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Millions of pages quote this meme, but everybody understand it differently. Because we, culturally defined humans, we have no idea what is the game, and how we play it. No clue what to pay attention and what is relevant to the how.
No distinction.
The dude who coined the meme, Grantland Rice was a sports writer. He made more money that the people he wrote about. Was he happy? Was he fulfilled? Hell no. Couldn’t be…
Without distinguishing ‘not present’ distinguishing being present is not possible.
Whaaat?
Yeah, that is the essence of distinguishing. Once you have enough of ‘not that’ or ‘not that way!’ the thing you want to distinguish becomes clear.
By the way, this is the essence of the Anna Karenina principle, the essence of the strait and narrow. When distinguishing we are more interested what is outside than what is inside…
This is the opposite of what our culture does:
Culture says that it is all about definition: everything that even narrowly fits what we want to define, goes inside. A ton of stuff…
When I muscletest a food list, the most important information is NOT what is on your YES list, but what you shouldn’t eat. once you are clear on those, keeping a diet is probably a piece of cake, because now you are clear.
When you want to be present, the most important things to distinguish are how you are not present. What pulls you out of being present.
All the things that we don’t want to know… because as a 3-year old, we only want to notice what we think is good and noble and likable about us.
This has been the main job of positive/negative brain-washing technique, or Christianity’s ‘thought of a sin is also a sin‘ declaration.
You see, we may not be able to eliminate thoughts of evil… because we have zero control over our thoughts. Zero.
But we can manage our ACTIONS, our ATTITUDES, and ATTENTION… and have those thoughts but not allow them to have us.
But if you don’t ever want to see, hear, think what you don’t like, then you will be owned by what you don’t want to see… they will run your life, and all you can do is try to balance them out by some ‘positive’ stuff, eating, momentary glee, sexing, gambling, etc.
Here are some examples:
- You are jerked around by your desire for fast wins. Instead of owning that as an evil inclination. You notice that you never win. You’ll never succeed. Likely you know who you are…
- If you are only OK because you judge other people that they are not OK, then you are owned by this evil inclination. This evil inclination to judge and compare so you can put yourself higher… and you’ll never get good. You know who you are…
- If you need to hoard, overeat, blab to feel that you are enough, then the urge to be enough will own you… and you’ll never amount to anything… guaranteed. You know who you are.
The strait and narrow is a methodology.
In the strait and narrow you distinguish what BEHAVIORS, what ATTITUDES, take you to places where happiness, joy, fulfillment, self-love are not possible.
You distinguish what pulls your ATTENTION away from being present, being the driver of your life, being in possession of yourself… You’ll distinguish how you allow others, urges, emotions, instant gratification to own you.
The exact opposite of what the culture dictates: more, better, different.
The choice is:
- either go with the culture, and be wretched, no matter what you own, no matter what you have, no matter what you do.
- Or manage yourself to not allow any of that to own you: be self-possessed… Possess your self, possess your behavior, possess your attitude, possess your attention… and be joyful, self-loving, fulfilled, and inner directed.
It’s two paths, aiming at the same destination. One doesn’t work, the other works. And works in a manner that the journey is rewarding, the journey is the life.
Let’s take someone with newly discovered cancer. It is small and it is still small.
On the cultural path all effort is to kill the cancer. To justify oneself. To blame. Blame life, blame others, blame oneself. More, better and different.
The strait and narrow path is to distinguish the ACTIONS, the ATTITUDES, and the ATTENTION… and rein them in, one at a time.
Rein them in like you rein in a horse.
To control undesirable activity or growth. ‘To rein in something’ means to control it. Many people have been looking for long-term ways to rein in overspending, overeating, oversleeping, judging, talking too much, taking things personally, blaming, jumping into conclusion, entitlement, acting superior, etc.
—If your level of distinguishing is that you are looking for the opposite… meaning you are on the level of binary… then start there. Always start where you are!
Just please know: your first eliminating action is to widen your cone of vision, to include other than just the opposite in your view…
Your tool is seeing.
Binary exists only in the mind. It’s a judgment. So your first action is to add words on both sides of the divide. For example, if you are in the Drink your Food challenge, add words for texture, for flavor, for the experience, for when you stop chewing… meaning: let go little by little of the rigid worldview that the world is binary. That things are either good or bad…
For you the Drink your Food challenge will be about that. That is your stumbling block, that is your first BOULDER of the seven boulders.
Why do that inside the Drink your Food challenge? Because the narrow scope of possible actions will make it easier, and more obvious.
Restriction will give you a training ground where you can pinpoint what you are attempting to rein in and what you are attempting to widen.
Without the restriction you’ll not succeed. Can’t. Too many options, too much information.
If you are also in the next challenge, Bring Purpose to Life… that is a perfect match to the first boulder elimination challenge.
—If you are already on the ‘extrinsic’ level, where things have shades, color beyond black and white
Your boulder may be the wanting to jump in. Not starting where you are, but starting in the middle.
—Or you may have a mismatch between your precious ‘I’ and what you are actually accomplishing. Jodie’s method of ‘I am stupid…stupid opens the door to learning, curiosity, and a life‘.
That attitude will allow you to get curious. To have patience for yourself. And to actually learn some skills that have a chance to produce more life… And what you want to rein in that ‘you shouldn’t have to do what it takes to get what you want‘ because you are entitled to get it automatically. The wins. The skills. And the results.
It’s OK to hate it. I do.
But you either play this game of life by the rules of Life, or you’ll be a loser. And you have been.
—You may have avoided life and applying yourself by claiming illness… You need to rein in the tendency to choose easy… it hasn’t gotten you a life you can love.
The core issue, across the board, is entitlement
If you have been paying attention: underneath the boulders, the foundation of all these is entitlement. Considering yourself the arbiter of the Universe, considering that you are entitled to call your opinion reality.
—
Are high achievers happy?
I’ve read some writers who are very smart, very knowledgeable, very structured. Should be happy, but they are not. They may be proud of their results, but personal fulfillment, self-love, loving life is as puny as everyone else’s.
But why?
I am looking at Michael Simmons, a writer of articles.
He looks at what famous, accomplished leaders do. All surface. Does he look to see what he needs to rein in? Not at all. His attention is on more, better, and different… and therefore he simply cannot be happy. He is playing culture’s game, not Life’s game.
But now that YOU know how, you can start playing Life’s game. And get better, enjoy life, every step of the way.
Now, can’t emphasize it enough that doing this strait and narrow way of growing is near impossible, unless you create strong restrictions first.
For example: until Jodie (a winning student) restricted her playground to reining in entitlement, reining in the notion that she is the arbiter of the Universe and she has the right to call it how she pleases… all part of entitlement, she produced negative results.
When she first came to me, she was a relatively happy individual. Then, in almost 18 months, working her ass off on seventeen different things, she managed to nearly destroy herself and her life… until, finally, she accepted the restriction, and now she is happier, and has managed to raise her vibration, her health, her quality of life.
That is the rough essence, by the way, of the One Thing methodology, or the ‘no’ methodology of Jim Camp as opposed to others’, who advocate ‘and’… or win-win.
You can do it alone, but won’t get very far… You, at least, need a coach. At best you need a community AND a coach.
Whatever you work on, can be ‘attacked’ inside the Drink your Food challenge. It is also the least expensive, as far as time and money expenditure goes.
But if you allow your mundane life to take over, or your mind to take over, it won’t work.
You need to put your life front and center
I have had a student that as long as she managed to keep the principles of this work front and center, she was winning. At some point she put success front and center and she became a loser.
Don’t let that be you.
Allow success, winning take a back seat, and be a side-effect only. ‘Roadkill’… not the goal.
I know this doesn’t make sense to your mind… but if you take what I say, you’ll thank me later.
My how that works: I have had a lot of successes in my life. I never focused on attaining them, reaching them, I focused on some practice, some process, on attaining a skill, a principle, a strength instead.
I have lived the principle of strait and narrow 91%. All unhappiness, all wretchedness have come from the 9% when I went for something directly… A number, a grade, a position, a praise, love, security, enjoyment, health, beauty, acceptance, even friendship.. All are side effects of a life well lived, a how.
My ‘current’ boulder is jumping in… without first looking. I have been working on that, exclusively, for a year now. It feels like I have to start from zero every day… But that is life. It seems to me that I may have to work on this boulder more than I have worked on anything else before. And it is fine with me.
It is paying off every day in happiness, in no frustration, no anger, no big failures. Not finding myself in the middle of something I didn’t deliberately set up myself.
Of course if you think
Of course if you think that beating yourself up makes you good… then that is one of the boulders to rein it. That stewing over false starts, false steps, mistakes will correct them… then that is a boulder to rein in. The stewing.
My recommendation is the Drink your Food challenge… We all eat. and we can all use it for our specific boulder… because how you do anything is how you do everything, including chewing…
Work on your own boulder
I don’t think so. Have you? Are you hinting that this article was like that?
You ever read something so chilling that it is as if it is reading you?
Thank you