Key Lesson: There never seems enough time to make full reparations for the wrong we do to another in a moment of careless speech, so wouldn't it be wise to take time --before we speak -- to ensure that whatever we're about to say holds no harm in it?
It is within relationships that we grow as individuals in everything valuable, because it is through them that we become stronger and wiser, allowing us to realize a love that transcends our unseen self-limiting self-interests.
What do we have to do to change the balance sheet of our lives so that for every measure of impatience and intolerance there may be at least an equivalent sum of compassion and consideration?
Your willingness to work your way through the following special exercises -- striving to employ these higher ideals in your relationships with others -- will show you how to use each developing moment in your relationships with family, friends, and coworkers to consciously change your relationship with yourself.
1) Let anyone who wants to psychologically defeat you have his victory, and do it without revealing that you chose to give him the last word.
2) In any moment of consequence, be as willing to see that you may be wrong as you are convinced that you are always right.
3) Even when you know that you are solidly in the right, rather than rub it in, sacrifice your righteousness.
4) Should a sarcastic or unkind remark pop into your mind to tease, torment, or in any way "trash" another person, try swallowing it first to see how it tastes before you dish it out.
5) Let there be times when you don't tell someone everything you know about her problem, even if your understanding of it is better than hers.
6) When feeling displeased with someone, don't show your displeasure, and save any necessary correction for a later time.
7) There are times when the greatest strength (and kindness) one can possess is to allow another his weakness without pointing it out or otherwise punishing him for it.
Keep in mind that everything true we discover about ourselves enlarges our relationship with life.
This article is excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom .
by Guy Finley