Meridian Magazine :: Alternative-Based Exercises

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Alternative-Based Exercises
By Richard Eyre

Editor's note: During the "first half" of this column, Richard outlined and defined “The Three Deceivers” of Control, Ownership, and Independence, and detailed how our obsessions with them can ruin the quality of our lives. If you missed any of the earlier columns in this series, you can go to the Deceivers Archive (see right sidebar) to catch up. Then, in the the second phase of the column, he replaced the deceivers with "The Three Alternatives" of SERENDIPITY, STEWARDSHIP, and "SYNERGICITY". Over the next few weeks, Richard will present a series of suggestions on how to make the attitudinal shift from the Three Deceivers to the Three Alternatives. Send comments to Richard@meridianmagazine.com

It's one thing to talk about SSS (Serendipity, Stewardship, and Synergicity) — about what they are, about how adopting them as "attitudes" can help us and make us happier, and about how much better and how much truer they are than the three deceivers. But it's another thing to actually acquire SSS — to really implement them into our lives, and to make them the paradigms within which we live our lives.

Developing new attitudes is very much like developing new muscles. It takes exercise! Today's column will introduce you to some mental planning and recording exercises that are designed to help you notice new things and to develop and build more SSS into your life!

To develop mental/emotional/spiritual "muscle," the exercises must be daily, and we must be consistent. If we are going to change the lenses through which we view the world, and the very attitudes that we carry around with us every day, we will need some very well conceived exercises that really alter the way we think and that will expand our awareness and increase and widen our perspective.

I am going to suggest three daily exercises to you. None of them requires a lot of time, but all of them require a lot of effort and focus and concentration. After all, what we are trying to change is how we see the world around us, and how we respond and live our lives on the day-to-day. There is one exercise that helps develop Serendipity, one that helps with Stewardship, and a third that builds and encourages Synergicity. I will overview them here, and then spend the next three columns (the next three Fridays) elaborating further (and giving examples) on each of the three.

I should tell you at the outset that all three exercises involve the formula that Christ himself gave us for life — "Watch and Pray." We have to watch, and to notice things that most people miss, in order to bring SSS into our lives. And we have to pray, both for the awareness we need to watch, and for the little interventions or "tender mercies" that God can bring into our lives and that lie at the core of SSS.

The three exercises also involve writing in a daily journal or planner. The writing you will be asked to do is not extensive, in fact, it is just a few words each day, but it is what allows us to record the results of the exercises, and to check ourselves and remain consistent in the habits we are trying to develop.

So, here we go. Here is an overview of the three exercises:

"The Serendipity Line." In your daily planner or journal (if you don't use one, you should get one for these exercises — either a daily appointment book, with a separate page for each day, or a daily journal with a page for each day) draw a vertical line down through the middle of the page. Put your plans and meetings and appointments and activities on the left side of the page. On the right side, write the serendipities that come to you that day (the unplanned things, the "gifts." Remember the definition of Serendipity: "A state of mind wherein, by awareness and serendipity, one often finds something better than that which he was planning.")

Your serendipities could involve a new idea, a noticed beauty (a sunset or a rose), a call from an old friend, the discovery of a new favorite place, a little chance to help someone. A serendipity is anything good that happens that you notice, and that you could not have planned. The noticing and discovery of serendipities is a learned skill. It is something we can become better and better at. It is, as the definition suggests, a "state of mind" involving awareness and sensitivity to what is around us. It involves "watching and praying" because in addition to looking for and trying to see what others miss, it involves asking God to bring opportunities, beauties, and discoveries to you and asking for the perception and awareness to see them and appreciate them.

Recording serendipitous things that happen to us (writing them down each day) helps us inventory them and appreciate them and look for more of them. I challenge you, for starters, to find at least three serendipities each day and to write them down on the right side of each day's page in your planner or journal. As you do this, you will think more and more in terms of serendipity and less and less in terms of control. The result will be more excitement and adventure in life, and less frustration.
"The Stewardship Blanks." There are a lot of "have-to-dos" in each day. They are the things we put on our "to-do" list. (drop off the kids, pick up the laundry, make the phone call, mow the lawn, and so on) They are the things we do at work (have the meeting, write the memo, go to the appointment, finish the project, and other tasks).

Sometimes the have-to-do's consume our entire day, and the "urgent" takes over for the "important." Important things like reading a story to the kids or spending a quiet moment with your spouse, or taking the time to exercise, or meditating or praying, get left out because we are too busy to get to them. The stewardship blanks are designed to prevent this.

Here is what you do: At the top of your planner page, put three horizontal lines. These are called "stewardship blanks" and they are the "choose-to-dos" of life. They need to take priority over the have-to-dos. Fill them in before you start listing appointments or duties or commitments. On the first line, write one thing that you choose to do that day for your family. Not something someone is expecting you to do, like picking up the kids or fixing dinner. Something you choose to do because you think "What does someone in my family really need today?"

On the second line, write one thing you choose to do for your work. Again, this is not something you are expected to do, like fill out the report or conduct the meeting. It is something need-based, such as, "Write a thank you note to Jennifer for helping with the layout of the sales report." It is usually something people-oriented, something you think of because you think "what does someone need?"

On the third line, write one thing you choose to do for yourself. What is something you need that day — to feel better, to clear your mind, to refresh yourself. It might be exercise, it might be reading scripture, it might be meditating. It will be something need-based, and something you do not have to do or that others are expecting you to. It will be something you choose to do for yourself.

Your three greatest stewardships, each day, are your family, your work, and yourself. If you do one choose-to-do for each of them each day, and if you prioritize that choose to do above any of your have-to-dos, your life will begin to orient itself more to stewardship and less to ownership.
"The Synergicity Bands." Instead of trying to be independent, we should relish our interdependence on others, and our dependence on God. To help you become better (and more consistent) at doing this, put three "Synergicity Bands" across your daily planner or diary page. Make them by simply making three "highlighter" horizontal thick lines across your page, one at the very top, one at the very bottom, and one in the middle. Think of these as the three times to pray, and to ponder the manifestation of God's hand in your life.

Also think for a minute "morning, noon, and night" about others you have interacted with, made friends with, done something for, or felt appreciation toward. Jot down (in the synergicity bands) any expression of God's hand or any meaningful interaction with another person. This is, of course, simply a way to make us more aware of our dependence on God, and of our constant need for Him, and of the little answers or inspirations or beauty that he slips to us every day. When we don't see them, it is not because they are not there, it is because we fail to see them. Things we call "circumstances" are often better called guidance or blessings.

To see God's hand in our lives gets easier and easier as we watch for it, notice it, and write it down. And the beauty of needing other people, learning from them, benefiting from their gifts, and vice versa, is one blessing of knowing that we are all children of God and that we all have the capacity to help and to love others.

Keeping track of God's hand and of our interdependence on others (and thinking about it briefly three times a day, "morning, noon, and night," as we pray, is a spiritual exercise that tunes our spirits to God's will, and that brings us deep joy as we acknowledge where we fit in to this world and in to eternity. It helps us gain Synergicity, and it helps us rid ourselves of our false notions of Independence.

Over the next three weeks (the next three Friday columns), we will explore each exercise much more deeply, allowing each of them to become a natural part of us, thus moving us ever further away from the grim godlessness of the three deceivers, and further into the light of the three alternatives.

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About the Author:

A former Mission President in London and candidate for Utah governor, Richard was the director of the White House Conference on Parents and Children for President Reagan. He served on the President's advisory panel for secondary and higher education. A graduate of the Harvard Business School, he headed a management consulting company for 20 years before giving it up to meet the growing demands of his writing and speaking schedule.

Richard and his wife Linda are parents of nine children and authors of a dozen bestselling family and parenting books. They are now focusing on the phase they are entering: Empty Nest Parenting. Through their web sites valuesparenting.com and familynightlessons.com, their frequent national media appearances and theirspeaking and lecture tours (see http://www.theeyres.com/), they continue to work at their mission statement which is, "FORTIFY FAMILIES, popularize parenting, bolster balance, and validate values."