Difficult People You Can’t Avoid
Here is a good topic. Difficult people you cannot avoid or get away from… Is that completely true. Can we be in a situation where we cannot avoid or get away from someone? There are a few situations wheren you cannot avoid….. I will not sit here listing all of the situations. You know what they are. I experience all the time at many different levels in my life and I am sure you do too. sometimes I fall asleep in my understandings and teachings and fall prey to that stress. I create my own stress and start to believe the lies.
I deal with people with love. I love people regardless. I am very honest about the way I feel and do not mind sharing those feelings. I need to. Too many years I kept quiet because of fear or intimidation from the other that I would stay quiet. I refuse to stay quiet. I pick my battles and when I am sure what and when to say it I say it. Every once in a while I resist the urge to talk because I know it will cause pain to quite a few people.sometimes I put my foot in my mouth knowing I am going to learn a hard lesson and still remain focus and intent on making my point and waste precious moments with that ONE person that you will never win with. And when it is over I am happy I went through it as an experience to teach me. Grrrrrrr. It takes courage to admit our errors. Nothing and no one should have that power over us . We are a magnificent species that have inherent power. We do not use it because most people do not have an inkling of an idea that THEY exist in that way.
The power starts with love. We love everyone and that person that gets under your skin has no power over you. Don’t let them win. In reality most of those people do not have a clue they are upsetting you. So why are you wasting time?
I love you
The Power of Thought
You demonstrate success or failure according to your habitual trend of thought. In you which is stronger? – Success thoughts or failure thoughts? If your mind is ordinarily in a negative state, an occasional positive thought is not sufficient to attract success. But if you think rightly, you will find your goal even though you seemed enveloped in darkness.
You alone are responsible for yourself. No one else may answer for your deeds when the final reckoning comes. Your work in the world – in the sphere where you and your own past activity, has placed you – can be performed only by one person – yourself. And your work can be called a success only when in some way it serves your fellow man.
Don’t mentally review any problem constantly. Let it rest at times and it may work itself out; but see that you do not rest so long that your discrimination is lost. Rather use these rest periods to go deep within the calm region of your own inner self. Attuned with your soul, you will be able to think correctly regarding everything you do; and if your thoughts and actions have gone astray they can be re-aligned. This power of divine attunement can be achieved by practice and effort.
The Surprising Science of Happiness by Dan Gilbert
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Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won’t have to hunt for happiness. ~ William E. Gladstone, British Prime Minister, 1892 – 1894
What is real happiness? Is happiness that we make up true happiness?
According to social psychologist, Dan Gilbert, there are 2 kinds of happiness. One is natural happiness which we experience when we get what we want and the other is synthetic happiness which we manufacture when we don’t get what we want.
Here’s a question for you: Is one better than the other?
Let’s find out.
In denial or truly happy?
I am sure you have heard about people who after experiencing a bad event or a disappointing setback tells others and themselves that they are better off despite not getting what they want and that they wouldn’t change that for anything in the world.
Well, it turns out that these people aren’t overt-optimists who are in denial about their misfortune. It turns out that their “synthetic” happiness did make them happy. For real.
In his Ted Talk, social psychologist Dan Gilbert talks about people fabricating happiness after not getting what they want or experiencing a real nasty experience such as being wrongly convicted and served decades worth of a jail sentence for something he has not done.
The sentiment expressed by the man who was wrongly convicted was that it was a “glorious experience”. Really? Surely that is not the right feelings to have after serving time for so long for something you did not do?
Naturally, we think that these people must be lying to themselves, they can’t be truly happy with their experience but we could be wrong….
Using unconscious memory to test happiness
Well, in an experiment Gilbert conducted on patients with anterograde amnesia who cannot form new memories he first asked the patients to rate a lineup of 6 Monet prints from 1 being the least-liked to 6 being the most-liked. Then, he told them that as a gift they would be given either print number 3 or 4 as a gift and most of them picked number 3 over 4 just because of preference. The researchers then left the room and returned (bear in mind that the patients do not remember the research team nor what transpired before) and the patients was asked again to rank the 6 paintings from least-liked to most-liked.
Here’s the interesting bit:
The individuals now rank the number 3 painting at number 2, higher than before and the number 4 painting which was rejected was now ranked even lower than before at number 5. The results indicated that they are happier with the painting they had owned more than before and they liked the rejected painting even less even though they do not have any conscious memory of the paintings.
With this experiment, Gilbert found that individuals make their own synthetic happiness unconsciously. Gilbert also found that this unconscious ability to synthesize happiness happens more often in situations where we do not have control over the situation.
In essence, we are really good at making ourselves feel better about an outcome that occurs from a situation that is out of our hands.
Now, what does this mean for you and why should you pay any attention?
Here are 3 reasons why you should pay attention:
1. Synthetic happiness is not fake. It is not something you make up when you are pissed off about not getting what you want. Synthetic happiness is a natural mechanism we all have in our brains that lets us see a not-so-ideal situation in a different light and learn to like our situation which in turns does let us become happier in time to come.
2. The ability to synthesize happiness is a vital skill to have because we cannot have everything we want all of the time. The truth is we will all face disappointment at some points in our life and we need to be able to manufacture happiness and become adept at seeing the better side of life.
Here’s a point to ponder: clinically-depressed individuals do not have the ability to synthesize happiness in most situations of their lives and that is why they find it harder to see the greener side of life.
3. We often grossly overestimate or underestimate how naturally happy we will feel in any situation. Truth is we will only truly know how happy we will feel and continue to feel when we are actually experiencing thus being able to synthesize happiness helps us cope with the uncertainty of our future outcome.
In Conclusion:
The joyful state that we feel is made up of both synthetic and natural happiness. Neither is better than the other because to lead a balanced life we need both: Natural happiness lets us experience the good stuff and synthetic happiness lets us adapt and appreciate what we do have when the outcome is less than ideal. When you start exercising the ability to synthesize happiness, you may find that some situations are not as terrible as they appear at first.
Can you think of a time when you synthesized happiness? What event caused you to synthesize happiness at the time and did the feeling of happiness continued?
Share your comments below.
Purpose in Happiness
There is so much to say when you are happy. You want to climb the highest mountain and shout to everyone what they have and are missing. Your enthusiasm is so great and energy level is so high!!! Your soul wants to scream. Sadly there are the majority of people that do not accept this type of openness. We are a very few and far between. I have my weaknesses and my shortcomings. I curse like a marine and drink like an alcoholic. I lose my temper and rant about the silly things and as I am on a rant I start to laugh and realize that the energy I am expending is better suited for laughter instead of anger. We learn as we go. My uncle Fr. Roberto Quinonez was always positive. He was truly happy. He loved people. He served in the jungles of Peru for 18 years serving the poor. Those so called poor that had very little and yet had more than we did. In the jungles they built themselves a paradise. Giant house huts made of bamboo high in the trees. Beautiful rooms and living spaces. The people were amazing. At 15 I had the experience of a lifetime. I could go on about the experience but I would get away from the richness of the lesson I learned. Everyone I met and observed in that country taught me the true meaning of happiness especially my uncle Beto. He was an amazing man. He loved everyone and it was reciprocated tenfold. He gave of himself like no one else I have ever seen at that point in my life other than my Grandmother. A saint! Another story…damn that’s a novel in itself the unselfishness she had for others. She let her own family rob her mattress. The Bank. She kept all of her money there. She always knew who took a dollar here and there. She would tell me and giggle.
Love. My uncle and grandmother gave of themselves truly unconditionally. They loved unconditionally. Very few people know the true definition of that word. I knew of it my whole life and was always on a journey to find that world where everyone was respectful of each other. I always was disappointed in people and situations when I put myself in search of that feeling.
I always tried to mimic the wonderful things my uncle did for people. My temper always got in the way. I was too judgmental. I always figured something was wrong with everyone else but not me. The problem was with me all along and all I need to do was love. I walked away from wonderful friendships because I did not know the word forgiveness. I left beautiful women with huge hearts and purpose in their life and I thought something was wrong with them. I blew off co-workers and acquaintances because I perceived them in attack mode towards me. I had my perceptions all wrong. I still have a lot of learning to do when it comes to loving others and accepting fully the richness of our differences. I was taught a very young age of a man that walked this earth that hated religion and people who judged others, people who did not love one another as equals being connected. He taught the masses to love and more importantly to love and finally he taught them how to love. Basically he was teaching how to love. And yet after all that redundant teaching you would think the masses received the lesson and reciprocated…. he was murdered. He was killed in spite of all the love he showed. In his last breath he begged his father to forgive all those that hurt him. He was a true loving person. He loathed religion and yet his followers created a religion(s) in his name cursing and judging others. Putting fear in the hearts and minds of families and children. Am I upset? No but I am aware that love is the unconditional force that connects all of us through all weather and storm. I struggle with generalizing my love, applying it to everyone and everything. It takes courage to accept and hold dear the human condition. We are all different and are exposed to different environments which dictate our opinions and life’s passions. We all have the opportunity to create anything we want regardless of our experience and challenges. Yet sometimes we choose to justify our fear and failures with our challenges and fears.
We do not have a purpose in our minds because we are so afraid to follow our calling and passion. It is funny it took me just short of 50 years of my life to figure out my dreams and visions were a calling. I thought it was an unattainable thought. It all begins with thought and then a dream. And then the dream turns in to passion. It is all we think about and then we get tired of dreaming and hoping that we pull up our big person pants and take a chance. And then another…we fail over and over until we satisfy one day the burning desire to succeed. Success is measured in my mind by the completeness I feel inside for achieving something I love.
I love helping others. I love helping THAT someone that appreciates themselves and wants to improve. I love helping those people that are tired of looking in the mirror at the waste they created of a human being. And now they want to become more. The only thing standing in their way is their inability to be happy. That is where I and others like me come in. We teach one simple thing. Make a choice to be happy. That’s it. Make a conscious choice to BE happy. Not act happy but BE the essence of happiness. Inside out not outside in. We were given those gifts to overcome as a birthright by our creator. It is physically impossible for us to accept death without a purpose. There are heroes made from purpose and failures. Failures in attempts and purpose in what motivated them to succeed.
Look in the mirror. See a true hero. Be brave and accept Happiness. I tell people we all have a choice to be happy or the opposite. Right now I am pushing 50, overweight, cant breather right, hair is falling out, teeth are grinding and getting smaller, cant cant cant……is a part of my vocabulary more than any time in my life. On the flipside…I have an amazing job. I help some amazing people get through their day because they have to be there to make a living to feed and help support themselves and family. I get to watch everyone start their day sad and then they have to deal with me being silly all day. Hugging and kissing them until they either turn me in to HR or smile. If they smile and then turn me in it was worth it. It has happen. It had purpose to the madness. I also have the privilege of mentoring several individuals on the level of happiness they currently reside in if any at all.I Have been blessed to be called Papa(grandpa) by 6 amazing little boys. I have beautiful children that all make me proud to be their father. I have found someone to stand by me patiently accepting me for who I am one hundred percent non-judgmental and unconditionally loving me. Supporting me when my emotions take over and I become the Jeckyll to my Hyde. Life is funny with loss, you get it back.
Mentoring happiness is an amazing feeling. I watch people come from crying everyday to learning how to laugh and be happy in any situation. So many emotions run through me when I see progress. All I want is for them to realize that the decision to be happy is their hands. The happiness they crave and hope for is not predicated on external vices and situations. Nor is it reliant on an individual or in an expectation of a circumstance. We have that control to develop our own perceptions as our OWN. It doesn’t take a scientist to figure it out, all it takes is someone to love you and guide you towards a warm hug and encouragement. We can all be that light for anyone. We do not need a license or PHD. All we need is Love. The kind of love that my grandmother uncle Beto and Jesus Christ taught. These wonderful figures in my life were always instrumental in getting me through rough challenges in my life. I am thankful to my family. I am thankful for the brave man on that cross using himself as a purpose to teach us Love. He loved us that much to be THE example. There have been recordings of other amazing prophets, teachers and saints all justified ion their own write as the figure in their life that empowers them. I am not going to sit here and judge what is right from wrong and ask you to change your belief system. That is up to you and your research. If you have not done research start moving.
I am here to give my opinion on how happiness is achieved. I know I was redundant in my articulation of ideas and philosophy…. But I am trying. Who isn’t? Someone HAS to do it. Someone has to give up a little of their time to plant the seeds of a happy philosophy in people’s hearts. I hope I have done that for you. I will be writing more.
I am ranting. If you are a follower of my writings from my previous blog then you’ll understand. I am not going to try and make it pretty. I am going to make it honest.