The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz, published in 1997, rocketed to best-selling status—that is, when Oprah eventually recommended it.
Like Max Ehrmann‘s “Desiderata” it’s brief and to the point and resonates with many self-helpers and self-improvers.
Publishers Weekly: “Ruiz, whose workshop teachings are distilled here, was born into a Mexican family of traditional healers, became a surgeon in adulthood, then underwent a near-death experience that made him reexamine his life, his beliefs. Like the popular works of the late Carlos Castaneda, Ruiz’s teachings focus on dreams and visions. ‘Dreaming,’ Ruiz argues, ‘is the main function of the mind.’ A series of four ‘agreements’ are detailed, which make up a larger picture of unconditional human faith. Despite the New Age-sounding language, Ruiz is refreshingly clear in the presentation of his ideas.”
What exactly are the Four Agreements? Straight from the cover of the book:
- 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.
In his (and his son’s) 2009 follow-up, The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery, the four agreements are further clarified. Below are selected quotes:
- Be Impeccable with Your Word: Words are your paintbrush, and your life is the canvas. You can paint whatever you want to paint; you can even copy another artist’s work — but what you express with your paintbrush is the way you see yourself, the way you see the entire reality.
- Don’t Take Anything Personally: Whatever people think of you is really about the image they have of you, and that image isn’t you.
- Don’t Make Assumptions: Making assumptions and then taking them personally is the beginning of hell in this world. Almost all of our conflicts are based on this, and it’s easy to understand why. Assumptions are nothing more than lies that we are telling ourselves. This creates a big drama for nothing, because we don’t really know if something is true or not. Making assumptions is just looking for drama when there’s no drama happening. And if drama is happening in someone else’s story, so what? It’s not your story; it’s someone else’s story.
- Always Do Your Best: Be responsible for every choice you make in your life. This is your life; it’s nobody else’s life, and you will find that it’s nobody else’s business what you do with your life.
So, what is the fifth agreement? Be skeptical, but learn to listen. Be skeptical because most of what you hear isn’t true. You know that humans speak with symbols and that symbols are only the truth because we agree, not because they are really the truth. But the second half of the agreement is learn to listen, and the reason is simple: When you learn to listen, you understand the meaning of the symbols that people are using; you understand their story, and the communication improves a lot.
