CHAPTER 1

meditations

1 Detachment is simply watching the events that are unfolding around you, gettinginvolved only when your journey is part of the experience.

Not reacting to the people or the situations that so easily attract ourattention is not an easy skill to develop. And a skill it is. We must practicedriving and chipping and putting a golf ball in order to be good golfers. Wehave to hit thousands of tennis balls against a backdrop to play tenniscompetitively. And we have to sit for long, long hours at the piano keys inorder to become proficient pianists. We would not expect to be very good at anyone of these activities without practice—lots of it.

But we seldom grasp, until after many failures, sometimes years of failures,that we have to practice and rehearse again and again the "art" of not reacting,of "detaching," from the actions of those around us. How often we hear or, worseyet, say, "He made me do it!" Wrong! No one can make us do anything. Only wehave the power to do or not do whatever we do. That's the good news, in fact. Weare in charge of ourselves; no one else is. The freedom that accompanies thisrealization will lift our spirits throughout the day.

Getting involved in the actions of others isn't in my best interests, most ofthe time. I will walk away when I need to today.

2 Detachment is stepping back from an experience in order to allow room for Godto do His or Her part.

I seldom remember, without some prodding that I initially resist, that God is afactor in every person's experience. My ego's first inclination is to think thatI am a necessary factor—not just an ordinary necessary factor but the decidingone—in the lives of my friends and family. Giving up control and letting God bethe key influence in the lives of my loved ones is not easy. It takes trust. Notonly trust in God but also trust in others and in my own willingness to approachmy experiences with all of them differently.

The benefit of coming to believe that God is the key factor in everyone's lifeis that it releases us from a heavy burden. Too many of us have tried to managethe lives of too many others for far too long. No one gains in that scenario. Onthe contrary, everyone loses the peace that comes with turning our lives over tothe care and guidance of a loving God.

Keeping a mental note of all the times I step away from an experience that isn'tmine to control will fill me with a sense of empowerment. What a greatopportunity this will be today.

3 Detachment promises quiet contentment.

Choosing contentment over agitation seems like a simple choice, but itapparently isn't for many of us. All we have to do is take a brief inventory ofthe many encounters we had yesterday. How many of them were peaceful? Did wetake "the high road" very often? Were a few of those encounters riddled withwords or actions that embarrass us in retrospect? Were there some we regret yettoday?

It's been my experience that the encounters that are not peaceful fall into twocategories: First, there are those that are the direct result of my trying tomake something my business that is not my business—in other words, of my tryingto control that which is not mine to control. The other category can best bedescribed as letting someone else's behavior determine how I feel about myself.This becomes a cesspool, and I have wallowed in it far too many times.Fortunately, I am learning to make better choices. Now, I can walk away, most ofthe time, when I need to. How about you?

The first few times we make the choice to "be peaceful rather than right," itfeels like denial. But with practice it will become the preferred choice. Giveit a try today.

4 Detachment is making no one a project.

It's my guess that since you have found this book of interest, you are able torelate to some of the struggles I have had over the years. One of these is"dancing around" the life of someone else, rather than leading my own life. I ampleased to say I have made a lot of progress in this arena, but for manydecades, I didn't know there was any other way to live. If someone else wasn'tat the center of my life, I wasn't sure who I was. What a sad existence. What asad recollection, too.

Not letting someone else determine who we are or what we think or how we feel isrevelatory when first encountered as an idea. I was introduced to this notion in1971 in a book titled Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? by John Powell. Iimmediately embraced the philosophy even though I knew it was a truth I was notyet able to practice. Now, many years later, I realize that we are often giventhe seed of an idea long before it's able to sprout real growth in our ownlives. The fortunate thing is that we are never the same after the idea firstpresents itself.

I am my only project! Fully embracing this idea gives me so much freedom to dothe many things I have been born to do. Others are in our lives for a reason,but they are not present as our works in progress.

5 Detachment means taking no hostages.

Perhaps you have never thought that your obsession with another person might bedefined as hostage taking. Historically, we think of hostages as those peoplewho are imprisoned, particularly in a time of war. However, we can slide quiteeasily into making a friend or loved one a hostage of sorts by our attempts tocontrol their every move. Our smothering focus can be likened to making them ourprisoner. But since the natural inclination of every prisoner is to want toflee, the outcome of our behavior will never give us the result we are seeking.

Why is it that we are so determined to control someone else? I have given this alot of consideration for the past few years and have concluded that our need tocontrol others grows out of our own insecurity. We fear abandonment, perhaps, orsimple rejection at least. Both will become the reality if we insist on keepingour focus on them rather than on us. Making the decision to change our focus isan available option.

While having a hostage might make us feel secure momentarily, we can alwaysexpect them to try to escape. That's the natural inclination. Is that really howwe want to live?

6 Detachment means giving up outcomes.

Perhaps you have heard this wise phrase: Our job is the effort, not the outcome.But how often do we embrace it fully? Generally, we want...