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Christmas In New York
We had a fabulous time on our first Christmas trip to New York in three years. With everything we have seen on the news about crime in the city, we were concerned about returning this year. All was great, and the city looked very safe. We didn’t see any homeless or transients on the street. We didn’t see anyone soliciting on the trains or subway stations. We saw many families and women traveling alone on the subway trains. We saw three Broadway shows. Fiddler on the Roof, The Music Man with Hugh Jackman, and Into the Woods. The weather was perfect, cold enough to feel like Christmas but warm enough to walk to restaurants and shows. Friends from Brooklyn took the train into the city and met us for dinner and a walk to Rockefeller Center to see the tree.

The best thing I learned from Steven Covey’s book “The 7 habits of highly effective people”, was to first seek to understand then be understood. He gave an example of a man riding a train. In the train car was a man and his two young children. The two young children were running up and down the aisle of the train car yelling and playing loudly. The man with them was not paying attention and didn’t take control of them. The other man in the train car said to the man that he should take control of his children. The man said, yes I should, your right, we just came back from their mothers funeral and they don’t really understand how to handle it, and neither do I, I’m sorry. 

The lesson is, we never know what someone else is going through. And we should keep this in mind before we judge them, or challenge their behavior. I read this from Covey’s book over fifteen years ago, and I still keep this lesson in mind as I negotiate my day with people who I may initially take as acting out of line. 

Memento Mori is a latin phrase meaning ‘remember you will die’. It’s origin is often attributed to the ancient Greek Stoic philosophers. In reading Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca,  I have read the phrase often. Initially this seemed quite depressing to me. But the stoics said they kept this thought in their mind, not in a morbid way, but as a reminder to live life to the fullest now, since time on earth is limited. Before knowing that this was part of a philosophy, I have often used the thought in living with a passionate attitude. When I think of friends and family who are now gone, I think how lucky I am to still be living. Instead of getting down, I try to honor the fact that I’m still alive and have the opportunity to take advantage of every day that is given as a gift. So I’ve come to grow fonder of the phrase. Not a bad idea to ‘Memento More!’.

In the early nineties I went to a Tony Robbins seminar. I was immersed in learning all I could about personal development and self motivation. I was reading everything I could on philosophies of success. I was not just learning, I was applying what I was learning and seeing the results. I wasn’t paying attention to the fact that others were seeing the results in me, and were being influenced by it. About a year after I had gone to the Unleash the Power Within Tony Robbins seminar, my cousin went to a live event. She said she was inspired to go after seeing the effect it had on me. During the event she threw out her cigarettes and never smoked again. It has now been over twenty five years and she still hasn’t smoked. My wife took the thirty day dvd version of the UPW event. She said she did it because she saw the effect it had on me. She was so inspired by the changes she saw in me, that she was anxious to do it herself. Just three years ago, we were able to go to a seminar together. No matter what we are doing or not doing, we are effecting, and communicating with others. We can choose to make that a positive impact or a negative one. We can do it on purpose or just let our communication happen by chance. You are influencing others. Experience the joy of being a positive influence in someones life. 

I first heard this phrase from a Tony Robbins seminar back in 1993. For years I didn’t pay much attention to it, although I always think about it when I’m creating goals. Lately I have been taking action. This week I reviewed my yearly goals, and set some week goals. After setting these week goals, I created a schedule I could keep. I put them on my calendar. I also wrote them in my journal so I could review them daily. Every night I go over how I did on the day, and how I can improve. I check what I did right, and what I could have done better. Many of the great philosophers wrote about reflecting on your day. “The unexamined life in not worth living”, is a quote attributed to the philosopher Socrates. I have made this a habit over the past couple of months, and it is now a habit that I will continue with. Start small and at the end of every day take some time to write or type about your day. It needs only to be a few lines. This is a great habit, that will improve the quality of your days. You will be more conscious of the fact that you will be giving yourself a review at the end of the day.