Tag: blame

The Four Agreements: 4/4

The fourth agreement in Don Miguel Ruiz’s book is Always Do Your Best.

I shoulda-coulda-woulda learned this lesson much earlier. My inflated ego made constant judgments about the level of job I was in, my academic ranking compared to my peers, and my general circumstances. There were two negative consequences to that faulty thinking.

First, I couldn’t fully relax and enjoy the job experience I was having. Even though I didn’t have a clear idea of what level I should be at, I was convinced the current level was insufficient. For my ego. Never mind that I was an inexperienced kid who was at exactly the right place for her age and stage. I didn’t have the internal psychological framework to assure me that where I was was just fine. For now.

Second was the truth that by feeling somehow superior, I didn’t always do the best job I could. I was, by times, baselessly argumentative and demanding, and difficult. With my coworkers and with my bosses. I had some notion that I was “above” what I was doing. Today, I feel considerable shame and humility for that bratty attitude. It put people off (especially employers) and I had a hard time fitting into the work crowd.

There are a raft of things I could say to contextualize my situation. I was a traumatized child. I often came to work hungover in my twenties in the heydays of my hard drinking. I once showed up drunk in the morning at my TV job still drunk from partying the night before. Add “actress” to my job resume right next to “on-air reporter.” I hadn’t yet heard the term “personal work,” let alone begun to do it to wrestle my demons into submission.

Ruiz says that always doing one’s best helps turn the first three agreements into habits. If we internalize and follow the habits of taking nothing personally, being as honest and clear as possible with our word, and making no assumptions without verification, our best is a natural byproduct.

One’s “best” effort will change depending on the situation, but no one needs to feel guilty about that. In any situation, there are many factors working with or on us that we cannot control. But always doing one’s best builds immunity to guilt and judgment and self-recrimination. In effect, Ruiz’s four agreements are a prescription for taking personal responsibility.

Learning that lesson matures us as we let go of the youthful tendency to blame our parents and other external circumstances, such as money or culture, or religion. or race, for our misery and difficulties. The only way out is through. By doing our best, we can look back with pride and satisfaction on the wake we have left in our life.

In what looks like a nod to the philosophy of “pursuing your bliss,” Ruiz adds that one should not act exclusively for rewards in life but because one is doing what one wants to. Rewards will naturally follow.

I’ve always liked the saying: “Find work that you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Still good advice.

Don’t Blame Me

Love is energy. That energy circulates and moves through all living things and us humans, in the constant rhythm of our breaths and our heartbeats. Pretty reliable markers over the course of a lifetime. When we are children, we are taught we need to plant the “right” seeds, then stand up as adults, work hard, and watch our lives grow. Of course, everyone gets different seed packets: in the guise of different genders, talents, geographic locations, physical gifts, inherited experience, race, aptitudes, innate knowledge, and the circumstances of our births. We’re human and malleable, especially when we are children. We need to belong and be loved so we listen to who our families tell us we are. Many families have very definite ideas about your “ideal” life path though it may be radically different from your own inner desires and direction. We all know lawyers who wanted to open a bar or be commercial airline pilots. Doctors who really wanted to be farmers and company CEOs who might have been stay-at-home mothers had that been an acceptable option. We all make decisions based on what we know and what we learn along life’s path. In my family, my mother was convinced I should become an influential and powerful public figure. My Dad – by contrast – thought that I would be better off as a wife and mother and that pursuing a university degree was a waste of time and money. I completely let him down by earning three. You can only grow from the level you are at any given time of your life. Babies, for example, are not expected to understand mathematics or physics. That anyone can at any age, of course, is an utter mystery to me. “Adulthood”  arrives at the moment you start listening to your own heart’s desires and begin moving your life in a direction of your own making. Countless numbers of people are willing to cash in on our innate insecurities. It can be a moment of crisis when we wake up and start to shake off the labels and expectations that have been placed on us throughout our lives.  Because each one of us is utterly unique, there is no “one size fits all.” When we decide to seek meaning and direction in our own lives “our way,” we have to carve out our own path. I tire easily of the fashion and cosmetic industries that assure us women that our self-worth and belonging is guaranteed “if only” we buy their products (and give them a five-star rating on Yelp!) I am tired of so-called experts who try to sell me their version of “the way, the truth, and the life.” This approach can only make sense in a capitalist society that has lost a deep sense of community and lauds individual achievement over the collective power of joining our gifts and talents to work together. So making that often jerky turn toward adulthood often comes down to self-determination and a lot of courage. When people can no longer abide the internal disconnect between who they really are, lives can change radically. Marriages collapse. Businesses fail. Abused children turn their backs on the parents who had ground them down from birth. Adulthood is taking personal responsibility. Responsibility for everything that happens to us, what we do, and the choices we made regardless of how badly misguided or uninformed we were. That means blame is out of the question. There may, indeed, have been negative incidents and forces that shaped you. Blame won’t fix it. It will only perpetuate it and stultify the process of making your own life better. Our focus must turn from trying to find someone or something to “fix us” and stepping up to “fix ourselves.” The answers are already deep inside. We need to encourage that small, still voice and learn to listen to it. We need to consciously train our energy on the good things in our lives and work to eliminate what is bad or “doesn’t serve us.” Such has been my relationship with words. External voices and expectations drowned the seeds of my creativity. They were much more comfortable ingesting the pablum I wrote for money. My energies were focused for far too long on keeping a lid on and suppressing me and my voice. The one I knew I had to develop. Not anymore. Who’s with me?