“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Very simple advice, eh? But how many can do either?
“Honor your father and mother.”
Very difficult. I’ve heard of people who won’t lend a dime or a hand when their parents are ailing.
Pay attention to your breathing. Watch your inhale – observe your exhale.
Simple advice that goes to the very core or root of our aliveness. How many people can do it?
A few years ago an LPGA golfer wrote me to say she’d read my book, but was not sure the role deep breathing would play in helping her game. She couldn’t wrap her mind around her breathing having anything to do with a golf swing – much less the game itself.
Hello.
Heavens to earth.
The fact she reached the pro level shows how much ability she has – yet how much is underutilized because the most fundamental principle is bewildering to her.
Hug your spouse and children once a day. Or your loved ones. Or one more time per day if you already do so.
Simple step, isn’t it? No need to complicate it. Just do it and watch what happens.
Now when it comes to the idea of goals and time management – let’s take a simple idea of “getting more enjoyment out of life” and make it complicated, shall we?
Instead of simple, small goals that you believe in and can wrap your breath and being around – that’s not good enough.
Isn’t it better to set BIG GOALS – especially goals that SCARE you? After all, a small goal couldn’t possibly be big enough to get results.
What?
Or how about this?
Instead of getting starting with one step – jump into the game with MASSIVE ACTION – then you wonder why you’re not getting anything but frustration.
To top it off, you make things even more abstruse and complicated by attempting to follow spiritual ideals of “getting rid of your ego” – a very egotistical idea if you ask me. But hey, I’ve got a bigger ego than anyone else who has ever lived.
Is your ego smaller than mine? Good.
But why you keeping score? Is it you doing so or your ego?
[Yes, I’m having fun here – that’s why I write. Egotists write to entertain their narcissistic natures.]
Moving along now – another good one is to give up all desire.
I’ve succeeded in doing the above – for periods of time – and I can tell you – and so can my ego – that being free of desire was never a desire in the first place – and that’s probably why it happened.
[I’d say that’s WHY it happened but that would be too opinionated – and I’m trying to curb my opinions so that I can keep my ego in check.]
Another simple idea gone bad – because it’s too complicated – is living one day at a time.
You cannot LIVE one day at a time. It’s not possible.
You can only live moment to moment – in the now.
You can abuse the NOW and use it to worry about the future or feel bad about the past – but NOW is all you ever get.
I believe in living life one breath at a time – not one day at a time.
As for goals, that’s where one day at a time works when keeping score – but even so, the idea of doing or not-doing, is easiest when you focus on short segments of time – and one day is too big a segment.
In fact, an hour or two is usually too big as well.
Give me a minute of this and a minute of that and I’m good to go.
Or five or ten minutes – at most.
Not because I have a limited attention span – but because all of us do – it’s only natural.
Being natural is truly natural when you make simplicity really simple.
Avoid the complicated.
Avoid self-help that complicates the naturally just so, and turns simplicity into confusion.
I will conclude now with some very simple advice that will make you feel much, much better.
Observe your inhale – observe your exhale – but only for a minute.
Matt Furey
P.S. You can light up your brain, your life and your career or business when you learn the art of simplicity. You can even easily surpass your absolute best when you follow this natural process. Want coaching in this? Then go here…
