(This is Part 5 of a series. Go back to Part 4.)
The second kind of question I ask is General Outcome questions, which have to do with outcomes of a general nature that I would prefer.
(The late Ken Keyes made an important distinction between preferences, outcomes we hold lightly and which are conducive to happiness, and addictions, outcomes which we feel we have to have and which are conducive to unhappiness.)
While Appreciation questions tend to be "What...?" questions, General Outcome questions tend to be
"How...?" questions.
The best way I know of to come up with a good list of General Outcome questions is to ask yourself:
What's important to me?
When you ask this question over time and begin to see certain answers coming up consistently, you'll know what General Outcome questions to ask. After following this process, the first question that comes up for me is:
How can I make a real contribution?
When I asked myself "What's important to me?" I found that the two answers which consistently came up were that 1) I wanted to enjoy my life, and 2) I wanted to make a contribution. So in the General Outcome area I start with the above question. The next one I ask is:
How can I simplify my life?
I find that this question helps to focus my attention not only on ways to simplify, but also ways to more optimally organize things.
In this technological age of ours, when so many things change so rapidly, there seems to be a tendency for life to become more complex. Stephen Covey (info and link in
People section) named it well, I believe, when he said that we can get caught in the thick of thin things.
So the question above is designed to help me in evolving to greater simplicity in my life. In contemplating this question, I look for ways in which I can pare down non-essentials, become more effective in what I undertake, and not least, take time to smell the roses. My next two questions are:
How can I make the best use of this day?
How can I really enjoy this day and every day?
I imagine the day ahead and look at what I would like to get accomplished and what I'd like to enjoy if the day follows my preferences. (Yet I bear in mind that reality is ultimately going to go wherever it goes, and that I want to gracefully follow it rather than try to dictate to it.)
I look at what I need to do and what I'd like to do, and briefly imagine the day working out that way. But I hold the imagined day lightly, and feel free to follow reality in some other direction if that's how things want to go.
I consider the enjoyment of the process to be an extremely important consideration, which is why I add the second question. What good would it do to make "the best use of this day" but not enjoy the process? I'd only be adding negative vibrations to the world, doing neither the world nor myself any favors. The next question I ask is:
How can I feel really passionate about my life?
Whatever I'm doing, all else being equal, I'd like to feel passionate about it. Not passionately self-righteous, which is a different matter, but passionately engaged. I want to feel that spark of joyful engagement with life, to perceive the divinity of reality. Which leads to another question:
How can I more clearly reveal my true nature?
This question can of course be phrased in whatever way we find most meaningful, such as...
How can I get closer to God?
How can I best reveal the eternal light within me?
How can I be more unconditionally loving?
(Of course in one sense we can't get closer to the One because we already are that, but nevertheless the question serves a useful purpose because it pertains to the issue of revealing that Oneness inside us and outside us.)
After asking General Outcome questions I pass on to the third kind of question, Specific Outcomes:
(This is the end of Part 5. Go to Part 6.)
—jim sloman, 8.6.03 for 3.14.04
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