Generosity, choosing, gratitude

Generosity was one of the distinctions I spent years researching and trying to BE...

It is a tricky way to be, the full meaning of generosity, because almost no one ever is really generous.

We normally equate giving with generosity. Some give stuff, others give praise, some give of themselves.

Most generosity makes the recipient suspicious: what is the ulterior motive?

And rightly so: culturally, human culture, I mean, generosity doesn"t make sense... only trade does. "I give you this, so you"ll give me that."

And yet, there are a very few people who are actually generous, and they are happy. WTF, right?

Here is another important question: just like with love, whose experience matters, the giver or the receiver?

I have been teaching that the only way to experience love is to love. That you can only feel your own energy: I, in fact, never ever have felt love from another. Which doesn"t mean no one has loved me, I am talking about the experience.

So is there something similar with generosity?

That you experience generosity when you GIVE, not when you RECEIVE?

What does generosity, real generosity feel like?

Real generosity is a life changer.

The moment you are generous, really generous, in that moment, you have overcome ego, or the selfish gene... and you are in a space of abundance, as opposed to scarcity where most people live, where, maybe even you, live most of the time.

Scarcity says that there is something wrong. That you need all you got, and more. Money, love, freedom, liberty, respect, everything. That if you give it away, you"ll have less.

And it doesn"t matter how much you have, the dynamic is the same.

And scarcity is a tough master, it can torture you, and it won"t allow you to breathe freely.

So when you escape it for a moment, or through certain practices, for long stretches of time, maybe hours!, it is a major event.

Because you cross an invisible line, an evolutionary line, between human and human being... however long it lasts.

There are two other ways of being that we talk about frequently, that could be grouped with generosity, because without the leap to abundance they are as impossible as generosity.

These are gratitude and choosing.

Thanking someone isn"t gratitude, just like giving isn"t generosity. What makes it gratitude is the total disappearance of the precious "I" aka ego, for a little while.

And choosing is the same. What you choose is seemingly your enemy: reality. Reality with all its ugly events, bad things happening, etc.

Someone in a comment asked "What were you choosing in this article. ..."choose that", "choose it"

I am talking about nasty things that are happening to me, to my students, to the water, and everyone in between.

The idea to choose that to be the way it is is ludicrous: after all it feels like you condone it, your choosing it perpetuates it.

But that is scarcity thinking. When you resist, fight what is, you get frozen into that mood of resisting: misery. And sometimes you don"t even notice that it is gone...

But that is not the point that it"s gone. The point is to get out of your own way, and just embrace what is.

I have a favorite quote that it took me a long time to fully get... but it was worth it.

Arthur Miller – Take One"s Life in One"s Arms

I think it"s a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one"s self. One day the house smells of fresh bread, the next of smoke and blood. One day you faint because the gardener cuts his finger off, within a week you"re climbing over corpses of children bombed in a subway. What hope can there be if that is so? I tried to die near the end of the war. The same dream returned each night until I dared not to go to sleep and grew quite ill. I dreamed I had a child, and even in the dream I saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away. But it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes. Until I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps I could sleep. And I bent to its broken face, and it was horrible... but I kissed it. I think one must finally take one"s life in one"s arms.

Arthur Miller
from the play After the Fall

Embracing what you don"t want, embracing your own life is the generous act of choosing.

Here is an interview with Keith Ferrazzi by Tai Lopez that says a lot of what I discovered in those years, and some.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvk5Gl4M0eE

and here is more on generosity...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsuCFL-SQLg

and here is another one by James Altucher:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muwVwFiP2VY

Being judged

We are judged all the time. Justly, unjustly, the feeling of being judged is familiar to all of us... and some of us is bothered and paralyzed by it more than others.

What"s painful in being judged is that the judgment contains a kernel of truth (or more) and the other part is the judging themselves: in judging they place themselves above us... simply unbearable to the sensitive Precious "I".

This story is about my very recent "bout" with being judged... and shows what is on the other side of judgment... how to free yourself from it so it doesn"t sting quite that much... maybe not even at all.

OK, here we go:

If you"ve known me for a while, you know that I don"t do housework, or really shamefully little.

I was always like this... and was beaten, punished, shamed for it, but the leopard doesn"t change its spots... so I am just like I was as a kid. Whether this had anything to do with being called a Dirty Jew, of feeling dirty from sexual abuse... I don"t know and I don"t care.

This is reality. The other day I found a mug at the grocery store saying: A woman"s work is never done, so why start? And I laughed and I laughed, with tears streaming down my face. I shared it with a student, and she suddenly had contempt for me... It must have always been there... she superior because she cleans and accomplishes little else in her life, and me inferior because I don"t clean but have done more than most people in several lifetimes.

Anyway, obviously it still stings... that judgment.

But the most recent incident was yesterday.

About two weeks ago my refrigerator stopped working. I was careless and pre-occupied, and managed to eat something that turned out to be a potent toxin.

Now I had a combination of troubles: no food, no strength, and no skills to clean the house.

The refrigerator rallied and came back to life for a week, then gently died again.

So yesterday my landlady came to investigate. And, of course, my place is in shambles, the refrigerator was full of rotting stuff... nothing to be proud of... lol.

This morning I found an email from the landlady in my inbox telling me to empty the refrigerator into the three bags she left for me by the door, so all that gook doesn"t spill on the floor.

Yesterday she showed no sign of seeing anything off, anything unseemly, but she did. And I felt judged. And the argument in my head began: excuses, reasons, comparisons... you are probably more familiar with it than I am...

It took about four minutes. Then I had an insight: she did what I always hoped someone would do: hold my hand and show me what to do. I felt myself filled with gratitude. Thank you Rebecca.

I then did exactly what she told me to do. And now it"s done.

I am still a slob, but whatever she showed me by directing my attention is done.

OK, what can you learn from this?

The habit to ruminate, chew and re-chew again the hurt, the slight, who is better, why they are wrong, why they are right... is a really bad habit.

If you want to be truthful with yourself, you do this, most days, all day and maybe all night.

There are may ways to arrest this stream of self-harming thoughts, and I used gratitude to do it. I made Rebecca right without making myself wrong. And I gratefully accepted her guidance.

Did she need any more credentials to be "mother" or parent in helping me through this hump? No. Me having more schooling, more knowledge, higher vibration wasn"t helping me, but what she said did.

Now, whether I"ll have a new refrigerator or a repaired refrigerator, is still up in the air. But I am well, And I am having an experience of myself that is something of an amazement... I did it.

One of the reasons I have lived in this apartment for so long (13 years) because I could not see that I can physically manage moving. Now I see I can. Hm. Maybe this was a guidance event to show me I can.

Oh, here is a good TED talk somewhat related:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2hc2FLOdhI

How full is your toolbox? Planning to dig a well when you are thirsty?

One of the common characteristics of people I meet is that they have no skills, no tool box, they are waiting for the right opportunity to do anything. They will start to learn the right skills when they need them, when they"ll know what they want to do. And, of course, it is too late to dig a well when you are thirsty... they languish of thirst...

I am a lot like Bob in the movie "Bob The Butler".

I am inspired by that movie to do even more skill building to fill my tool box.

I am 70 years old. I have 27 skill sets, 27 ways to make a living. I am an architect. I am a brick mason. I can lay wooden floor, I can lay tiles both on the floor and on the wall. I can hang wallpaper. I am a plumber. etc. etc. etc. One time I counted. I have forgotten more professions than you know how to do.

What did this do to me? What did this do to Bob, the butler?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tGgdcwemcM

For one, we, the Bob-the-butler-people, don"t have to get stuck if one door closes... we have other doors that are open.

The more tools you have, the more ways you can solve issues, the less ways you get stuck.


Of course, it is true that what gets you stuck is your voices... and the marker feelings... but, trust me, they talk a whole lot less if you have more successes and experiences under your belt. A whole lot less.

Of course if you are stingy, you won"t do what Bob the butler, or I did.

Because stingy means: you want every breath of yours to be worth it... instant result, instant reciprocation, instant payment.

I am OK paying it forward ( pay it forward by doing a good deed for someone else).

Of course being the recipient of a "blessing" in paying it forward is easier than being the one who says: here you go... pay it forward.

I am this second type... I live, I breathe, I exist in total abundance. I need for nothing. I want for nothing.

I think it is mainly a cultural thing: most people, maybe all people I know have more than I do. Some: a lot more. And most people are really stingy. ((Being stingy with their heart, with their time, with everything. The opposite of stingy is, surprisingly really, appreciation and gratitude. The source of abundance. Because abundance is a state of being, a state of mind. The state of flow. What blocks the flow is stinginess. Your stinginess.))

Bob is anything but stingy. Watch his behavior, his words don"t give him justice.

I wasn"t always like this. The "world" seems to foster craving, hunger, wanting, a sense that something is missing.

It began for me when I arrived to the United States, in 1985. Hungary wasn"t like that in 1982 when I left there, and Israel definitely wasn"t like that in the in-between years.

But here, in America, everything suggested that I should have more. ((I remember reading an article during my commute to work that suggested that I only buy stuff I need and not what I want. These were distinctions wholly alien to my mind... New. Unfamiliar. And corrupting me... they made me want even more.))

I don"t know if it was just me feeling other people"s feelings, or it was communicated with the voices... but it was oppressive. My desire number went sky high. And my happiness dropped to nothing.

At the time (till 1988) I worked as an architect for hire (through Architemps, a temporary employment agency) and I felt this "I should be having more, I should be somewhere else doing something else" tension in every muscle... I was miserable, and in addition to that, I was doing a poor job at my job... because I didn"t want to be there.

In the evenings and the weekends I was at the Landmark Center... At the time I was participant in a Landmark seminar: Excellence: in the Zone.

In the seminar, part of the seminar, I created a project to bring excellence to my job.

The technology of the seminar is simple: list your complaints in life. Then create a project around one of your complaints, and bring possibility to the area. I used this technique successfully in many Landmark Seminars... Complaints stood on their heads are giving you an amazing new view.

It is similar to the inversion technique where you want something, and you, instead of starting acting on what you want, you ask: what can I do, how can I be, that guarantees that I won"t have what I want?

The Anna Karenina Principle, the principle of the strait and narrow is based on this inversion, both the Landmark version, and the other... Brilliant.

You can see how this applies... The desire trap, the stinginess, the waiting for the right thing... Even the sweeping things under the rug! If you don"t see it, please ask me in the comments...

Doing my seminar project, transforming my job from misery to a place I bring excellence to, I hit on something profound: the more interruptions, the more negative energy I have in my space that says somewhere is better than here, the less excellence is possible... and the less I enjoy doing my job.

I"ll have an off-color analogy here: if you are surrounded by pictures of beautiful specimens of your preferred gender, sex will always pale in comparison to what you imagine it would be with those beautiful looking people. Desire trap.

Or food: if you are on Pinterest all day looking at good looking food, your simple dinner will be unsatisfying, and you"ll probably fill yourself with a lot of potato chips, or bread, or candy, to fill the void.

This is desire trap, and this desire trap is why you live in scarcity, and this is why you do only a so-so job at life...

...you don"t want to be here, doing this life, you want to live in that dream-life you imagined.

Almost every person I deal with through my site is trapped in the desire trap. Whether it is abundance, happiness, joy, meaning, peace, riches, health, love that you desire, you are trapped in the desire trap... and life is tasteless to you.

One of the hallmarks of the desire trap is being more present to what you don"t have than what you do have.

The opposite of abundance is stinginess.

The biggest fear you have is that by giving, you"ll be having even less than you have now... and you protect your desire as if it were the guarantee that you will have what you want.

I remember that I was deadly afraid to do anything, especially things that were connected to that desire, in fear of failing and then losing even the "hope" for fulfilling my desire.

It turned out that this approach was a definite paralyzing approach, an absolute misery maker.

Only when I was willing to take steps not connected to my desire that I was able to finally rid myself of the desire trap.

At some point in the 80"s I attended 12 step programs. First for Adult Children of dysfunctional families  (ACOA). And when I felt done with that, I started to attend Emotions Anonymous meetings. I was an angry person. I suppressed my anger and I needed to learn to release my anger so it wouldn"t kill me.

People in emotions anonymous were worse off even than myself.

One of them, a guy, lived not very far from me, yet I had to take two buses to get to his house.

I went there to visit him... I had no friends. No relatives. I was alone. I felt alone. I wanted to experience that I still belonged to the human race. I spent the afternoon and the evening with him. Then I didn"t see him at meetings, and asked around about him.

Turned out that after that afternoon, he snapped out of his depression, and started to work. He was doing well. He didn"t need the 12 step program any more.

Surprisingly the same thing happened to me! I also snapped out of my depression.

That simple one-time incident of being willing to be generous with my time, my warmth, my listening snapped ME out of MY depression... and the rest is history. I started a magazine, that was wildly successful. I still had periods when my life was about my life, and I slipped back into depression. Lately I have been able to stay out of depression... my life is not about my life any more.

There is a principle in this. Your life makes no sense when it"s about your life. It leads to depression. There are a lot of ways people express this principle... choose something bigger, etc.

Most people think it is giving your life to other people... but that is a misery maker too: some people are like a black hole, nothing comes back... lol. You need to choose yourself, be Self-ish, and give from that place. Only give away what is not really yours... your time, your love, your compassion. Not your Self. But give it fully, expecting nothing in return. The moment you do: you are stingy. And life is heading downward.

It"s like a rope-dance. Don"t lean too much to either side and then you can cross the abyss.

How to have a life not about your life?

You need to pick an idea, an idea bigger than just your life...

An idea that includes you and your life... but doesn"t stop there. In my case the idea that includes me and doesn"t stop with me is creating a methodology to take humans to the next level of evolution... it"s a purpose bigger than my life, it is unlikely and probably impossible to accomplish. Yet it is worth giving my life to it... As I am attempting the impossible, MY life gets enriched too. It is a win-win.

I like success. I like when people tell me: this was really great. Or I like to see you succeed. But I am not hooked on it... My life, the quality of my life doesn"t depend on my day to day success, or even on the success of my purpose in life.

Truth be told, I have to work on remembering that, occasionally. I used to have to work on it at least once a week. Now I can go 6-7-8 weeks not needing to unhook myself.

I am researching software solutions to create a community of people who would be willing to support each other to become a human being, to be productive, maybe even producers.

I have now four students who are learning how to do that. If I can teach them to be both generous and Self-ish, that will be a big step in the right direction to make their lives worth living.

I start small, and if and when it works, I ratchet it up.

I also do what I teach... 90% of the time. Not bad. 10%: I am still working on it.

I have found that my 10% is self-sabotage.

I have been trying really hard to choose myself. But when I say "I choose myself" I have a blank there. I don"t know what that would look like. I don"t know what that means.

One time, a few weeks ago, I succeeded. I said it differently: I am important to me. And suddenly I had a choice: to have a phone call or to buy myself grocery for the weekend. I chose buying the grocery. The sky did not collapse. Nobody yelled at me, and I was beaming.

This week I read a book, which would not be a big deal: I read at least one book every week... What was a big deal is that I read a book I didn"t know anything about.

I followed an advice from this guy who wrote "Hustle". He said: read a few pages in the Amazon preview, and if it grabs you, buy it. If it doesn"t, or you don"t want to spend the money, just read those pages.

I had massive fear... my conscientious (( wishing to do what is right, especially to do one"s work or duty well and thoroughly.
"a conscientious and hardworking clerk"
synonyms: diligent, industrious, punctilious, painstaking, sedulous, assiduous, dedicated, careful, meticulous, thorough, attentive, hard-working, studious, rigorous, particular;)) nature that makes me read books cover to cover was piping up. "Hell, we can try it!" I said brightly, and read a few pages from this book...

I know when I get "hooked" and I want to read the whole book... and this is how this book was.

I read it. I cried over it. I saw myself in it. I saw that I have a lot of stuff swept under the rug... and that stuff keeps me from taking care of myself. Keeps me from choosing myself.

In one of my articles this week I am talking about the method of alleviating depression. The same method will work to work through the "under the rug" stuff... coming to terms with it, removing some of the "is-ness". (My Playground method)

This is my self-project now. It will take as long as it takes. I don"t think it will ever disappear... but I"ll treat it as a the ball of yarn, I"ll snip away at it until I can restore flow.

Because when you cannot choose yourself, there is no flow in that area.

I am lucky. Most people I work with have a huge pile of stuff under their rug. I am going to be able to do this clean up project while I am dealing with their stuff... just like reading this book has helped tremendously.

Will my students be able to do it for each other. NO.

What kind of "listening" does a person must have to be helpful?

Listening is how you listen. Most people have a lot of stuff blocking their listening, they agree, they sympathize, they advise, they try to fix, they condone, they disagree. They judge. They turn the conversation to be about themselves. They narrate what you say. In essence they are lousy listeners.

Good listening is about the echo the speaker hears.

Just like echo is killed with stuff in a room, the person who is speaking cannot hear themselves in a listening that is full of "stuff".

Some people are naturally good listeners. Others need a lot of training...

If you don"t have a good listener, you need to find a professional listener. I am a 90% good listener. Why? I guess I bring my own stuff and that may muffle the echo.

I am sure this is the same 10% that is missing for me to be impeccable in other areas of life.

Impeccable is my favorite word... impeccable integrity... impeccability. Crisp. Beautiful.

PS: I spoke with my brother a few months ago. He said: take care of yourself. So maybe saying "I take care of myself" could be my phrase for "choosing myself".

This opens up a whole can of worms... not now. I need to work on this in my privacy. I don"t think you are ready for the can of worms... lol.

It may be true that the key to the kingdom is gratitude and appreciation, but just like humility, gratitude is rare

There is pretense gratitude... just like there is pretense humility. Ultimately your actions tell the real story.

I have been having shorter or longer conversations with people who ask for their Starting Point Measurements.

It"s, as it is usual with me, an experiment. I ask for my time at $200-$250 an hour, and I give away 3-4 hours a week in strategy sessions. I am starting to feel the tiredness... in fact this morning I woke up exhausted.

For most people time is just time... not any currency... but for me it is the most valuable non-renewable resource. It is not just time, it is all I have... And it is hard on my brain, hard on my body, hard on my nervous system as I am giving all I have to a client.

Normally, when I talk to someone, they politely thank me for my time. Each time I get a stab of pain, sadness, when someone thanks me for my time.

In my world it says that my time is considered cheap, like your time. While I hold that giving you the only thing I have, what I do, what I offer in that time, what I can accomplish in that time is what is the value.

I have a client who pays for 30 minute sessions, and I have been giving him two hours more. And at the end of the call I thank him.

It is not the time I thank him for. I thank him for what I got. What I received. It was a bargain compared to the time I spent. A real value.

But, of course, value is in the eye of the recipient, and not the giver.

What you thank the other person for is what you got, the value you got.

Today, after a strategy call, the person on the call thanked me for my time... and after some hesitation, she thanked me for my skills.

This was the first time this happened on a free call. Somehow she managed to get a glimpse of what she got.

Don"t be mistaken: a lot of people appreciate what they get from me, but when it"s a free call, something happens, and they just can"t appreciate what they are getting.

So this woman did something extraordinary, in my view. And I really appreciate it. The opportunity to look and analyze what happens when people appreciate what they get and what happens when they don"s.

About 20 years ago I discovered that people to whom I gave the most, eventually started to hate me.

The way I learned to coach is by volunteering my services, through Landmark Education, and through friends, many hours a week.

I knew that coaching is not an easy profession to master, and I needed a lot of practice. Deliberate practice.

And even though I always told them how much I benefited from our sessions, occasionally they turned against me.

Why?

The answer is in the invisible. Always...

Humans are built to have a sense of balance in their dealings. They are not allowed, long term, to take more than their share... or they will be full of hate. And they are not allowed to give more than their share, or they will be full of resentment, which is just another form of hate.

It"s a continual balancing act.

But gratitude is payment... fully paid. Account balanced. Why?

Once a teacher in a class asked people to raise their hand if they liked to contribute. All hands went up. And then she asked us to raise our hand if we liked to be contributed to.

No hand went up.

We all love to contribute, make a difference in other people"s lives...

The gift giver experiences more joy that the recipient. Except where gratitude or appreciation isn"t expressed.

Why? Because the way we are constructed/designed, the way our machine works is through balancing the books, so no one owes another too much for too long.

The tension, the inner tension is a killer. It won"t let you sleep, it will make you sick. It will, eventually, kill you.

There are people who are takers, but only to a certain degree... The greed on one hand, the stinginess and hatred on the other will make them hate themselves, make them hate their lives.

And one of the things that can happen is this: they get something and they cannot benefit from it. They won"t let themselves benefit.

I have observed exotic dancers for years: they made a lot of money, and they had to lose it to be OK with themselves. They got too much.

We all have different set points: how much imbalance you can tolerate. I can"t tolerate hardly any. You know yourself.

In the woo-woo literature gratitude and appreciation is talked about a lot... it takes center stage a lot.

Most people consider that gushing is appreciation. It is a chore they have to get past... if they want abundance... but, of course, abundance, wanted, is scarcity.

Appreciation, the internal state, is like water for the parched earth. Like rest for the overworked body. Like a smile that warms the heart.

YOUR own appreciation of anything.

When you close your "heart" so you don"t have to owe anyone favors, you close yourself and you"ll get misery, wanting, lack, and hatred.

When you do a perfunctory "thanks" in return for some favor, you are parching your soil... and eventually nothing will grow in it.

It takes a lot of perfunctory "thanks" to render you unable to be well, and happy... And no single or any amount of gushing of appreciation makes up for it.

Death has already taken root in you.

You are a walking dead...

Let me return to the idea that we all love to contribute, we all love to make a difference...

When I contribute to a person, I have the vision of the change they will be able to experience. The difference I made. And that is my pay. It balances the books.

Some people want to pay with thanks... and that doesn"t balance the books. I feel gypped... my contribution wasn"t accepted, wasn"t received.

I gave dollars and got cents back.

It takes a lot to keep on giving.

When I was born, 3 months prematurely, my mother got sick, an inflammation of the mammary glands, because the milk has to come out.

Your gifts are like that. Maybe this is why she hated me? Hm... interesting.

This topic is not finished... lots of food for thought.

Thanksgiving... if you want to be honest, it is just a meal.

Why would I say something sacra-religious like this?

Because saying what you are grateful only includes what you like.

What about the 99% of your life, of people, of things, that you don"t like, or just barely tolerate?

Can you say: I am grateful for that?

When it is a dark day: can you be grateful for that? When your friend is pushing your buttons: can you be grateful for that? When you feel bad, tired, nauseated, can you be grateful for that?

Yeah, I know, you can say you are, but are you?

You are lying.

Because you only see value where you see value, not everywhere.

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#ActivatingAbilities

NEW: From my correspondence: Gratitude vs Appreciation: what is the difference?

From my correspondence: [7:55:31 PM] Alex Makarski: read your recent articles i"m afraid to sound condescending even though i know you won"t take it that way your writing keep getting better simpler, stronger vibrant some time, could you explain the … Continue reading →

Originally fro
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OSHO ON MOURNING

Profound article... please read and heed... What else can I say?

Question - Yesterday I heard that my friend had died. Yet as I wept, I found myself giving thanks for the sweetness of life. Is there a place for mourning?

Osho - If you have loved somebody, really loved, and you didn"t miss an
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#Raiseyourvibration

Do I want, do I need your gratitude? Do I have Unrequited love?

Surprise: I don"t need your gratitude. I don"t want your gratitude. I know what works, and I can find out if it worked for you without ever having to ask you. That"s what you can do with empathy.

So why do I encourage you to share? So others can hear that it works? Like a testimonial?

No, neither, but that"s a good idea, maybe I"ll use them as a testimonial!

So why then do I encourage you to share publicly?

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#Raiseyourvibration

When something isn"t working in your life, there is something you don"t know

When something isn"t working in your life, there is something you don"t know... but how are you going to find out what you don"t know, and how are you going to learn it? Big question!

I just got off the "itch" webinar. I felt real gratitude flowing towards me from participants. True gratitude I recognized as gratitude I have felt before.

Let me tell you my story: When I was 28 years old, I dated a man who was older than me. One evening he sat me down and said: "I think your father never spoke to you..."

"How did you know? I never told you that?!" I answered, dumbfounded that he knew that.
"I know because if he had, you would not make the mistakes you are making" he answered.

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NEW: A short meditation to help you enter gratitude... the gateway to higher vibration

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