Beyond the Quote

Richard Carlson Quote on Letting Go Of Expectations and A Short Story About Finding Inner Peace

“Whenever you expect something to be a certain way and it isn’t, you’re upset and you suffer. On the other hand, when you let go of expectations, when you accept life as it is, you’re free.”
Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

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A wealthy westerner, in search of peace of mind travels east to find a guru who might be able to help. After searching far and wide, through many towns and villages, he finally gets word of just the guru who can help. When they finally meet, the wise guru asks the wealthy westerner what is in the bag that he is holding so close to his heart. The wealthy man explains that it is a large sum of money that will be rewarded to whomever can help him find the inner peace that he so desperately hopes to find. The wise guru paused for a moment and reflected on the offer. Then, to everybody’s surprise, snatched the bag of money right from the man’s hands and ran away!

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

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Matching your moods to the weather of the day is easy—happy when it’s sunny, gloomy when it’s overcast. It’s a very natural response to the sort of feelings each type of weather encourages. How could you not be in a better mood when the sun is shining bright versus when it’s dark and gloomy? And so it is for most of us. But, what if you didn’t have to be in a dark and gloomy mood when it was dark and gloomy outside? What if you could learn to maintain a peak state that was independent of the weather? This is the art of nurturing the light within.

“If you will not reveal yourself to others, you cannot reveal yourself to yourself. That does not only mean that you suppress who you are, although it also means that. It means that so much of what you could be will never be forced by necessity to come forward. This is a biological truth, as well as a conceptual truth. When you explore boldly, when you voluntarily confront the unknown, you gather information and build your renewed self out of that information.”
Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 212)

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Staying in hiding doesn’t only keep you hidden from the world—it keeps you hidden from yourself. For, as long as you stay hidden from the world, the lessons of the world will remain hidden from you. I can assure you, the lessons of the world will not come knocking at your door or come waltzing into your designated place of hiding. These lessons are only to be found OUT in the world and they must be pursued and captured.

“Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.”
Franz Kafka, via Daily Rituals

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It never ceases to amaze me how fast 10 minutes goes by when I’m distracted and busy versus how slow 10 minutes goes by when I’m trying to be present. Even just this morning I was reminded. My alarm went off at around 7:15am and after snoozing for another 15 minutes, I went on my phone to further wake up for the day. Before I knew it, it was already 8:10am. 40 minutes had literally flown by before I had even one conscious thought to check the time.

“I have found that battling despair does not mean closing my eyes to the enormity of the tasks of effecting change, nor ignoring the strength and the barbarity of the forces aligned against us. It means teaching, surviving and fighting with the most important resource I have, myself, and taking joy in that battle. It means, for me, recognizing the enemy outside and the enemy within, and knowing that my work is part of our power, and knowing that this work did not begin with my birth nor will it end with my death. And it means knowing that within this continuum, my life and my love and my work has particular power and meaning relative to others.”
Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals

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Even when the tasks set in front of us for affecting change are massive—we mustn’t waver. We mustn’t close our eyes. We mustn’t let the size of the task stop us from taking every possible step we can to keep moving forward as individuals and as a society. For, any big change can only ever happen effectively as a result of a collective series of small efforts. These small efforts collect one by one from each individual person and person by person as a collective group. There is no one person who is “big” enough to handle this task on their own and there is no one person who is “small” enough to contribute to the collective effort that unites us as a whole.

“I’m concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood; I’m concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King Jr.

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“No justice, no peace” shouldn’t be interpreted as a direct call to violence. Rather, it’s a statement that so clearly points out that justice and peace go hand-in-hand and that without one, you simply cannot have the other. It’s a chant that means as long as injustice prevails, acting peacefully is a moral impossibility. It’s a chant that points out that peace isn’t just the absence of war, but the presence of justice. For, how can we live in peace if we know that justice isn’t being upheld? What does unjust treatment mean for the people within a community? How can you feel peace if your sense of security is being directly threatened? If there is no justice, then something is seriously wrong and it is a threat to us all—and how can we live in peace knowing that?

“True peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice.”
Jane Addams

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There is a time for words and there is a time for action. As a Martial Arts Instructor, I teach a very clear protocol to my students when it comes to self-defense situations: avoid potentially dangerous situations; be calm and breathe; communicate with confidence; and defend yourself if necessary. And if you find yourself in a situation of self-defense, use the minimum force necessary to deal with the aggressor in such a way that allows you to handle the situation properly and escape safely. I think these personal safety themes can help clear up what’s happening in response to the George Floyd police brutality case on a larger scale.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Desmond Tutu

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Love is as love does; Hate is as hate does; Indifference doesn’t do. Both hate and love do; care is involved. In the case of love, we care for ourselves and others and so we express it in the form of positive, constructive, kind, mindful actions. Love is not something that can be expressed through intention only.

“We can’t change what life is, but we can change how we react to and interpret it.”
Jacob Held

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To start, a story of two dogs. Both at separate times walk into the same room. One comes out wagging his tail while the other comes out growling. A woman watching this goes into the room to see what could possibly make one dog so happy and the other so mad. To her surprise she finds a room filled with mirrors. The happy dog found a thousand happy dogs looking back at him while the angry dog saw only angry dogs growling back at him. What you see in the world around you is a reflection of who you are.

“I have just three things to teach:
Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
You return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
You accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
You reconcile all beings in the world.”
~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

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Your first greatest treasure: Simplicity. Simplicity in thought is a sign of mental clarity. Complicated in thought is a sign of confusion. Simplicity in action is a result of simplicity in thought. Complicated actions are a result of confused or unclear thoughts. Albert Einstein was famous for saying, “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” This is true for all knowledge and insight in life. If you can’t break it down and explain it simply, you don’t fully understand it.

“Set the tone for your day by treating people better than you expect to be treated by them. Be the first to smile. Express your appreciation for them. Expect the best out of them. If you act first, you will set yourself up for success.”
John C. Maxwell, Today Matters

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One thing is for sure, the opposite certainly won’t set you up for success. You can treat people worse than you expect them to treat you. You can wait to smile until they smile at you. You can withhold any appreciation you might have towards others and express gratitude only when it would be rude not to. You can expect the worst out of them. The thing is, though, if you wait to act, you will be outsourcing part of your success onto them—to people and circumstances out of your control. And is success even possible if it’s out of your control?

“love is not cruel
we are cruel
love is not a game
we have made a game
out of love”
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey (Page 127)

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To all those who suffer from heartbreak, don’t blame love. Love is forever flowing and ever present throughout all that is. Love isn’t one person. Love is what connects us to infinite warmth, gratitude, and grace. Love isn’t temporary. To blame love for being cruel is to blame your entire body when just one cell is at fault. Love is far bigger than any one person. Love is the understructure that provides the foundation for all that is kind, just, and joyous. Love is not cruel.

“The best way to keep a memory of a person [who has passed away], the best remembrance, is to see if you can carry on the wishes of that person.”
Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness

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I would go one step further and say that the best remembrance is, not just to carry on the wishes of the person who passed, but to embody the best of who that person was. Wishes come from a place of deep and personal desire—they are goals derived from a person’s unique characteristic makeup. Who a person is isn’t a reflection of these wishes—their thoughts—but rather is a reflection of the actions they took throughout their life. Wishes are inside a person’s mind, character is reflected in the actions of their body. We can only interpret and truthfully judge the latter.

“One day, the mountain that is in front of you will be so far behind you, it will barely be visible in the distance. But the person you become in learning to get over it? That will stay with you forever. And that is the point of the mountain.”
Brianna Wiest

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Yesterday, two friends and I set out to do a 14 mile hike through three high peaks in the Adirondack Mountains. We knew from the get-go that it was going to be strenuous and intense at times, but that’s a part of the experience. You can’t just walk on flat ground if you want to summit a mountain. If you want the reward that comes with summiting, you have to conquer all of the challenges that come with hiking. No challenge, no reward.

“Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction. These are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways and expanding opportunities. Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care with yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose your destination and articulate your Being.”
Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 63)

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Maps are incredibly useful tools. They chart the unknown territory for us. They show us the way forward. They help us get to where we want to go. And usually, that’s one of the first things we think about when we grab a map—where they can take us. Thinking up where we want to go is easy. New York City! Yellowstone National Park! Australia! We might say. Or, if we’re thinking about where we want to go in life, we might say, “The top of the corporate ladder!” “Until I get a blue checkmark on Instagram!” “To a beautiful mansion with a white picket fence!” But, where they can take us means nothing if we don’t know where we are. And this is the imperative first question to consider—where are you?

“Something wonderful begins to happen with the simple realization that life, like an automobile, is driven from the inside out, not the other way around. As you focus more on becoming more peaceful with where you are, rather than focusing on where you would rather be, you begin to find peace right now, in the present. Then, as you move around, try new things, and meet new people, you carry that sense of inner peace with you. It’s absolutely true that, ‘Wherever you go, there you are.’”
Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

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One of the tragedies that we experience every day is missing out on the moment because we’re somewhere else. Our consciousness is constantly twisted up in what already happened and what we’re anticipating might happen next. And I’m not talking about a few moments out of every day—I’m talking about the vast majority of our moments every day. Let’s see how the following examples sits with you.

“I don’t think of work as work and play as play. It’s all living.”
Richard Branson, via Talk Like TED

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When you are able to live life completely immersed in the present moment, Richard Branson is dead on, it’s ALL living. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, where you are, or who you’re with—it’s all a part of the whole life experience and we should be soaking it ALL in for what it is. For, what else do we ever have besides this moment? If we’re not living in this moment now, are we reserving life for a future point in time? When we lose touch with “the now” and mentally wander elsewhere, are we voluntarily letting go of chunks of our life? Let’s break it down.

“Being present demands all of us. It’s not nothing. It may be the hardest thing in the world.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 25)

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If you’ve ever tried to meditate, then you know how hard it is to be completely present for even a moment of time. Our brains are like monkeys diagnosed with ADD who just drank Red Bulls after taking a long nap—they’re out of control. We’re constantly wandering to different trains of thought, replaying past situations, simulating future situations, and thinking about seemingly random and arbitrary things like monkeys and Red Bull and squirrels.

“Well arranged time is the surest mark of a well arranged mind.”
Sir Isaac Pitman

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Have you ever laid into bed at the end of a day and wondered… what just happened? Like the whole day felt like a big blur? And even after a few minutes of reflection, you still can’t quite get it all straight? This is a common effect of living a reactive and unplanned lifestyle. If you go into the day with a blurry vision of what you need to do, then, it follows that you’ll come out on the other side with a blurry memory of what you did.

“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”
Winston Churchill

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Rather than wait for the opportunity before you start to prepare—start preparing for the opportunity that is going to come. Too many people wait for their golden ticket, their lucky break, their big moment—when really, all they’re doing is waiting. Golden tickets aren’t given to people who aren’t even in the competition. Lucky breaks might happen, sure—but luck has more to do with preparation meeting opportunity. Don’t base your life plan on the lottery—it’s not an admirable way to the top anyway. Big moments come and go all of the time. The tragedy, as Sir Winston Churchill points out, is when those big moments come and you’re unprepared, unqualified, or just plain too passive to step into it.