We are a combination of everything that we’ve encountered

Dec. 22, 2011 - PRLog -- Is that not true?

So has this ever happened to you? Have you ever found yourself expressing a few nuggets of wisdom to a dear friend and realized that you don’t follow those directions yourself? Now be honest…

So it would appear to be more accurate to say then that we’re not exactly ‘who we think we are’; but more readily ‘a person who fits most of who we think we are; but also with a few undesirables’.

We do our best of course, this we would all admit. Perhaps we could do a little better, but on the whole we’re pretty much happy with our self.

That is of course until we’re next sad, frustrated, angry or any emotional trait that encourages a negative attitude.

The purpose of this introduction is for everyone to realize that we do have different sides to our character. Some of which are difficult to control.

When was the last time you apologized? No doubt it was within the last 24 hours to someone. Proof if you ever needed it that we are not the perfect person we see in the mirror.

(I’m deliberately leading you down a particular path, please bear with me…)

So… this person we see before us… are we ready to tweak the imperfections and direct our efforts towards becoming a better and more complete person?

Okay, okay I here you say.

We are ‘who we are’ because we’re made up from our years on this planet… and will remain who we are unless we change. But how do we make change?

If we are ‘who we are’ from our knowledge and experience, then the only way we can tweak that personality of ours is to understand which decisions we make advance us and which don’t.

This sounds like too much hard work does it not? Now here is the answer to all your problems…

Imagine digging the garden at 9am on a morning that has blue skies and a beautiful sun shining. You feel bright, fresh, strong, willing, capable and eager. Then I tell you that for the next 2 hours you’ll encounter wondrous moments of joy and happiness, and during this time you’ll grow mentally stronger; would you believe me? I’d expect the weakest answer from every reader would be to say probably.

Imagine your partner pushing you outside the back door at 7pm with fading daylight and saying to you… “Go dig the garden please.” I’d suspect your attitude would be less appealing and more likely to fear the drudgery ensuing. Then I tell you that for the next 2 hours you’ll encounter wondrous moments of joy and happiness, and during this time you’ll grow mentally stronger; would you believe me? I’d expect every reader to answer… unlikely.

Is the driving force behind these two examples 9am and 7pm, or happy and unhappy?

When you are happy you soak up knowledge and experience without effort. You are doing it because you are HAPPY doing it. Introduce the concept of ‘unhappy’ and you’ll not see anything and therefore not learn anything.

So the moral to what is being said this week is to broaden the time you are happy and miracles will happen.

You could go away today having read this and not change anything, but that would be folly. Because before too long you’ll encounter sadness, frustration, anger and wish you wasn’t in that situation.

You’ll justify your existence as in ‘story 1’; and not be able to see beyond it. Every day you’ll discover a method to improve your presence to this world; and every day you’ll realize is not always about adding to your person, but subtracting.

Most people assume that if they feverishly add to their character they’ll become the better person. During the ages of 12 – 25 you’ll soak up more information about personality than you’ll ever need to know. Then from 25 – 100 you’ll begin to let go of the aspects that you realize aren’t for you.

All you need to know is… identifying when you’re happy… and making decisions when you’re happy… and thus avoiding any attempt to plan anything constructive during a negative moment. Otherwise you’ll be the eagle…

EAGLE OR CHICKEN?

A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen.  The eagle hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.

All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken.  He scratched the earth for worms and insects.  He clucked and cackled.  And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old.  One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky.  It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

The old eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked.

"That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor.  "He belongs to the sky.  We belong to the earth-- we're chickens."  So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was.  

(Anthony de Mello)
Wisdom-and-Philosophy.com

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Andria Bolton
Editor, Author and Businesswomen
Wisdom-and-Philosophy.com and How-to-be-Happy.co.uk
http://www.leafletsareus.co.uk/
http://www.pounds-to-euros.com/