When everything is okay, you may like to give yourself all the rest and relaxation you always wanted, but Richard Brodie comes up with a disturbing thought: A life of enormous delight, passion, and satisfaction is waiting on the other side of OK, he says in ‘Getting Past OK’ ( >www.landmarkonthenet.com ).
“There had been times when I felt life was great, delightful, meaningful, worthwhile – and then, somehow, those times dissolved into the more usual texture of my life: coasting along, focusing on various problems or goals with a little boredom, a little anxiety, a little confusion, a little or a lot of stress,” he confesses in the intro. “When I tried to get the good times back by attempting to repeat past experiences, it seldom worked, and when it did, the good times that resulted still filled only a short part of a long day.”
Divided into three parts, the book begins by helping you understand as much as possible about what goes on in your life, on the theory that the more you know, the better equipped you are to make decisions. The second part, ‘liberty,’ offers ways to free yourself from the things in your life that drain your resources; and the third, ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ is ‘a step-by-step guide to discovering your own personal formula for success in life.’
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The first step, in the ‘life’ part, is self-reliance. “Have you ever had a thought or idea but kept it to yourself or not acted on it because you didn’t trust its worthiness? Have you ever then heard the same idea come out of someone else’s mouth and suddenly felt a wave of emotion – justification, gratification, or even humiliation or resentment because you knew it was your idea first?” the author asks.
Your ideas are just as good as anyone’s, and it is the absence of ‘action’ that stands between you and profiting from the ideas, he adds. In case you need advice, take it, but only from people with lives you like, instructs Brodie. “Take advice on relationships from people with good relationships. Take advice on investing your money from people who have successfully invested their own money. Take advice on how to work effectively from people who work effectively.”
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No excuses
To those who list the ‘reasons’ for not having a great life, a section in the ‘liberty’ part provides a sobering message – that excuses, reasons, justifications are like evidence at a trial, exhibits for the defence supporting your decisions or actions, as if the simple truth that you made the best decision you could at the time were not enough.
Many decisions, as Brodie explains, are intuitive and are based on the entirety of your life and who you are as a human being; and you’re not required to give reasons or justifications for everything you do. He cautions that the place where reasons, excuses, and justifications flourish, and where they are most self-destructive to the quality of life we desire, is when we use them to justify breaking agreements.
What is happiness?
In the final part, the author defines happiness as more than just having fun; it is the complete rich sense of fulfilling everything that is meaningful to you, that you crave, that you delight in, he says. And fulfilment is not the automatic result of achieving goals; for, goals ‘may make you lots of money, which can give you great flexibility in the way you structure your life, but they won’t bring you everyday fulfilment.’
Fulfilment is about living your life’s purpose, as you have defined it. And it is possible to create such a situation where you enjoy life tremendously, where you wake up each morning looking forward to a day filled with fulfilling, satisfying, invigorating experiences, guarantees Brodie. “I’ve seen people from their teens to their 90s learn to create more joy, excitement, and happiness in their lives than they ever thought possible…”
Energy read, if is okay with you that the first Indian edition of the book has taken a long time to happen.
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