Sage Lewis

Zazen Posture

Zazen (pictured above) when done correctly means taking the correct posture and entrusting everything to it. It leads to many good things: better circulation, allieviated congestion, lessened excitability, better digestion…

Once you take the correct posture in life, you can allow whatever may happen, happen. The outcome is no longer your responsibility. You did what you could. In the randomness of life, good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. But the longer you extend out the timeline, eventually everyone gets what they deserve. Understanding that allows you to do what you believe is best and from there let the worry go. Life will take care of you.

Here’s a great Healthcare M&A blog:
Steve’s Blog: If It’s Not Medicare, It’s Medicaid

This is a very nice article about positive thinking… very inspirational, very encouraging. blah blah.

This dude ran with the bulls in Pamplona.
WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE!!!
He was a rifleman in the marines in Vietnam and he ran with the bulls in Pamplona. I can’t take it.

I have got to get going on some of these things. I’ll probably never be a marine. But I should still be able to run with those freakin’ bulls. But I’ve got to wait for Indy to grow up. I can’t be trying any life-risking behaviors at this juncture in my life. But I’m gettin’ that stuff done.
Bob Parsons Ran With The Bulls In Pamplona

This speech is so good, it’s joining the all time great viral pieces found on the internet. It’s so good, you almost have to think it’s a hoax. But it’s not, you can read the text of the address right here on the Stanford site: Steve Jobs Commencement Speech at Stanford

And I do recommend you read the whole thing. You won’t read a better commencement speech.

The part that everyone loves is the death part. If you haven’t read this, Steve tells an incredibly moving story of being diagnosed with terminal cancer. It turned out that the type of cancer he had was very rare and it was operable. So now he is fine. But he has the perspective of a fraternity that no one ever asks to be a member of, but once you are a member you never regret it. This near-death club is always life changing. Steve so eloquently gives his perspective. It’s so good.

Read this slowly and intentionally. Read it out loud. If there is any truth to be found in life, this is it:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

That’s the secret to the meaning of life. And I feel like so many people in America are trapped from being able to truly experience what he is saying. People can’t follow their heart because they are so tied to the economic machine. I feel that American society has been manipulated and sold into believing their happiness is in a certain car and in a certain sized house. It’s “The American Dream”. And it’s a total lie. Your misery and general uncomfortableness that you feel right now is not going to be cured by a boat or any item you can buy. You are going to feel the same way you do right now with or without that stuff.

I know you don’t believe that because you don’t have that dream car, or dream house. So it’s easy to imagine that is where your happiness is… just over that next money hill. But the truth is, the difference between your current feeling of desperation that you would like to turn into happiness and salvation is within you right now. Right now, right today, you have all the things you need to be happy. And actually, you might find that getting rid of some of your current things… actually having less things, is going to get you closer to your dream of happiness.

If you wanted, you could start right down your path to happiness today if you go back, reread Steve’s perscription for happiness above and make the decision to change.

Are you in a job you hate because all of your things are keeping you imprisoned there? How happy are your things really making you? Do you even know what really makes you happy? Is it your stuff? Or is it something else like, freedom, integrity, being a good citizen, being a good parent, sibling, or spouse? What if society is just making you think your things are the secret to your happiness? What if you are just being sold a bill of goods? What if your things are actually making you less happy? What if all your things caused you stress and discomfort?

Just think about it for a minute.

Maybe today is the day you decide to become happy. Maybe today is the day you stop living someone else’s life.

It’s scarey and it’s radical. But it’s your life and you have the right to live your life to your fullest potential.

You can be happy and you deserve it.

Steve had to almost die to understand this. Maybe you can learn this without all the near death terror.

OK. This is morbid and funny. My friend Joe just put up a blog that will feature all the ways you can die. I don’t know why, but I laugh just thinking about it. I must be in that kind of mood. Oh yeah, and it’s titled: Death, Death, Death
That’s just hiliarious.
The other thing about it is, this is not your father’s death site. These are real innovative cutting edge ways to die. Here are some of the hits:
Death, Death, Death: Mesothelioma
Death, Death, Death: The Black Lung

Well, he just started it so there aren’t many yet. But I would count on many more to come.

I have this peculiar habit when I’m feeling down. It’s going to be hard to describe specifically. But it’s something along the lines of: no one else must ever feel this way. No one else must be worried, weak and just mired down in it.

No no. That’s not quite it.

Scared, alone, not effective, useless, quagmired.

I guess I wonder if George Bush, Peter B. Lewis, Bill Clinton and in the past: Martin Luther King, Picasso ever had these kind of feelings. Did they ever feel scared?

Maybe the feeling is, “What if I’m not good enough.” “What if I can’t hack it.” “What if I’m not strong enough.” Maybe that’s it.

Do or did those people feel that way?

The funny thing is, if I ask myself those questions, the answer is always a resounding YES. Don’t be ridiculous. You can and have handled so much. You are the handler. If anything, that’s your defining characteristic.

Maybe that’s why it scares me so much. What if someday I can’t. That’s the underlying nagging question. What if I can’t. But it’s funny, as soon as I bring it to the forefront like right now, I snap out of it. I’m like, “Oh come on Sage. Don’t be a pussy. Nothing is bad. Get some perspective, man.” But the question doesn’t go away. That question is like a dream floating underneath consciousness, lingering. It’s more dangerous because it doesn’t let me hold it and deal with it. It disappears every time I reach out to kill it. It’s slippery, like an eel. That’s why I have such a hard time defining it. It doesn’t want me to define it. It’s more powerful laying hidden.

That’s it. That’s as close as I can come to telling you what I feel.

I bet that’s why most of those people mentioned above had such a strong faith in God. “There are no atheists in foxholes.” Their lives are foxholes. And they willingly jump into them day after day. I bet they get a lot of strength from their belief in God. That’s a tricky one for me being I don’t believe in God and all.

Holly, my divinity doctoral student friend, is coming later this month. I’ll have to ask her about this quandary.

This is the journey of owning your own business. It forces you to deal with your most deep seated fears and insecurities. Not dealing with them is stagnation or even death.

For all you readers out there. Take heart. If I had to guess, even Dr. King felt insecure at times.

This is a useful site. I thought this morning that a collection of CEO blogs would be interesting. I’m glad to see Debbie has already jumped on the idea.

Nice work Debbie!
BlogWrite for CEOs by Debbie Weil