10 Aspiring Qualities for Daily Existence

My aspirations is to pursue one quality per day or to do as many as I can.

Striving not for self-improvement or to write in a way that i am weak or inadequate (i do that enough in my mind) but to extend my body’s comfort zone into behavior and feeling.

Higher Purpose: I am here to serve. I am here to inspire. I am here to love. I am here to live my truth. I am here to find my true self.

Communion: I will appreciate someone who doesn’t know that I feel that way. I will overlook the tension and be friendly to someone who has ignored me. I will express at least one feeling that has made me feel guilty or embarrassed.

Awareness: I will spend ten minutes observing instead of speaking. I will sit quietly by myself just to sense how my body feels. If someone irritates me, I will ask myself what I really feel beneath the anger—and I won’t stop paying attention until the anger is gone.

Acceptance: I will spend five minutes thinking about the best qualities of someone I really dislike. I will read about a group that I consider totally intolerant and try to see the world as they do.

Creativity: I will imagine five things I could do that my family would never expect—and then I will do at least one of them.  I will invent something in the mind that the world desperately needs.

Being: I will spend half an hour in a peaceful place doing nothing except feeling what it is like to exist. I will lie outstretched on the grass and feel the earth languidly revolving under me. I will take in three breaths and let them out as gently as possible

Efficiency: I will let at least two things out of my control and see what happens. I will gaze at a rose and reflect on whether I could make it open faster or more beautifully than it already does—then I will ask if my life has blossomed this efficiently.

Bonding: when I catch myself looking away from someone, I will remember to look into the person’s eyes. I will bestow a loving gaze on someone I have taken for granted. I will express sympathy to someone who needs it, preferably a stranger.

Giving: I will buy lunch and give it to someone in need on the street (or I will go to a café and eat lunch with the person). I will compliment someone for a quality that I know the individual values in him or herself.

Immortality: I will read a scripture about the soul and the promise of life after death. I will write down five things I want my life to be remembered for. I will sit and silently experience the gap between breathing in and breathing out, feeling the eternal in the present moment.

– Taken from “The Book of Secrets” by Deepak Chopra