Do No Harm

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope … and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples … build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” —Robert F. Kennedy

 Wow, “a tiny ripple of hope” … that when combined with other ripples can “build a current,” one that can knock down oppression and resistance.

Those are powerful words and while I’ve been thinking about this blog for a while it’s taken me a very long time to get started writing it.

You see, what I want to write about isn’t about hope, it’s about what happens when evil and destructiveness are involved in the midst of something that’s supposed to be good and healing.

You may know what I’m trying to say. I’ll give a few examples.

Have you ever been involved with a group of people that was trying to do something good for a cause? And all the while the group is trying to do it there is one person, or a handful of people, who just continue to bring negative energy into the situation. There’s bickering amongst the group and soon few people show up to help.

I think about jobs I’ve had where one supervisor continuously said bad things about his supervisor to his staff. I felt the tension and negative energy in that situation and I often wondered if it bled over on the project we were doing. 

It’s the same thing in some churches. Those who claim to be doing God’s work are often not really doing that at all. Because if they were really doing what God commanded there would be love in their hearts instead of constant gossiping, lying, judgment and just overall bad feelings. How can a person say they are serving God and praying for good things to happen, when they spend more time putting down others and lying?

It happens at jobs, clubs, churches, and in families.

Do no harm

We’ve all heard that over and over and I discovered that it’s used in some religions as well as in the oath doctors used to take:

• The Golden Rule in Buddhism is: Do no harm.

• When John Wesley gave the General Rules to the people called Methodists the first thing he told them was to do no harm, and

• The original Hippocratic Oath, once sworn by all doctors required that its adherents “do no harm” to their patients.

It’s used in many more places than I listed, but the point is made, it is used in different religions and by the medical community.

How do we do harm? We don’t do harm by focusing on love which encompasses all things good, but we do harm when we focus on all that is wrong. We talk about it to whoever will listen and we keep the evil energy alive.

We do harm when we don’t show love. If I look someone in the face and smile really big at them when I want a favor, yet I won’t give them a passing glance when I don’t need something, that’s not love and I find it unlikely that many folks would think it was.

It’s easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar, and so it is with people, with success, with doing right.

We do what we know is right to do, even when it would be easier to do wrong.

What I’m saying is that if a small act of kindness — a ripple of hope — can spread out and have a snowball effect for good, then too, can a negative act have the same impact.

To me, if there’s negativity behind the scenes, then the energy from that is going to show in real life.

If sending up prayers can heal, then can’t also speaking evil harm? Does it harm even if the person spoken about never knows it was said?

It takes just as much energy to say a bad thing about someone as it does to say a good thing, maybe more.

Another thing to remember: the majority is not always right.

Just because you may have found a group of people to befriend who support your negativity, that doesn’t make it right.

Most people would probably say that it matters not what they say or do in private, that it doesn’t reflect upon their public work. I disagree. I think that our negative energy shows up in our lives and causes us not to succeed where we are most striving for success.

I implore you to always strive to do the right thing no matter what. Yes, we all fall short — I never claim to do the right thing all the time. But I do know that the attitude of frustration that says if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, has never worked for me even though I’ve followed that path before.

Do no harm in person or behind another person’s back.

A Leap of Faith

I delivered a book today; my book about living life to the fullest; the one about following your dreams; the book that talks about lessons and gifts; starting and finishing.

I wanted to take this book to Jason Priest, owner and founder of Little Rock Jams, so that I could get a tour of his new studio that opened in August of last year.

I took guitar lessons from Jason for about a year and stopped before he made the move about a half-mile away to new digs. I was a true beginner, and never did progress very far. I determined that my money would be better spent elsewhere, but I could still pick around on my guitar at home.

Jason was a faithful reader of this blog, which was my book in progress, and now as you know has turned into more of a regular blog.

Jason started his first guitar studio as a solo teacher. He began this gig back in July 2006 when he had an opportunity to “early retire” from a telephone company job during one of the mergers or something similar to that. In other words, a window of opportunity happened and he moved with it.

So to know him when — back when he was just about to add a teacher besides himself and then he was looking for a bigger space to add more staff — to know him then and to see where his studio has progressed today was a treat.

He took a step of faith to do what he’s done; what he’s doing. Little Rock Jams is a studio in Breckenridge Village with instruction rooms and an awesome studio for concerts. He’s so busy that Jason’s taking on running the show and letting the other teachers handle most of the teaching.

Going from a one-man-show studio to having numerous teachers, including piano and voice, to what Jason has developed now didn’t happen without a lot of prayer, persistence, faith, determination and I’d guess blood, sweat and tears.

Life is about stepping out of our comfort zones in order to fulfill our dreams.

We rarely get anywhere in life without taking a leap of faith. If you’re one of the few who was handed everything on a seemingly silver platter, if life just comes easy and there’s never a struggle to achieve and get what you want, rejoice in that. Because for the rest of us what we have is what we earned.

We work hard, we pray a lot, we take two steps forward and one back, sometimes we even give up. But for the most part, when we truly want something, we go the distance, we don’t quit or give up, we just keep moving on.

And so the delivery of my book to Jason about living life to the fullest; the one about following your dreams; the book that talks about lessons and gifts; starting and finishing was one that could have been written about him.

He’s already asked to star in the movie, so we know he dreams big.

Jason Priest, congratulations, my friend. Thanks for all of your support as I wrote my book and today as you admired it in your studio. Thanks for living your life as a good example. I know your children are learning the right way to do things.

Visit LittleRockJams.com to sign up for your lessons today!

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right

Have you ever felt as if you had every right to retaliate against an action by someone who had harmed you in some way?

I think we all feel this way from time to time, probably very often actually. A simple thing like a driver cutting us off might make us want to do the same back, but where does that get a person? Possibly in a wreck.

Sometimes there is no solution to an issue. At other times there is, but a wrong for a wrong won’t solve a thing. Turning your back and walking away when angered is a good thing; running to tell everybody you can about how so and so ticked you off is another.

I don’t believe in standing around and letting someone badger me. If there is no way to stop it, I will leave. Seriously. You have to look at what you are getting out of the pain. Is it that you need attention so bad that you’re willing to stand for abuse? Verbal abuse, being lied to, bad treatment, is abuse.

Most folks, when they think of abuse the first thought is getting beat up, slapped, or some other form of physical altercation. Verbal and emotional abuse is just as bad and often more hidden.

A person can suffer emotional and verbal abuse from a partner, friend, boss, family member, or anyone really.

Of course, it’s easy to walk away from a casual friend who might abuse you, but not easy at all to turn your back on a family member, boss, or significant other. Easy or not, if you are in the midst of emotional or verbal abuse, get out.

July Brings Me Good and Bad and a Lot of Lessons

It’s an odd thing for me. Strange and unexplained. July. I’ve done some really bad things in July, some bad stuff has happened in July, and that month has also been a happy time in my life.

I don’t look back with regret on the things I have done in July; things that very easily could have and should have killed me. The reason I don’t lament them is that it’s because of those things that I am who I am today.

I’d probably never have gone back to college without the urging of a friend who helped me in early recovery from my battle with a very bad drug.

Without my return to college there’d be no book. It was in college that professor after professor commended my writing … so much so that it could not be ignored.

And if I had not found my writing talent there would be no book and the lives that my writing has touched wouldn’t have received that blessing.

Here are some things that I did in July in the past:

• One July 4th weekend in about 1991 I did LSD for the first time, and while I had tried cocaine a few times, very small amounts, and felt nothing, this was the beginning of my “do and take anything” drug days. I had smoked pot and drank alcohol, but never anything more. This was a major negative life-changing event.

• The first time I used a drug in a very dangerous way was in July the year after the first time I took LSD. I won’t go into any more detail with that one, but suffice it to say, I should’ve and could’ve died. It was another life-changing event, one that brought me to my knees and made me hit bottom quickly.

• The first time I faced my drug abuse demons was in July 1994. It was the beginning of a new life. I had hit bottom using cocaine. I had stopped in 1993, but I had a lot of growing up to do, and I started that process in a Twelve Step program. It was yet one more life-changing event, only this time it was positive.

• The second time I quit smoking was July 10, 2004. I quit once for three years and still wanted to smoke. After quitting in July 2004 I was blessed or cursed to find that I cannot tolerate cigarette smoke. The smell is nasty to me, unlike it was when I’d quit the other time. The quitting I did five years ago is the last time I’ll have to quit smoking. I can say that with confidence, and

• My book was published in July of this year. I didn’t realize this was happening, I did not tie it in with July events until recently. What a wonderful life-changing event!

I often wonder why these things seemed to fall in July, and I know there are more things, but that’s all I can recall at this time.

There was a time after the drug events in July that I dreaded that month. I don’t anymore. The last two events, quitting smoking and getting “Living Life Inside Out” in my hands outweigh all the bad stuff and they are more recent too.

And I don’t do any of those bad things anymore. I care about my life and health. I’m a new person and would not dream of ingesting something that I had no idea where it came from or what it might do to me.

I have never and will never claim perfection. I share my life including good and bad things to help others.

Here’s to many more happy Julys.

Goals for the New Year

“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.”
—Benjamin Franklin

The end of the year is often a time of reflection for many of us. We may look back on the previous twelve months with regret over having not achieved the goals we set at this time last year.

If we tried our best to do what we set out to do at the end of the year, but somehow fell short, we don’t need to berate ourselves; we simply need to continue our efforts since giving up surely won’t get us anywhere.

Whether we call them New Year’s resolutions or goals, the things we set out to do in the coming year are important to us and worthy of every effort we can put forth. It helps to write down what we hope to achieve since somewhere along the way we often forget what it was we set out to do, and because there’s something almost magical about writing things down that helps the process of achievement.  

One goal we can set that will help with everything in our lives is to operate out of love at all times. It’s much more difficult than it seems. When we operate out of love it means we don’t gossip, or judge, or treat people unkindly, even if sometimes people probably deserve to be treated that way. It also means we are completely honest with others. We don’t enable bad behavior or coddle adults who may need tough love. It also requires us to love our self.

If we set that one goal — to do everything from a place of love — and hold true to it as much as possible, our lives will transform. Often we do things from a sense of fear. Love and fear are opposites and fear can lead us to poor decisions and actions. Love can never lead us wrong. Love, not lust or control, but real love will always guide us to right action.

Just remember that whatever bad habit we wish to do away with and all of our goals for the coming year can be achieved if we truly want them to happen. If we have tried before and didn’t succeed, then some would say we just didn’t try hard enough.

Make it your goal to live the next year from a place of love and see you life change for the better.

Learning By Doing

“As one goes through life one learns that if you don’t paddle your own canoe, you don’t move.”
—Katharine Hepburn

No matter how spoiled and coddled a person is in their childhood, or some even as adults, real life experiences both with successes and failures, are what propel us through life, growth and recovery.

We may lament every time we perform at a level less than we expect of ourselves, but for every supposed failure we learn and grow. We don’t gain wisdom or strength through other people’s lives and experiences. We learn and grow when we attempt and fail and even when we do something with success because we did it.

Just as an athlete cannot become a professional or set a world record simply by watching how someone else did it, neither can we live our lives and make it on our journey with only observation as a tool. We learn what we can from others, sometimes we may avoid certain failures when we see another experience them. But as a rule our growth is ours from doing rather than seeing.

We may feel as if we paddle upstream at times. And perhaps we want others to do for us, but in the long run we gain much more wisdom, strength, and growth through our own actions. Even when the going gets tough, we can rest assured that we will come out on the other side of it with the experience that taught us something.

Even when the current is rough, you must paddle if you want to get through it.

Understanding Our Power

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out.”
—Art Linkletter

Fighting what is can be a very frustrating thing to do. When we want something to be one way and it goes another way, acceptance is the best solution.

And so it goes when we have difficulty with other people. We may want a romantic relationship with someone who only wants to be our friend. Or it’s possible to work with someone who we cannot seem to get along with no matter what we do. We only have the power to change ourselves, or to accept the situation. What we cannot do is make the other person change or behave in the way that would make us happy.

Prayer is power because if we have faith we believe that God can make the changes or put us in a different place. Letting go helps since we really have no other option. Insisting that things are bad and will never get better won’t solve anything. It’s best to think in a positive vein, to believe that we have the power to change a situation by moving forward in our lives, and not attempting to force someone else to be a certain way.

Making lemonade when life hands us lemons is how we deal with those things that are out of our power and control. Understanding what we have power over and what we don’t is how we are able to make lemonade.

Do what you need to do to make your life better without expecting someone else to do it.

Patience in Progress

“Patience is also a form of action.”
—Auguste Rodin

When we are on a journey through recovery, or simple acts of life for that matter, it is difficult to be patient with our progress. We made a decision to change a behavior, to grow in or emotional health, perhaps we are mending financial errors or a relationship, and it does not happen overnight.

One way to remember to be patient with progress is to realize that whatever we are trying to move away from, or grow through, or recover from did not get the way it is overnight. The damage we did to our lives with drug addiction, overeating, alcoholism, anger issues, and on and on, did not just suddenly happen. And so it goes with turning our lives around. It is a process and it takes time.

If we are in debt because we didn’t work or spent all our money on drugs, it would take the lottery to get us caught up in one fell swoop. It’s the same when we hit bottom in addiction, it’s going to take a lot of small steps to get out of that hole; baby steps or crawling, and time.

e want what we want when we want it. That’s just how most of us are, but it takes patience and persistence to get where we want to be. We can take the small actions as they come to us and in the long run all of those will get us to where we are going. Most of the time we really don’t know our destination, we may think we do, but during the process things change, we change and our destination may not even turn out to be as we thought it would.

As we move through our lives and recovery we can know that each and every step has value, even when it’s two steps forward and one back, we are making progress. Patience with this may be hard most of the time, but it is a valuable tool.

Patience helps us deal with the time it takes to get where we need to be.

Thoughts and Actions

“We can act ourselves into right thinking easier than we can think ourselves into right acting.”
—Anonymous

It’s very easy to get ourselves into a tizzy over things when we think rather than act. Sure it is good to think things through, but sometimes we can get stuck thinking about a problem or issue until we feel crazy and upset. We lose sight of the issue because we have spun ourselves into a worrisome mode.

We can act our way through something by taking the actions that we know are right and treading easily with those we aren’t so sure of. We don’t have to tackle a whole issue when it can be taken in small steps. Usually things aren’t handled in one big action anyway.

Maybe we’re stuck in a job we don’t like. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll just call someone up and after talking a few minutes step into our dream job. Most likely there will be a search for the right job, then an application with resume. Next we’ll set up an interview, then actually make the appointment. Following that will be more phone calls or interviews and maybe we’ll get the job or perhaps we’ll start the process over again with another potential employer. None of that will be done with one swift action.

We can’t just sit at home and think about the job we want, we can’t even simply pray about it. We have to take the action to actually find the job, apply for it, and follow through all the steps to try to get it.

Everything we do requires action. Praying is an action too it just needs to be followed by some legwork as well. Sometimes we judge where we are against others or even where we wish we were. We can’t get from here to there without doing what it takes to succeed in our dreams no matter how much we think about it.

Taking action is the way to get where we want to be.

Doing Things Differently

“To reach a goal you have never before attained, you must do things you have never before done.”
—Richard G. Scott

There are times in our lives when the desire to grow and move forward is a powerful force that cannot be snuffed out without doing it. We may not see that in order to reach a new goal or destination that we may have to look outside the box and do things in a way that we have never before done them.

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then we certainly know that we don’t want to follow that route so we must try things a different way. Most likely we will need to seek help in some way to do this. We may seek information from books, the Internet, or people, but if we don’t know how to proceed out of our routine it’s a good idea to seek such help.

Sometimes we get stuck in the rut that says “my way is the best way and it’s familiar so I will keep doing it.” Getting out of that mindset and trying something new and different can be a scary area to pursue, but well worth the rewards if we do it and reach the goal we seek.

We won’t get very far in life if we hide behind fear and “I can’t” thinking. What we will get is a safe existence for the most part, probably full of regret and envy of others who have forged ahead and found new experiences in their lives. Many times what we do in life is a risk of sorts; changing jobs, beginning or ending a love relationship, having or adopting a child, all these things require us to think and do something different than we did yesterday.

Do something different and see where it leads.