How to succeed by recognizing the Good Life within Yourself
By Abe Cherian - Copyright © 2005
If fate intended you to be rich, then all you have to do is
just wait for the business of the century, money, spouse,
health and wealth to fall into your lap. Most people
understand fate as something static as if there were a
message written in the stars that said, "This is the way
it's going to be and it's not up to me." No wonder a
passive life develops from this attitude, lives where
people wait for their fate to find them and just happen.
Years go by before they realize that in all this time they
have not experienced anything and have virtually slept
through most of their days in a monotonous routine of work,
lunch, dinner, occasional entertainment, television and
rest. Each day is the same, boring routine until the days
become months and finally they stretch into years. Not to
mention, they have probably been struggling for money and
possibly survival, experiencing health and relationship
problems and such.
It is not surprising that in the end, all this leads to the
final confirmation that "I am not intended to live the good
life." Joey McCormick, a philosophy professor at the NC
Sate University, and author of many philosophical,
religious and medical books, sometimes compares life with a
jail cell, where institutionalized prisoners no longer
remember their previous life of freedom.
Instead, their only goal becomes meager attempts to improve
their living conditions (if they can) within the prison
walls. They may paint walls with the vivid colors of
nature, hang posters or magazine pictures to cover the ugly
walls that surround them. All the while, they're dreaming
about a better life and envying other prisoners for meager
privileges above their own. Even worse maybe their cells
are wide open and nobody is forcing them to stay in the
prison! They are free to go and experience a new, exciting
life.
They refuse to believe that somewhere a better life awaits
them. No, they would rather put another poster on the wall,
and dream on about a better life than take the chance of
moving towards it only to wind up disappointed. For a
prisoner to survive inside and behind bars, within the
prison system, he or she must engage in a wide range of
mind-games. The most important one is to forget your life
outside the walls.
Unfortunately, this is also the most dangerous game of all,
because its successful execution means you must become
satisfied with the limited life you now have. If a new
prisoner comes in with grand tales of life outside, the
rules of the game force the prisoner to reject them, not
because they don't believe them, but because they don't
want to believe them. Believing the stories makes living
the restricted and limited life inside unbearable.
Believing would change their attitude about the limited
life they are living and they simply "can't afford" for
that to happen. Believing the messenger might elicit
talking, thinking and dreaming of escape - but the road
from here to freedom is long.
Many people live in a mental prison as strong and confining
as those who are behind bars. They have all the freedom in
the world, but they exercise none of it because they are
afraid to believe, like the prisoner, that a better life
can be theirs. Why? Because it takes courage to change
your life, to break the old patterns, change old habits and
rebuild your mental infrastructure.
It is easier to stay where you are, blame others and tell
yourself: "No, this is too hard. Who am I to think that I
can make it happen? What if I fail? Right now, I have
something; maybe it isn't what I wanted or even what I like,
but it's something.
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