faced with the very real possibility of losing the love of my life, what mattered most became crystal clear. I had spent too much time looking through distorted lenses, focusing more on lack or gaps than on what and who really mattered. The heated arguments over undone household projects seemed petty and selfish. I vowed to take those distorting glasses off and leave them in that cafeteria. I would not let my lenses get cloudy again.

That does not mean, though, that I have given up ambition or the things I care about. Quite the opposite, in fact. By shifting my focus to what is important – to what I care about most – and the good that is all around me, the next action I need to take becomes more prominent. The path to ‘the me I want to be’ (thank you, Thomas Crum), the desire to serve, reveals itself as the fog of distraction lifts. When I stop, breathe, and reconnect to what I care about, my energy rises, and I am much more able to act in accordance with my values and desires. By first seeing the good, more possibilities exist. When I take the first step, then the second, and the third, my energy sustains me. Gratitude is the fuel for my soul, and keeps my vision clear.

Like any habit, though, those glasses have made their way back to me. Sometimes I notice, sometimes I don’t. I am learning that when my vision gets foggy and I feel drained of energy, I need to stop for a moment and take the glasses off and clean them. I stop, breathe, and look for the good. I pause, rest, and allow myself a short vacation in gratitude or silence. Voila – I see the world more clearly again. I see that I have so much good in my life, and I can experience the joy of satisfaction. I can recognize that more – with all its sultry promises – will never be enough. With a regular and consistent practice of just looking for the good instead of the gap, I can more easily reconnect with joy, peace and that wonderful sense of satisfaction on a more regular basis.

Hmmm…I haven’t yet practiced today. And I wonder, is it possible to ever reach a point where I have practiced ‘enough’ enough?

Related posts:

1. Life is not fair or is it?

There is always more to learn about ourselves.  Humans are biologically programmed to seek solutions to our problems. We read self-help articles to get a few tips, change our perspective, contemplate some decisions, and temporarily feel better about ourselves. For some of us, temporary relief is all we need.  For others, the search continues.  Each search involves a conversation and a decision.

We are not sure what conversation with who we would like to start.  We don’t know if the other party will listen to what we have to say.  We make up stories that stop us from starting a conversation. What I have to say is not that important. There is no reason to make a big deal about this, or is there?

Sure, it is much easier to shy away from sharing our inner personal thoughts than it is to take a chance and expose ourselves to judgment and ridicule.  We retreat into the safe confines of our personal space.  We consciously choose to keep our true thoughts, feelings, and dreams to ourselves. We pretend we are being open and trusting by building our social network profiles full of clichés and non-essential facts without sharing what matters most to us. Sharing our true self scares the hell out of us and we avoid it at all costs. We carry this attitude and behavior into every relationship we enter into.

What does this cost us? The answer is simple; we are destined to create very few deep meaningful relationships.  Most of our relationships are shallow and meaningless.  We may never fully enjoy all that life has to offer. I have very little room in my life for the shallow relationships.  I no longer want to hide from the world.  It takes courage to own your power; to have the confidence and trust in yourself and others.  The world is only as safe as you allow yourself to see it.

I choose to share, trust, and develop deep meaningful relationships.  I accept people without judgment and to allow others to judge me as they will. I share details of my life and take an interest in the well-being of the people I interact with. I trust I know what is best for me. I am not afraid.  I am free.

My desire is for you to develop your own version of free and live it to the fullest.

The road to freedom begins by assessing who you are, what matters most to you, and developing a vision for where you would like to go.

In my last posting “Cliff Jumping,” I closed with some self-examination questions about what gives you energy and what takes it away?  These are not just questions, they are guidelines for making decisions about what to pursue and what not to pursue.  If we want to be free, then we need to pursue all the positive energy sources we can get our hands on.  This energy keeps us focused on the good that people have to offer.  It keeps us focused on the good we have to offer.

Living with positive energy keeps us from focusing on events and behaviors that are beyond our control.  We can only control ourselves and how we react to the daily situations that we find ourselves in. We choose how we respond to people, events, and news.  We are responsible for the energy we transmit to the world.  The choice is ours to make.

I am going to assume you want to live a life of freedom and positive energy.  If not, just do the opposite of what I am about to suggest, and you will attract all the trapped negative energy your heart desires.

My freedom journey led me to eliminate as much of the toxic negative energy sources as I could in my everyday life. Today, I crave positive uplifting energy and run for the hills when I don’t feel it.  To get to this point, I had to consciously become more attuned to the type of energy people carry with them. I set an intention and designed a practice to help me to become more aware.  Good news is, you already have these skills and unconsciously use them every day.  Turning this unconscious thinking into conscious thinking is all it takes to unlock your natural abilities and cultivate more positive energy into your life.

The practice is simple and requires virtually no time to do.  After each interaction, quickly ask yourself a few questions like:

How does this person make me feel?  Do they trigger a certain emotion response in me? Do I stay positive in our conversations?  Is what I am experiencing with them, a result of a current life event or a general disposition they live with?

Most of the time, I am able to confirm my observations on a person during our first interaction and I know whether not I would like to continue discussions with them.  Sometimes, I am not so certain and it takes a couple of interactions for me to be certain.  The more I practice, the better I become at developing my energy reading abilities.

A few years ago, I began a relationship decluttering exercise by taking an inventory of the people around me and how my positive energy was changed by being around them and the environment I knew them in.

My list began by relationships closest to me.  I gradually expanded that circle.  I grouped my relationships into the following life domains (family, friends, co-workers, and networking contacts).  I wrote down people’s names, grouped them, and identified how each of them made me feel energetically.  Next, I identified why I felt this way. Then, I made a “Yes or No” choice about whether the relationship was working in a way I would like it to work.

List made, I decided which relationships if I wanted to continue, end, or change. I graded them as follows:

a.  Good – Let the relationship continue on its path

b.  Bad – Cut your ties and move on

c.  Change – Take action to reenergize it

My list (no real names used here) looked like this:

Domain        Name  Energy     Why                            Work?  Status

Friend          Sally    Positive   Supportive, Pleasant   Yes      Good

Co-Worker   Jerry   Negative  Brings me down          No       Bad

Network       Joe     Neutral    Nice Guy, I like him      No       Change

I cut my interactions with the negative relationships right away.  Next, I set out to improve the positive not working relationships.  Decluttering our relationships is no different from cleaning out a closet and throwing away some clothes that no longer fit you. I have the freedom to determine which clothes I wear and which people I want to hang out with.  I choose who I want to develop deep meaningful relationships with. Through this process, I learn more about what is important to me, why it is important, what I want to focus on, and where I can best place my efforts and energy. I am free and you can be too.

Freedom begins with eliminating all the negative energy forces in your life. Are you ready to begin your inventory list?  Start your inventory today. You owe it to yourself.

Related posts:

1. Cliff Jumping
2. Life is not fair or is it?
3. Are you ready to unwrap your gifts?

What decision did you make? Did you jump? Did step back from the edge?

This gut intuitive thought can revel quite a bit about our perspective on life.

Fear of falling could mean:

• You are risk adverse, cautious, and conservative in nature
• You are pessimistic, need certainty in life, and fear the unknown
• You feel like life is passing you by and something is keeping you from being happy

Ready to jump could mean:

• You are a risk taker, throw caution to the wind, spontaneous and adventurous
• You are more optimistic, less stuck in your ways, and embrace the unknown
• You happily embrace and live life to the fullest

Do these descriptions match how you view yourself?

Starting on a journey of self-actualization requires that we not only address and change our unwanted behaviors, it requires we adopt a positive optimistic attitude on life.

Positive optimism is deeply rooted in every successful person.  You know these people.  Nothing ever seems to get them down.  When you are around them, you can’t help but become positive yourself. You enjoy your time with them and look forward to the next encounter.  Their positive energy gives you energy.

Take a minute and reflect on these quotes by some famous successful people.

“The real man smiles in trouble, gather strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection” - Thomas Paine

“You see things; and you say “why?” But I dream of things that never were, and I say “Why not?” - George Bernard Shaw

“The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose”- Kahlil Gibran

“A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties” – Harry Truman

“Optimism is the foundation of courage” – Nicholas Murray Butler

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier” - Colin Powell

These quotes provide priceless insight into how these men embraced a life of positive optimism.  This is exactly how we are supposed to embrace life.

What is keeping you from having a positive optimistic energetic life?

To begin answering this question, you need to take an energy inventory.

1) Build a list of what energizes you.  List descriptors and characteristics, not specific people or events.

a. What types of people ignite it?

b. What situations do?

c.  What moods or emotions do you feel?

d. Where does this show up in your body? What sensations do you feel?

2) Build a list of what zaps your energy. List descriptors and characteristics, not specific people or events.

a. What type of person drains it?

b. What situations do?

c. What moods or emotions do you feel?

d. Where does this show up in your body? What sensations do you feel?

Please feel free to share your reflections when answering these questions by commenting on this post.

We will build on this exercise in next week’s post.

Related posts:

1. Do you need permission?
2. Cultivation
3. Are you ready to unwrap your gifts?