Everyone see life in a different way.Life consist of the period when we are born to the period when we die. And all of us during this duration seek to find some meaning for this trip. Why am I here?
I have search in books in people and in myself for my meaning in life and I haven't found it. I am looking for some knowledge or information that would give me some answer to my question of what is life all about. Are we all here to just suffer and learn? Are we all here to place some part in someone else life? Are we just to be here.
You could work hard all your life and yet never achieve the things you really wanted to achieve. So many of us take jobs we hate, stay in relationships that are going nowhere. And we feel that we are stuck, there are no other option to take that can get us out. We feel cursed and sad. Many of us are sad and depress on how we turned out. It is a sad thing to realize that your dreams will never come true, it kills something inside of us.
I am writing this book in a hope to understanding myself. I am not in good term with myself. In fact, I sometimes hate the person I am. It seem I take things so personal, if something fails in my life I usually blame myself for the situation. I am indeed my worst enemy.
In my search I have found that their are certain belief that we tell ourselves over and over again about things that make us unhappy. The goal of life is to have as many happy moment we can for the longest period of time. The following are some belief that I had about life in my search for the reason why I was so unhappy. I hope they will bring you some insight to your life as it did for me.
Chapter 1- EVERYBODY HAS PROBLEM
Where do we beginning? Let us start in the beginning. You and I came about out of a union between a sperm and a egg. These two special cell unites and divides and keep on dividing for the rest of the cells' life. You started off as a period on that sentence you just finished reading. That union made you. Think about it! A small cell that develops into a human being capable of thinking, talking, loving, almost able to do almost anything. Sit outside in a park one day and just watch people. They come in all shape and all color and all different background. Each of them have their own life to deal with.So we all started out the same, so then what happen?
Life happens. Life is hard. Life is hard for everyone. It does matter who you are, where you are from, or how much money you have. Life hits all of us. I used to believe that I was the only person who has problem. Listen to me. Everyone has problem. Don't be misled and believe that the guy next to who or the beautiful women you see on the street or the rich billionaire you see on television has no problem.
That there life is all roses. Let me tell you a secret--They have problem too, they suffer too, they cry too. Realize that you are not alone. The only people who don't have problems are the people who have died. The reason that you don't see it is that people do hide there problem from other. Everyone has their own problems and they don't want to hear your problems. Try it. Talk about how bad life is and the problem you have and you will see how quickly people will leave you alone.
The degree of suffering a person has depends upon his or her life. Some people are lucky enough to be born in the United States,into a affluent family,go to the best college and have a head start in life. A large number aren't so lucky. They fell into a third world country, hoping just to find enough food for the day. Life isn't fair. A lot of life depends upon luck, or what some people call destiny.
The first truth about life is: EVERYBODY HAS PROBLEM!!!EVERYBODY
There is no perfect life. There is no perfect job. There is no perfect women or man. No one is perfect. Keeping reminding yourself over and over again or this. Don't be influence by T.V., mazingine, or anything related to the media. The media is not really.....the media is a world where everyone is beautiful, very one lives in a huge apartment or house, everybody wear a different clothes everyday, everyone life is exciting....and everything end Happy ever after. The really world is not like that. Not everyone goes out every night...not every one has a different wardrobe for everyday of the year, and not everyone life is excting.....life is not like a soap opera. You have to wake up and smell the coffee. Accept life for what is it-----NOT PERFECT. Stop denying your problem and wishing them to go away. They will not. Usually Problem will never go away unless you to deal with them. In reality...there are no problem in this life ....problem are are crack in the path of life that gives us a opportunity to change. We are all pleasure and pain seeking animal. We run away from pain and move toward pleasure. If we didn't have problem....how many of would change our behavior.....not a lot. Most of us don't have the disciple to change our behavior internally. We need something external. We need something outside of yourself to punish us to wake us up and move us to a new direction. We are truly like Pavlov dogs.
The knowledge that everybody has problem should make you feel that you are not alone. The person next to you have problem also. This should make you realize that their is nothing wrong with....it is OK to have problem and it is OK to not be prefect.
The truth about problem is that the farther in life you go the more problem you have. I know from my own experience. The more repsonablity you have the more problem you will have. This is a direct proportion. The more money you make, the further in the ladder of success you go...you will realize that more people will depend upon you, more thing has to be done, and more problem you will have. There is such a myth out the that the more success you have the less problem you have.....don't believe that. It is not true. If you want to be success, you have to get ready to deal with more responsibility with your new position. You have to deal with problems.
_CHAPTER 2-STOP DEMANDING THAT YOU GET EVERYTHING THAT YOU WANT
One of the first thing we must get used to in this life is the concept that we will not get everything we want we want. You have to stop wishing things were different, stop wanting things to be different, and deal with the hand that was given. This is a easy concept to understand,but a hard concept to follow.
I really wish that we live in a world that where if you are a good person and live by the rule, that life will treat you fair. Some people believe that since they are so good, then life should be good to them. And that just isn't so. People insist that events and people should treat them fair. Our compassion should be returned with generosity. We get upset and depress and even angry when we don't get our way when things don't go our way. The question to ask is why should it? What make you so special that other people that the world must do what you ask for. Are you God? Nobody gets everything they want out of life...nobody.
You have to learn and constantly remind yourself that this is the type of world that we live in. Your kindness, goodheartness, and clean living will not be interchange for kindness, sucess, and a problem freed life.
This is a hard belief to break,because we have been condition by our parent that if we act a certain way or be a certain way....we will be reward with what we desire. This is just not so.
We all want things to go our way. I wish i had a billion dollars, i wish i was more handsome, i will my body was more build-up, i wish i was more intelligent, i wish i was Bill Gate and have his power and wealth. I wish i could see the world. I could go on and on with my wish list. The wish list is infinite as my imagination is. The question to ask is will i get my way....Will i get everything i every wanted?---The answer is no. Of all the things I want out of life....I will be lucky if i get a small fraction of it.
So...does that meant that i should be angry, i should be depress, and cry out to the world--"This is unfair....I deserve to get everything." How stupid does this sound...who do i think i am God. I am not God. And i must face the fact that in this life....i will not get everything that I want.
I must grow up and stop acting like a baby and get angry or depress when i don't get what i want. Stop believing that it is terrible to not to get everything you want. Stop Demanding life to be a certain way, stop going against the tide of life...but go with it.
Life is unfair. You can't predict what will happen to you. Accept this. Life usually doesn't go the way you plan it sometime. Out of the blue something can come up that you have no control and can make you hurt. Or the opposite can happen also, something can pop up that can change your whole life for example like falling in love. The only thing that you can do is to do your best.
It sometime surprise me that many people get upset when life does follow the way they have planned things to happen. Just because you are who you are doesn't mean that things must fall into place for you. That you deserve things to go your way. All you pain and hard work must mean for something. You are not God, and you are not different form everybody else on this planet. Just because you wish or want something, doesn't necessary mean that you should have it right now. Everything in life has a price tag. Nothing, and I mean Nothing comes for free that is worth having. You have to start growing up. There is no mother or father there that when you want something will just come over and give you what you want. We sometimes regress to our childhood behavior and it is not good for us.
Do you want to know what suffering is? Why people feel so much despair and pain and hopelessness. Suffering comes in when you resist reality. When you resist life. You have a picture or belief in your mind of how life should be and when that collide with reality, you will suffer. You will feel pain. Your girlfriend left you for another man and you want her here. You lost your job and you believe that you not have been fired, that you desire to be working. All of suffering is due to Denies.
Life is suffering is one of the first noble truth in the Buddhist religion. There is no getting away from this.A parent may try to protect the child from suffering, but he or she will eventually will deal with suffering and Disappointment. To Deal with life is to deal with suffering.
There is a more important purpose of suffering. Suffering is here to make us learn about life. Let's face it, most of us are security bond. We hate change. If bad things didn't happen to us we would not change. What I mean about change is that suffering makes us think out our life, our existence, makes us ask ourselves -why is this happening to me? What can I do about it? The pain makes us change in our behavior. The pain makes us see the world differently. the pain makes us question our values. Every turning point in our life is a question of making a decision based upon our values. Should I stay and give this relationship I have a change to really growth or should I take that new job in Boston which will open doors for me in my career later on?
This simple question is a test of our values and it is a painful decision to make because if you accept one you will lose the other. And both items are dear to our hearts. What would you do? Do you value security over love or do you value love over security? Not easy is it. Whatever decision you make it makes a statement about you and it forces you to learn something about yourself.
All suffering is learning. Things happen to you,suffering happens to you for you to learn something about yourself or others or just life in general. There is meaning in every suffering. You have to look deep and hard for it. Sometimes we don't understand why things happen to us until months later or years later. Think about it, haven't you look back in your life and realize the suffering you experience wasn't so bad and if you didn't go through the circumstance you had to go through, you would be where you are now.
Th law of change is a law that states nothing ever remain the same. We can take this in a good way or bad way.As human being, we have a bad habit of being comfortable. We pay it save most of your lives. We don't like risk because it takes us pass the safety ozone that we all of us have. People find comfort in their lives, they hate change. Any change is taken as a threat of one inner self. The law of change means nothing ever stays the same.
The suffering you have now will not last forever. The unemployment you are experience will not last forever. The broken heart you have will heal. Nothing last forever. We must also look at the flip side of this because there are always two side to everything. The happiness you have now will not be the same, something in your life will make it not as happy as it is now. The car you drive, the clothes you were, the life you lead will not be there forever. One of the great equal of life is death. You will not live forever. This statement is so ever important. It means your life here on earth is limited. You only have a limited time to do all the things you ever want to do. My friends, your time here is short as is mine. A lot of time we forget this, we think we have all the time in the world and we really don't. We don't do the thinks we think we should do because we think that there is always time. don't fool yourself in saying that to yourself. Time is so precious and we will talk about this in later chapter.
My friend, don't be surprise of failure and suffering. It is surprising how people can't believe that things happen to them, when things don't go the way you want. Expect disappointment in your life. And you many say to yourself many excuse why failure shouldn't happen to you.
Don't think that you are some special being or that because the things you have gone through in your past give you the right of having a easy life. Remember rule one--Life is unfair.
Without this law of change we human being will not grow. Without suffering forcing us to grow, we wouldn't.
Think about it, when thing are going great and everything is going according to plan,would you want to change anything including yourself in a fear that what you any change you make would lead you to the path of failure. When you are happy, you will not force yourself to change because you have no reason to.
B.F. Skinner's experiment in operate conditioning with rats explain that without a pain stimulus or a pleasure stimulus we are not motive in learning anything. Skinner's experiment, or sometimes called "Skinner's Box consist of the following:
In this box was a hungry rat. Inside the box was a bar with a food dish beneath ti. every time the rat pulls the bar it get food. The food is used to reinforces the bar-pressing.
The rats learns that when it is hungry that by pressing in the bar it will get food. But this also work the other way, if for example by pressing the bar it don't get the food but a small electric shock, what do you think the chance are for the rat to learn or associate the bar to pain and then hence keep away from it.
In operate conditioning, the animal is the one which gives itself a stimuli to reward or punish for the response afterward. In life, it is pleasure or pain that comes upon us that makes us grow and learn and motives us to action.
We anything for two reason. Discomfort ans gratification are our motivating force in our personality. Each of us have different degree of each. We all have different pain threshold and pleasure threshold. It is different for everyone. What may be pleasure for someone may be punishment for another.
_CHAPTER 3-SETTING GOALS
Things will happen to you that you have no control over. Does that mean that you should just accept things as they are and just suffer? Of course not, If that is to be true that no one would be happy. Are we not the masters of our fate? The answer to that question is a yes & no response. Let me explain.
I believe in the luck/self-dertimation ratio. This ratio is always changing...never remains the same. Most of the time the ratio is like this:
70%------self-determination
30%------luck
That mean that in a average day...you control about 70% of what happens to you. 30% of the things that happens you have no control at all----it could be bad luck or it could be good luck. Remember this also this ration can change with a drop of a hat. The ration can change to:
80%-----luck
20%-----self-determination.
Beware of the luck factor in your life. recognize it, acknowledge it and thank god for it. Don't focus your mind on just one of these item...recognize both. Know the distinction between planning and luck.
LADY LUCKY
In life situation....luck has an influence in your life that most want to believe. Don't ever be secure with life my friend...don't ever feel comfromatable. The luck factor can make you or break you without warning.
You have to ignore what you have been taught as a child when things didn't go your way....you ascribes failure as something you did or fail to do. It wasn't all your fault, don't let disappointment get you down and depress. Don't get discourage and believe that there is something wrong with you, there is nothing wrong with you.
Some of you many believe that their is a black cloud over your head and everything you touch or get near to just fail or that nothing you do ever turn out right. What you are experiencing is a bad luck run. Just like all lucky streak do come to an end, so does bad luck streak. You have to just wait it out. I know it is hard thing to believe. When i finish medical school... i didn't have a job set out once i finished my residency. I was out of work for over one year. I was so mad at myself that i didn't know that the medical field would make just a dramatic transformation from privates practice to HMO facility. I kept saying " Should have known...i should have been prepared" but i wasn't. I blame myself where i should have blamed luck. I got into the medical field at the wrong time in life. Something i had no control off.
So you see even the best made plan can fail with a little bad luck. The randomness of luck can change your life forever. You are at the mercy of randomness. So the thing to do is to arrange yourself with good luck and avoid the bad.We must first begin with the deficaton of what luck is.
Luck is being at the right place at the right time. The key word is right place and right time. You have to position yourself at the right place. The right place meaning it the place where everything happen. Just like the lottery, you have to be it to win it. You have to be in a atomshperr where a lot to action or things happening. You can expect luck to find you if you stay at home and never go out. Thing don't happen when you just stay home....in fact nothing happen when you just stay home. You have to get involve with the outside world, get involve with committee and parties, any group that is somehow related to what you desire in life. This is important because most of the good luck that occurs to people occur through networking...with contact with other people. This doesn't mean that you have to be their best friend....you have to be a qautiance. Breaks and luck occur through a chain of link in people. You must join the link and let your close links know what you seek in your life. Just think about this....think of all the people who know right now and each of these individual know their own group of friend and the chains gets bigger and bigger. You let your circle of friend know what you want and the will tell their friend and so on and before you know it an event or chance opportunity come out. You must also develop a pleasing personality. Nobody like to help someone who ir rude and arrogant and selfish. Do you know that success is 15% technical skill and 85% personality. So the first rule is
1-get out and make links
So now you made your link what next? Cut your losses when bad streak occur. You must realize that streak both bad and good never last long. People had the habit of sticking with something however bad or wrong it because because if they stick with something long enough it will give. I am tell you that this is hogwash. If you are losing in a relationship, business or carreer, then get out of it. One of the hardest thing to do is to desert something you have put your worth,sweat,time and hard work into. But you must your losses. You must admit that you made a mistakes and forget about it and never turn back. But you know what a lot of people do....they stick with a bad hands and believe they are stick with it. Be it a relationship, or a job. They give up and don't see and solution to their bad hand. Leaving behind anything hurt...it will hurt you to the core. But you must let go of thing and events that are holding you down.
So the second rule to luck is:
2-Cut your loses
Always give yourself a time limit on thing. If things don't turn out the way you want them....you should pack up your bags and leave. If a good streak of luck doesn't not come your way before the time is up...pack up and go.
Don't put binder on focus on just one thing...one goal.Do you want to know the truth.....most successful people became successful because they had a open mind. They made their billions based on taking a side road toward their goal. Nobody has a straight path to success because everyone is taking the same road they are taking....Successful people make their own roads....they take risks. Luck comes in many form and disguises and if you only have one focal tunnel vision...you will miss golden opportunity that comes you way
Rule number three is:
3-Risks
You will not get anywhere if you don't risk. You have to go out on a limb to get anywhere in life. Fortune favors the bold. Play it safe and you will always live the life that everyone lives....no excitement or the chance to get ahead. There is no such thing as security in this world. Nothing outside of you can generate any security only you can....Prove it?....then right now just close your eyes and just imagine for a little while all your problem are gone...all your worries are gone...all your fear and anxiety of life is gone. What is it that you feel----you have just felt secure. You just spawn the feeling that you are seeking outside of yourself. You can even do this with the feeling of love. Close your eyes and just imagine what it would feel to have someone love you... are you going it? Can you feel it? the warmth and safe, protective feeling of a love one. You have created this feeling of security and love even though you may not have a loving person right now or have the money that can end your worries. This prove the old say saying that everything you seek is within you. You generate they feeling of love and sadness, fear or security. This is why successful people are without fear...this is the reason why they generate themselves to act. They realize their is nothing to fear expect fear.
Don't believe people when they say that the reason they are successful is because of their own doing only. Believe me luck has a lot to do with success. Bill Gates wouldn't be where they are now if first they didn't get the IBM contract, and second his partner-Paul Allen didn't buy the DOS program from a settle software company that was used in the software for IBM computer. John D. Rockefeller made his billion based on luck....he invested the little capital that he could save up with a Samuel Andrews into a new business of refining oil. Who knew what oil would be such a big things. And Thomas John Watson, the man who founded IBM was at the right place at the right time.
I know that everything that I have written about luck goes against everything of the Worth Ethic. These are crazy times and they demand crazy action
So when things don't go your way.....don't get down on yourself. Don't get stuck and brag yourself, torment and punish yourself to hell. There is the luck factor in your life which you have no control of. The real problem is that people don't have self-determination. What i mean by that is they don't have a goal that they are working toward.
Goal Setting
The purpose of goals is to give us a blue-print. The purpose of goals is to make you get up from your ass and start doing. It isn't wise to preplanned all of your life on a piece of paper. A goal should be used as a guide, if something better comes along, you should be ready to relinquish your old plan. Don't get trapped that once you written your goals, you can't change them...they are not written in stone. Don't ever forget the luck/self-dertination ratio. The next half of this chapter we will deal with making goals.
I would like you to meet two friends of mine, David and John. David is an renounce, famous and wealth pianist, who is very talented. John is another individual who is an unknown, not so rich, but is almost equally talented pianist. The thing that is holding John down, who too should be successful is lack of desire. If you don't have desire..then what will make you get out of your bed and set out to the door. No desire means no action. The lack of action...the lack of desire is the reason why one person takes a path of failure and a person with the same type of ability will take the path of success.
Sit down with yourself and decide what exactly is it that you want? Two out of hundred people in this society know exactly what they and these two are the one that are successful. If you don't believe me go and ask your friend and most liky they will say" I don't know".
Most people go through life getting so little out of it. They let events occur to them, not so much by choice, but rather by chance. What I mean by that is they allow life to decide what it wants from them and things can cahge immediately if they decide what they want from life.
If you don't have a goal, you do not know where you are going. You let situation,environment and events of life to guide you instead of you guiding it. you will merely drift. You will never be in the job or occupation you choose to be.
You are on your voyage through life. You are on a boat on the stream of life, unless you tell the captain, which is you, where you want to go, you will forever drift. Never going anywhere,always on the same point that you have started. So many people wander aimlessly through life with no goals for themselves. They are drifters who go through the motion of living, never reaching their full potential.
Decide now what you want from life. Decide now where you want to go. Tomorrow will be yours . But be sure that you will pick a goal that will motivate you. It must aspire you with great desire to achieve.
In decdieng what your goals are, make sure it is your goal and not your parents, friends, or anyone, except yours. Don't become a lawyer if you don't want to be one, or anything sles at that matter. Because if you choose a gaol that is not what you want, the motivated force will not be there.
Do what you want. DO something that you love to d. I have seen people who are in the job that their parent wanted them to be, only to find that they are unhappy and didn't like it. Make sure then , it is your goal nad you will save yourself a lot od time and discomfort. To be happy and to successful, do what you will love to do and nothing else beside that.
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