Turn Your Hate into Happiness
I hate Mondays! I hate Birthdays! I hate Holidays! We hear these
statements all the time from others and ourselves. Justification
for our hatred of certain days isn't hard to come by. Mondays
represent the start of a workweek at a job we may despise.
Birthdays represent the progression of years we all wish would
move at a slower pace. Holidays tend to accentuate preexisting
family feuds, loss of loved ones and economic low points. Some
people take it a step further and center their anger on people
or things.
I hate my cousin, nephew, mother-in-law, father-in-law,
ex-boyfriend or next-door neighbor. I hate that dog who roams
the neighborhood unsupervised, those kids that play loudly in
front of my house or the Meter Reader who walks across my
well-kept lawn. You may have some very legitimate reasons for
centering anger and even hatred on these people and things,
however, there is a price to be paid for constantly focusing on
them and you may be surprised at what it is.
Almost everyone I know lives each day based on one or more sets
of good or bad events. Those events dictate their every mood and
help decide how they will live a particular day. This gives a
huge amount of power to things, situations and people that they
allow to influence their lives. That power is given away, not
earned. In a culture obsessed with Psychology and Psychiatry, we
are taught to believe that people, situations and things have
power over us cause certain types of behavior. Instead of
ignoring those influences, we're encouraged to explore and
understand them. While resolution is possible, it always seems
to evade those who follow this path.
I know people who live on therapy and pills. I am not talking
about individuals with legitimate mental disorders that may be
successfully treated through medication; I am speaking about
people who are told they need treatment because something in
their lives is upsetting them. If that situation cannot be
resolved, it should never be permitted to rule their lives. Some
people spend all their time trying to resolve situations that
should never have been allowed to overtake them. Sometimes we
have to ignore, learn to accept or walk away from situations
that we cannot control.
Everyone is different. Some people drive their vehicles all day
blissfully unaware of what's happening on the road around them.
Others get upset and beside themselves if someone cuts them off
or causes them to miss a light. Regardless of what sets you off
in a positive or negative direction, it's really all about
allowing people, situations and things to have power over us.
Most people have already surrendered their lives to
circumstances. They wake up and allow everything around them to
decide what kind of day they'll have.
I always get a kick out of people I know who get angry with me
for not being upset with whatever bad piece of news the media
happens to be spewing out at any given time. "Didn't you hear
what happened today?" Sure I did. It's bad news. It has to be
because most people in the news media know that good news just
doesn't sell. We are incessantly reminded by news reporters,
political pundits and talk show hosts how important it is that
we listen to them. Instead of making a well informed decision at
the ballot box by voting for people we know will represent our
particular viewpoint, we'll told that we must constantly revisit
every election by staying on top of government officials and all
that they do.
The problem with being directly involved with every political,
social or other issue on any given day is that it deflects us
from what's important in our own lives. I have seen more then a
few people leave their families, jobs and anything that
resembled a normal life to take on a cause they felt worth that
cost. However, most of them were not in a normal state of mind
when they made that decision. Instead of giving the matter
careful thought, they responded to the call to a call for arms
levied by other true believers.
There are people who leave radio or cable news channels on all
day, then wonder why they are feeling so bad. I listen to the
news; however, I do not allow it to decide what kind of day I am
going to have. This doesn't mean that I do not sympathize with
people who have been hit by disaster, crime or some terrible
calamity. I do. In fact, I have links on several of my websites
for people to donate money, time or talent to help those
afflicted by all sorts of disasters, economic situations and
national tragedies. I care about and support various causes and
charities like most other people. I just refuse to allow those
things to overtake me on a personal level.
It scares me to think how much I used to allow everything
happening around me to rule my life. It's as if I was in some
sort of a coma. I refused to happy unless something happened
that gave me a reason to feel good. I lived based on the day's
events and everything going on around me. Needless to say, I was
not happy a good deal of the time. I listened to experts on
television and the radio and thought that maybe I was the kind
of person who might have a tendency towards Depression. I was
just about to seek help for being depressed, when I saw the
light.
While watching television one morning, it dawned on me how
influential the world around me had become on my life. I was
watching the news early in the morning when one of my younger
children came in the room. I switched the channel to some
cartoons. I couldn't help but watch what was on and started
laughing. I went out that morning feeling really good. Why?
Because my television had told me to. It provided some funny and
uplifting entertainment that made me feel good.
Giving it some thought, I became upset at how much I was
allowing all sorts of things happening around me to influence my
life. I had joined the crowd that played the Blame Game. If
someone in my family got me upset, I blamed them for ruining my
entire day. If a friend or business associate called with bad
news, it was their fault that I couldn't function to my full
potential that day. Not only did I blame others for my feelings,
I blamed myself!
If I wasn't feeling good most of the time, there must have been
something mentally wrong with me. I automatically assumed that I
needed therapy, pills or couch sessions to solve this imaginary
problem. Fortunately, I tried something else before taking any
of those steps. I decided to feel the way I wanted to feel each
day regardless of my circumstances. After making that decision,
it almost seemed ridiculous how much power I had allowed people
and things to have over me. Not only did that decision change my
personal life, it changed the way I did business.
I stopped allowing Nay Sayers to influence every business
decision I made. Since the day I was born, people had told me
about all the things I couldn't do. They had decided that I
fitted into a certain mold and needed to exist within that
narrow expression of economic happiness. Not all of my business
decisions have been good ones and thinking outside of the box
hasn't always benefited me. However, moving beyond people's
expectations and making decisions based on what I know about
myself instead of everything happening around me have always
been good steps in the right direction.
If you want to survive the daily grind and move beyond the
influences of everything around you, it's time to stop living
based one what life tosses your way. It will not be easy. Misery
loves company and everyone around you will miss the influence
they have on the way you feel. You will not always be happy, but
you will have the ability to be happy, sad or otherwise based on
deliberate choice. You can either handle your emotions, or allow
them to handle you.
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Author: Bill Knell Author's Email: billknell@cox.net Author's
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