The Master (and his dogma)

"The Master surrenders his beliefs..."

We often paint ourselves in a corner when we get too dogmatic. When we live by strict self imposed rules, we enter a closed-minded world of "no" and often don't see solutions to problems that are readily available when we open our minds. I am currently reading "The Art of Happiness" and there is a nice metaphor in there about how often we make ourselves a room and tell ourselves that the solution to any problem we are having must be in that room. In dog agility, for me, this means overusing certain handling maneuvers or discounting different ways of handling because they do not match the handling "system" I am learning. At work, it may mean coming up with different flavors of the same solution instead of something unique; "They're like Stummies, only bigger..." It may mean getting caught up in the "shoulds" and shouldn'ts of life: he shouldn't have talked to me that way. I should spend more time doing x, y or z. If you think to when you are unhappy or frustrated, you will probably find that the root of it is that things aren't going the way you wanted them to. Your experience didn't meet the expectation. You may not have control over what happens, but you absolutely have control over your expectations. There is more I can write about the relevance of clinging to dogma and it's impact on current events, but you get the point...