HOW YOU DO ANYTHING IS HOW YOU DO EVERYTHING
I read the above quote in this book today. And, having read this phrase, I’m reminded of a line in this book, “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. … Always say “yes” to the present moment.”
How you do anything is how you do everything.
What if you decided to start paying deep attention and deep respect to each action you take? What would that feel like? And deep attention and deep respect to each person you interact with – even if it’s the five-second eye contact while crossing the street or a phone call from someone when you’re too busy to relax and give full attention, but what if you did anyway?
Today is today. Today is alive. How you do anything in your life at any point today shows the attitude you have to everything in your life. Respect yourself, your boundaries, your possibilities. How you do anything shows how much you respect yourself.
Take-Away: How you do anything shows your attitude towards doing the other things in your life.
If you’ve ever taken a yoga class, you may have heard the following words (for some reason, I think yoga instructors really like this expression because it ties what you’re doing in their class to the bigger you and to other parts of your life): “How you are on the mat is how you are in your life.†I.e., if you perserve through a pose, or you are patient, or you push yourself, then that is how you may be in other parts of your life.
That phrase seemed to resonate deeply with other classmates, but to me it just sounded nice. It didnt connect strongly with me. It didn’t feel very personal, didn’t seem to be about my particular experience. HOWEVER, how I am on the rock-climbing wall is how I am in real life. I realized that as soon as I started climbing. The same things that I think about on the rock wall are the same things I think about in life: planning ahead, planning for the crux of the issue, excitement, competition, looking forward. How I approach the climb ahead is how I approach other situations in life. It’s actually really nice to have that feeling in a sport and be able to see it as a microcosm of the other things you’re doing.
Very cool idea… “how you are (doing X activity) is how you are in your life”. It’s awesome that you’ve found an activity that actually echoes that! Maybe for Yoga instructors, the mat is their mountain to climb, an internally-focused one of complete body mastery! For rock climbers or people who like rocks, actual mountains are much more interesting!
It’s interesting to think too that there might be activities that we are NOT our best and not living our best effort. It reminds me of phrases like “being in alignment with your values” too…when you’re not, the effort isn’t there. If the effort isn’t there, does that mean you’re slacking off? There are certainly activities that I do, like cleaning out the cat box and folding my laundry, that I do with MUCH LESS zest than I do other things. I’ve thought that perhaps I *should* do those things as I would with other aspects of how I am in real life. Sort of like whistling a happy tune while unclogging a stuck toilet.
The microcosm is like the seed for other things in our life…finding the microcosm, and expanding it to more parts of your life.
Fun thoughts…thanks!
Totally, Vito.
Microcosm. And especially laundry and the cat box. How you do those things is how you approach everything. At least as a mental exercise, I really like it. It puts me in the moment with the right attitude.
I think I actually meant it more like the regular daily things rather than the things that one’s passionate about. How you do any old regular thing shows you how you respect life, respect yourself and others, etc. This phrase is such a great focusing technique, IMHO.
“Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.”
~ Swami Sivananda Saraswati
I like this.
“We cannot do everything at once but we can do something at once.”
~ Calvin Coolidge (“Silent Cal”)