DW's Blog

Don’t Seek Out Strife

by DW Green — February 16, 2022

He was also driven by a compulsion, a work and activity addiction that was seemingly without end.

It has become a cliché to quote Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech, which lionize “the one whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who stives valiantly…” compared with the critic who sits on the sidelines. Roosevelt gave that speech shortly after he left office, at the height of his popularity. In a few years, he would run against his former protégé in an attempt to retake the White House, losing badly and nearly assassinated in the process. He would also nearly die exploring a river in the Amazon, kill thousands of animals in African safaris, and then beg Woodrow Wilson to allow him to enlist in World War I despite being 59 years old. He would do a lot of things that seem somewhat baffling in retrospect.Theodore Roosevelt was a truly great man. But he was also driven by a compulsion, a work and activity addiction that was seemingly without end. Many of us share this affliction—being driven by something we can’t control. We’re afraid of being still, so we seek out strife and action as a distraction. We choose to be a t war—in some cases, liter...

by DW Green — February 9, 2022

Who is in control here?

Think of the manic people in your life. Not the ones suffering from an unfortunate disorder, but the ones whose lives and choices are in disorder. Everything is soaring highs or crushing lows; the day is either amazing or awful. Aren’t those people exhausting? Don’t you wish they just had a filter through which they could test the good impulses versus bad ones?There is such a filter. Justice. Reason. Philosophy. If there’s a central message, it’s this: impulses of all kinds are going to come, and your work is to control them, like bringing a dog to heel. Put more simply: Ask: Who is in control here? What principles are guiding me?

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Taking The Bite Out Of It

by DW Green — January 5, 2022

Their sense of equilibrium, their orderly discipline.

The people you admire, the ones who seem to be able to successfully handle and deal with adversity and difficulty, what do they have in common? Their sense of equilibrium, their orderly discipline. On the one-yard line, in the midst of criticism, after a heartbreaking tragedy, during a stressful period, they keep going.Not because they’re better than you. Not because they’re smarter. But because they have learned a little secret. You can take the bite out of any tough situation by bringing a calm mind to it. By considering it and meditating on it in advance.And this is not just for our day-to-day adversities but for the greatest and most unavoidable trial of all: our own eventual death. It could come tomorrow, it could come in forty years. It could be quick and painless, or it could be excruciating. Our greatest asset in that ordeal will not be religion, it will not even be the wise words of the philosophers. It will be, simply, our relationship with Source, with God.

Read More – It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

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by DW Green — December 14, 2021

One day our hours begin to run out.

How long have you been alive? Take the years, multiple them by 365, and then by 24. How many hours have you lived (me-613,200 hours)? What do you have to show for all of them?The answer for many people is not enough. We had so many hours that we took them for granted. All we have to show for our time on this planet are rounds of golf, years spent at the office, time spent watching mediocre movies, a stack of mindless books we hardly remember reading, and maybe a garage full of toys. We’re like the character in Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye: “Mostly, I just kill time,” he says, “and it dies hard.”One day our hours begin to run out. It would be nice to be able to say: “Hey, I really made the most of it.” Not in the form of achievements, not money, not status, but in wisdom, insight, and real progress in the things that all humans struggle against.What if you could say that you really made something of this time that you had? What if you could prove ...