Quotes and Lessons from The Four Agreements

Being the self-help book nut that I am, I had to read Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements. This book is often mentioned in Best-of lists. When I saw it at the bookstore, I was surprised how compact the book is. At 138 pages, it could be read in one sitting. Despite its compactness, there are a lot of nuggets of wisdom and level-headed advice on how to make changes within ourselves, resulting in personal freedom, happiness, and love.

The four agreements are like personal codes of conduct.

Be Impeccable with Your Word
Don’t Take Anything Personally
Don’t Make Assumptions
Always Do Your Best

They seem straightforward enough in theory, don’t they? Of course, the application of these codes of conduct is the challenging part.

I do believe that this book provides a lot of helpful advice that, if applied, would make our lives much easier. I’ve found the second and third agreements the most useful for me in reminding me how much drama can be avoided if I don’t take things personally and make assumptions. Less drama = less undue stress.

I consider The Four Agreements a spiritual self-help book, as it asks us to go within, to work on ourselves and our limiting beliefs, in seeking the wholesome peace that cannot be found in the external world, no matter how hard we may try.

Following is a compilation of quotes that resonated with me, including some lesson(s) I derived from a particular passage. Occasionally, I also add some comments, as Ruiz provides a lot of food for thought worth revisiting over and over again.

Quotes and Lessons from The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz

“Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are. Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Thoughts: This is interesting and refreshing because the fear of death is well-known and commonly expressed in our culture; however, we don’t often hear discussions about people’s fear of living.

I would say that I’ve allowed fear to rule my life – I made decisions based on fear, so I don’t feel like I’ve really lived. Now that I’m almost 50 years old, the fear I’m experiencing these days is the fear of dying without having really lived (up to my potential) and not having learned to just be comfortable with myself.

“Humans punish themselves endlessly for not being what they believe they should be.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Lesson: The word “should” is harmful. It perpetuates an absolute, black-and-white mindset and inhibits self-expression. When we believe we “should” do or be something or someone, we are living by someone else’s rules and effectively denying ourselves the freedom to live life on our own terms.

“Our image of perfection is the reason we reject ourselves; it is why we don’t accept ourselves the way we are, and why we don’t accept others the way they are.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Lessons:

Perfectionism gets in the way of our ability to fully accept ourselves and others.
Our perfectionism is not only self-directed, it extends to and negatively impacts our interactions, expectations, and treatment of others.
All human beings are imperfect; therefore, to expect perfection of ourselves and others is a denial of reality and sets us up for disappointment.
To love unconditionally is to accept our imperfect selves.

The First Agreement: BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD

“How much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

The Second Agreement: DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY

“Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Lessons:

Remember that humans are self-centred. Each person is the main character of his or her own life movie. You know the saying, “The world doesn’t revolve around you?” Only Your world revolves around you. Everyone else has their own bubbles that revolve around them.
No one can fully know what we are going through, and we can never fully know what anyone else is going through.
Each person perceives and interprets things differently based on his/her own lived experience.

The Third Agreement: DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS

“We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking – we take it personally – then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison with our word. That is why whenever we make assumptions, we’re asking for problems. We make an assumption, we misunderstand, we take it personally, and we end up creating a whole big drama for nothing.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Lessons:

When we make assumptions, we start creating mental movies in our heads that compound and prolong our suffering. Rather than suffer, we can choose to communicate.
When we make assumptions, we’re choosing to create a problem without confirming that there is a problem.

“We make the assumption that everyone sees life the way we do. We assume that others think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge, and abuse the way we abuse. This is the biggest assumption that humans make. And this is why we have a fear of being ourselves around others. Because we think everyone else will judge us, victimize us, abuse us, and blame us as we do ourselves. So even before others have a chance to reject us, we have already rejected ourselves. That is the way the human mind works.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

The Fourth Agreement: ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST

“In your everyday moods your best can change from one moment to another, from one hour to the next, from one day to another. Your best will also change over time. As you build the habit of the four new agreements, your best will become better than it used to be.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Lessons:

“Doing your best” is a dynamic process and fluctuates based on multiple external and internal factors.
A person’s best differs from person to person. Understand that your best at one activity will look different than someone else’s best at the same activity.
Take notes, learn, and keep going and growing.

“…if you fall, do not judge. Do not give your Judge the satisfaction of turning you into a victim.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Lesson: Avoid playing victim & criticizing yourself or blaming others when you falter; you are in control of your choices. Be accountable to yourself and for your actions.

THE TOLTEC PATH TO FREEDOM

Breaking Old Agreements

“The freedom we are looking for is the freedom to be ourselves, to express ourselves. But if we look at our lives we will see that most of the time we do things just to please others, just to be accepted by others, rather than living our lives to please ourselves.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Thoughts: Ah, what a wonderful freedom that would be – to express ourselves and live our lives without caring about other people’s judgment!