Path Management

By Tim Cimino

In Path Management there are two principles: The first is to continually ask yourself the question, "What is the best, most loving use of my time right now?"--And then do it!  [If you are serious about walking a spiritual path, the question becomes a prayer, "God (or the equivalent for you), what's the best, most loving use of my time right now?"]

To answer the question, "What is the best, most loving use of my time, right now?" you might use your intuition and gut, you might go with your feelings and highest desire, or you might think through your options rationally. Personally, I lean toward gut intuition with a brief rational assessment of options. Sometimes, however, the gut answer to, "What is the best, most loving use of my time right now?" might be to sit down and assess further, or to methodically generate a list of things to do, and evaluate their impacts, or to do nothing until your feelings or mood is stabilized. At other times, the gut answer will require courage and risk. That's where you walk new ground. That's where you go all out.

To be honest, I can't do Path Management for long periods of time. What happens is that I switch from doing the best thing to doing something that's a good action or a neutral action because there is some short term pleasure or mental stimulation in it for me. Yet I find that periodically asking myself the question, and then doing it, leads me to a much higher quality life.

The second principle to Path Management is: "Make efforts, and make efforts within your efforts." For instance, imagine that you ask yourself the Path Management question, and the answer comes back to you to take time to listen to your little brother who is going through a tough time. So you do this. Now, as you listen to him, imagine that after a while you are tempted to listen to him passively and go on "autopilot" as he talks. Instead of this, make a stretch within your stretch by improving the quality of your listening: Periodically ask yourself what is the best, most loving things to say or do at this point in the conversation.

Whenever you have a situation where you don't have enough motivation to do the best, most loving thing, or you're tempted to do something else, here are some strategies:

• Ask a friend to support and nudge you to do the best thing.
• Visualize the positive consequences of doing the best thing. Emotionally imagine yourself doing the best thing. Build up the desire into a bonfire.
• Give into a fairly tempting lesser temptation that will cost you less in time, energy, integrity, or whatever you prize.
• Remove the temptation or reminders of the temptation to lessen the chances of a next occurrence.

One way to think of Path Management is as a decision process of how to best alternate between different forms of loves, listed below. But it also is avoiding going off the path of love, into one of the forms of 'sleep' or distractions, also listed below.

Three tips to staying "awake," that is, on the path of love:

1. Constantly develop new reminders because you stop responding to the old ones.
2. Don't overconsume stimulation. (Just as overeating makes you sleepy, satisfying all your desires makes you sluggish.)
3. After you've gone off the path, and are ready to get back on, try to figure out what derailed you, so that you're less likely to go off the next time.

Forms of Love

'Love' here is being defined as being on your path. It's also defined as whatever is the best, most loving use of your time. Here are some possible forms:

• Loving what you love: [your greatest personal fulfillment, mission, vision, happiness]
• Facing and grappling with any obstacle to loving what you love.
• Maintaining yourself and your infrastructure so you can continue to love [work, home repairs, food supplies, exercise, checkups, insurance, etc.]
• Building your capacity to love (build time, money, energy, communication skills, etc.)
• Observing yourself and life. Being aware. Taking inventory (part of building capacity)
• Listening" to life, including real conversation.
• Planning for love in the future.
• True rest and recharging yourself. Giving yourself time to heal or to mourn a loss.
• Helping others along their path of love.
• Getting help when you've lost the path.
• Exploring for higher love, something more central to your path, or the next thing on your path.
• Learning how to love, (learning how to overcome a particular obstacle, build your capacity, maintain your infrastructure, etc.)
• Learning techniques to avoid or decrease "sleeping."
• Deciding which of the above to switch to. (Transitioning, Path Management.)
  
  
  

Sleeps

'Sleeps' are activities that interfere with loving as much as you can.

• Low grade entertainment [often TV, video games, pulp fiction, solitaire on the computer, gossip]
• Daydreaming (past, future, fantasy, worrying), automatic thinking
• Self-satisfaction and pride
• Being stuck in negative emotions (anger, worrying, anxiety, envy, fear, beating on yourself)
• Overindulgence, in food, sex, information or anything.
• Addictions
• Desire for trivial wants, consumption, impulse buying, shopping
• The quest for perfect comfort: the latest computer, furniture, the fanciest foods and appliances.
• Amassing wealth, material goods, information or anything
• Letting someone control you
• Trying to control others
• Playing a role, acting
• Fake conversation (one-way reporting when you're speaking, and judging when you're listening are two examples.)
• Going after symbols: a big house as a symbol of emotional security, a sports car as a symbol of youth, expensive clothes for acceptance, promotion as a symbol of being respected and admired.
• The half-sleep of wrong assumptions and beliefs. (See Common Mistakes and Assumptions about Life Missions for examples.)

Note:

1. The same thing can be love, and then sleep. (The first two slices of pizza could be love, but the next three could be sleep.)

2. Something that's love for one person can be sleep for another.

3. Something that was love at one stage of your life could be sleep when it's time to move to the next stage.

A Path Management Exercise

Path Management is to be on the path of greatest fulfillment, by asking yourself the question, "What is the best, most loving use of my time?" Start by consulting your intellect, feelings and intuition and, if it helps, briefly write out your three answers. Then choose which seems to be the best answer and do it. If you get bogged down by analysis, use your feelings or intuition. As an exercise, try to stay on the path for an hour, and note when you go of the path and what pulled you off.

For example, if asked myself what the best, most loving use of my time is right now, my three answers would be: Logic and Rational Mind: Continue working on this program because it has such a great potential to be of help to people. Feelings: I'm feeling like a break would be good soon. Intuition: It might be good to think of people who I haven't talked to lately. I have a friend in Florida I've been thinking about. My choice: To take a break and then call my friend in Florida.

Facing the Wall

On the path, from time to time, you run into obstacles. This is when you not only are blocked physically or intellectually, but you often become negative or drained of motivation. Some people start beating up on themselves.

Good things to do when blocked:

• See this situation as a learning experience.
• Get calm and objective again by writing about your feelings in your journal or by talking out your feelings with a friend.
• Observe yourself and consider briefly the root of what you're feeling or thinking.
• Ask yourself how you've solved a similar problem in the past.
• Try to imagine how someone famous (Einstein, Gandhi, etc.) would approach the wall.
• Ask yourself if this can be reframed as a different kind of obstacle. For instance, a money problem might be reframed as a time management problem if you're spending money paying late fines, or paying others to do what you could do yourself.
• Think of someone who might know how to help you get past the wall.
• Ask for help (if you've earned the right to ask, by giving help to others.)
• Are you making any assumptions that you shouldn't? Test your assumptions. Think creatively. For example, is there another path to your goal? Try to think another way around or through the wall.
• Remember that some walls are paper thin.
• Remember that most other walls can be taken down brick by brick and that you don't have to take down every brick to get past this thing.
• Accept a reasonable amount of pain to get through certain obstacles. This is being mature.

If all else fails, the wall might be an indication that you've chosen the wrong path or the wrong time to pursue this path.