Life-Changing Ideas: Chapter 1

Everyone has ideas that are fundamental to their lives. But uncovering those basic assumptions is surprisingly difficult. We’re not always aware of our own assumptions.

I wrote this little workbook to give you the tools you need to identify what’s important to you.

It will take some effort; this is a work-book, not a novel. But by the end of the book, you’ll have a much clearer idea of the five ideas that are most important to you. You will discover your Five Life-Changing Ideas.

Poolside Homes in Boca Raton This is the cover of the Kindle edition of my life planning workbook. All of the contents will be included in this seminar as we go along. But if you’re in a hurry, you can download a pdf copy right now.

The book takes many approaches to reveal your thoughts. Feel free to print out a portion and write in it. Sometimes seeing things in print brings more clarity.

We begin with a time in my life when I was considering suicide.

I wasn’t actively planning my demise but my thinking was seriously screwed up. I’d say I was passively suicidal.

Although I stupidly didn’t get help, I think what I’ve learned can be helpful to you.

Here’s the first chapter:

I stood on the deck of a Seattle ferry, considering suicide. It was not an idle thought, but a desperate attempt to find a release from my trouble. I watched the dark waters below and calmly pondered the alternatives. My heart felt as cold as the steel rail I tightly grasped. It was night, inside and out. I was confused and all alone.

We had left Seattle a few minutes earlier and were about halfway across Puget Sound. It was raining lightly from heavy clouds that almost touched the water. The city’s lights flickered across the black waves, and I was lost in thought.

It would be so easy to end it all. So easy to slip unnoticed over the rail. They would all think that it was an accident. A slippery deck, a loss of balance. I wouldn’t even have to jump. Just let myself fall that direction. It would be easy. No one would know. Becky wouldn’t be burdened by me any more. She was still young and could remarry. Besides, she’d be better off; she’d get the insurance money; she’d be better off.”

I would get freedom. I wouldn’t have to face those questions again. I’d escape the prying looks and condescending tones of friends, relatives and strangers. Relatives were the worst. Friends could be avoided and strangers ignored but I couldn’t get away from the relatives. Family gatherings, like the one to which I was headed, made it impossible for me to escape. I was stuck, and there was little I could do to defend myself.

No one understood. They didn’t realize that it wasn’t my fault. They blamed me for my trouble, when it was God’s fault. He had made me blind; He had made me an albino. It was God who had given my brother Down’s Syndrome, and had caused my father’s death.

Yet even if they had believed that, it wouldn’t have mattered. They weren’t saying anything I hadn’t already told myself. I blamed myself for it all. Life was out of control and I was at fault. Not for anything in particular; I was to blame for everything.

I felt very alone. It was as if everything was tumbling and there was no one there to protect me. I was in trouble; my thinking was fouled up. I had lost my emotional resiliency and mental bounce. I had allowed the circumstances to rob me of my unalienable right to be happy.

I was not directionless; I had a goal I was trying to reach. I believed in my goal, was not afraid to work, and was determined to be a success. But there I stood at the rail thinking of throwing it all away.

I wonder now how I could have been so stupid. It was not that I didn’t have reason to be thankful. I had a lovely wife who was very supportive and genuinely loving. I had the love of friends who cared and relatives who were eager to help. I had talents, training and past successes. Yet I was suffering from inflexible thinking, a malady that causes much pain and most defeats. Sometimes things really are beyond our control but much more commonly our ideas defeat us.

Ironically, what broke the spell for me was not a rational consideration of the consequences either. If I had been thinking rationally I never would have considered suicide: active or passive. No, what stopped me was another irrational thought. I looked into the deep dark waves and realized the water was cold, really cold. Cold! I don’t want to die cold! So one irrational thought brought me to the edge and another irrational thought saved me.

Looking back, I can see now that I should have gone to counseling. I should have dealt with my self-image, my dysfunctional family, and my avoidance and dependency issues.

I didn’t go for all the same reasons that other people don’t go: I didn’t go because I didn’t know anyone in the area (though I didn’t ask anyone for a recommendation). I didn’t go because it would be too expensive (though most counselors have sliding fees, and even without a discount, counseling is about the same price as having your transmission overhauled…and much more useful). I didn’t go because I was a trained counselor: it would mean admitting failure. I didn’t go because it was against my upbringing; people I knew just didn’t go for help. Each of these reasons turns out to be a clear indication that you should to counseling.

I didn’t go to counseling and I was lucky to have survived. I eventually figured things out but relying on luck alone is a stupid (unreasoned) approach to life. Luck is not a strategy; it’s an excuse.

NOTE

Let me pause here to encourage you to get help for yourself, someone you love or someone you just know. If someone is talking about suicide, get them some help. There is no downside to it. Even if they are mad at you, so what?

Back to the book…

Our ideas are the most powerful things in the world. Everything starts with them. Ideas determine who we are and what we do. Programs, buildings, structures, products, all begin in the form of an idea. We may not be what we eat but we certainly are what we think.

That’s why I think it is so important to know what our ideas are. When trouble comes we reason things through. We rely on our old, familiar, favorite ideas to help us out. Had I thought through my most basic assumptions before I was in trouble, I could have avoided the whole situation. I would have been thinking clearly and rationally. I would have easily discarded silly ideas and dealt with my problems.

Since our thinking has such a great effect on what we do, it’s important to consider which ideas are dearest to us. If we can state our most precious ideas, we can better understand ourselves. It is only by looking at our ideas that we can discard irrational beliefs and replace them with more powerful, helpful ones.

The book is all about your discovering your ideas. Call them beliefs, concepts, constructs, principles or assumptions. They form the basis of who you are and how you live. When you are unaware of what you feel and believe, you make yourself miserable. The more you understand yourself, the smarter you are at living.

I chose five ideas because it sounded good.

I could have done it because there’s lots of research to suggest that our personalities be described on five dimensions (ideas). I could have chosen four because the ancient Greeks believed life is composed of four elements. But I don’t have a real theory to back it up. It’s just a good number. Five is easy enough to remember and broad enough to have some variety. If you’re offended by the number five, feel free to have more. If you come up with three, that will be okay too.

I have developed some exercises to help you discover your most cherished ideas. These tasks have worked for hundreds of people and I’m sure they will work for you.

Let me amend that statement. I believe they will work for you if you do the assignments. If you read this book like a novel, you’ll get a quick overview of the premise. But the readers who have gone through this little workbook and worked at answering the questions have found tremendous value in the process.

So do the assignments but spread out them out. Don’t rush through the process. This is a task that needs time to develop. Use the time to explore your heart and mind. Since this is an e-book, you’ll have to supply your own paper. But grab a pad of paper to write down your thoughts. Give yourself plenty of space to write your answers. Customize this book and make it your own.

Some will find it particularly helpful to combine this process with prayer, meditation, long walks or sunrise gazing. Incorporate this exploration of your ideas into your normal routine. As you go about your day, revisit your ethical, moral, religious and spiritual principles. You’ll find that they are rich sources of inspiration and further thought.

It’s only important that the ideas you choose are yours. No fair living your life by someone else’s standard. These ideas need to be your assumptions, your philosophy, your conclusions.

Each of these exercises leads through a part of your life. You’ll look at your current thoughts, your childhood and a variety of other components. If you simply fill in the blanks, you’ll have an excellent summary of your life.

But how do you get beyond a biography? How do you make it a journey of personal discovery? How do you convert events into ideas?

Work. The short answer is that it requires mental effort. To get beyond the surface, you must re-think and re-confront yourself about who you are and why you act the way you do.

Let me try to be more helpful by giving you an illustration.

I’ll share an event from my life and how it helped lead me to one of my central ideas. I’ll take you through the process step by step. You’ll see my vanity, my fears and my struggle to change.

When I graduated from high school, I had a scholarship to study voice at one of the top three conservatories for voice in the world: Eastman School of Music. Here’s the story.

The scholarship covered tuition but I couldn’t figure out how to pay for my living expenses. No one in my family had any experience with scholarships, work-study programs, or college loans. We didn’t know that rich schools often have programs for poor people. I turned down the scholarship, went to a local college and eventually changed my major to psychology.

This event generates several reactions in me. There is the emotion of having won recognition for something I loved doing. Pride is in accomplishment. The feeling of loss was in giving up the scholarship. The question of “what if” I had gone to Eastman; how would my live have been different?

There’s the realization that it probably was for the best. It’s hard enough to find a job as an opera singer, even tougher if you’re an albino with restricted vision. There’s the dream of “I couldda been a contender.” A resolve to make sure other people know that schools at the top often are more generous than those at the bottom. There’s the memory of having traveled one summer giving concerts and how hard it was to be on the road as a professional musician.

All these can be useful insights but let’s try to get closer to a personal construct. We need to change the focus from general construct to personal insight. What does the story tell me about me?

Looking back, I haven’t wasted my life dwelling on the past. I don’t view the decision as a mistake. This event is like other events in my life. I don’t try to live in the past. One thing it tells me about me is that I am very focused on the present.

That’s better; more personal. And yet there’s more. This event also tells me about what I didn’t do. I didn’t push things to their fullest. I didn’t rattle every cage or push every button or whatever the right metaphor is. I settled.

In the past I settled.

Do I do that now? Do I not push myself to the limits? Yes and no. I’m not as driven as some people but I’m more competitive than I’d ordinarily admit. Does that thought lead me anywhere else? Not really. I’ll give it more thought. Maybe I’ll go to counseling to figure it out. Maybe I’ll read a book on the subject. May I’ll ignore it completely and fix myself lunch.

So let me try a different tack. It’s clear that I have defined myself, at least partly, as a singer. I think of myself as a professional singer who doesn’t sing professionally. I still expect people to say what a beautiful voice I have. And although I think of the voice as something I own rather something I am, I still think of it as me. Or at least connected to me. I’d feel the same way if I had exceptionally pretty eyes, or well shaped feet. It’s a part of me and yet separate.

What about my personal identity? How does singing impact it? Or is it being a singer (noun) and not singing (verb) that matters to me?

Being a singer is still part of my personal myth.

I hold onto it like a favorite dream. Maybe someday I’ll be discovered. It’s not a big dream but still it’s there. So I know this about me: I hold onto dreams.

How does holding onto dreams show itself? I continue to compare other singers to my standard.

“Their range isn’t as good as mine.”

“They really botched that transition.”

“They should have parsed that phrase better.”

So it’s still a part of my life. That helps but still needs more work.

I need to follow it up with questions about why it’s important to me.

Why do I want to see myself as a singer? Not just a singer but an accomplished singer. Talent is important. There are lots of things I’m not talented at. Why do I want to be talented? What’s wrong with not being talented? If I am talented, it means I’m important. I want to feel important, be important.

Am I saying that without it I wouldn’t be important? Aren’t talent and importance separate? Am I really more valuable as a person if I am more talented than everyone else? If I were a very talented basketball player, would I be a more important person? No.

The value of a person is independent of what they do. Importance is in the being. I am an important person because I am a person. Every person is important, including me. Regardless of talent, I am important. Even more to the point: I am important.

My story of not going to Eastman is not the only event in my life which has led to this thought. But it is one of the puzzle pieces. It was useful to me in thinking about my most cherished ideas. And hopefully it will be useful to you as a illustration of how to dig down more deeply into your own life.

Discovering ideas isn’t always difficult.

You can start with positive situations too. Here are some of the situations in my life that would also have lead me to feel important:

When I returned to school after eye surgery, the whole class clapped for me. I was six.

I ran for and won the office at my elementary school. I was Captain of the Junior Safety Patrol.

My parents told me “I love you.”

I was never very good at baseball but one day I hit a home run.

I wanted a wool suit for my birthday…at age 9. (I was a strange kid)

All of these memories are things that made me feel important. Any or all of them could have led me to thinking about why I want to be important. From there, I would want to ask myself why I don’t feel important. Then I could discard the label of unimportant. I could turn it from a goal into a statement of fact: I am important. I’m important just for being me.

Childhood is particularly helpful in identifying the ideas we use to construct our world view. We only remember the highlights from our past because our minds have already condensed our memories. The present is filled with all the details but there is less stuff to sort through in the past.

Your mind has selected certain things for you to retain. Your job is to figure out what those memories tell you about yourself. You’ve been thinking about some things for years and avoiding others.

Now is the time to sort through those thoughts and figure out which can be helpful to you in the future.

Life-Changing Ideas Home Page