Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye.

A relationship is considered a transactional whenever the people involved feel indebted to one another. This happens when romantic partners keep score, when friends only help each other expecting

a favor in return, and when parents think of their children as trophies.

I am all too familiar growing up hearing I gave birth to you. The least you can do is

keep quiet, try harder, make me proud, and so on.

My dad, on the other hand, was the exact opposite.

He often said, the only thing you have to do in this life is die. Everything else is a choice. So do it if your heart is in

it, but never do anything out of obligation. Thousands of years ago, Confucius spoke of

filial piety. A child... of some cultures than others, but I've also heard parents say,

my children didn't choose to be here, so they don't owe me anything.

I chose to have them, so I owe them everything.

It sounds beautiful, but there is that word implying obligation again.

Oh, while I'm inclined to agree with my dad that everything except dying is a choice,

I do realize that in some very extreme cases, having a choice is a privilege

denied to many victims of terrible circumstances. Short of that, however, we aren't talking about privilege right now. I want us to focus on what

you choose to do and the reasons behind it, and here is why. For nearly five years I've been meeting with people one on one to discuss ways of implementing

mindfulness into daily routines.

Regardless of their age, gender, or background, people from all over the world tell me how much of what they do is out of guilt,

shame or pressure, leaving them feeling trapped. Whether we are talking about the pressure

and sense of obligation to attend family functions, the shame-filled obligation

to become doctors or lawyers when they would rather pursue something else, and even the guilt-driven

sense of obligation to how children when they would rather not.

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