For a person who wants to get somewhere in his life, what should be the height of his ceiling and how low should be his floor?
Our ceiling is our best, whatever our best might be: inspiration, creativity, high spiritual state, peace of mind, clear consciousness, and so on – we would like to believe that this is where our real self is, or that we are on the way to get there, or that we are learning how to get there, and that if we put most of our attention and efforts in getting there – we will be there. But we usually hardly pay any attention to the floor, but what is the floor? The floor is our standards, the level below which we will not allow ourselves to drop. Without ‘the floor’ we would drop into an abyss (whatever this ‘abyss’ might be). We all should have ‘won’t have areas’ – ‘won’t have areas’ are what we don’t allow ourselves, the tools for implementing ‘will not have areas’, are standards and self-discipline.
Another name for making a floor are: putting borders or boundaries, which is: putting a limit to something. When something is getting out of the right path, become wild or uncontrolled – it needs a boundary. A solid floor is made by much emphasized borders that one marks whiten himself. Another tool to establish a floor that will block the fall into an endless abyss – is saying no; what are we saying no to, how often, how difficult it is for us to say no to us, and how effective it is – will constitute the strength of our floor. It is much more difficult to say no than to say yes. We love to say ‘yes’ to things, and ‘hate’ to say ‘no’. But without saying ‘no’, our ‘yes’ will be spoiled by what will bring our ‘yes’ down.
An example: the closer is our waking up time to the time we know we should wake-up in – the higher is our floor and the smaller is the distance between our ceiling and the floor (the level below which he will not allow yourself to drop).
When i refer to small distance between the floor and the ceiling – the question is: is the floor (the bottom) close to the level of the top, or the top is closer to the bottom? if it is the first option (the bottom is closer to the top), then it is the best option, (this is high ceiling and high floor), high best and high standards. The other option: is less desired (the top is closed to the level of the bottom); it means that your best is controlled by high discipline, and too high discipline does not allow you best to fly as high as it could.
The higher is your floor – means that the more powerful are your standards, self-imposed, not letting you go below a certain level. The lower is your floor the weaker are you standards, and the lower you let yourself drop, especially at time of difficulty or crisis’s.
The worst combination is high ceilings and low floor, here the stretch between the height of the ceiling and the lowest point of the floor – makes for an unstable life, which get crushed from very high to very low; a crisis.
The best combination is; high ceiling and high floor, meaning that the distance between your top and your bottom is very small, this is stable balanced life.
The other option is low ceiling and high floor, this person has a lot of self-discipline but his best is not developed or elaborated. The last option it low ceiling and low floor, this is locked life: no self-discipline, no best, no nothing, a desert.
In the end, for people who are on a spiritual journey, what is the greatest letdown? The ceiling or the floor? The answer is clear and simple: the floor, this is the greatest neglect. People on a spiritual quest would like to be in a high state all the time and do as little self-work and effort as possible, what is it like, by analogy? To buy expensive staff – and paying as little as possible, for it.
More people are becoming spiritual dropouts because of low floors rather than because of low ceilings.
Yes, actually, it is easier to reach high states, then to keep your state from being spoiled by letting yourself drop below your ‘will not have areas’ (having high standards).
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“Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them.”
— Winston Churchill
“Self-discipline is doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done even when you don’t feel like doing it.”
Anonymous
“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.”
— Lao Tzu
“This quality of self-denial in pursuit of a longer-term goal and, indeed, the willpower to maintain the denial, is excellent training for the boardroom.”
— John Viney
Drive
Gabriel