Intentional Living

if you choose not to decide
you still have made a choice..
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose free will.
- Rush, Free Will

There are two fundamental steps of Intentional Living:  Choosing One's Actions and Choosing One's Identity.

The most basic responsibility that all sentient creatures bear is responsibility for our actions.  Paired with this responsibility is the ability to choose at any given moment exactly what you will or will not do.  Arrayed against this power to choose are our genes, our social conditioning, our preconceived notions, and the desires and expectations of others.

Each of these hurdles is surmountable.  Indeed, the greatest power they have is their frequent invisibility to us.  How often do we truly consider our options?  How often do we just act without thinking?  If you are like most of us, the latter is much more common.  

Nor is this completely avoidable.  To maintain sanity in life we cannot constantly question every action before we take it.  But we can and should question the important ones before taking them.  And we can and should question the rest as we are able.

These questions and the activities they are applied to form a tool which we can use for analyzing and gaining control over our actions.

Of course at times we would like to choose our actions, or perhaps have tried repeatedly to choose our actions, but have failed to overcome our existing biological, cultural, or social programming.  Perhaps a phobia stops us from doing something we want, or a craving sucks us into an action we don't want.

In these cases our creative imagination is a tool we can use to change our emotional attachments and imprint on ourselves the behavior we desire.  These techniques have been given many names: visualization, self-hypnosis, and NLP being but a few.  At the core, they all rest on a few basic principles:

Go out and do what you imagined.

The above techniques offer ways of affecting our actions on a case by case basis.  This is a necessary and important step in liberating the self.  Hidden behind these individual actions, however, is our identity: our self-image, our beliefs, our fears and desires.  Our identity governs our behavior at every moment of our lives.

Our identity is also within our power to change.   

Three things in particular affect our identity and are within our sphere of influence:  our self-image, our dialogues with ourselves, and the people we seek to emulate.

Self Image is perhaps the easiest thing for us to change.  The behavior changing exercise above implicitly involved our self image.   Step through it again.  This time, focus on seeing yourself in a variety of situations.  The situations themselves are less important - the important thing is what you see in yourself.   How do you look?  How are you dressed?  Are you healthy?  Are you happy?  Are you smiling or frowning?  Do you stand upright or hunched?  Are you animated or subdued?  Are you tensed or relaxed?  

Each of these questions (and more) is an axis along which you can change your self image.   Do not accept the answer your subconscious provides.  Choose the answer you would like, and use the power of your imagination to imprint it upon yourself.

Often we are oblivious to the ways in which our dialogue affects our mood and our sense of self.  Internal criticism, which many of us use to drive ourselves forwards, produces tension and a reduced sense of self worth.  Those, in turn, detract from our effectiveness in whatever we do.  Of course, a delusionally positive internal dialogue could be just as disastrous.  What is needed is balanced but optimistic dialogue which encourages us while providing realistic feedback on the world.

The easiest place to start is not in dialogue, but in monologue - in affirmations we can make to ourselves in the environments of our choosing.  These affirmations can alter our focus and imprint a new pattern we use to communicate with ourselves.

What do you wish to remind yourself of?  That you are worthwhile?  That you are on the right track to success at your current goal?  That today was a good day?  That today will be  a good day?

The steps are simple:

Who are your heroes?  Who do you seek to emulate?  Why? 

Who around you is happy?  Who around you achieves the goals you have?  Who around you achieves their own goals?  How?  What do they do?

If your heroes are not the same as the happiest most successful (by their own metrics) people around you, perhaps you should change your heroes.

What would your hero do in this situation?  How would he or she act?  What would he or she want from it?

How does your hero fall short?  How do you intend to do better?  What parts do you not want to absorb?

Who are you a hero or role model to?  Are you a good one?  Do you lead him or her in a healthy way?  How can you do better?