Moving Refrigerators with Marcus Aurelius and Eckhart Tolle

What is evil to thee does not subsist in the ruling principle of another; nor yet in any turning and mutation of thy corporeal covering. Where is it then? It is in that part of thee in which subsists the power of forming opinions about evils. Let this power then not form opinions, and all is well. And if that which is nearest to it, the poor body, is cut, burnt, filled with matter and rottenness, nevertheless let the part which forms opinions about these things be quiet, that is, let it judge that nothing is either bad or good which can happen equally to the bad man and the good. For that which happens equally to him who lives contrary to nature and to him who lives according to nature, is neither according to nature nor contrary to nature.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book IV No. 39

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There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 239–251

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In Zen they say: "Don't seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions."

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, p. 121

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Judge not, lest you be judged.

Jesus, The Holy Bible, Matthew 7: 1

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Whenever one is called upon to move refrigerators for a friend (that isn't us in the picture), it is likely in that mode of awakened doing our good friend Eckhart Tolle calls "Acceptance." The other two are "Enjoyment" and "Enthusiasm" (see Monetize Your Life for a complete discussion.)

"Whatever you cannot enjoy doing," he writes in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61), "you can at least accept that this is what you have to do. Acceptance means: For now, this is what this situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so I do it willingly."

4 Truisms of Success as Taught by Butler Coach Brad Stevens

This article was originally published by Technorati on 8 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Nothing was more compelling about this week's David v. Goliath NCAA Men's Basketball Championship than the story of the meteoric rise of Butler coach Brad Stevens. At just thirty-three years of age, he joins an elite cadre of young coaches in a number of different categories.

Stevens is the youngest coach ever in a Final Four, save for the legendary Bobby Knight. He's the youngest in a championship game except for one of Knight's predecessors at Indiana, Branch McCracken. And Stevens holds the record for most wins in his first three years as a head coach, besting the likes of Jim Boeheim, and, well, everybody else.

Brad Stevens' rise to prominence in the basketball world highlights four truisms of success.

When Fathers Die -Tiger and Earl Woods

Sometimes men go a little crazy when their fathers pass away. They lose their rudder and scud across life's ocean for a while.

When my grandfather died, my father lost his way in similar fashion. It didn't help matters that he died in 1969, the advent of the sexual revolution.