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I woke up this morning. Felt a sore throat. I started to get dressed. Put on my socks, my thick padded pants, and… went back to bed.
I slept a little, pondered a little during that hour.
I am reading a book by Neal Stephenson (Termination Shock) that is dealing with global warming. It is a tome… 720 pages. Very interesting, albeit nothing much is happening, at least not as far as I have read, 75%.
But Neal Stephenson always takes you for a sweeping view of life and I am happy to go where he takes me.
So I asked the question:
Is he happy? And Source said through my fingers… No. Boggles the mind.
He writes exactly like another author I read everything from. He, for example published about the same amount of pages, but in many books, The title of the first book is Sick… The whole series: spectacular.
One author is not happy, the other one is… Brett Battles is happy. I link to a video of him sharing his journey as a writer… Watch it to see if you can see how and why he is happy. And above I link to an interview with Neal Stephenson… compare the two men. Do this after you read this article… again, and see if you see what I see. Please. for your own sake.
Most people are not happy, eight billion. And a 1000 are happy.
What is the difference between them? Wouldn’t you want to know?
I am one of the happy ones…
Are dogs happy? They certainly feel happy? Yes, says Source.
How about cats? Are they happy? No.
I can see that too. They always go and try to do their own thing, ignoring the world… They don’t feel happy. They feel that they put up with a bunch of fools… incompetents, because they don’t have a thumb and can’t open the little tins with the food.
At least that is what I felt from my cats when I had cats.
So what is the secret?
It is simple, and it is on many memes:
Interestingly, 99.99% of memes say the opposite…
Here is what Charlie Munger has to say:
The secret to happiness is to lower your expectations. …that is what you compare your experience with. If your expectations and standards are very high and only allow yourself to be happy when things are exquisite, you’ll never be happy and grateful.
There will always be some flaw. But compare your experience with lower expectations, especially something not as good, and you’ll find much in your experience of the world to love, cherish and enjoy, every single moment. ~ Charlie Munger
Charlie Munger is one of the 1000 happy people.
There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations.” ~ — Jodi Picoult
Jodi Picoult is one of the eight billion. Not happy.
When you want to ‘improve’ your reality, it means it is WRONG.
It is not what it is. No. It is wrong, needing fixing, improving, or it remains wrong.
Charlie Munger accepts things as they are, neither wrong, nor right, and some of them he can even love. enjoy, cherish.
Much like a dog. It doesn’t particularly like to behave the way you want him to behave, but he can. He doesn’t hate it. And some parts of life, chasing after a ball or a Frisbee. Fun, lots of fun.
Dogs like the chase… but that chase doesn’t IMPROVE anything for the dog, the dog is already happy.
The dog doesn’t say: when I catch the Frisbee I’ll be happy. When I can jump seven feet in air to catch the Frisbee I’ll be happy.
It also doesn’t say: I want an owner who throws me the ball… or I’ll be unhappy.
You can train a dog to be unhappy…
To become dependent on getting attention at the expense of destroying the dog and its happiness.
I have a couple next door who did that. Just like the previous couple was training their 2-year old.
In a relevant way all today’s parents do this thing to their children.
The natural way for a child to develop is to be happy. The standards, the expectations are set by the parent.
Back in 1996 when I first participated in the Wisdom Course (Landmark Education) I did one of the assignments for the course, the Autobiography.
It is a book you make of your life. Each year is a page (or more). You list major events, who was there, pictures, and what was the things you said.
Given my circumstance, I didn’t have access to many pictures, so maybe it was easier for me to see, that in spite of how I remembered it…
I was a happy child.
I explored, I did things, I got hurt, I won some, I lost some, but I was happy.
After age 14, I started to become gloomy.
I think it began with my father’s innocent remark: all women who wear glasses are ugly.
I took it personally. He didn’t mean it that way.
Recently I realized that my father loved me. I didn’t expect love, I didn’t expect anything. But the idea that somebody loved me brings pain, bring tears, I don’t quite know why.
Anyway, I started to see that statements of lack, statements of wrong started to creep into my vernacular, and I started to descend into unhappiness.
It took me about 40 years to return to happiness.
It took putting myself in a situation where I didn’t, couldn’t expect much.
In 1998 I went through a surgery that went bad… and I came out of it with major brain damage. Interestingly only certain parts of the brain got damaged, parts I used and needed when I was younger.
I could continue doing some of the work I did before. My coaching clients didn’t notice anything. But I could not add up numbers, it is still difficult for me, and my dyslexia tripled… it’s a miracle that I can write articles given my dyslexia.
Anyway, I was in an emotionally abusive relationship with a dude. I had left my livelihood, my support system in New Jersey and moved to Syracuse NY with him.
He was an alcoholic. We slept in separate rooms. He dominated me as much as he liked… Like one dominates a servant.
And to my surprise, I could assume the mental stance: it is what it is. He is the way he is. I am the way I am. And I was fine.
Then by some miracle my brain decided to look and discover that it was damaged and do something about it, in 2003, I saw that it was time for me to go out on my own and leave the safety of that relationship.
I managed to take my ‘it is what it is’ attitude with me, and one could say, I have been happy ever since.
I didn’t know I was happy, by the way.
The standard for happiness in this world is to jump for joy… and that is not my nature.
Not until I distinguished that happy is when things are the way they are, and not the way they shouldn’t be.
Werner says: happiness is accepting the world and people the way they are and the way they aren’t.
It sounds so high-minded, but ultimately it is not accurate.
There can’t be happiness if things, people aren’t in some way… In reality there is no no, things are always the way they are… and they are never in any way ‘not’, or ‘missing’, or any of that human b.s.
Realizing that my father loved me is so painful, because somehow it brings a ‘no’ into my reality. Something I could have known.
But the reality is that my father was the way my father was, he said the things he said, and that was that. Neither wrong, nor right.
Because the moment I say ‘my father loved me’ a whole unreality of all the people that didn’t, and ‘should have’…
People should do what they are doing because that is what they are doing.
I could make peace with Hitler, the Nazis, Trump, because they did what they did. What happened happened.
Nothing wrong, nothing to fix.
But you, you are a dog with a bone!
The moment you bring that ‘bone’ into unreality, then of course you can be unhappy about a million things… because… why really? Because you have an expectation that things are going to be the way they are SUPPOSED to be… and then you are unhappy.
All that unhappiness you feel is because you said: it is supposed to be different. I am supposed to be different.
And now you are unhappy.
So what do you need to alter your worldview, because don’t be mistaken, this is what worldview is!
In the context workshop we dig down to the core, and attempt to distinguish unreality, so you can choose.
Of course choice is only possible if and when your DNA is adjusted… so I will diligently adjust people’s DNA who are in the course, so they can choose.
I am not blind therefore I can see that I could choose to call things wrong… I can see it. And then I don’t.
It seems that I have less and less people willing to join me on my path. So I have been looking what else I could do to make a living.
Not because it’s wrong to not make a living, but because it is fun to make a living with something other people like, and want to spend money on.
Yesterday I found something that I think I could do, although I haven’t checked if it can be profitable… Yet. but I will.
When I am clear, I’ll choose to go that way, or look more.
Why am I so lighthearted about it? Because to me nothing is wrong. EVER. Even when I get frustrated or angry. It’s not wrong, and they are not wrong.
Anyway, you have two more days to sign up to the live course.
I record every session, but the recorded course doesn’t automatically have the frequent DNA adjustment, it is not practical.
But if you get the recorded course, you can email me as frequently as you want to ask me to adjust your DNA.
It is very obvious to you when you lose your adjustment. You become like you were before, fuzzy, confused, dull, and sluggish. At least that is what people tell me.
I don’t include email coaching in the course: if you want handholding between the sessions, you have to be in my Hero program, or buy email coaching…
To be accepted to the Hero program, you need to have a project. It is not a chatting app… about whatever. If you buy email coaching, you can chat… I will handle it.
Anyway, here is the link to register in any version of the course…
…and you even have an opportunity to apply to the hero program, if you wait after you paid… a page will come up with the offer.
All sessions are on a Saturday. All times are EST… New York time. Noon in New York is 4 pm in London, 6 pm in Paris, 7 pm in Bucharest.
This coming Saturday, December 11, 2021, 12:00 PM – 03:00 PM EST
Dec 18, 2021, 12:00 PM – 03:00 PM EST
Jan 8, 2022, 12:00 PM – 03:00 PM EST
Jan 15, 2022, 12:00 PM – 03:00 PM EST
I will schedule more sessions when I see how many more we’ll need to take you to your new ‘floor’ to happiness, and trust that it will stay.
Take this opportunity for a live you lovePS: The interesting thing is many of Neal Stephenson’s characters are happy… at least when it matters.
What do I mean? When you are happy, when you can be in reality without having to label everything as good or bad, wrong or right, you are effective. Effective with the things, effective in you life.
The moment you relate to anything as shouldn’t be, you are in unreality and you are scr-ewed. Not effective, and unless you can recover fast, you or your life will become ordinary: which means unhappy… the new normal for life.
