I’ve done more reading lately than usual. When I was in college, I had so many textbooks that I was supposed to read that I rarely did much reading for pleasure. It’s been a bit difficult to get back into at times – I get distracted pretty easily. But my vacation last week gave me quite a bit of time to relax, disconnect… and read.

I was in Chicago a few weeks ago and happened to see a book in Jamba Juice that I read the cover on while waiting for my friends to get their drinks. The book was called The Four Agreements, and inside cover was enough to catch my attention so that I had to go to Borders and buy it before the day was over. I read it pretty quickly the first few days of my vacation.

I do have to say, some of this book came off as a bit New Age-y to me, and I kind of just glossed over it. But the basic principles of the book – the four agreements themselves – while simple, definitely gave me some food for thought. Ponder the following:

Be Impeccable With Your Word.
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Don’t Take Anything Personally.
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don’t Make Assumptions.
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Always Do Your Best.
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Pretty profound, at least to me. I mean, they’re simple thoughts… but they definitely seem like something good to live by. The book also talked a lot about the other agreements we make with ourselves, the filters that we create or have cast upon us by our circumstances or how we grew up. The things we do in life, our actions and reactions, how we see things, really does have a lot to do with those filters.

I think the two statements that had the most impact on me were “don’t take anything personally” and “always do your best”. As probably anyone does, I do take other people’s actions and words personally. But the author of the book is write – usually what someone says or does is way more related to themselves than you or me. And I need to remember that. Feedback is good, but it’s impacted by the filters of the person it came from as well.

I also have a tendency to beat myself up about a lot of things. I’ve blogged about this before. That’s why what the author had to say about “always do your best” made a lot of sense to me. If I focus on always doing my best, realizing that my best doesn’t mean always doing everything perfectly, I have no reason to beat myself up. If I’m sick, my best probably won’t be as good as it is when I’m feeling better – but it’s still my best in that moment, and if I know that I’ve done my best, I have no reason to be disappointed in what I’ve done.

I’m adding these two to my commandments, so here they are – commandments #4 and #5:

4. Don’t take anything personally.

5. Always do your best.

(Disclaimer: this post is NOT meant to offend anyone. It is not meant to bash on ANY religion or lack thereof, and I basically consider it to be NON-religious. I feel the thoughts I’ve presented are not exclusive to any religion or lack of religion. They are simply meant to be thought-provoking, so please… no arguments on my blog, only comments. Thanks!)

I just watched the movie Revolutionary Road, with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio (and no, it’s nothing like Titanic). It’s about a married couple in the 1950′s that has it in their head that they’re “different”, that they’re not going to become just like the typical suburban family with two kids and a white picket fence. Yet they wake up one day to realize that that’s exactly what they’ve unintentionally become.

I really liked this movie, and I recommend it, but be forewarned – it is somewhat depressing. That’s all I’ll say, I don’t want to give away the ending… or any of the movie, really, because it isn’t just about the ending. The movie itself is all about the journey this family is on. You should definitely watch it for yourself, but I think I can talk about the premise behind it without really giving any of it away.

I loved how thought-provoking this movie was. It really makes you think about life and the meaning behind it. Or rather, the meaning we give to it. Countless people, myself included, generally have had this idea that there is a “meaning of life”. A lot of people seek that in religion or in this man called Jesus. Other people seek it in the ideas of Buddhism or enlightment. Others seek it in humanity via the idea of humanism. Still others disregard it and simply live life, not really seeking any meaning to it at all. But what is it? Is there one meaning to life?

I was thinking about all of this (yes, I know – how deep and/or cliche can you get, right? pondering the meaning of life?) and started wondering… maybe there just is no meaning to life. Or maybe life is its own meaning. Have I lost you yet?

Does God exist? I’m not going to claim by any means to have the market cornered on that one. I don’t know that any healthy, sane, truly spiritual person really would. Some believe it because they choose to, but as we all know, there is no definitive proof. At least none that is enough to convince those staunch atheists out there. But let’s say he does. I’m also not going to claim to know his agenda or what’s on his mind. Some Christians would disagree with me, but I’m going to put out the idea that maybe it’s not entirely relevant. Maybe, just maybe, God does exist, and he did create us… he did create the world we are in. But what if he left the meaning up to us?

Christian or non-Christian, atheist or agnostic, Buddhist or humanist, what do YOU believe the meaning of life is? What goal do you ultimately pursue? What are you trying to attain with your life? Maybe that’s the whole point of this. Maybe we each have different meanings to our lives. What if the point is… not to search for the meaning of life, but to create it? Here’s what we have – a magnificent world (however it got here) filled with human beings, animals, plants, and all the things that have been created or sprouted up in-between. Now – what are we going to do with it? We’ve each been given a life – is it possible that there is no definitive purpose for it? Maybe the point is simply to take what we have in front of us – all the possibilities that are out there (and no matter what you say, I believe that there are exponential possibilities for every life) and do what YOU want with it. No right, no wrong (and by that I don’t mean the moral definition of right and wrong), no good, no bad, no better, no worse… just find what you want and do it. What if God is sitting up there watching just to see what people do with all the possibilities they have, and he’s perplexed by all of the people spending so much time trying to figure out why they’re here or what the right thing to do with their life is? What if he just wants them to create their own meaning with it? Or… what if there’s simply no God at all? (I’m still here, I promise lightning didn’t strike me after typing that last question.)

In the words of Switchfoot – it’s your life… are you who you want to be?

So somehow, last night I ended up going to see Billy Joel and Elton John perform together at Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis. Not a concert I really would have sought out on my own, but when Allison told me she was looking for tickets, it piqued my interest and I decided to join her, along with Shane. I’m definitely glad I did.

In spite of our effort to get tickets the minute they went on sale, the best seats we were able to get were behind the stage. This turned out to be not such a bad thing, though, as our seats were actually mostly *above* the stage, and we were much closer than those who purchased tickets in the center, but quite a ways back from the stage. Or in Valparaiso, as Billy Joel put it.

The two “piano men” opened by playing together to a sold-out crowd on two grand pianos that lifted up out of the floor of the stage (answering the question I’m sure others had about where the pianos were when we got there). They were joined by six musicians set up in separate panels behind them, playing various instruments such as drums or keyboard. Each of the panels opened to show these instruments and musicians coming out of the floor as well.

I’m guessing that a lot of you may be like me in the fact that you actually know a lot of Billy Joel or Elton John songs, but you don’t know that you know them. The duo came together on a few songs to start off with, such as “Just the Way You Are” and then each took their turn wowing the audience on their own. It was fun to see both musicians who have obviously been entertaining audiences for years enjoying themselves and creating such a fun, comfortable connection with their audience. I doubt there was a single person in the crowd who didn’t feel perfectly relaxed and at ease watching and listening to them.

While we determined that Sir Elton John may actually be the bigger star, Billy Joel definitely rocked the place with his set as well, not only on the spinning (yes, it spun!) piano, but also with his guitar on “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (which I can’t help but hear as “Ryan started the fire” after that episode of The Office) and his microphone antics to the tune of “It’s Still Rock ‘n’ Roll to Me”.

The two ended the night playing together again – the last two songs on which they ditched their accompanying musicians and pleased the crowd with “Candle in the Wind” and, of course, “Piano Man”.

While, like I said, this wasn’t a show I probably would’ve chosen on my own, I’m very glad I gave it a second thought. It was well worth the dollars to see two piano legends perform in front of an admiring audience that just can’t help but sing along.