Richard Carlson, an American author, psychotherapist, and motivational speaker, and his wife, Kristine Carlson, gave us this advice,
“Start the day with love, live the day with love, end the day with love”
in their book, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff Every Day”
I thought that was a beautiful quote.
There are three reasons for that.
- I can see I will live a very happy life if I can live compassionately.
- It’s not an impossible goal. If we look at the purpose of our action and words, often it is out of our compassion, either for ourselves or for others.
So, all we need to change may be being consciously aware of our compassionate purposes. - If we can build the power to make us and others happy, everybody wins.
Mr. and Mrs. Carlson also told us about a story of two bricklayers who do the identical jobs in their book.
One thinks he is just laying bricks, while the other thinks he’s a craftsman who is making beautiful buildings. The latter seems to be happier.
There are three reasons why I like this story.
- Our satisfaction differs dramatically whether we become consciously aware of our purposes or not.
- How we tell our story changes our impression of it.
- As I learn wisdom from this story, I think our purposes for our action and words are intended to make us and others happy.
And once we are conscious that our purpose is compassion, we stop doing things that don’t truly make us happy and start thinking about getting the results.
I believe gaining knowledge and wisdom for our happiness is a manifestation of compassion, too.
As I live with these two lessons for a little bit, I realized a few things.
We can’t think about purposes all the time while at work. Because it’s sometimes dangerous not to concentrate on the task at hand.
So, both types can learn from each other.
Conclusion:
Our words and action are often the results of compassion.
We’d like to have a little more self-confidence that we are doing some things right.