Rule of Life (8 page)

So what are you going to do with that time? Answer: absolutely nothing. And I do mean nothing. This isn’t time for lying in the bath, sitting on the toilet, meditating, reading the newspapers, or sleeping. This is a little space for you, a breather, a time to sit still and do absolutely nothing. Just breathe. I find that ten minutes sitting in the garden just breathing is a fantastic boost a couple of times a day. I sit there, not thinking, not doing, not worrying, just being, while I appreciate the pleasure of being alive.

I discovered this Rule when I was a teenager. I found it invaluable as a way of purging myself of angst and worries. My mother used to call out to me, “What are you doing?” To which the reply was inevitably, “Nothing.” And she would always reply, “Well come in here, and I’ll find you something R U L E 2 8

to do.” She also used to say, “You’ll never amount to anything by having your head stuck in a book.” And the one I loved the most: “No one needs to think as much as you do.” How do you answer that?

I find time spent doing nothing really important, and as soon as I complicate it, it loses something. If I add a cup of coffee to my solitude, then it’s a coffee break and not a space just for me. If I listen to music, then it’s a music break. If I have a companion with me and I chat, then it’s a social occasion. If I read the papers then I have moved away entirely from the concept of a little space for me. Keep it simple. Keep it bare. Keep it pure.

I T I S T H E L I T T L E S PAC E

J U S T FO R YO U R S E L F

W H I L E YO U D O

A B S O LU T E LY N OT H I N G .

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Have a Plan

You’ve got to have a plan. A plan is a map, a guide, a target, a focus, a route, a signpost, a direction, a path, a strategy. It says that you are going to go somewhere, do something, be somewhere by a certain time. It gives your life structure and shape, gravitas, and power. If you allow life to turn up any old thing, you’ll be floating downstream as quick as you like. OK, so not all plans work out, and not all maps lead to the treasure. But at least you’re in with a better chance if you have a map and a shovel than if you just dig at random—or, like most people, don’t dig at all.

A plan indicates you’ve thought about your life and aren’t just waiting for something to turn up. Or, again like most people, you’re not even thinking about it but going through life perpetually surprised by what happens. Work out what it is you want to do, plan it, work out the steps to take to achieve your goal, and get on with it. If you don’t plan your plan, it will remain a dream.

So what happens if you don’t have a plan? Well, you reinforce, to yourself, your sense of being “not in control.” Once you have a plan, everything else falls into place. Once you have a plan, the logical steps to achieve that plan also become available, accessible.

A plan isn’t a dream—it’s something you intend to do rather than something you want to do. And having a plan means you’ve thought through how you’re going to do it.

Of course, just because you have a plan doesn’t mean that you have to stick to it, or follow it to the letter come hell or high water. The plan is always up for review, for improvement, for R U L E 2 9

changing as and when you need to. The plan shouldn’t be rigid. Circumstances change, you change, your plan changes.

The details of the plan don’t matter. Having one does.

Having a plan gives you a fall-back position. When life gets hectic—and boy does it do that sometimes—it is easy to forget what we are here for. Having a plan means that when the dust settles, you can remember, “Now what was I doing? Oh yes, I remember. My plan was to….” And off you go again, back on course.

I F YO U D O N ’ T P L A N

YO U R P L A N , I T W I L L

R E M A I N A D R E A M .

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Have a Sense of Humor

How important this is. As we struggle through this life—and it can be a struggle—we need to keep a sense of proportion about it. What we do and what we take seriously can often be so far removed from what it is actually all about that it is laughable. We get bogged down in trivia, lost in irrelevant detail to such an extent that our life can whizz past and we don’t even notice. By letting go of things that really aren’t important, we can put ourselves back on the right track. And the best way to do that is through humor—laughing at ourselves, laughing at our situation, but never laughing at others—they’re just as lost as we are and don’t need to be laughed at.

We get bogged down in things like worrying what the neighbors will think, concerns over stuff we don’t have, or things we haven’t done: “Oh no, I haven’t washed the car for two weeks, and it’s filthy. Next door did theirs yesterday, so it looks like we are really slovenly.” If we ever think we’re getting like that, then we do need to have a laugh about it. Life is for living, enjoying the sunshine, big things—not getting in a terrible state because you dropped some eggs on the supermarket floor.

Laughing at yourself and situations you find yourself in has a double positive effect. First, it diffuses tension and helps regain a sense of proportion. Second, it has real physical as well as mental benefits. Laughter causes the release of endor-phins, which make you feel better as well as give you a better perspective on life.

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This isn’t about telling jokes all the time or cracking witty puns. It’s more being able to see something funny in whatever life throws at us along the way—and there is always some humor in everything. I once came round after being unconscious from a serious car crash. I was in a cubicle in a hospital and in great pain. As I regained consciousness, I let out a couple of choice words to describe my condition and, as I did so, the nurse arrived and opened the curtains only for me to find a nun sat outside.* I was mortified and immediately apologized. She looked at me most gravely, winked, and quietly said, “It’s OK. I’ve said worse myself.”

If you observe any aspect of human behavior, you can see the ridiculousness in all of it. Learn to find the funny side of everything. It’s the best technique for instant stress relief and dissolves anxiety and doubt. Try it.

S E E S O M E T H I N G F U N N Y I N

W H AT E V E R L I F E T H R OW S

AT [ YO U ] A LO N G T H E WAY.

* Nothing to do with me! She was quietly waiting for another nun who was being checked out for a splinter in her finger, I later discovered.

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Choose How You Make Your Bed

Every action you take, every decision you make, everything you do causes an immediate effect on those around you—and on you. And this is the important bit. There is such a thing as instant karma. It is your bed, and you are going to have to lie in it. Your actions will dictate whether in general your life is going to run happily or badly, smoothly or as if the wheels have fallen off. If you are selfish and manipulative, it will rebound on you. If you are generally loving and thoughtful, you will get your just rewards—and not in heaven (or the next life or whatever you believe) but right here, right now.

Trust me. Whatever you do and how you do it will come back to you in spades. This isn’t a threat, merely an observation.

Those who do good, get good. Those who do bad, get bad.

I know we can all point to people who seem to have it made and are still pretty vile. But they don’t sleep at night. They have no one to really love them. Inside they are sad and lonely and frightened. Those who go around sharing a bit of love and kindness get rewarded with the same coming back.

It’s a bit like the old adage that “You are what you eat.” You are what you do. Look at the faces of those who spread joy, and you will see laughter lines and smiles. Look at those who like to bully, get their own way, and are arrogant or demanding or vicious, and you will see etched lines of misery and fear and frowns where there ought to be lightness. These lines won’t ever be taken away by face creams or suntans or plastic surgery. They are what they do, and you can see it in their eyes—and the state of their bed, of course.

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So be careful how you make your bed. What goes around comes around. There is instant karma. What you sow you reap. Better to stand up and be counted right from the start.

Do the right thing every time. You know what it is. Then when you get in the bed you’ve made, not only will you be able to sleep at night, but you’ll sleep the sleep of the just.

D O T H E R I G H T T H I N G

E V E R Y T I M E .

YO U K N OW W H AT I T I S .

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Life Can Be a Bit Like

Advertising

Someone once said that half of the money he spent on adver-tising was wasted, but he didn’t know which half.* His point was, of course, that if you can’t tell which half, then you have to keep on doing the whole lot, fully aware that not all of it will produce rewards. Life is a bit like that. Sometimes it seems so unfair. You put in loads of effort and get nothing back. You’re polite to people and everyone seems rude back.

You work up a sweat and others cruise it. Well, you have to keep on doing the 100 percent because you don’t know which bits will pay off. I know it isn’t fair, but then life isn’t. Your efforts will be rewarded eventually, but you’ll probably never know which efforts are being rewarded—or for what—and which aren’t.

We tend to think we are being lucky sometimes when actually we are just being rewarded for some bit of effort long ago that we have forgotten about. We have to keep going. You can’t give up on the grounds that you’ve had a setback or two, because you don’t know which setbacks are the ones that count and which ones aren’t. I suppose it’s like the number of frogs you have to get acquainted with before you find your prince (or princess). Or the pile of oysters you’d have to open to find a pearl.

But whatever you do, don’t lose heart because things don’t seem to be panning out. Only by keeping up the effort will rewards come in eventually—and you’ll never know from which bits come the best reward.

*Lord Leverhulme, I believe.

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Most well-balanced and happy people will also tell you that sometimes you have to work at something without looking for a payoff—apart from the immediate payoff that we are being kept busy and thus can’t get into trouble. Always looking for success, rewards, a payoff can be detrimental to our well-being when things don’t pan out. Sometimes it’s OK to do things just for the sheer enjoyment of doing them. I love painting minia-ture watercolors—tiny, tiny landscapes. Once in a while someone will come along and suggest I put them into an exhibition or sell them commercially. And every time I do it fails miserably, and I give up for a while. Once the dust has settled, I always go back to them. I have learned it is a personal thing, and no longer will I try to sell them or show them. They are a not-for-profit part of my life and immensely rewarding. No, you can’t see one.

YO U ’ L L N E V E R K N OW

F R O M W H I C H B I T S O F

E F FO R T C O M E T H E

B E S T R E WA R D .

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Get Used to Stepping Outside

Your Comfort Zone

Be prepared to be a little bit brave every day. Why? Because if you don’t you’ll grow stagnant and moldy or curl up and wither. We all have a comfort zone where we feel safe and warm and dry. But every now and then we need to step outside and be challenged, be frightened, be stimulated. It’s this way that we stay young and feel good about ourselves.

If we grow too attached to our comfort zone, chances are it will start to shrink, or something will come along and disman-tle it. Fate, or whatever it is that runs things, doesn’t like us to get too complacent, and every now and then it gives us a great big cosmic kick up the backside to wake us up. If we have practiced stretching the boundaries of our woolly cocoon occasionally, that kick won’t have too much impact—we’re ready for it—it’s much easier to cope.

But it’s more than that. Expanding your comfort zone makes you feel good about yourself. It gives you extra confidence.

And the best bit is that you can do it oh so gently. You don’t have to go hang gliding or fire walking or have sex with a stranger just to test your comfort zone. It might be as simple as volunteering for something that you’ve never done before and that you feel slightly nervous about. It could be taking up a new sport or hobby. Maybe it will involve joining something.

It could be doing something alone that you’ve only ever done in company before or speaking up for yourself when you would usually keep quiet.

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We impose a lot of restrictions on ourselves that limit us, hold us back. We think we couldn’t do that, wouldn’t feel happy with that. Taking the challenge of expanding our comfort zone brings us out of ourselves and keeps us learning and growing.

You can’t grow mold if you’re growing experience.

E X PA N D I N G YO U R

C O M FO R T Z O N E M A K E S

YO U F E E L G O O D A B O U T

YO U R S E L F.

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Learn to Ask Questions

Look, you may not like the answers, but at least you’ll know.

Most of the world’s problems can be laid firmly at the feet of assumptions. If we assume (no, I’m not going to do that dread-ful “it makes an ass out of u and me” stuff*) then, in effect, we think we know but we don’t. We assume that our bit of faulty information is a fact, and things go on getting worse. We assume that other people like our plan but they don’t, and it all goes pear-shaped. Better to ask questions right from the start and know what’s what.

Questions help clarify the situation. Questions put people on the spot, which means they have to think—and thinking is always a good thing for everybody about everything.