Who Is The Master?

I heard a great quote yesterday. I cannot remember who said it or the exact wording but it went something like this: Have mastery over yourself and you master the situation. The idea was that if you have mastery over your feelings and reactions in the situation you have a lot more influence over the out come. In reality we all have very little control over others or situations however we have a lot influence. One of the ways to have the most influence is to master our own feelings and reactions to people and situations. In fact we want to no longer react but respond. Responding is different in that we consider the consequences of our action or attitude and then choose it instead of just going with what the same old thing that comes up for us. When we are mastering ourselves then we can change the old pattern and it then invites the other person to choose a different response. Someone once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome. Lets vow this week to choose a simple situation we want to change and choose a different response and see what happens. If you like the effect then stay with it if you don't then just choose a different response.

Here are some ideas:

Choose trust instead of suspicion
Choose patience instead of anger
Choose acceptance instead of judgement
Choose love instead of hate
Choose forgiveness instead of holding a grudge

Just observe what happens next and see if you like it!