What are your resolutions? : )
What’s the one habit you’d like to habituate?

Happy New Year!

Tina

Gisele

The *fake it ’til you make it* concept may seem to some to be dishonest or fraudulent upon first consideration, but it really is not. It is certainly not about ‘faking a life’ as one person here misunderstood it to be. Admittedly, the catch phrase itself is perhaps an unfortunate choice of words (it’s that *fake it* bit that throws people); it’s not about being a fake, but about training training oneself to focus on & maintain a proactive, positive mindset. (Which, with practice, increasingly becomes one’s norm and thus one no longer needs to *fake it* ~ at least, not on a regualr basis.) As with any tool, it is not always the right tool for the task at hand; but it’s a good one to have available should you need it. It is regrettable that, because of it’s being somewhat ill-named, the concept is often misunderstood as representing something (i.e., being a fake) that it actually does not.

I highly recommend this essay on the topic:
Fake It ‘til You Make It
by Ronni Mott
October 10, 2007

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=15111_0_7_0_C

This forum can have nothing, or everything, or even something in between, to do with Zen. It is what one chooses to do with it that makes that determination, not the forum itself. This forum is but one available tool which one can use on a Zen path if one so chooses.

For your consideration: a tool which assists one individual in their endeavor(s) may be useless to another, and even an outright hindrance to yet another. The core value of the tool does not change, only one’s perception of it’s usefulness,based on one’s needs. The use of any tool(s) for one’s journey, and at what points along the way, is for each individual to determine/discover for his or her self (or no-self ;-) ) along their Zen path.

If I am cutting wood, a sharpened saw would likely be quite useful, and a hammer a hindrance. To hammer a nail into the wall, the reverse would apply. (I have successfully hammered a nail into a wall using the handle of a screwdriver, but a hammer certainly would have been the tool of preference! But alas, sometimes we have to just make do with what’s in the toolbox at hand.) The hammer, saw and screwdriver are all certainly useful tools, when used appropriately; but they can also be quite useless or a hindrance when not used for the purposes for which they were designed. Having the right tool at the right time ~ and knowing how to use it well ~ is indeed a lovely thing.

Also please consider: While your point about self-improvement perhaps not being a Zen-oriented goal is understandable, it also seems a quite narrow persepctive. I suggest you look beyond the surface of the *self-improvement* terminology to what lies beneath. Perhaps you will take a moment and read some of the challenges posted in this forum; if so, you may notice that while not all are particularly *zen*, many are, or at least have the potential to be: again, it is how one approaches them and what one does with them, often not the goals themselves, that make that determination. Goals such exercising regularly, meditating daily, being mindful about what we put into our bodies, keeping our actions in alignment with priorities of universal principles such as practicing loving-kindness, compassion ~ all these are beneficial things that can certainly assist those who choose to be on a Zen path. Yes, they are also goals that can instead be used for purposes of the ego; but again, that is up to the individual.

I respectfully suggest that it might do you well to review & reflect on your own thought processes, see where your own ego-based assumptions/judgments came into play as you observed this forum, and consider where perhaps your no-self might benefit from some tweaking.

As for myself (my no-self? ;-) alas, I am not that enlightened) ~ while at this time my attempts to utilize this forum would most likely be more of a hindrance than a help (the screwdriver-as-hammer comes to mind), I am joyfully and gratefully keeping it in my ever-expanding Zen toolbox. I suspect there will soon come a time (perhaps many times) when this forum might be just the tool I need! :-)