The book The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz contains the following advice:
- Be impeccable with your word.
- Don’t take anything personally.
- Don’t make assumptions.
- Always do your best.
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
Some of us could add our own personal “Agreements” that work best for us. But what works best for us – for our own “personal freedom” – has to work as well for the significant others in our lives … family, co-workers, service staff, neighbors, etc., as well as for civilization at large!
The main point is that we should all make agreements that matter… that pave the way forward, not backward … and stick to them. “Agreements” and resolutions are similar in some regards. But the “or else” for agreements is much more consequential to BOTH ourselves and others, whereas the “or else” for resolutions, tends to be mainly for more personal purposes. Accountability is the main goal.
What triggered this entry was somewhat mundane … a “Situational Agreement”:
Dinnertime included some of the best cornbread muffins I’d ever made. [FYI Cracker Barrel: they were blushingly good!] But I had made enough for about 3-4 meals. As I loaded up my favorite beans & rice to go with the cornbread, I decided I needed to make an “Agreement” with myself that two muffins would be sufficient accessories to complete the meal. To fulfill the “Agreement”, I had to pace myself and make sure the two muffins stretched the full distance of the meal. How nice and affirming it was to see the “Agreement” being kept, while knowing there were at least 3 more meals worth of muffins to look forward to!
The Four “Global” Agreements highlighted by Ruiz cover much of the territory required for full-bore navigation in life. [Implied, of course, are a lot more explicit things like “Don’t do stupid stuff!”, “Eat your vegetables!” and “Keep your powder dry!”]
But we can make more explicit situational agreements on a day-to-day / moment-to-moment basis … like making our lists and checking them twice, eating only one or two corn muffins at a time, cleaning up after ourselves, making the dreaded phone calls, finishing the day’s spreadsheets, lending a helping hand to at least one person each day, smiling more than we frown, getting our exercise, limiting our “vegetative”/”Zoned Out”/mind-numbing time, etc.
When you are inclined to think “Somebody should DO something about THAT!”, one “Agreement” is that the thought should immediately boomerang to “Why not ME?” That’s the beginning of self-awareness/self-efficacy and “Agency”; it’s the beginning of ownership; it’s the beginning of leadership; and it’s the beginning of moving on up. One of my personal Situational Agreements is that I take shopping carts from the parking lot of grocery stores INTO the store when I’m doing my shopping. It costs me nothing and makes the experience a zero-sum game.
Whatever “Agreements” will best float your boat toward more auspicious, more sustainable sailing need to be inked in. Any suggested “Agreements” that would interfere with smooth sailing need to be summarily dismissed.
What started this was food. Food provides an illustrative backdrop metaphor for “getting and keeping our act together”. With this in mind, I was struck by the recent uproar around the “Whole 30 Diet”. The basic idea is as follows:
“Those who participate in the program for 30 days cook their own meals and quash their bad-food cravings, which forces you to think differently about food. By saying ‘no’ to nearly everything that is bad for you, you learn that food shouldn’t rule your life … It’s really liberating.”
[One can’t really help wondering: Why would anybody EVER … knowingly … do things that are “bad” for them – except that it makes us feel like we’re beating the system, getting away with something, and/or exercising our personal license to cheat on ourselves while indulging?]
“‘Don’t you dare tell us this is hard,’ write the creators of Whole 30. ‘Quitting heroin is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard.’ Worst case, you hate it … It’s like my ballet teacher used to say at exactly the wrong moment: ‘It builds character.’” Sarah Blaskovich
https://www.dallasnews.com/life/healthy-living/2018/01/01/7-practical-tips-surviving-whole-30-diet
But there is one more Agreement to be made if we are inclined and determined to make a difference in the world:
“If you want to change the world,
start off by making your bed.”
Admiral William H McRaven
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esoQKkFQoIQ
The rest will follow in due course, of course, because you will already have agreed to play the game full-out with new and more sanctionable “Terms of Agreement” … and you will already have pounded the first stake in the ground. May yours be a spectacular run, with no-holds-barred, and no regrets. [P.S.: I’ve agreed to get some exercise, so now I’ve gotta go out and make that happen!] Quartermaster
