Not a new concept, but in recent decades it has been increasingly gaining currency among the global populace. There is almost a consensus on the value of consciously cultivating positive thinking for individual health,  happiness and  success

A friend is undergoing surgery as I write this, but she chose not to let any of us know about it. When the news inadvertently reached a mutual friend who called her to commiserate, she was not enthusiastic. She agreed to disclose it only on the condition that we do not call her. She wanted some peace and quiet, she said. This might seem an attempt to bury her head in the sand. But I know my friend's quiet courage and self-awareness too much to suspect this to be the motive. I figure that she wants to spare herself the concern, anxiety and false bonhomie all of us are bound to express. No matter how well meaning, such gestures are invariably fuelled by fear and dread, emotions that she could well do without.
It made me think of the negativity we load our lives with and how counter-productive it is. Take the US-Taliban confrontation. Whether we feel anger at the Americans or at Osama bin Laden, or sorrow at the meaningless deaths, first of the Americans and now of the helpless Afghans, we flood the situation with negativity. What is needed instead is a dispassionate acceptance of the situation and a single-minded intention to resolve it. The single-mindedness is the key. So one-pointed should our attention be that negativity simply has no place in the scheme of things.

 This state of positivity without an opposite is potent. Free of negating doubts or fears, one's attention focuses unwaveringly on the subject of our intention, knowing fully well that what we intend will happen. In my friend's case, for instance, where I would once be consumed by fear and call out to God in my helplessness, this state of positivity would indicate a steadfast intention for her healing. It may be accompanied by a prayer, but importantly, no longer in helplessness but with the calm self-possession of love. God shifts into the role of a helper and beloved friend rather than the omnipotent power He was earlier.
 

Surely this is the ground of all creation? The Upanishads reiterate that the Realized One can manifest anything he desires, simply by intending it. They also assert that this power of instant manifestation can only arise in one who has learnt to control his senses, overcome desire, fear and anger.

What is it like, this state of positivity? What kind of life would we lead when immersed in it? I think it is a state of concentrated energy, for we will be freed of all the negative thoughts that steal away our energy and dissipate our focus. It will be a quiet and still state of mind, with no conflict, for the latter is the direct result of negative thoughts. It would be a peaceful and happy state of mind, regardless of circumstances. Most of all, it would be a highly effective state of the mind, for it would zero in on what needs to be done and do it. It would also be a tremendous force for good.

No matter how hopeless or terrible the situation, the positive spirit will prevail, seeing the opportunities inherent in the situation and providing a beacon of hope for others around it. Serenely oblivious to the negative, it does not occur to him/her to falter or doubt, forging ahead regardless, confident in the ultimate good of things.

The corollary is that the positive individual is also a black hole for the negativity around him. In his presence, the negativity dissolves and dissipates, never to appear again.

How is it that negativity simply cannot touch such an individual? One could say that his energy is at a higher frequency than that of negativity, thereby shielding him from its influence. At the level of deconditioning, s/he would have bored through all that came between him and his blissful inner core. In other words, she would have transcended desire and freed herself of fear and anger.
What is the relationship such an individual has between her intention and surrender to God's will? What if God does not want the peaceful resolution of the Afghan situation? I can only hazard a guess. The positivist operates from the stand that man proposes, God disposes. We never stop thinking positive, but we leave the outcome strictly in the hand of God, retaining with ourselves only the ability to see the positive in any outcome.

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Feelings and Responsibility

One of the biggest lies people will ever tell you is that you have "made" them feel angry—or sad, or hopeless, or some other feeling.

The trap this puts you in, if you believe it, is that you don't—you can't—know how you "made" people feel that way, let alone how to "make" them feel differently. Like many others, I believed for a long time that I was responsible for the way others were feeling.

Ultimately, I came to realize that we are not—can not be—responsible for the feelings of others. There is no way we can "make" someone else feel something toward us, neither love nor hate; it is their choice how they choose to feel in response to us or something we've done, and it is their choice how they choose to deal with those feelings.

However, given a choice between two ways of carrying out an action, one of which will have a greater positive effect, the other of which will have a greater negative effect, we are responsible for choosing the way that will impact others less negatively.

For instance, if I am angry at something a friend is doing, it is my responsibility to first ask myself whether I want to choose to respond with some other emotion. If the answer is "no," then I need to ask myself whether my anger itself is justified. For instance, I can ask myself, "Am I really angry at something or somone else, and am I only allowing it to come out toward my friend?" (The "wrong target" check.)

If the answer is that I am angry at something or someone else, then I need to examine those feelings and not let them spill over onto my friend.

If I pass the wrong target check (that is, if I am angry at my friend), then I can let my friend know that I am angry, but I still have a choice. I can choose to yell, or I can choose to be gentle in letting the friend know that I don't like what s/he is doing, and I want it to stop.

If I choose to yell, it is indeed a choice. I know I have another choice. I know I am not doing the best I can. I know that I am responsible for the yelling. And if my friend bursts into tears, then I am equally responsible, not for the tears, but for making amends for my poor choice of action.

If I were to tell my friend that s/he chose to feel sad, but that I do not accept responsibility for my part in creating a situation in which sadness was even a viable choice, then I would invalidate my friend and do him/her more harm than the yelling in the first place. Even so, knowing that I am not responsible for his/her sadness in the most direct way, and yeat also knowing that I truly did do the best I could, I still worry over any damage done, and there is where I can learn to trust more that whatever seemingly wrong-headed thing I did will still end up with good results.

This can seem a tough-minded thing to do to those who are used to thinking that they are somehow responsible for the feelings of others, and I admit it is a fine line to walk between an empathetic feeling for the other person, and a hard-nosed knowledge that ultimately whatever they are feeling is their choice. If I choose also to exercise compassion, then I can allow myself to feel for my friend, and to then offer whatever help my heart prompts me to offer, without having to feel either obligated or guilty.

This also frees me from being overly concerned with what the results of my friend's choices are. If that friend chooses a downhill path (from my perspective), then I know that it is his/her choice, not mine, and his/her doing, not mine. I can release the friend to his/her choices, instead of agonizing over the pain I might see them experiencing.

In the end, it is vital to remember that none of us are victims of others. If someone tries to victimize you by claiming that you have victimized them by "making" them sad or angry or whatever, recognize what is happening, and put a stop to it. Be honest with yourself, though, and do acknowledge any part you may have had, examine your intentions and motives to make sure you were acting with loving intentions, and make any amends you feel are called for due to any less-than-loving intentions on your part.
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Lessons in Discernment: Carrot Danglers

There is a certain type of behavior I call carrot dangling, and the people who regularly truck in this kind of behavior are what I call carrot danglers (term courtesy of Louise Garnett; extended definition courtesy of me). These people are to be avoided.

What is a Carrot Dangler?
A carrot dangler is someone who promises something—to help you out, to give you something, to introduce you to someone, or whatever—and never comes through. When you try to collect on the promise, there is always some reason why they can't give it to you right then, though they tell you they will do it another time. But when "another time" comes along, that isn't a good time either, and so it goes, until you give up on that carrot, and then they start to dangle another carrot. The underlying dynamic is that they are generally getting something they want from you, and they are making the appearance of offering something in exchange, but they never actually give anything in return.

Not all carrot danglers do it consciously—many do it because they have no confidence in their ability to actually offer anything of value. But some do it deliberately. And although carrot danglers often do it to get something tangible in return, they also often do it to get something intangible, such as praise, positive regard, and so on.

Example 1

Here is an example of a carrot dangler. I knew someone once—I'll call her "Linda"—in the mid-1980s who promised to introduce me to a man whom she thought would be very compatible with me—someone a lot like me in many ways, she said, and who would, she was sure, want to meet me as well. She went on in great detail about just how compatible we would be, and how perfect I was for him and vice versa, and how much she thought he and I would enjoy each other. I could practically hear wedding bells every time she talked about him.

The first several times she tried to get me interested, I declined to meet him, for I was rather shy about being introduced to anyone. Finally, however, I gave in and asked her to go ahead and perform the introduction. She made some excuse for why it couldn't happen right then, which I accepted. She continued to make excuses every time I asked for the introduction, until after having deferred the introduction six or seven times, she finally told me, "You don't want to meet him. He really isn't your type." (She didn't explain how he could have been my type up until that moment, and then suddenly change.)

I told her, reasonably enough, that it couldn't hurt to just introduce us and let us both decide whether we liked each other.

Then she said that well, maybe she wasn't the right person to introduce him to me—no reason given, because she said that he and she were good friends. I asked her to suggest someone else who could make that introduction, and she said she knew of no one else who knew him.

At the time I knew this woman, I had not encountered the idea of carrot danglers, and so her behavior was puzzling. Eventually, as you might imagine, I finally gave up on meeting this mythical man, and soon after gave up on trying to make sense of a person who just didn't make sense. I also dropped the friendship as well, though not for this reason.

Example 2

I encountered a variation of this with another person many years later. She was getting free readings from me (this was before I started to charge a fee for my time to prevent just her sort of person from taking advantage of me), and offered to introduce me to a man she knew whom she thought I would enjoy meeting as a "thank you" for the readings. Yet every time I tried to pin her down on making the introduction happen, there was always some reason why it couldn't happen just then. It was a bad time for him, or she didn't think she should take the time from her busy schedule (she was unemployed, supported by her ex, and not looking for work, nor was she involved with any community organizations, so what exactly was keeping her too busy to make a two-minute phone call to her friend, I could never tell), or she didn't want to bother me right then (hey—I was the one asking to be bothered!)—you get the picture. I dropped her very quickly, not solely because of this, but because this, along with much other behavior, helped me to realize that she was a user and would not be a good person to have in my life.

Other Ways to Dangle the Carrot

There are more subtle forms of carrot dangling as well—such as a person promising to do something good for you if you only make "this one concession" to them over something, and then that something never shows up—and they do this to you not once but many times. The alcoholic or emotional or physical abuser who promises to be better if you only give them "one more chance" is also, except in extremely rare occasions, a carrot dangler as well.

Why Do They Do It?

Why do they do it? I cannot say. Some might be in such deep denial that they honestly think, at the moment they are speaking, that they mean it and will follow through. How they later explain to themselves their consistent failure to follow through is a mystery—probably, they don't explain, and just go into more denial about it. Others, unfortunately, get a kick out of pulling those puppet strings and watching people dance. Others still have their own motivations and reasons.

Why they do it isn't important from the practical point of view. It might make an interesting conversation some night with some of your true friends, to debate this kind of insanity, but otherwise, you don't need to understand this kind of behavior to know that it doesn't feel good.

Here's the bottom line: To tell the difference between a carrot dangler and someone who genuinely is trying to help you, watch what happens when you reach for the carrot. Do they stand in the way and tell you all the reasons why you can't have it right then? Or do they do their best to help you get that carrot? If they stand in your way, they usually do so while telling you how much they are helping you and how great that carrot will taste when you get it. Yet somehow they are always between you and the carrot. That's a carrot dangler—someone to be avoided unless you like that kind of drama in your life.
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Perfection and Responsibility: Are We Really Always Doing Our Best?

Caveat

In this essay, I approach the topics of responsibility and the belief that people are "doing the best they can" at the everyday, practical level. At the highest level, I believe that no matter how badly we screw up, intentionally or unintentionally, ultimately the outcome will be good. And for me, it will be. If you believe otherwise, then you will experience a different reality. In other words, these are my beliefs; your mileage may vary.

Summary of this article

At some level (more cosmic for some than for others) we all have the intention to do the best we can and to contribute to ourselves and others in a way that maximizes love and joy. That intention can be very conscious and very close to the surface in some, and it can be so deeply buried in others that those people don't remember the intention until they die—if then. At that level, whatever is done will be ultimately converted to the good. But in the apparency that we call earth, it isn't always obvious what the positive good is. And, it isn't always true that we do the best we can.

Everyone Is Doing Their Best?

Some time ago I had a rather heated and, ultimately, unsatisfactory email exchange with someone (who hasn't emailed me since) about the idea that people e always do the best they can in any given situation.

I was speaking specifically of parents, and I think I must have pushed a few of that person's own parenting buttons. She wanted desperately to believe that she and her husband had made no mistakes, and I can understand why, because both their children were on various addictive medically-prescribed drugs as a direct result of errors they, the parents, had knowingly made.

In other words, they were living proof of my assertion, and they, like most of the rest of the world, were in deep denial over their own roles in the difficulties their children were facing.

So what specifically did I say that got this person so hot under the collar?

The assertion

It is a popular notion to assert that everyone is always doing the best that they can do in any given situation at any point in time. This is a particularly useful defense for parents, who, when faced with their iniquities as thrown up before them by their children, retreat into the "But darling, we were doing the very best we could do" defense.

It is my admittedly rather hard-headed and potentially controversial position that, in fact, unless you have iron integrity and high ethical standards that you stick to, most of us do not always do the best we can.

Allow me to elucidate.

When I worked for companies as an employee, I noticed that a certain number of people would help themselves to company supplies—a pen, a pad of paper, some Post-It notes—usually nothing very expensive (which makes it more reprehensible, not less—and I'll get to why I say that soon).

Where I come from, that's called "stealing." Stealing means to take something without right or permission, usually in a sneaky way. Most of us know better; most of us know it is wrong, and refrain from it.

Some of us, however, can find reasons why stealing from their company is okay. In the "everyone is doing the best they can" paradigm, people who take a box of pens home are doing the best they can; they have no other choice but to take those pens. But this doesn't jibe with the fact that the people I knew who did it admitted that it was stealing. They didn't say, "I have a right to this and the company has given me permission." (Sometimes companies do give permission. Then it isn't stealing, and is therefore not the subject of this essay.) Instead, they said that it was okay to steal.

When I have (as tactfully as possible) questioned people about why they feel it is okay to be stealing from their company, their justifications ran something along these lines:
    ?     "The company is big and can afford it."
    ?     "They don't pay me enough; this is my way of getting better compensation."
    ?     "I need the supplies; I'll just work a little longer today to pay them back."

None of these justifications meet my smell test of "doing the best they can." In fact, it is quite clear that these people know they are doing something against their own ethical standards, and they are trying to find reasons why it is okay to do so. In other words, they are not living/acting according to their highest truth at the moment they take that box of pens.

Diminished self-esteem

Whenever we do something that is against what we conceive of as the best possible way to behave, we feel diminished, sometimes even degraded. Do it often enough, and our feelings about ourselves drop pretty far. Just about the only way to recover from a mistake is to admit it and try to make good to whoever else was affected by it, even if the only person affected was ourselves. However small the victory, we feel better, often disproportionately so, about ourselves, and this is all to the good.

If we instead do something we feel is wrong, something we feel bad about doing and yet continue to do it, then we feel even further diminished, because then the tendency is to think that we aren't even in control of ourselves. Sometimes, people do continue to make the same mistake, even when they know it is a mistake, because their self-esteem is already at such a low point that admitting to themselves that they are behaving in a less-than-perfect manner would bring them to a roaring chaos of held-back emotions about themselves and their fundamental perception about themselves that they lack worth.

When you think about it, the essential process here is that these people are selling their integrity for a box of 59-cent pens. This is the value they place on their integrity, and hence on themselves. The situation is made worse (their self-esteem is further lowered) by the very cheapness of the item they are stealing. Pile on top of that the fact that they don't make good and in fact keep repeating the petty thefts, and you have a good process for creating a downward-spiraling sense of self-esteem, with everything that goes along with it.

The final blow is that these people know that they are not being forced to do these actions; these actions are simply their choice to do less than their best. (I am setting aside for now those who are so far gone—so unconscious and unthinking—that they aren't even aware of what they are doing.)

We do have a choice

When I look at this kind of situation, and the other kinds I can think of (such as losing your temper and choosing to throw something, or hit someone; or choosing to be aggressive while driving, and so on), I find it hard to say that we are all doing the best we know how at all times. To claim that we are is to say that self-awareness, self-discipline (or self-control), and taking responsibility for our actions is beyond our abilities to attain. This means that every mistake we have made, whatever our intent, was inevitable—we had no choice. There never was a point at which we could have stopped and said, "I better not lose my temper here," or "Maybe I should leave these pens here and buy my own box at the Price Club."

Clearly, this is not true. We are all capable of choosing to behave one way or another. Nobody points a gun at our heads and says, "Steal these pens." Most of us know we have a choice. Many times we choose to let something slide, to screw up a little or a lot because, for whatever reason, we don't think it matters—to us, to others—enough to make the effort to do what we feel is right.

Doing our best versus a good outcome

Along with my belief that we are actively and consciously choosing how to behave, and that we do at times choose to behave differently from what we know how to do, goes the idea that regardless of what we do, it will come out okay in the end. This is not the same as saying that it was the most optimal thing we knew to do in the first place. It is to say that my belief is that we are all white-water rafting down the river of life toward a grand future, not a degenerate one. This doesn't absolve us of trying our best to do our best at all times.

Judging others

It also doesn't mean that we need to judge or criticize others. However, if someone has been or is continually screwing up in a way that is hurting you, and they know it and you know it—and they use the excuse that they were only doing the best they could, then you know they are hiding behind a New Age platitude to escape responsibility for their own actions. And you can take action accordingly.

I am not saying it is our role to tell others what the "right" thing is for them to do. Each person must decide for him or herself what moral code to follow. However, there are two points I want to make:
    1     In the examples in this essay, people were behaving against their own moral codes, not mine.
    2     We all have the right to declare what is and isn't okay behavior around ourselves. If someone doesn't like our boundaries, they can deal with it however they like, but they don't have the right not to respect them.

Speaking out for our own truth

I believe in standing by my own code, and so, although I may not comment upon someone else's actions if not called to do so, I also will not speak against my own integrity and tell others that whatever they want to do is okay.

For example, a woman I once met spoke of how she always asked for water (which was free) at a restaurant that serves cafeteria-style, then later would go up and get (for free, by reason of having the glass) refills of soft drinks (which of course the restaurant normally charged for). My response was to say, "I can see where that might be tempting," which was the closest I could come to being polite about her petty theft.

Because she already knew what she was doing was wrong, she was abashed by my response. She had expected me to act like a co-conspirator and tell her she was very clever in her thievery.

Was I right in saying anything at all? Arguably, no. One could rightly say that it was none of my business and that I wasn't involved, and indeed I wasn't—until the woman involved me by talking about it. Then, by my definition of "right," the only right thing I could do was to let her know, as gently as possible, that I didn't approve of her behavior. (For one thing, what might she think was okay to steal next? Something from my house?)

It would have been against my truth to tell someone that what they were doing that was against my own moral code was okay. It would also have been against my truth to tell her that what she was doing against her own moral code was okay. In this woman's case, her moral code said that stealing was not okay, and yet she was doing it, thereby doing harm to herself.

An interesting question to me is, if she questioned herself about her petty thieveries, which she does feel are wrong, and decided not to do them anymore, how would that then affect her life in other areas? If she starts to show more integrity (or at least responsibility) in one area of her life, will she then free up some energy and awareness for other areas? It is my (perhaps vain) hope that by living and speaking my truth, I can model to others that it is possible for them to live theirs.

This is not to say that we don't make mistakes. I know I do, and I'm sure everyone else does too. The nature of the mistakes we make and how we handle them varies from person to person, though I think it is important that we acknowledge that we do make mistakes, and that we take responsibility for them and try to make up for the consequences in whatever way we can.

A dirty word in America: Responsibility

Responsibility is a dirty word for many Americans. Witness the flack Bill and Hilary Clinton received when they started to talk of everyone accepting responsibility for themselves. Talk about buttons! Responsibility is a big one.

I give you a real-life court case as an example. Some parents left their two young boys unattended in their house, and allowed them to have a Bic lighter to play with while they were alone.

The inevitable happened: The boys started a fire, and the house and the boys were damaged.

Did the parents acknowledge that they had screwed up? Did they say, "We should have known better than to let boys play with fire unattended?" (Or better yet, "We should never have left them unattended to start with")? Nope.

Instead, they sued Bic because there wasn't a warning on the package saying, "Do not allow your young children to play with this lighter unattended." The truly incredible thing is, the jury awarded the parents something like 1.2 million dollars.

Imagine. The parents were rewarded for being irresponsible. The jury sympathized with their "plight" and, in effect, said, "Yes, yes, we're sure  you were doing the best you could, poor pitiful brainless people that you are, but the Big Bad Bic corporation, on the other hand, wasn't. No, no, that's all right, it isn't your responsibility as parents to watch over and care for your children, nor is it your responsibility to know what is and isn't safe. Instead, it is the corporation's responsibility to give you parenting advice and guidance, and to pay for it if they fail to do so and your children get hurt somehow."

Sheesh. This decision opens up such a can of worms that the mind boggles.

For me, this is part of what's wrong with our culture—we've gone a little too far overboard with the concept that it is all rosy and fine whatever we do, and that we are all doing the best we can. This is what leads to defenses by murderers such as, "I can't help myself. I come from a dysfunctional family. I was just so angry at my father that I had to kill all those people." (Or, "I had no other choice than to get drunk and drive. So what if I killed someone's lovely daughter? I'm not responsible for my actions.")

The "everyone is doing their best" creed gives many people an automatic way out: It says, in effect, that whatever they do, they aren't responsible for either their actions or the consequences. This isn't to say that everyone who espouses this belief is irresponsible, of course.

I call this the "Twinkie madness" defense. (For those who aren't familiar with that reference, many years back, some male being shot and killed a San Francisco supervisor, Harvey Milk. His defense? "I'm not responsible; I was on a junk-food diet that included Twinkies and other non-nutritional items." The news media dubbed this the "Twinkie madness" defense.)

Saying that we are all doing the best we can at any given time, and that therefore we cannot be held accountable for our actions by others, is simply a New Age refinement of the Twinkie madness defense.

I have to admit that I too once espoused the "doing the best we can" philosophy, until I got a wake-up call and spent a few moments thinking the implications through and checking the belief against my own experiences. My, did I feel sheepish.
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Judgment and Discernment

It is my belief that each of us has our lessons to learn in life, and in learning those lessons, we have a wide latitude of behavior and approaches. However, that doesn't excuse us from behaving ethically according to our own standard, nor does it mean that we can get away with violating another person's space or overriding their will. Telling where one thing ends and the other begins is a matter of discernment, though sometimes people get confused and label "discernment" as being "judgmental."

It is also my belief that it is okay to draw lines, make boundaries, declare that some things and types of behaviors are not okay around oneself. When I have done so, I have sometimes been accused of being judgmental where, in my mind, I am instead being discerning.

The basic rule of thumb that I use in telling the difference between the two in myself (that is, how I tell whether I am being judgmental or discerning), is how it feels. If I am essentially okay with allowing someone to be or do whatever it is they are doing, but I don't want it to happen around me, that's discernment. If I have some strong feelings about what they are doing, feelings that are associated with thoughts that label the other person as "wrong," that's making judgments about the other person.

Even then, sometimes I have strong feelings (such as anger) that are nonetheless "clean" and healthy, and that can motivate me toward seeing that I have been allowing boundaries to be overstepped. Again, the feeling is key here: If the anger feels blaming or uncomfortable, there is almost certainly judgment bound up in it, or else I am running someone else's anger through my own energy (that's another topic entirely, though). Otherwise, if the anger feels okay, it is most likely the method my Will is using to alert me to a situation I might have been ignoring.

Although some would say (and have) that even drawing the lines of discernment are unloving, I consider that it is far more loving to discern among different behaviors and choose the ones I want to be around than it is to accept any kind of behavior around and toward me. At the very least, it is far more loving to myself, even if the people I choose not to have around me might not think so.

But I would argue that they too are being treated far more lovingly by my refusing to allow them to be around me, behaving as they do, than by people who make excuses for them and say that any kind of behavior is okay, regardless of its effects. Therein lie the roots of denial, a weed that could stand to be greatly reduced in this world.

Ironically, those who say that my approach is judgmental or unloving are the ones who are being judgmental. The compassionate approach here is to look at judging judgment itself, which we generally take to be "bad" (that is, we call being judgmental "bad"), and to say that if someone wants to be judgmental, let them. And if you don't mind being around judgmentalness, that's fine, but if you do, you can go elsewhere, or deal with it as you feel fit. Again, that is exercising your discernment.