A thought by Henry Cloud, from his
book, The Law of Happiness: How Spiritual Wisdom and Modern Science Can Change Your Life (The Secret Things of God) (p. 37). Howard Books. Kindle
Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
That is so true!
Henry says, “My experience has been
that when people get a wake-up call about their level of happiness in life,
their first realization is that they are responsible for their own happiness,
and their second realization is that they will need to pursue certain
activities. I have seen many people who, having been stuck for years, finally ‘get
it,’ wake up and say, ‘I do not have to live like this. I am going to do
something about my life.’ Then they get busy, and a year later, I hardly
recognize them.
“But for that to happen, you have to
find the ‘push.’ You have to overcome the entropy and lack of movement that has
dominated you for so long. You have to ‘do something.’ So how will you do that?”
He goes on, “Other than those who
might be clinically depressed or suffering from a real illness of some sort,
there are two broad types of people reading this book. The first is the type
who, upon reading what I have written so far, gets up and gets moving. She
says, ‘This makes sense. What have I been doing?’ So, she’ll call a support
group, join Weight Watchers, sign up for that community college class, take up
rock climbing, call a therapist, or do whatever she has been avoiding that
takes a little effort. If that is you, God bless you. You are on your way.
“The second type is the one who reads
this and finds that it resonates, wants to pursue change, but will probably not
do anything. Is there hope for him? Absolutely, but not on his own. If this is
you, you need two things: energy and structure. You have shown how, when left
to your own devices, you are not going to self-motivate and do not have the
needed discipline. So, you have to find energy and structure from the outside.”
He continues, “I suggest that you get
a buddy, an accountability partner, a group, a therapist, a class, a trainer, a
coach, or whatever it is going to take to get you moving and continuing to
move. At this point in your life, if you do not have outside structure and
someone motivating you, you will slip back into passivity. But think about it
this way: if to get active enough to get someone to push you or to join a class
is being as active as you can be, that is great. They can help you from there.
That is all you have to do, but you have to do it. Otherwise, you are in danger
of continuing to do nothing and being lazy about your happiness.”
Henry then says, “. . . Just the
simple act of picking up the phone and calling a friend to go to lunch could
have a measurable effect on your brain chemistry. You won’t hit the happy meter
in one day by any one activity, but that is not how happy people operate
anyway. Do the little things day-to-day that make people happy, and over time
you will find yourself to be one of those kinds of people: happy and invested
in life.”
And that is what you want, isn’t
it?
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