I haven’t spent the time doing it yet, but I wonder if a meditation on the Japanese characters that form the concept of “harmony” may offer some insight into how to achieve it.

There’s an outer world in which we exist and, of course, there’s a deep, often neglected inner world.

For me, and I suspect for many others based on the conversations that I’ve had over the years, there’s a tendency for those two to go to war with each other, rather than to live in harmonious agreement.

It’s the voice in your head that berates you for overeating when you’re on a diet, saying something nasty to a loved one when you are trying to be a better partner, or realizing you are consumed on your phone while ignoring your kids or your friends.

Instead of receiving that inner you with love, compassion, and acceptance and recognizing that the behavior probably has some deep “shadow” component to it, you just come down hard on yourself, like a military drill sargent.

But that’s not the path.

I only know that because it keeps failing to produce the desired results and it creates so much pain.

There’s another path.

The path of seeking harmony and being harmonious.

And the challenge?

Being harmonious even when you don’t have harmony.

I haven’t spent the time doing it yet, but I wonder if a meditation on the Japanese characters that form the concept of “harmony” may offer some insight into how to achieve it.

There’s an outer world in which we exist and, of course, there’s a deep, often neglected inner world.

For me, and I suspect for many others based on the conversations that I’ve had over the years, there’s a tendency for those two to go to war with each other, rather than to live in harmonious agreement.

It’s the voice in your head that berates you for overeating when you’re on a diet, saying something nasty to a loved one when you are trying to be a better partner, or realizing you are consumed on your phone while ignoring your kids or your friends.

Instead of receiving that inner you with love, compassion, and acceptance and recognizing that the behavior probably has some deep “shadow” component to it, you just come down hard on yourself, like a military drill sargent.

But that’s not the path.

I only know that because it keeps failing to produce the desired results and it creates so much pain.

There’s another path.

The path of seeking harmony and being harmonious.

And the challenge?

Being harmonious even when you don’t have harmony.