A Life Lesson That Works

A long time ago I learned a “law of life”: Tell the truth and keep your agreements, and life will turn out perfectly. And “perfectly” may not fit your picture.

Keeping Agreements

“Keep your agreements” is easy to understand: It comes down to keeping your word, doing what you said you would do. To use a minor example, if you agree to be at a certain place at a certain time, and you’re there when you say you will be, you’re keeping your agreement. When you do this consistently, people know they can depend on your word. On the other hand, if you’re often late, you foster negative feelings, and people may feel that you’re not to be trusted, at least not in that area. At another level, if you’re in a monogamous relationship and you’re faithful, you’re keeping your word; whereas if you’re unfaithful, you’re not acting with integrity, and it’s going to cause problems.

Every time we break an agreement, we create upset for ourselves and others. When we break our agreements with other people, they stop trusting us. Internally it works the same way: If we break agreements with ourselves, we lose self-trust, turning our intentions into hollow words.

Essentially, keeping our agreements is about having integrity, a subject I wrote about in my blog on don Miguel Ruiz’s valuable book The Four Agreements. In fact, two of Ruiz’s four agreements are to “be impeccable with your word” and “do your best.” We are following both of these principles when we keep our agreements.

Telling the Truth

For me, the second part of this law of life, which has to do with telling the truth and life working out perfectly, “And ‘perfectly’ may not fit your picture,” was harder to understand. It starts with telling the truth. When we are fully truthful, stating our feelings and needs honestly and accurately, we are being authentic and acting with integrity.

I get into the most trouble when I’m acting on “automatic pilot.” When I speak without thinking, my response can lack integrity. One of my biggest traps lies in my reluctance to say “No” to people I care about, out of fear that it will lead to their abandoning me.

If, for example, a friend asks, “Can I stay with you for a while?” and I know I don’t want to give up my privacy for that long and that it would create a strain, it’s important for me to tell the truth. If I say “Yes” because I don’t have the guts to say “No,” I’m responding without integrity to try to avoid friction in the relationship.

When we lie, we are dishonoring ourselves and making it impossible to satisfy our desires and needs. Take our basic need for intimacy, for instance. If we’re in a relationship and want more intimacy than our partner is offering, and we don’t tell the truth about it, our partner will think we’re satisfied, and we run the risk of never having our desires and needs met.

We may rationalize that our need for intimacy and connection isn’t really there, but it is. When we share our feelings with our partner, we are being true to ourselves, and we will get the perfect result. If the result is more connection with our partner, then it fits our picture of perfect. If the result is a breakup, it’s perfect, too, even though it doesn’t fit our picture because of the pain we feel losing the relationship as we desire it to be. It will be perfect because we’ll be free to find from someone else the nurturing we need. So, again, the result is perfect, even if it doesn’t fit our picture.

I’ve come to understand that “perfect” simply means “as it is”! Indeed, Merriam-Webster tells us that perfect means “satisfying all requirements: accurate.” Knowing that “what is” is simply “as it is” satisfies all requirements of the current circumstance; it is accurate.

When we repress our truth, we cannot possibly be fulfilled, whereas when we put our needs on the table and let go of fear, whatever happens is a response to who we really are, and that’s perfect.

Why Whatever It Is, Is Perfect

Once we know the reality of a situation, we then have three choices:

1. Accept the situation fully (which I call Door 1).
2. Change the situation (Door 2).
3. Leave the situation (Door 3).

When we keep our agreements and tell the truth, we are living mindfully instead of letting our default programming run us on automatic pilot. When we live this way, we are living with integrity and are open to new possibilities.