Commonsense Wisdom for Everyday Life

COMMONSENSE WISDOM

FOR

EVERYDAY LIFE

(2nd Edition)

Joseph G. Langen

Sliding Otter Publications

Copyright © 2017 Joseph G. Langen

Second Edition

Smashwords edition

Series: Mindfulness for Today (Vol. 1)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recorded or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.

Produced in the United States of America

Sliding Otter Publications

5 Franklin Ave.

LeRoy NY 14482

www.slidingotter.com

UForeword

Mindfulness for Today Series

Plenty of books describe and offer steps toward mindfulness, or simply put, awareness of your inner state and surroundings without making judgments about them. All of these reflections are based on everyday experiences and ways you can use them to become more mindful and more peaceful.

Why do I need wisdom? It sounds stuffy.

I suppose you don’t. We are in such a rush these days that our days pass in a blur. If you don’t care what is going inside or around you, just keep running.

You can wander through life without ever stopping to see where you are headed. If you never stop, how will you know when you get there? For that matter, how will you know if you are headed anywhere?

Wisdom is a way to stop and smell the roses, hear the birds and see the sunset. It means being aware of who you are and what is going on around you. Sometimes wisdom means taking time to notice delights you might have missed along the way. In this book you will find reflections on each of the following:

Learn to notice the little things which make life more interesting and more satisfying.

Learn ways to contract with yourself, with reality and with God for a more purposeful life.

Find tips to make your relationships happier.

Learn what creates a troubled family and what to do about it.

See what spirituality is all about.

Find ways to respond to adversity, addictions and evil.

On your way through this book you will discover little ways to make sense of your life and tips for handling life’s challenges. Each reflection has its own action steps, ways you can apply what you learn. For more about Dr. Langen’s writings, see his website at www.slidingotter.com.

What does wisdom mean? To me, wisdom is learning to look at others and the world in general as well as ourselves in a meaningful way rather than mindlessly plodding ahead through life. Sometimes we think of wisdom in the abstract, not as a day to day help in living our lives. In this book, I offer you some bits of wisdom I have gathered from reading, meeting interesting people on my life path and from my own experience.

Plato said, The unexamined life is not worth living. The topics in this book invite you to consider what is going in your life and in the lives of those around you. Hopefully, these reflections will help you walk through our life a little more mindfully and stay focused on your life journey.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Carol Gomborone for bringing my spirit back to life and Gerry Lanning for his constant support now and in times of great turbulence in my life. Thank you to my mother for her unflagging belief in the goodness of all people. Thanks to my children and grandchildren who have brought joy to my life.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Personal Perspective on Life

Chapter 2. Agreements for Life

Chapter 3. Social Relationships

Chapter 4. Problem Relationships

Chapter 5. Family Relationships

Chapter 6. Commonsense Spirituality

Chapter 7. Holiday Reflections

Chapter 8. Tackling Addictions

Chapter 9. Dealing with Adversity

Chapter 10. Understanding Evil

Chapter 11. Personal Reflections

Suggested Readings

About the Author

1

Personal Perspective on Life

You must look within for value,

but must look beyond for perspective.

~Denis Waitley~

We all have unique of looking at our own lives, each other and the world around us. Sometimes our views limit us or make our lives more complicated. Other perspectives sometimes serve us better. This is a chance to consider your outlook on life and decide whether you need to make any changes.

Choosing to Entertain Thoughts

Ideas are running through your mind all the time. Some arise in the course of conversation, some through TV, radio or reading and some just show up in your mind without invitation.

All sorts of ideas arrive everyday and each idea has a message. War news may tempt you to think the world is falling apart. Stories about arrests may lead you to think everyone is turning criminal. Criticism of others may encourage you to join the attack, finding fault with whoever is the topic of conversation. There are also positive ideas afloat, but sometimes the negative ones drown them out.

You do have some control over what ideas end up in your mind. You can choose not to read or watch sensational news and not to associate with people who bombard you with their negative views `or just change the subject.

There are times when you don’t have control of your thoughts. You don’t always know what will be in the news, what someone will say or what might pop into your head without apparent provocation. Although you may not always have control of the thoughts that come to your mind, you do have a say in how you respond to them.

You may say to a thought, Thanks for stopping by and let it pass out of your mind as quickly as it entered. You may ask a thought to sit down for a cup of tea and entertain it for a while. You might also adopt a thought, make it your own, and introduce it to everyone you meet.

Your fears and prejudices, as well as your personality, may make you more susceptible to negative thoughts and make it more likely that you will entertain or adopt them. Still, you have some choice in how to respond to them. In addition to limiting the thoughts to which you expose yourself, you have several other tools.

Negative ideas might sneak up on you. You might need to make a conscious effort to ignore them rather than entertaining or adopting them. You can choose reading and TV shows which are likely to provide you with constructive thoughts rather than negative ones. You can be more judicious about the people you allow into your life. If there are people you can’t avoid, you can practice a polite way to tell them you don’t want to share their negativity.

While it is hard to change your personality or ingrained tendencies, you can examine your fears and prejudices and work to eliminate them from your life. All of this takes conscious effort, but is well worth it for your peace of mind.

Action steps

Make a list of what clutters your mind.

How did this junk get there?

What purpose does it serve?

What can you do about it?

Do it or let it go.

The Monacle

The New Yorker Magazine trademark caught my attention the other day. A man holds up his monocle, a strange looking little lens dangling from a cord, to better focus on the world’s details. The monocle, like other lenses, changes your view of things around you.

When I conducted play therapy some years ago, I kept a variety of lenses in my office including binoculars, microscopes, magnifying glasses and kaleidoscopes. My goal was to help children look at things in a way different from how they usually saw them and later to look at their lives in a new way as well.

You have learned to see things in a certain way and tend to limit yourself to your own point of view. The story of the blind men and the elephant demonstrates that we may have very different perceptions of the same situation if we experience only one aspect of it. What would you make of an elephant if you could not see it but only touched the tail, foot or trunk and not the rest of the animal?

Israelis and Palestinians have very different perceptions of their ongoing animosity. Opposing political parties differ in what they think is best for their nations, states or communities. Neighbors sometimes become passionate about seemingly small issues such as where to string clotheslines. Strong opinions abound on all sides of these issues, usually with everyone convinced they are right and that the other side is bullheaded, stupid or just plain wrong.

No one usually wins arguments about differences, and often everyone remains entrenched in his or her views, convinced he or she is right. You accomplish little in heated controversy other than releasing hot air and sometimes venom. What if you had a mental lens which allowed you to see and understand the point of view of others?

The lens would allow you to set aside your convictions for the moment and listen dispassionately to what others have to say. What is important to them? What do they want? What if their wishes were not so different from yours? What if others also had a magic lens and could understand your convictions. Both sides could then give each other a fair hearing.

Giving others a chance for expression may lead to seeing the similarities of seemingly conflicting views. What may initially look like very different positions may turn out just to be different ways of saying the same thing.

While listening with an open mind, you may also discover that the other person has a legitimate point of view. What you hold dear may not be in anyone’s best interest, including your own. You might find the best course is somewhere in the middle. Revising your thinking would require a level of humility and openness most people do not usually feel when it comes to their cherished beliefs. But what if you tried it and found it worked?

Action steps

What do you see when you turn your monocle on yourself?

What do you see in others’ minds when you turn your monocle on them?

If you can’t see what they are thinking, ask them?

Look for areas of agreement.

Be respectful of differences.

Take Time to Notice the Little Things

My friend Judie has been watching a pair of nesting phoebes for several years. They build their nests in the most improbable spaces and tend to their chicks with well coordinated teamwork. While driving along the expressway, my life partner Carol spotted a tiny fawn grazing along the median, seemingly oblivious of where its mother was. Carol added it to her gratitude list for the day. Driving on a back road, I noticed a row of cornflowers and Queen Anne’s lace framing a cornfield in a subtle blue and white border. The flowers went on my list.

None of these are earthshaking spectacles. Without an eye for the little things, they would all be easy for you to miss. It seems much easier to notice all the terrible things which bombard you each day and the worries which follow you around. If you allow it to happen, all the awful things in life can overwhelm you. Sometimes things which brighten your day take a special effort to notice.

Henry Thoreau wrote his memoir, UWaldenU, in the nineteenth century. He described his practice of writing down the things for which he was grateful each day before getting out of bed. Oprah also suggested Thoreau’s practice, described as a gratitude list, as way of keeping in touch with the good things in your daily life.

In order to list things for which you are grateful, you must pay attention to them and savor them as they happen. Some days it’s easy to generate a long list, and some days your troubles seem to block out the good things, making them hard to remember.

The little things are usually subtle and, without practice, easy to overlook. Nevertheless, they are all around and waiting for you to notice them. The above examples are all from nature, but there are many other delights as well. A kind word, a loving gesture or a small favor can all brighten your day if you let them.

The things you notice and choose to think about influence what kind of person you are and how you present yourself to the rest of the world. If you constantly tune into tragedy, crime and conflict, you will undoubtedly become morose and negative about the world and eventually about yourself. If you make an effort to notice the day’s little gifts, you will have a brighter outlook on life despite your troubles.

Having a positive outlook can be contagious. Megan, a young woman I know, is consistently cheerful even when things are not going well for her. It is impossible to spend any time with her and not come away feeling more cheerful yourself.

You have the choice of what to notice and think about. You can choose to descend into the doldrums or look for the joy in life. It might take some practice but you do have a choice and can brighten your life and the lives of those around you.

Action steps

Recall what you have noticed today.

Are they mostly positive or negative?

How does your mood match what you have noticed?

Try focusing more on the positive than on the negative.

How does this change your mood?

Finding Your Inner Artist

A newspaper recently featured articles recognizing the artistic creativity of Raymond Doward and Diana Didi Martin. Raymond started with natural musical and painting talent which he