Three Things To Try From Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra points to a short list of habits that can quiet the mind, and I've been chewing on them for a while. Give up trying to run other people's lives. When you push to control someone, they tend to bristle, and you lose them before you've said anything useful. Drop the hunt for approval too, and let your reasons come from inside you instead. The third one is harder than it sounds: quit grading yourself and everyone around you. Living isn't a scoreboard where somebody wins and somebody loses.

I ran into this myself teaching a three hour class. The smokers asked for two breaks, and my first instinct was no. They shouldn't be smoking, I told myself, and keeping them inside would be doing their lungs a favor. Then I let them go anyway. What surprised me was that saying yes built trust with those same students, who already knew perfectly well that the habit was hurting them. My disapproval added nothing they didn't carry on their own.

Chasing approval is a losing bet because you can never collect it from everyone. There's that old road story about a man, a boy, and their donkey. One passerby says the donkey should be hauling the goods. The next thinks the tired old man ought to ride. Someone else says put the boy up, since his legs might give out. By the end the suggestions get so twisted that the man is carrying the donkey. No arrangement satisfied the whole crowd, and none ever will.

The yardsticks we use on ourselves and other people aren't fixed. Learn something new and the measurement shifts under your feet. Judgment also tends to be a game of one-upmanship, and the person handing out the verdict is rarely spotless. It's the old move of steering attention away from your own flaws: don't look at me, look at him.

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