Four?
The fourth agreement is the final agreement.
I'd like to share the last part of A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom - THE FOUR AGREEMENTS - A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz. He shares Toltec Wisdom ... which says we all live by spoken and unspoken beliefs (agreements) that we have gathered since birth. We can transform our lives by replacing any negative agreements with THE FOUR AGREEMENTS:
4. ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST
Don Miguel Ruiz says:
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
Doing your best, you are going to live your life intensely.
You are going to be productive, you are going to be good to yourself, because you will be giving yourself to your family, to your community, to everything.
But it is the action that is going to make you feel intensely happy. When you always do your best, you take action. Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you're expecting a reward ... If we like what we do, if we always do our best, then we are really enjoying life.
We are having fun, we don't get bored, we don't have frustrations ... DOING YOUR BEST REALLY DOESN'T FEEL LIKE WORK BECAUSE YOU ENJOY WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING ... Action is about living fully.
Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are. Expressing what you are is taking action.
YOU CAN HAVE MANY GREAT IDEAS IN YOUR HEAD, BUT WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE IS ACTION. WITHOUT ACTION UPON AN IDEA, THERE WILL BE NO MANIFESTATION, NO RESULTS AND NO REWARD ...
God is life. God is life in action. The best way to say, I love you God", is to live your life doing your best. The best way to say, "Thank You God," is by letting go of the past and living in the present moment, right here and right now.
Whatever life takes away from you, let it go.
When you surrender and let go of the past, you allow yourself to be fully alive in the moment. Letting go of the past means you can enjoy the dream that is happening right now ... There is no time to miss anyone or anything because you are alive. Not enjoying what is happening right now is living in the past and being only half alive. This leads to self-pity, suffering and tears.
You were born with the right to be happy.
You were born with the right to love, to enjoy and to share your love.
You are alive, so take your life and enjoy it.
Don't resist life passing through you.
We can practice the FOUR AGREEMENTS every day. Some days will be good. Some days will be not so good. Our circumstances may change. Our energy level and insights might fluctuate but we can still ALWAYS DO OUR BEST.
These FOUR AGREEMENTS are not meant to be a religion, but an enhancement of our faith and beliefs ... a tool to be used to bring out the best in each of us, to uncover our authentic self, to live our best life ... a transformed life ...
Powerful! I have been excited about this point of view from the first time I read it. I am sharing it with you but it is your choice what to do with it. Just trying my best to keep the Four Agreements creates opportunities to praise myself every time I catch myself doing something right! Over my lifetime, I have accepted other agreements about me, my life, my family, and the world and not all of them were kind to me, my life, my family and the world. Some of those ideas held me back and opened me up to abusing myself. Those false beliefs opened me up to receive other people's beliefs that matched my own poison and exchanging that kind of poison is just two people abusing each other.
Bad things could have happened a year ago or ten years ago but they are in the past. The only way they can hurt me now is if I bring them back. Some things hurt like heck a year ago but it doesn't have to come back and hurt me 30 seconds ago! There is no good that will come out of keeping that pain alive.
If I can forgive me, I can apply the same forgiveness to the people who might have hurt me. Using the Four Agreements, I can accept that what they did at the time was more about them than it was about me. I can't make any assumption about what they did or why they did it because I do not know, and even if I asked that person, they may not know either. Anger, Jealousy, Rage all come from fear ... and the ones who hurt us may not know or be ready to know why they hurt us because they are still so busy hurting themselves. Doing our best means having compassion for ourselves, and the ones around us.
If I keep my speech impeccable, if I don't take anything personally, if I don't make assumptions, and if I do my best every day for all the days of my life, that is all that I can do. If others choose to do the same thing, that is their choice. If others choose not to do the same thing, that is also their choice.
I can only do what I can do to make my life a better place for me.
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