“When you get frustrated because something isn’t the way you thought, examine your thinking, not just the thing that frustrates you. And you will see that a lot of your suffering is created by your models about how the Universe ought to be. And your inability to allow it to be. If I meet somebody that is a liar and a cheat, they are like an elm tree. They are the essence of lying and cheating. If I have a model people shouldn’t lie and cheat, then I am immediately in opposition to that person. I don’t have to play games with them. I may say “In the future, you and I can’t play together, because you are a liar and a cheat and I can’t play with you” but I at least appreciate and allow them their lyingness and cheatingness. That’s their problem, not mine. My problem was my expectations. If you have a model that everybody is good and then somebody isn’t, then you end up hating the world and being all upset about the world because it isn’t the way you expected it to be. It’s like you come here and it’s a beautiful day, so you expect the next day is going to be beautiful. Then it rains, and you are disappointed. Isn’t it funny that when it rains, you should be disappointed? To take nature and allow nature, when it’s in its natural state, to make you miserable. It says something about you. It’s like decaying and dying. If you are upset about decaying and dying, you’ve got a problem. You really do.”
Ram Dass, junior mining company management, me
I read Ram Dass’s words and works for many reasons. One of the minor ones is that his insights help enormously when dealing with people in the junior mining world. Here’s an example: