Thinking with the Heart

The ancient Egyptians believed the heart was the source of both thoughts and feelings, unlike in our times where our heart symbolizes the seat of our emotions and our brain the seat of our reason.  In our world, thoughts and feelings are often in conflict with each other.  In the Egyptian world, they must have lived in harmony.  Why can't ours?  That is what I want for my life.  Harmony of mind and heart.  Passion and reason. 

But wanting is not giving to yourself.  This harmony comes with effort.  There must be some reason to our passions, and some passion to our reason.  In the book 48 Days to the Work You Love, Dan Miller quoted James Michener:

The master of the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion.  He hardly knows which is which.  He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.  To him he is always doing both.

What a way to live!  But to achieve that harmony of reason and passion, work and happiness, mind and heart, you have to start small.  Treat it as a career of its own, and it takes time to learn the ways of the job. 

Toward that end, next week, I will try to find ways to put a little happiness into that which I consider my work.  And in addition, I will look at my sources of happiness and see if they can do some work for me.  Then I will journal my efforts.  I encourage you to do same.  In this way, we harmonize reason and passion, work and happiness, mind and heart.  In this way, we begin thinking with our Egyptian heart.

Some Changes

This blog is undergoing some changes.  Noticeably, the Pursuit of Happiness results have been removed.  This is to sharpen focus on you guys out there, instead of on me.  I'll keep you apprised of any other changes as they occur.

Sun Tzu and the Art of Happiness: How to Declare War on your Unhappiness Today

Photo by vlasta2, found on Wikipedia,

under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Never thought Sun Tzu, the ancient war expert, had advice to share on happiness, huh?  Truth be told, he didn't directly.  But indirectly, his concepts on war can be launched against the enemies of happiness.  Specifically, this week, I am looking at the following idea:

. . . though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.

How do we apply this advice to a war against unhappiness?  By deciding upon one simple thing--you have to find your happiness before the enemy and war's fatigue takes it away.  How do you do that?  Well, I wrote an article about motive statements for writers that can be adapted to life in general through answering two questions:

• What do you want to do?
• Whom do you want to do it for?

The second question is easily answered--you do this for yourself.  The first question, however, is tougher and involves examining closely your drives and desires.  But once you find the answer, you can attach your happiness to your motives, and it will be like the horses pulling Sun Tzu's chariots--not only has your happiness come along for the ride, it is being carried into the war against its enemies.

So take some time this week to uncover your motives.  I will post articles and exercises periodically this week to help you do just.  That way we both can harness Sun Tzu's advice and take the war to unhappiness and conquer it.

The Pursuit of Happiness

The US Declaration of Independence has an interesting line in it, concerning our right to the "pursuit of happiness."  Not our right to happiness, but our right to the pursuit of it.  I am in need of more happiness in my life--who isn't--but it is up to me to make it happen.  How?

Well, a few days back I published an article about just that called Stop and Smell the Roses.  One technique involved choosing an activity that gives you happiness and doing it that day, no excuses.  Well, I am adding a twist.  I am going to give myself several options to choose from to suit my mood and time constraints, and then I am going to do one.

These are my options for today:

• Taking pictures
• Sending link of my butterfly Flickr page to my friend
• Watch a Tudor (Season 2) episode
• Hand feed chickens
• Repot a plant
• Walk the dogs
• Explore the small life at the pond
• Download a song
• Learn a new chord on the guitar
• Go to a movie
• Find freebies

All right.  So, we have the option list--what next?  The next is holding myself accountable through writing about it--in my case, blogging.  Every day, I'll post my option list, my selection, and any musings that relate to it.  That's it.  Simple, huh?

As you can see, it is not hard to pursue happiness instead of just waiting for it to come find you.  All you have to do is come up with things that make you happy, do one of them, and then either write about it in a personal journal or post it on your blog.  If you post it on your blog, consider sharing your entries with your friends.  Your friends may want to support your endeavors or even try it for themselves.  So let me know, did you pursue your happiness today?