When facing an atypical situation that requires me to make a difficult decision, it occurred to me to ask this question: what would have Gandhi (or Jesus, or Mandela, or [blank]) done under similar circumstances?
I do not need a hero, dead or alive, to look up to. Yet, I do realize that on occasion this is helpful for putting matters into perspective. This approach is not aimed at putting the power into someone else’s hands. Rather, it allows me to better reflect upon the process of my decision making; viewing the circumstances through the eyes of a certain ideal. In other words, I do not hold anyone to be a perfect being; a person without faults. I would not want to be such a person and thus no such being is an idol for me. But some people have become representatives of a set of values, and while looking at challenges via the eyes of such a figure, I am allowed an insight that may be unlike mine. I may still make my final decision different than what I suspect they would have made, but using this exercise opens me up to more possibilities where before there was only one.
Learned from: a meditative insight.
Open Heart Energy 