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You know its the season for commencements so there is lots of speeches flying around the internet. Some OK, some good and some very good. As I was reading through Small Giants and the references to WholeFoodsMarket, I stumbled upon John Mackey’s Bentley College Commencement Speech. It is a well written one and from someone who has accomplished something very meaningful in life, I really think he nailed the key aspects of life.

The best part of the speech that hit the home run for me personally was the part about fear. I know I am fearless when it comes to certain things. I mean, I will do a bungee jump without much fear. I will also go down a black diamond trail even though I am not a good snowboarder (and fall head over butt, 20 times before I reach the base and I am still well and alive!!!).

But I do fear! I fear about myself and my potential and potential failures. Jack used the phrase “…sometimes even fear of our own potential greatness”, I got to beleive we all have the potential for greatness but we question it…(why? – thats a blog for another day)

…“Fear doesn’t really exist outside the mind. We can dissolve it there as well. We will need to learn how to do this if we really want to be free in life and stay connected to your heart.” – Thank you! Jack! for that insight.

I am a self-reflective person; by that what I mean is, I look internally for answers as opposed to externally. This behavior doesn’t work well amongst some of my family and friends, naturally. Perhaps, it is due to my deep interests in both eastern and western philosophy. I have read many a books, spoken to wise and learned elders and in that process, learned an iota about how to live. I have to emphasize “iota”. But even with that, I know I am enjoying the fruits of living a life with a little bit deeper understanding of “soul” and “self”. I can go on with it but lets save that for another day when I am much more qualified to speak to it. There is enough said and written already by wise men of the east and west and so one must spend more time reading and most importantly, “contemplating”.

The other day, I picked up “The Art of Living” by Epictetus.

I love to pick up browse through the library book shelves, for an extended period, and eventually pick one or two at the end to read. That process in itself is very self-satisfying for some reason. It is as if I have found a treasure or something. Not only the title of this book intrigued but the name Epictetus really grabbed my attention. The back cover of the book read “Epictetus was born into slavery about 55 CE…”. If someone has said something about art of living about 2000 years ago, and we are still reading about it, it meant, it survived the test of time for at least that many years and so must be somewhat useful, if not fully relevant to today’s life. The book is in fact an interpretation by Sharon Lebell, so even the relevancy part must be taken care of.

Its a well written book with lots of insights for better, but the key message in the book is simple and already well known :

“Accept what we cannot change” – Just know that we cannot change or control most of the external events and other’s behaviors.

“Muster the courage to change the things we can” – It is absolutely certain that we can totally change one thing in this world all by ourselves; That one thing is what we think about everything around the world. However, as silly as it sounds, one needs a lot of courage to change one’s thinking!

“…and pray for the wisdom to know the difference” – This is the key because if we don’t understand what things are in our control and what is not, we will be wasting our time and energy on “wrong” things. Incredibly so, many of us are putting our time on earth not knowing this difference.