Excerpts of the Four Agreements (with notes from a Radical Relativist) 1st agreement: “Be impeccable with your word. Speak with integrity. Say what you mean. ( …Unless you desire to speak abstractly, with color and poetry, or in order to convey an emotional quality whose meaning could vary depending on the listener, the time, the place. Or, unless you are Proust, in which case you can say what you mean in about 10,000 pages.) “Avoid using words to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your words in the direction of truth and love.” ( … even in the general vicinity would be fine.) 2nd agreement: “Don’t take things personally.” (Unless, it Is personal, in which case to Not take it personally could be delusional…) “Nothing others do is because of you.” (….Unless, you are really a very bonafied and intentionally mean-spirited person, in which case others may be justified in telling you so, if they are honest, and have enough self esteem to offer helpful reflection to you if you cannot see yourself.) “What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. ( …not always but often enough..) “When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.” (…though, you may remain forever in a state of being that is homeostatic, impassive, and inert, but ever so protected from suffering…) 3rd agreement: “Don’t make assumptions. Find the courage to ask and to express what you really want.” (Yes, that all sounds good, though, if someone is pointing a gun at me I may presume to think he has intent to harm. I can think of about a million other things that one could safely assume…but, alas, I am not Proust.) “Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.” (Well, maybe not Completely…) 4th agreement: “Always do your best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to when you are sick.”( Ya think?) “Under any circumstances, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.” (Like, for example, agree never to say things such as, “I am such a Bozo; I want to go hit my head with a rock, though I hate it when I do so….You may, in fact be a Bozo, or you may be Bozo himself, and no amount of self delusion is going to protect you from That! But for all those who are not Bozo, or Bozo-ish, or who don’t even know who or what Bozo is….it probably is good to do your best.)) 5th agreement: Be wary of others who try to get you to make absolute agreements (…without understanding all the extenuating circumstances and details....)
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 23:03:02 +0000
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