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March 20 - March 27, 2018
You don’t solve one problem by creating another.
If you feel that you do not “measure up” to what is required, you feel insecure.
A great deal of insecurity is not due to the fact that our inner resources are actually inadequate, but due to the fact that we use a false measuring stick.
We compare our actual abilities to an imagined “ideal,” perfec...
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Remember our comparison with the bicycle in a previous chapter? Man maintains his balance, poise, and sense of security only as he is moving forward—or
When a championship team begins to think of itself as “the champions,” they no longer have something to fight for, but a status to defend. The champions are defending something, trying to prove something. The underdogs are fighting to do something and often bring about an upset.
But it is the extreme and chronic feeling of loneliness—of being cut off and alienated from other people—that is a symptom of the failure mechanism.
pathways to finding himself, which is to lose oneself in social activities with other people.
Doing things with other people, and enjoying things with other people, helps us to forget ourselves.
As we get to know the other fellow, we feel less need for pretense. We “unthaw” and become more natural. The more we do this the more we feel we can afford to dispense with the sham and pretense and feel more comfortable just being ourselves.
It is a way to protect our idealized self against exposure, hurt, humiliation.
The lonely personality is afraid of other people. The lonely person often complains that he has no friends, and there are no people to mix with. In most cases, he unwittingly arranges things in this manner because of his passive attitude, that it is up to other people to come to him, to make the first move, to see that he is entertained. It never occurs to him that he should contribute something to any social situation.
Develop some social skill that will add to the happiness of other people: dancing, bridge, playing the piano, tennis, conversation.
As the lonely person continues to force himself into social relations with other human beings—not in a passive way, but as an active contributor—he will gradually find that most people are friendly, and that he is accepted. His shyness and timidity begin to disappear. He feels more comfortable in the presence of other people and with himself. The experience of their acceptance of him enables him to accept himself.
The greatest mistake a man can make is to be afraid of making one. —Elbert Hubbard
Realize that it is not required that a man be 100 percent right at all times. No baseball batter has ever had a 1000 average. If he is right three times out of ten he is considered good.
It is in the nature of things that we progress by acting, making mistakes, and correcting course. A guided torpedo literally arrives at its target by making a series of mistakes and continually correcting its course.
Big men and big personalities make mistakes and admit them. It is the little man who is afraid to admit he has been wrong.
Many people get a perverse satisfaction from feeling “wronged.” The victim of injustice, the one who has been unfairly treated, is morally superior to those who caused the injustice.
Habitually feeling that you are a victim of injustice, you begin to picture yourself in the role of a victimized person.
Habitual resentment invariably leads to self-pity, which is the worst possible emotional habit anyone can develop.
Emotional habits of resentment and self-pity also go with an ineffective, inferior self-image. You begin to picture yourself as a pitiful person, a victim, who was meant to be unhappy.
Remember that your resentment is not caused by other persons, events, or circumstances. It is caused by your own emotional response—your own reaction.
As long as you harbor resentment, it is literally impossible for you to picture yourself as a self-reliant, independent, self-determining person who is “the captain of his soul, the master of his fate.” The resentful person turns over his reins to other people.
He is wholly dependent on other people, just as a beggar is.
In creative goal-striving you are the actor, not the passive recipient. You set your goals. No one owes you anything. You go out after your own goals. You become responsible for your own success and happiness.
LIFE BECOMES WORTHWHILE WHEN YOU HAVE WORTHWHILE GOALS Emptiness is a symptom that you are not living creatively.
You either have no goal that is important enough to you, or you are not using your talents and efforts in striving toward an important goal. It is the person who has no purpose of his own who pessimistically concludes, “Life has no purpose.”
The individual who is actively engaged in a struggle, or in striving toward an important goal, does not come up with pessimistic philosophies concerning the meaninglessness or the futility of life.
Emptiness, when once experienced, can become a way of avoiding effort, work, and responsibility. It becomes an excuse, or a justification, for noncreative living.
Used correctly this type of “negative thinking” can work for us to lead us to success, if: (1) We are sensitive to the negative to the extent that it can alert us to danger. (2) We recognize the negative for what it is—something undesirable, something we don’t want, something that does not bring genuine happiness. (3) We take immediate corrective action and substitute an opposite positive factor from the Success Mechanism.
Self-fulfilled persons have the following characteristics: 1. They see themselves as liked, wanted, acceptable, and able individuals 2. They have a high degree of acceptance of themselves as they are. 3. They have a feeling of oneness with others. 4. They have a rich store of information and knowledge.
1. Be Too Big to Feel Threatened
a healthy strong ego, with plenty of self-esteem, does not feel itself threatened by every innocent remark.
The cure for self-centeredness, self-concern, egotism, and all the ills that go with it, is the development of a healthy, strong ego by building up self-esteem.
The person with the hard, gruff exterior usually develops it because instinctively he realizes that he is so soft inside that he needs protection.
Every human being wants and needs love and affection. But the creative, self-reliant person also feels a need to give love. His emphasis is as much (or more) on the giving as on the getting.
He doesn’t expect love to be handed to him on a silver platter. Nor does he have a compulsive need that “everybody” must love him and approve of him. He has sufficient ego-security to tolerate the fact that a certain number of people will dislike him and disapprove.
He feels some sense of responsibility for his life and conceives of himself primarily as one who acts, determines, gives, goes after what he wants, rather than as a person who is the...
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Develop a more self-reliant attitude. Assume responsibility for your own life and emotional needs. Try giving affection, love, approval, acceptance, understanding to other people, and you will find them coming back to you as a sort of reflex action.
It is our own responses that we have to be concerned about—not other people’s. We can tighten up, become angry, anxious, or resentful, and “feel hurt.” Or, we can make no response, remain relaxed, and feel no hurt.
Scientific experiments have shown that it is absolutely impossible to feel fear, anger, anxiety, or negative emotions of any kind while the muscles of the body are kept perfectly relaxed.
You alone are responsible for your responses and reactions. You do not have to respond at all. You can remain relaxed and free from injury.
“Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note—torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.”
Forgiveness that is partial, or halfhearted, works no better than a partially completed surgical operation on the face. Pretended forgiveness, which is entered into as a duty, is no more effective than a simulated facial surgery.
Forgiveness that is remembered, and dwelt upon, reinfects the wound you are attempting to cauterize.
If you are too proud of your forgiveness, or remember it too much, you are very apt to feel that the other person owes you something for forgiving him.
Forgiveness Is Not a Weapon
many writers have told us that we should forgive to make us “good.” We have seldom been advised to forgive that we might be happy.
Another fallacy is that forgiveness places us in a superior position, or is a method of winning out over our enemy.
