As I write this, I realize that something that I’ve been doing recently is an example of the value of the value of using a compass instead of a map. That wonderful benefit is enjoying the present instead of seeing it as a means to an end. “Good times or bad times, they’re the only times we have” so we might as well enjoy them.

The map says: change clothes, then check your email, then take a walk, and then go to bed.

The problem is that we find that “Whatever you want to do, you’ve got to do something else first.” In other words each “want to” involves a number of “have tos.”

(Turn off the Sopranos, get our friend off the phone, check on the weather, and maybe coordinate my bed time with someone else.)

This is the “What must I do next” approach to life. It suggests that we must reach the next goal to be ok, and we are likely to conclude that we should have done each thing better or quicker. Is it surprising that we might see ourselves as lacking motivation or will power?

The compass approach lets us ask: What is something I want to do, and What should I or could I do before I do that.” (In this case the “should” can give us positive ideas at a time where they can actually help us.)

In the above example: We might say: One thing I want to do is change clothes. “Let me set the tevo to record the Sopranos, Now let’s see if Stephen approved my last post, Now I think I’ll check the weather and empty the garbage, and call mom to see how her casino weekend went. In this case the multi tasking isn’t based on frantic efforts to be ok … but instead is related to words like synergy and serendipity.

This approach involves a “want to” and a number of “get tos.” and since we are linking positive efforts and positive feelings we are building motivation. NOTICE: Maybe we don’t get our clothes changed, BUT with this approach:
YOU WIN, EVEN WHEN YOU LOSE.

I also like all I learn about human behavior and motivation in a TV program for match-making where mostly middle to old-age people go aiming to say good-bye to their solitude. It’s different to reality-show, it has tremendous social value and it’s done in a very sensitive manner. I don’t know if I’ll get to seventees, eightees or even ninetees, but if so, I’d like to be like many of those I watch on the screen. They are from other generation in which there was not that much talk on choice and options because there were not many of the latter and so it was easier to make the former. Independently of their personal stories -many of them full of difficulties, these people have made it and that’s the first marvel. Another marvel I see is the capacity of human beings for abnegation in a beautiful and compassionate selfless way, not in the derogative way of servilism or self-punishment. Many chose to give back good for bad in marriage situations where one fell ill and the other, who was completely unhappy or badly treated and could have gone at that time, stayed by the other’s side often relegating personal interest for a long period of time -years- that would finish with the ill’s death. Interest in this way was secondary to values, compassion and abnegation. The caretakers didn’t love their partners because they had realised they had made a mistake getting married, but they DID love them, because they opted for love of a higher calibre. Nothing to negotiate for they had the upper hand, although they chose to stay with the weak.These are examples of something in which I believe: the essential good and noble nature in every human being.

And another thing I marvel with is the capacity for shameless self-enjoyment and genuine living in the now of these old people who have lived with honesty and dedication what they had to live, good or bad. Life has its own funny ways to close the circle sometimes, bringing unexpected surprises. I felt impacted by two cases in which after 40 or 50 years of happy marriage, two widow men came across their primary adolescent loves. The emotion and awe reflected by each of the four was a sign of how time is not important in matters of the heart, as 50 years later and much body deterioration, they saw and felt each other same than in their youth. Life circumstances -rather than choice on options- took them apart, they embraced their own paths wholeheartedly, and destiny closed the loop in its own time. What is meant to be will be -no matter how long it will take- and if not will pass. We are not allowed to see the future because we would not be then fully present in the moment, and that’s the path these wise people invite us to walk with their example.