“Self-ish-less-ness” – Our Essential Nature
2-Minute Tips for Feeling Good Every Day
The reason we choose to do anything is
To maximize feeling good and minimize feeling bad.Metacardio®
That’s simply our essential nature. The rest are mere commentaries, confusions, justifications, and even pretenses. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, knowing it, we can build a healing habit from our very nature to benefit ourselves as well as others every day.
Doing a good thing rewards you by feeling good, every time, right there and then—period. You should expect and deserve nothing else. Of course, pleasant surprises later are always welcome. Yet, if you’re realistic, the instant reward should be good enough. And it’s guaranteed.
Doing a bad thing does the opposite—sometimes. The wicked gains may fool you into feeling triumphant for a while, but the punishment will come in unsuspected ways and unannounced timelines. It’s like getting rear-ended by your own kar-ma.
Think of the horrible prices those close to the drug kingpin must pay. No material luxury can ever numb it enough. Think of the kind of company powerful politicians have to keep and live with in their snake pits all the time, and what they all but inevitably become themselves. Free lunches are fattening in many unwanted ways.
A Personal Story
The Student Union announced that my run-down dorm was closed for another week for repairs. I had just arrived in Oregon that day as a freshman international student. I barely spoke the language, did not know a soul, was almost broke, and had no one in the world to call for help.
At that moment, the sweetest angel's face appeared with a big, warm smile. “Hi, you must be Tak. I’m Jane, your Host Mother. Come and stay with us for now. My husband and our kids would love to have you.” Without a religion, fairy godmothers can still come.
Not only did they take me into their home for the week, but they also took me into their hearts for good. Even though I left them not a year later for a full scholarship at a bigger university, they understood I must go with the highest bidder to survive then.
After establishing my life in California, I continued to visit my fairy home fairly often. Every time I stepped through the front door, I’d announce, “Mom, I’m home.” Jane’s teary hug would then swallow me up in joy. “My Chinese son, yah,” she’d call me in her Swedish accent.
Fifty years later, Jane turned 98 and lived in an Alzheimer’s residence. At times, I helped her navigate rather complicated medical issues as her children weren’t always able to. Then COVID hit, and Jane passed away just weeks shy of 100.
Why did I keep driving 600 miles to see her even after she could no longer recognize me? I did it to make myself feel good. Pure and simple. That was not self-ish-ness, not self-less-ness, just basic human nature.
The motivation is straightforward. I call it “self-ish-less-ness”. The term is unimportant. The truth is.
At the end of the day, everything we do
is to make ourselves feel better,
or at least not as bad.
All the rest are lame excuses.Metacardio®
After doing something right, I merely accept the honest truth that I did it to feel good about myself. Full stop. The reward is already received, as guaranteed. I am moving on. And I will do it again.
It is a private matter. There is no pressure of public display, no expectation of recognition, reciprocity, or reward. Frankly, I don’t feel I deserve it. If it comes, I shall take it as a pleasant surprise. My happiness can’t depend on that. I have no control over it and no right to claim it. So, no stress over it either.
I don’t fault people for not extending themselves to others. I feel sad for them for missing the healing experience of feeling great by doing something fully in their command. Instead, they try to do so many difficult things to feel good and don’t often make it.
“When I do good, I feel good.
When I do bad, I feel bad.
That’s my religion.”Abe Lincoln
Sometimes, I cannot avoid doing something that makes me feel bad. That’s only because I have already dismissed other alternatives that I deemed would make me feel even worse.
When I do some guilty thing I know is “bad” for myself or others, it’s because short-term feel-good impulses have overcome my reasoning. I pay for it later by feeling bad or making payback, sometimes with high interest and collateral damage.
Practicing mindfulness habitually empowers me to see that clearly, so I can maximize the good and minimize the bad. A couple of quick routines can turn it into second nature and reward you with feeling doubly good every day.
Want to try these two healing habits?
2-Minute Tips
on Feel-Good Daily Routines
1. A Hard Day’s Night & Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Before falling asleep every night, think of at least one good thing you’ve done that day, big or small. Alone in darkness and silence, your internal lie detector is accurate and unforgiving. And if you pass inspection, you get to feel good all over again.
Before looking into the mirror every morning, take a moment to recall if you had done something worth feeling bad about the previous day. Your as-is reflection in front is cold and raw. If the verdict is unkind, you’ll have no defense. Still, you have a whole day to redeem yourself for amnesty.
Your brain may have a short memory, but your ‘body-mind-spirit’ registers everything as it happens, and it settles the score in its own time. This tenacious accountant will tell you if your account is still not settled. Accrued bad debt can make you a crude bad dude, cranky or even ill at an unexpected time, and dragging in innocent bystanders along. And you wonder why life sucks so bad.
Maybe you can’t win the Nobel Peace Prize to redeem yourself any time soon. But you can win a No-Bull Prize now. You can, for example, send a short email to a distant friend or family to tell them at least one quality in them that you admire. In today’s topsy-turvy world on the brink, you may not get another chance. Don’t worry. They can tell what’s genuine. They won’t take it the wrong way.
I am sure each of us can come up with at least one thing we can do every day to feel good about. It is a natural tendency that requires little effort. The more difficult times get, the more opportunities there are. You only have to overcome your inhibition, an old habit.
These are the toughest of times in generations, not so much materially as mentally. No matter what you feel you lack, there is no lack of people worse off than you are. You don’t need to know them personally. A little kindness goes a long way, sometimes even more so between strangers.
“To the world you may be one person,
but to one person you may be the world.”Bill Wilson
The guy I saw in the mirror this morning was gray, but not Dorian Gray. So today, I’ll be sure not to repeat that nasty thing I did yesterday. And today, I’ll do something good to be thankful for at bedtime. It’s such a nice and easy feel-good-daily habit.
2. Stand-Stretch-Smile
Sweeping things under the rug only builds up a lump that will trip you up later. There is a way to add some padding. It may give you a bit more spring to your heels and some cushioning for your bump. Do it many times a day while you’re just sssssitting.
Sitting and Sitting is as Sickly as Smoking
S-S-S for Several Seconds every Second Hour
Safe Your Seat from Sag-ness.
Spare Your Self from Sickness.
Stand and engage goodness.
Stretch and extend goodness.
Smile and enjoy goodness.
In the middle of each day, as you get up to stand, stretch, and smile for at least a few seconds, ask yourself, “So far today, have I done the best with what I’ve got to make me feel better?”
Because we are hardwired and heart-wired to do what it takes to feel good and not feel bad, all you need to do is let your true feelings tell you. You don’t have to save the world every day. Small actions add up. And, as a habit, they become automatic and effortless. It’s just like adjusting your earbuds, not making a moonshot.
These mini healing habits to feel good every day only require you to:
See yourself upon rising,
Stand-Stretch-Smile during the day, and
Sleep on it.
Let It Go Viral
We seldom regret doing a nice thing for someone, even if we feel awkward about it. We always regret missing the moment that never comes back. I’d take momentary awkwardness over forever regret every time.
Over the years, before I moved into a smaller place, more than a dozen people in need—singles and families—have stayed in my spare bedrooms for days, weeks, even months for free. My inconveniences only made me feel better about its worthiness.
That was way before Airbnb. My arrangements were all non-transactional—no payment, no quid pro quo, only one suggestion from me. Little did I know that, years later, the idea of “paying it forward” would become so popular.
Whenever people offer me payback, I ask them to make everybody feel even better by paying it forward. I suggest they do a good thing for another person as soon as the next opportunity arises, in their own ways, big or small. Just do it. Yes, in-deed.
And if people still insist on giving me something in return, I suggest they double the good feelings by paying it forward twice. That way, this chain reaction may go viral, even pandemic.
“Not all of us can do great things.
But we can do small things with great love.”Mother Teresa
Seeing Mother Theresa, we might think doing good is a monumental task. In fact, with barely any means, she merely did a few small things for some little people every day—something any one of us can do at least once. And look at her results. Small deeds can accumulate into big outcomes (without cutting into incomes).
What I suggest here is easier. You only have to do a nice thing for yourself or others to feel good every day, as a matter of routine. After a while, it’ll become a habit you’ll carry out even on a bad hair day. Especially on a badly harried day when you really need to feel better.
Easy, manageable, self-selected, ordinary efforts can bring about extraordinary results. That is the power of Healing Habits. The easier the action, the more consistently it can be carried out, and the more likely it can spread.
A “pandemic” such as this, propagated by our natural desire to feel good, is what we all need now. No facial covering can mask it. No social isolation can distance us. No cleansing can wash it off our hands. And no vaccine can immunize us against it. Let it go viral!
It’s just self-ish-less-ness, our essential nature.
3 images curated from iStock with subscription.
Extraordinary Living by Ordinary Means. 2024