Discovering the Palace

By Bob Cox

With autumn now upon us, I was planning to write an inspiring biography about the man we celebrate on the second Monday of October every year, Christopher Columbus. I believed that the inspiring tales of his expedition would encourage all of our readers to go for it. And then I made a terrible discovery and felt unsure of what to write.

I planned to share how Columbus needed the skill-set of two essential attributes to pull off what he did: “Salesmanship” and “sailsmanship” and he possessed both qualities in great abundance. The “salesman” needed funding to find what he believed was a shorter route to Asia by crossing the Atlantic and after several objections, got it from Queen Isabella of Spain. To reach Asia, which was actually The New World (San Salvador Island in the Bahamas), the “sailsman” had to have a thorough understanding of the ocean currents and trade winds to reach shore safely.

As I continued my research, I discovered the horrific dark side of our famous explorer. Columbus ruled the natives and his own men with ruthless and barbaric practices. During his seven-year reign as Governor of all the new lands claimed for Spain, he and his men subjected natives and colonists to a plethora of crimes against humanity, including rape, torture and mutilation. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand learned about his sadistic methods of rule and responded by removing Columbus from power. A 48-page report was discovered in 2006 and contains testimonies from 23 people, including both enemies and supporters of Columbus, about his mistreatment of colonial subjects.

I shared this dilemma with my wife Diana on the morning of our deadline. Should I only focus on the positive qualities and accomplishments of Columbus in our magazine, since our goal is to motivate and inspire others to be the best possible version of themselves? Should I briefly mention the evil methods he practiced in a simple paragraph so that I wasn’t advocating him a person we should all aspire to be more like? Or should I scrap the whole article and write a follow-up on last month’s column titled “The 10/90 Rule”?

Diana voted for the last option, so if you’re in her camp and you think this article is too dark and controversial, feel free to join her by saying “Bob, I told you so”! With the deadline fast approaching, I was losing the luxury of time, so I needed to find a place where I could come up with a quick and compelling solution.

Enter the palace. The palace is a place I like to call my mind. It is a sacred place for me to entertain thoughts that appear like uninvited visitors. These visitors are actually an endless stream of random thoughts, some more urgent than others, and they all have one thing in common: They all want to be heard immediately. The thoughts that have a problem or negative message to share always seem to be the loudest and most obnoxious. They’re also the one’s that keep coming back like zombies or angry customers in the TV show “Hardcore Pawn”. Unfortunately, no matter how big a bouncer I get, they just keep coming back!

If I try to ignore the negative thoughts by only entertaining the positive visitors, it never works. The “Negative Nellie’s” revisit the palace and they are louder, angrier and more relentless than ever. So, under these extreme situations, I eventually have to listen to them, but I try to invite them back at a time when I’m feeling rested and balanced. Otherwise, whenever I cave in and listen to them on the spot and I’m not at the top of my game, I only make their problem, which then becomes my problem, much worse.

So, I’ve taken that original article titled, “The Sailsman” and changed it to “Discovering the Palace”. I believe that after this careful examination, you’ll understand why. And if you do, please explain it back to me because I’m starting to get confused!

Oops, that was just another “Negative Nellie”. Okay, I’m back. If you want to live with greater peace, joy and harmony, a good first step is to practice the 10/90 Rule. Spend no more than 10% of your time addressing a problem and no less than 90% of your time solving it with positive action. If you do this, you’ll be off to a great start.

Next, if you’re anything like me and you can have a day full of positive encounters and just one negative one and then obsess about the negative one, I feel your pain. If this is you, don’t try to fool yourself into believing that if you only ignore the negative visitor, it will go away, because we both know that it won’t! Instead, invite that negative thought back into your palace, but only when you are ready to listen to it. Otherwise, you will likely take a bad situation and make it much worse if you attempt to resolve it when you’re not at your best.

If you find yourself facing a formidable problem and you’re in a position of power over one or more human beings, by all means, do not follow the blood-stained footsteps of our famous explorer by ruling with fear, cruelty and intimidation. Whether you’re ancestors are from the New World or the Old World, every human being wants and deserves to be respected. We must begin the process by having respect for ourselves and then having respect for and from others. Take an enlightened step forward into this New World by entering your palace and then choosing to act with kindness, compassion and respect for all living creatures. This will create a better and healthier environment for us all to live in.