The 365 Commitment changes you. There are behaviors that I have known for years are beneficial, but failed to focus on or really attempt to incorporate in my life. It’s easy to get into a way of being that is sort of static. A person can find themselves dealing with and cycling through the same old problems that their mode of being creates. Money problems, relationship problems, weight problems, work problems, and so on seem to cycle and reappear over time. Funny how doing the same thing results in the same outcomes.
It is easy and very tempting to blame these problems and circumstances on external forces or other people. After all it’s a tough world filled with suffering, and actual malevolent people are out there. What should we do about it? I think once we reach a certain age it is no longer viable or useful to blame our problems on external forces. We are all thrown into this world and everyone faces a tough road and a certain demise at some point. So, what is the best was to deal with life?
If you are lucky, you realize it’s you. You realize that you are responsible for your problems. You choose to accept the responsibility for your suffering. This does not mean that bad people aren’t mean to you, or that you weren’t dealt a bad had so to speak. It means that you face the reality that your own behavior/mind-set is actually the cause of the problems in your life. This is an incredible revelation! Because it means you have the power to change it. It’s interesting how taking full responsibility for your problems is empowering. Oddly, responsibility = freedom and power. The first time this concept hit home with me was in 1983, I was reading a book by Carlos Castaneda titled “Journey to Ixtlan.” It’s about an anthropologist who becomes the apprentice to a Yaqui Indian shaman. Taking responsibility for everything in your life was one of the important lessons the shaman taught, if one was to become “a man of knowledge.”
We create our lives from the potential that is out there in the world. What will we create? The 365 Commitment asks us to focus on what is really important in our individual lives. Over the past year I found myself writing down some of the same things each day, but not acting on those things. Those things are clues. They are staring me right in the face. So, I would say, if you keep writing something down and not acting on it, it’s time to take a good look in the mirror and tackle it! You can do it.
Sacrifice those parts of yourself that keep you from moving toward what is most important. You really can do it with daily focus and incremental effort. If need be, shorten your 365 list to that one thing that keeps popping up but you are not acting on, and do it. Breakthrough once, and it will get easier. Keep knocking on that door and it will open. One last point. Ally and align yourself with the highest good you can imagine to insure that what you manifest in the world makes things better, not worse.
Ben Wagner (12)
Member 365 Commitment
