50% of marriages fail within the first five years. Why is that? Sure there is lots of reasons, but what it mostly boils down to is ourselves and our expectations of others. It is acceptable now to walk away before ever getting to the root of anything. No one has to feel responsible for their own part anymore because it is acceptable to just pass it off as "incompatibility" or "someone else's fault". Yes, not acceptable morally, just socially.
Remember when divorce was a topic you never spoke about? When I was growing up, I never wanted anyone to know my parents had divorced. But now adays, it is an amazement when a child's parents are still together it seems.
Why is it that when you ask someone if they are happy, they don't know how to answer the question. Or they do, and they rattle off superficial reasons for their happiness like it is a grocery list and not a part of their personal emotional portfolio.
The following is an article that I found to be a good read. Hopefully, it will awaken in you the desire to truly know what happiness is and to help you on your way!
The Master Secret
Copyright 2005 Eldon Taylor
The Seven Fundamentals of the Master Secret:
Happiness is the Secret
(Originally published in Mind/Body/Spirit)
By Eldon Taylor
What is success? Have you ever wondered why it is that for
some, everything works, and for others, nothing works? Why
is it that two people can have essentially the same
opportunities, but one person be happy and the other one
miserable? Is it not, therefore, happiness that constitutes
the true meaning of success?
Success is happiness! Truly successful people are happy,
and when you are happy and whole in yourself, all good
things follow. Where then do happiness and wholeness come
from? How does a person who experiences frustrations in
life become whole? Can personal wholeness provide
happiness, improve self-esteem, and lead to riches and
fame, peace, balance and harmony? Can relationships with
family, friends and associates be improved because one
person assumes the responsibility to be personally whole,
takes the initiative to exude joy and happiness, seizes the
opportunity to empower his or her own life by using the
secret of the ages? The answers to all these questions lie
in the seven fundamentals of the master secret.
FUNDAMENTAL 1
The first fundamental is you - the absolutely awesome and
incredible you! Not the you of self-doubt, not the you that
fears rejection or failure, not the you that questions your
abilities, but the real you! Those other "yous" are not
you. They are synthetic yous built upon limited and false
notions of who you are and what you may become. For most of
us those false notions originate as we mature. In our very
early attempts to achieve acceptance, we often trade off
our real selves. The desire to be loved is so strong that
many of us give up love or respect for ourselves in order
to obtain security. That trade-off never works, because
what we are insecure about in the first place exists within
ourselves.
Happiness is a state of mind. The kingdom is within. The
real you is a higher you, a higher power that resides
within you or is available to you whenever you ask or seek.
The fact is, it is your birthright to manifest the glory of
the incredible you. You absolutely have the power and
ability to experience all the bounties of life, to
experience many literal miracles in your life -- for you
yourself are a miracle, and all that you are or can ever be
is a gift!
So the first fundamental is you. The power resides within
you. No one else can do it for you. Your thoughts are
reflections of your expectations. What has been sown in
your subconscious mind is what you reap. Doubt produces
failure, fear yields anger, and belief in limitation is the
greatest of all self-fulfilling prophecies.
FUNDAMENTAL 2
The second fundamental is that thoughts are things. The
thoughts we have reveal the beliefs we have about ourselves.
Listen to how we talk to ourselves. Is the language from
the inside reflecting optimism, or is it filled with
negative and self-limiting ideas?
What you expect is what you get. Science refers to this
phenomenon as the Pygmalion effect. It is a fact: if you
expect the worst, you get it. And some of us must love it,
because we keep on getting it! Oh, we may complain about
it, we may yell and scream when it happens, but what do
most of us do about it? Most of us speak and act as though
there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. After all,
isn't life full of "normal" events that produce "normal"
responses? Isn't it normal to become angry for being cut
off in five o'clock traffic? Isn't it normal to become
fearful when the boss speaks harshly? Isn't it normal to be
frustrated with a child's lack of respect or
self-responsibility? Isn't it normal to become stuck or
just fed up?
Such reactions may be normal, but are they appropriate or
conducive to happiness? Has anger ever produced a peaceful
sense of harmony within you? Has it ever solved a problem
or led to anything other than more anger, guilt, and
feelings of being out of control? Such reactions may be
normal, but another word for normal is average, which can
be defined as the best of the worst and the worst of the
best. Neither end of this definition is the highest best of
who you really are.
You are your thoughts. You manifest your thoughts, your
subconscious beliefs, in everything you experience. Do you
believe you deserve happiness, wholeness, and success? You
must truly know at all levels of your being that all good
things are yours in order for them ever to be yours. You
create your own realities. Events are not pivotal points in
your life; you are the pivotal point in your life. When
your thoughts are in agreement with your desires, your
desires will magically materialize.
FUNDAMENTAL 3
The third fundamental is to forgive and let go. That idea
may be a bit startling at first, but think about it for a
minute. Do you consider yourself to be a victim? A victim
of your circumstances? Or are you willing to assume
responsibility for who you are? There are two ways to be
tied up in the world. One is to be tied, literally, by
someone else and the other is to tie yourself,
figuratively, by refusing to let go of beliefs that limit
your expression of the whole and complete being you are. In
other words, as long as you displace responsibility by
blaming someone or something for who and what you are, you
remove from yourself the power to be anything other than
partial and incomplete.
All behavior is the result of choice. Sometimes our choices
are made at an unconscious or a subconscious level. For
example, we choose to avoid conflict by repressing our true
feelings. Later our true feelings become so strong that we
can no longer suppress them, and some small incident
triggers an overkill response. That is a reactive model --
we have lost control. When we assume responsibility for
every aspect of our lives, we get in touch with our deepest
fears and feelings. The power we gain over our former,
reactive behavior, provides us with the ability to respond
appropriately to all stimuli. That is a proactive model --
we are always in control.
It has been said that the highest act of consciousness is
inhibition - inhibition of animal stimulus-response
conditioning. When we accept responsibility for our every
thought and action, we empower ourselves by performing the
highest act of consciousness: inhibiting the animal
stimulus-response reaction. But that means we no longer
have anyone to blame.
In fact, as long as we blame, we effectively eliminate our
ability to grow, to be in control, or to experience peace,
balance, and harmony. Power to grow resides in forgiveness.
Forgiving and letting go will set us free. Forgiving
everyone, including ourselves, provides the opportunity to
become more than we have been, which for many is but a mere
shadow of our real selves. And the irony of all this is
that most of us know that we are much more than we have
acted out our lives to be!
FUNDAMENTAL 4
The most powerful force in the world is love. Love cancels
fear. Fear is the only obstacle that must be overcome in
order for all of our experiences to take on new dimensions
of meaning and joy. This love is not romantic love between
lovers but the unconditional love that we give our
children. We are all children in some relative stage of
development, learning how to live in joy and happiness.
When we truly understand this truth, it becomes easy to
forgive another of acts that are selfish and self-centered
-- and forgive ourselves, as well. "Above all else, respect
thyself," said Pythagoras. In order to love others, we must
first love ourselves. We cannot pour from an empty
container.
Contemporary studies of behavioral dysfunctions ranging
from learning difficulties to criminal activity indicate
one common denominator: low self-esteem. Low self-esteem
grows out of fear of rejection -- rejection by a loved one,
an employer, a stranger, anyone who might laugh at our
efforts or who would misunderstand or disapprove. On the
other hand, high self-esteem grows out of self-acceptance.
Self-acceptance is self-love. Self-esteem comes from
self-love. We cannot love anyone unless we love ourselves.
FUNDAMENTAL 5
The fifth fundamental is that acceptance is mastery. Loving
unconditionally suggests accepting others as they are.
Furthermore, loving unconditionally suggests accepting
yourself as a whole and complete being on the journey of
learning we call life.
Acceptance, love, and forgiveness are as necessarily
interrelated as each side of a triangle is to the triangle
as a whole. Acceptance is the natural process we knew as
children. When light faded into night, each of us accepted
that this just was the way it worked, and we learned to
live accordingly. As we grew older we began to manipulate
our world by means of electricity. Some things in the world
can and even should be manipulated to our benefit --
turning the dark into a bright space by flipping a light
switch may be one of them. But there are other elements in
our environment over which we have absolutely no control,
nor should we. Attempting to change other people into what
we want them to be by manipulating them is what many of us
have spent our lives doing.
The best way in which each of us can influence our
environment is in our presence of being. When we accept
other people for who and what they are, we have taken the
first step toward accepting ourselves and contributing to
the improvement of any condition or situation. Krishnamurti
once stated, "You are the world." When we reflect peace and
joy from an inner level of being, the world mirrors it back
to us. When we judge, condemn, hate, lust, and so on, the
world shows us these qualities. The world is a mirror, for
the principal function of the world is to provide us the
opportunity to learn.
What we resist we often become. What we like least in
another is almost always a reflection of something in
ourselves. When we love and accept ourselves, we love and
accept others. Each individual who comes into our lives is
a teacher. Each has something to contribute to our
learning. We in turn have something to contribute to their
learning. When viewed from this perspective, our every
transaction with another individual transcends the
limitations of manipulation.
The fifth fundamental has been called the Golden Rule.
Treat others as though they were you, and treat according
to the best you there is, and the rest just happens. What
goes out is what you get back. Just as the story in the
Bible of the prodigal son teaches us that God has already
accepted and forgiven us, so this fundamental suggests that
for many of us the least of our brothers and sisters has
been ourselves! Accepting and loving ourselves provides the
ability to accept and love others, just as accepting and
loving others provides the ability to accept and love
ourselves.
FUNDAMENTAL 6
Martin Luther King once said, "I can never be what I ought
to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never
be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be." He
went on to say that the mutually related network of reality
is the fabric of the human condition.
The sixth fundamental, then, is interdependence, the
principle that each of us is an aspect of the whole. Each
of us invites respect or disrespect according to what we
give others, all others. Down through the ages this concept
has been given many labels, including the popular label
karma. In law it is called reciprocity. What we sow is
indeed what we reap.
Interdependence means individually assuming responsibility
for any condition that is contrary to the quality of
humanness in its highest form and then acting to produce,
out of the condition or situation, balance and harmony for
all. That is not to say that we take up causes and then
shove them down someone else's throat. It is to say that we
can work in harmony through example and right action to
produce an environment that is loving and nurturing for all.
Many people operate in a codependent manner. Their method
of assuming responsibility is to manipulate others by
placing blame, finding fault, or assuming a contractual
posture that goes like this: "If I do this, will you...?"
or, "If you loved me, you would..." or, "Don't you feel
sorry that I feel..." or, "You need me to...," and so on.
Codependence is manipulating another person to provide you
with security, sensation, and power. If someone else cannot
live or function without you, then your self-worth has been
validated -- and vice versa. A codependent is a victim, a
victim both of his or her surroundings and of other people.
The need to control another person is a classic symptom of
codependency. Codependency grows out of insecurity. All
insecurities are externally oriented. The codependent sees
stimuli through the lens of expectation. Expectation is a
contract that goes like this: "I will behave this way, if
you behave this way;" or, "If you behave that way, I will
behave that way." The fear of unfulfilled expectations
gives rise to internal conflict.
Happiness is a state of being. It exists moment to moment
in the eternal now. If happiness doesn't exist, conflict
takes its place -- even if the conflict is only the
difference between what we think we should be experiencing
and we are experiencing. In other words, when we have what
we desire, we experience joy. Furthermore, when what we
experience is unconditional, as opposed to contractual,
then we experience only joy.
Insecurity fuels fear, and fear is a very creative force.
What we fear most is therefore very often what we create as
our experience. Instead of accepting what is, we project
what might be or lament what might have been. We are
responsible only for ourselves individually. We must be
whole before any event in our lives will be. Therefore,
true interdependence assumes the role of "fixing" oneself.
FUNDAMENTAL 7
The seventh fundamental is the culmination of all the
fundamentals of success. That culminating principle is
this: Do it now. This is a world of action, not
procrastination. For anything to change, you must do the
changing. Nothing happens until you make it happen! Only
you can do it for you.
If the world was a world of theory, then none of us would
be here. Nothing in this world stands still or waits. No
action is inaction and all inaction is action. The form and
the function are the same. Live with the awareness that
God's presence exists in all!
----------------------------------------------------
Eldon Taylor, Ph.D. is the author of over 200 books and
self help programs (http://www.innertalk.com ). He is
currently Director of Progressive Awareness Research and he
received the 2005 International Peace Prize awarded by the
United Cultural Convention sitting in the United States for
his work in forgiveness and acceptance. He is a Diplomat
in the American Psychotherapy Association and has been
honored in over a dozen Who's Who publications.
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