Exploring Resilience via Lifes Burning Issues

Category: Thoughts (Page 34 of 46)

Have you contemplated your death?

Have you contemplated your own death?

skull and crossbones by antmoose @flickr

Have you ever contemplated your own death?

DEATH… it’s not a subject that many people want to contemplate, but it is inevitable and none of us get out of this life alive! 

Due to my profession and the community work that I have chosen to be engaged in death is a subject that I regularly encounter, but over the past day a couple of things have crossed my path that led to me asking you the question about contemplating your death, so I thought I would share them with you…

from the Dhammapada…

Firstly a section of the Dhammapada, that deals with ageing and death:

“Look at the body adorned, A mass of wounds, draped upon a heap of bones, A sickly thing, this subject of sensual thoughts! Neither permanent, nor enduring!

The body wears out, A nest of disease, Fragile, disintegrating, ending in death.” 

from an outstanding blogger…

yet another timely and astounding piece from Jessica Hagy that she has titled “The Crux of Deathbed Regrets”

from a set of lessons which help guide my life..

“… a time will most assuredly come when death that great leveler of all mankind, reduces us to the same state and the best and the brightest of us knows not when…”

Your death?

If you contemplate your own immortality, and the reality that your time is limited but you just don’t know how limited, what does your own death mean to you?

Now that this thought is in the forefront of your mind… what people matter most in your life and what are you going to do about showing them how much you appreciate them?

Share your thoughts in the comments…

Getting the best solution to every problem

Why? image by Kyle Pheland

Why?

This is a familiar question for most people, and anyone who has had any exposure to toddlers will tell that it is a question that can be used to effectively drive you mad.

However, this question is one of the most powerful questions you have available to you to help you get the best possible solution to every single one of your problems.

Why?

If you honestly ask yourself this question and spend time to honestly answer it, and then ask it and answer it again, and again, and again, you will help yourself unpack both the critical elements of the problem confronting you, and the critical elements of the solution.

Why?

Let’s go back to the example of the toddler. A toddler asks why, and how do we respond? We tell them that x happens because y.

What is the toddlers immediate response to that answer? You guessed it…why? What do you do then? You unpack the next part of the puzzle and provide an answer to that part. The toddler doesn’t say ahhh that makes it clear, thanks! No, they immediately say WHY?

The toddler will keep you engaged in this endless process of asking why until one of two things happen.

1. They completely exhaust your knowledge on a given subject, and you get to the point of saying …. “Just because it is!”, or

2. You have provided a stream of answers that satisfies the childs curiosity on the subject because they “get” it and feel that they understand the thing they were asking about.

Why?

If you follow this process of asking and answering why in relation to the problem you are trying to solve you will get to a point where the only answer is because it is what it is, it can’t be unpacked any further.

At this point you will have reached the core of the issue, and should have a very clear picture of the components of the problem.

This process is also likely to get you to a point where you feel like you simply get it, probably because you will have eliminated a great deal of uncertainty by forcing yourself to take a close look at what is truly motivating your responses to the why’s.

I’m encouraging you to ask questions like a three year old and answer the like an adult and see what amazing answers you come up with to you problems!

Let me know in the comments what you find out about your problems when you question the like a three year old.

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