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The Four Agreements

The Four Agreements

  • Agreement 1: Be Impeccable With Your Word
  • Agreement 2: Don't Take Anything Personally
  • Agreement 3: Don't Make Assumptions
  • Agreement 4: Always Do Your Best

TLDR

  • There was this ancient guy who named himself Smokey Mirror to remind himself that he could see himself in all people and that the separation between us was an illusion just like Fog distorts what is actually there.
  • People can be so domesticated that they will cause themselves to suffer more internally than any external entity makes them.
  • This domestication is the byproduct of agreements one is indoctrinated into making with oneself by their conditions growing up.
  • Learning what these agreements are can help one understand their own Domestication so they can change their relationships with themselves and other to live a better life with less suffering.

The Smoky Mirror

  • I think dad would cut himself if it wasn't for Mom's emotional abuse
  • Echer's hand and Adam writing his own existence, thought experiment I shared with Daniel

See Yourself in Other People

When one is truly self aware they see everyone as a mirror. The mirror is always there but most people lack the self awareness to see it. This lack of self awareness is like a fog.

The sociological imagination is made up of agreements we all have no choice in and were indoctrinated into.

Seeing the mirror is more than self awareness though. Seeing the mirror is being meta aware. Being meta aware allows someone to see and eventually manipulate the agreements they made with the sociological imagination leading to self improvement.

Seeing the agreements people have already made with themselves and highlighting them can potentially help them improve.

Humans are capable of self domestication, for example when someone cringes at something they are experiencing a Pavlovian Response. This self domestication leads to many people hating themselves so other don't have to. This domestication makes people think they deserver abuse. This domestication is an agreement someone made with themselves.

Sources