Excerpt
from The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die
by John B. Izzo P.Hd.
is your life missing the mark?
As a young man, I attended a Protestant seminary and studied ancient
Greek and Hebrew. In the Bible, the word "sin" comes from an ancient
Greek word taken from the sport of archery. The word literally means
"to miss the mark," as in your arrow missing the target. The greatest
sin is to miss the mark of what you intended your life to be. This is
why Wordsworth, the great English poet, could write in The Prelude
that he must become a poet "else be sinning greatly." In this way,
living with intention means asking: How close is my life to the
bull's-eye?
There are two levels to this issue of being true to one's self. First,
on a day-to-day basis, am I living true to my soul? I like to tell
people the problem with life is that it is so daily! A happy,
purposeful life is the accumulation of many happy days. What became
obvious to me as I was listening to the stories of people's lives is
that wise people know what a good day is (a good day for them, that
is). My grandfather, who, as I have said, was one of the wise elders in
my life, used to talk about having a "good tired" at the end of a given
day. He contrasted this with a "bad tired." He told me that a "good
tired" was when you lived your life focusing on the things that really
mattered to you. A "bad tired" he said often comes even when it looks
like we are winning, but we realize that we are not being true to
ourselves. It seems to me that the first element of knowing ourselves
is figuring out what makes up a "good tired" day for us.
One of the ways we do this is simply by reflecting more. When we have a
"good tired" day we take notice of what was true of that day, what were
the elements that contributed to contentment. When we have a bad tired
day we can reflect on the elements that made the "bad tired."
Having practiced this simple technique for some time, I have noticed
several things. On my good tired days I almost always have been outside
sometime during the day. Even a 15-minute walk in a park makes a big
difference. On my good tired days I have almost always made room for
people, especially for friends and family. My work did not feel like
tasks; rather, I focused on making a difference in my work, and I had
some exercise during the day. By contrast, on bad tired days I focused
on tasks all day long -- no time for friends or people, no time for
reading or learning. By noticing and reflecting on these simple
differences, I am able to have more good tired days. This is a pattern
I saw again and again among those we interviewed: Happy people know
what brings them happiness and consistently make those things a
priority.
Most of my life I have played tennis. When I am on a tennis court, I
lose track of time, which is not a bad definition of Joseph Campbell's
idea of "following your bliss." A few summers ago I attended a tennis
camp, and the staff there gave me the following advice. They said that
most people don't reflect much at all while they are playing. If they
win a point they are euphoric and then frustrated when they lose a
point. Most players fail to reflect on why they are winning or why they
are losing. The camp taught a simple technique -- after every point,
ask three questions: Did I win or lose? Why did I win or lose? And what
do I want to do differently in the next point based on what I learned?
My tennis improved, and so did my life.
Imagine if at the end of every day we asked those three questions: Did
today feel like a good or a bad tired day? If it felt good, what were
the elements that made it good? If it felt like a bad tired day, what
contributed to that feeling? And is there anything I want to do
differently tomorrow based on what I noticed today? Imagine if we asked
these questions after each week of our life, after each month, and each
year. Our life moves closer and closer to our "bullseye."
Of course, following your heart and being true to your self also
involve larger questions. Do my career and my work in the world
represent my true self? Is my whole life truly my "path"? Am I being
the kind of person I want to be in the world?
Copyright © 2008 John Izzo