THE PIECES AND THE WHY OF (RE)FORMING A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
THE IMPORTANCE OF A GREAT LIFE PHILOSOPHY
THIS DETERMINES THE QUALITY OF YOUR LIFE!
Your philosophy of life, including your beliefs, is what determines the quality of your life. Deciding on a philosophy of life that works is the key – the key to happiness.
We can limit ourselves. We can have false beliefs about things. We can fear or be more anxious about things more than we need to. We can be victims not controlling our experience of life.
All of those are not good choices, yet many people, maybe most, do “choose” those (because of false beliefs!).
Re-choosing those is something we need to do using an adult mind, the rational part, fully engaged so that the decisions will serve us. As a child we “made up” things or just accepted what we were told and then we continued to accept and make up things that were simply added to our repertoire of beliefs and viewpoints and ways of being and doing in the world that don’t serve us.
Doesn’t it make sense to create and/or revise beliefs (and thus philosophies) to get what will serve us in this world?
The right philosophy guarantees happiness almost all the time.
I repeat: The right philosophy guarantees happiness almost all the time.
You might find that assertion hard to believe, but, as you proceed in this process, you’ll see that it is true – and very attainable with some directed effort on your part.
A GOOD LIFE PHILOSOPHY CREATES A GOOD LIFE AND GOOD PSYCHOLOGY
The chief component and determinant of our psychology is the viewpoint we have, the philosophy of life.
It is not what occurs in life that is the determiner, it is that viewpoint. And, also, it is that viewpoint that changes a lot of what occurs in life, so that it is even more full.
We get to choose – a philosophy that is limiting, and thus a limited life with limited happiness OR a philosophy that is not limiting, one that is invented in order to have many wonderful experiences in life and one that creates a life full of happiness.
I wish I would have learned this earlier and more thoroughly, for it makes all the difference in life.
Instead, I piecemealed a little bit here and there but left a lot of incorrect philosophy pieces in place, incurring unnecessary limits and unnecessarily causing unhappiness. The part that was workable helped me feel happier and reduced any unhappiness in the moment, but there was so much of the original dysfunctional erroneous philosophy left intact that I created unhappiness where it definitely was not needed!!!
THE NECESSITY OF LEARNING AND RE-FORMING ONE’S PHILOSOPHY, WITH A CLEAR INTENTION AND COMMITMENT
I urge you to handle and recreate your philosophy earlier (like “now”, really soon) rather than waste a good part of life operating under harmful pieces of dysfunctional philosophies.
Ironically, we don’t know what doesn’t work until we look from a better knowledge of what does work. Thus, we need to start with some kind of “life” education, life philosophy education.
Some of the points to learn are ones you’ve seen. Some are so deep they seemed weird or were not understood at all (or dismissed offhand, unwisely so). Many of these practices and ways of thinking have been thought of by great, great people and by those who have studied the subject and therefore are likely to know more than us - so we can learn from them, adopting what they discovered to what is practical in our lives (instead of reinventing the wheel ourselves).
Let’s be honest here. Wouldn’t you spend time in this if you truly believed you could learn relatively efficiently with a huge payoff in greater happiness? You just haven’t seen the value of it yet. And/or you haven’t seen that it can be done, in a practical, effective way.
Well, it can be done in a systematic, effective, life-enhancing way. And it is worth so very much – even worth life itself, for it creates for you a life without most limits and one with few unhappinesses, a life experienced as being happy and satisfied and even joyful (a shied away from word by many, who view it cynically and with resignation).
The two organizations that I see as most actively positiviely affecting this process are The Option Institute in Massachusetts (with its in-depth workshops with smaller groups) and Landmark Education with its 3 basic life philosophy education workshops from 2-3 days long, supplemented by optional “seminars” held once a week for 10 weeks on various topics. Both teach in the Socratic method, which is simply where you decide for yourself and look for yourself to see what you want to adopt. (Socrates was not a dumb fellow or an ineffective teacher!!!! So, it may be that it is worthwhile considering accepting this method as effective!!!!) (I’d urge you to, while reading this, get Landmark’s site on your computer screen and access the short videos on the subjects, when I point you to those.)
The Landmark page will refer you to some of their resources where additional information may be desired in a brief understandable way.
WHAT TO LEARN – THE PIECES
BLINDSPOTS
The first important piece is how to clear up our “blindspots” that we are not aware of but which are limiting us and/or causing us to miss out on a lot. Those blindspots are the sources of our troubles; seeing the blindspots so that they are no longer blind is the vehicle to breakthroughs (leaps forward in life) and eliminating (reducing greatly) our limits. Via this looking, understanding, and seeing process we can learn to think in new ways, so that we create an even better quality life.
MADE-UPS VS “THE TRUTH”
We “make up” lots of beliefs about what happens and what it means and then we get to the point where we think the beliefs are “the truth” – well, BS to that. (See The Believing Brain.) When we finally realize, know, they are not fixed as “the Truth”, then we can choose new ones that serve us better - and test them for reality(!).
Obviously, operating in life based on what doesn’t actually work, but believing that “it is the best way of believing,” doesn’t lead to as great a life as we could have. Bad BS creates our problems and our limits. Good BS is what we seek (here BS means "belief systems", but in any event it is something we devise and think up [make up] in our mind that matches more of what will work, fortunately – and it is workability that is the only thing that matters, not playing the right/wrong game . (See Good/Bad, Right/Wrong Vs. Workable.)
You might have noticed that you talk to yourself with thoughts – which is essentially a “conversation” with yourself. You label and evaluate things and you decide what to do from those evaluations.
But mostly those evaluations are incorrect and outdated, some even being from childhood. You’ll create fears that aren’t legitimate, ways of looking negatively at people and experiences, and all for no good reason.
You thought them up (“made them up”) at the time when you were dependent and powerless and not yet able to reason well (as a child) or at other times when you weren’t thinking very astutely at all. You essentially made up “stories” about the way things were and are and will be, with no fixed truth to them, as you conjured them up only out of thought, so they are not fixed nor even in existence (like a wooden desk, which you can knock on and count on as fixed and present, in actual existence).
IT’S NOT “SOMETHING HAPPENING TO US
These thoughts are, in essence, a conversation you’re having with yourself, but one with many dysfunctionalities. One thought/belief we have is that things “happen to us” and cause our feelings of hurt, pain, fear, unhappiness, etc. But the things that happen are just simply “things that happen” and no more – we add meaning to them. We say things like “this means I will suffer” or “I won’t be liked and that means that I’ll be unhappy” and we believe that is “the Truth”. However, it is only “the truth” as you see it, not as it actually is.
How do we know the latter is true? By simple logic. If any other person can react to or think something different about what occurred, then it means that the person creates the thought and the reaction and is not the event itself or they create the idea that the other person is doing it to us. We then attribute cause to what happened out there. This is a version of “blame”, a sort of “victim” stance we take because we think the outside thing is causing us to be or feel as we do. But, in fact, we are causing it ourselves through our filter through which we see and (mis)interpret the world (our view point or the point [belief] from which we view the world).
Change that conversation, change that viewpoint, and we change our experience of the world – and our life. Philosophy is a collection of "conversations" that is healthy and available to us as we live life - we can even substitute the good conversation for the bad conversation 1) because we have the new thoughts/beliefs readily available and 2) we know what the truth "isn't" (so we can feel free to generously replace the crappola thoughts). (See also Contents, Links Empowering Conversations, and especially No Negative Conversations!)
THE “VIEWPOINT"
And while we don’t have a lot of control over things and people in the world, we do have power and control over our viewpoint and our experience of the outcomes that happen in the world - such control is the basis for many profound philosophies that have been developed through time by those who have looked and thought more deeply. Ergo (therefore), the song “Don’t worry, be happy!”, which attempts (with minor success) to shift our viewpoint of how we can be happy.
Although the idea of “viewpoint” and this discussion of it may seem so intangible and thus unreal, it is the most real thing in our world, as our thoughts are really what is going on, our interpretations and our beliefs determine our access to good or bad feelings, and they create our “world” (our experience that is real to us and personal and exclusive to us). So, intangible or not, it is the central determining point for all of our life – and thus worth all the time and effort it takes to “transform” (re-form) our view and experience of the world, our very life.
Once we “get it” (understand in depth, wholly), worries and unnecessary fears and displeasures will begin to disappear, disappearing more and more over time, to be replaced by good feeling thoughts and ways of living in life. This is the path to recreating one’s life.
Knowing that your viewpoint is as it is and knowing what your blindspots are and knowing that they can be changed is the first key to allow you to choose to “reinvent” (improve on the original, not-so-great version of) your thinking and thus reinvent your life. When you fully “get it” you know then that you can choose, proactively and on purpose, to shift to what works much better in life and to drop most of your limits. (Some limits are just a “what’s so”, like you can’t fly like Superman, etc., so know that I am only referring to self set limits.)
When you don’t realize that your viewpoint is not fixed nor is it the truth, you’ll tend to repeat what you’ve done, with no new possibilities, because you’re already “right”. Staying that way is very, very limiting in life. (See The Fixed Mindset Versus The Growth Mindset.)
MANIPULATING FOR THE “PAYOFF”
One of the limiting behaviors in life is that of using manipulations to try to get people to do things or think things (such as how smart and wonderful you are), while hiding the truth.
We do these because we think they have a “payoff”. An example would be how a person tries to punish the other person by withdrawing love or by expressing anger – essentially inflicting unhappiness on them due to your unhappiness that you created from your thoughts. The payoffs might be that they sometimes do what we want, though the control is dubious at best, and/or we believe we are being powerful and “ain’t we great, sitting on our perch in godlike judgment”… The problem is that we don’t really see fully what we are doing – and we miss the huge costs we are incurring – the loss of love, of relationships, of happiness, some of these costs occurring soon after and many times over the long term.
We simply need to better see the costs and benefits, using the same process as would serve us if we were making a business decision that would be effective. In this case, it is a life decision that helps bring about our happiness if done effectively and correctly.
Learning this is very, very, very, very worthwhile.
INSTALLING THE PAST…
One of the pervasive dysfunctional viewpoints we have is that of looking at life and other people as if the past is what will be the future – by doing that we therefore are limiting other people’s possibilities and life’s possibilities. When we no longer think that way, then we can create new possibilities. And when we look toward new (good) possibilities our results will be better than if we look at (assume) the impossibilities suggested by thinking that ‘people are just their paths’ (in the past) and ‘life is just the way it is’ and ‘not very much can be done about it’ or ‘one is limited in what one can do’, and so on and so on. Even people who are more forward thinking and progressive still can benefit from even more freedom and more possibilities, which will often take them from moderate successes to phenomenal successes and often have the people around them experiencing more of their own possibilities.
For instance, the mother that says her children are just "that way" and I love them just as they are might not even consider that approach at all. She could be right, but also she is holding out against any new actions and new decisions. Is that what this mother would actually want for her kids? Maybe she could see the possibilities they have and support them in that – supporting someone is a part of true love, limiting is a form of a “racket.”*
HOW WE HOLD WHAT IS IN OUR LIVES
Returning a bit to our discussion of viewpoint, let’s clarify that it is not what is in our lives (the content) but “how we hold it” (some people call this attitude, but it is bigger than that). Our philosophy is a way of looking at things, looking at life.
The point is that we can choose to change the way we look at things, while we have little control over outside events and people – being clear about that is a key to “growing up” in life and becoming an adult – if we don’t realize it we can waste our lives trying to control outside events and people to have them make us happy – or we can simply make ourselves happy, which we do have control and choice over. (See The Happiness Creators. )
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IT IS NOT THE ‘CONTENT’ IN OUR LIVES, BUT THE ‘CONTEXT’ OF OUR LIVES THAT DETERMINES THE QUALITY OF OUR EXPERIENCE OF LIFE.
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In the Landmark courses, people report that when they review the Forum or the Advanced that they get new insights, since their previous focus or attention or way of seeing things the time(s) they had taken the course may not have let in the full understanding. In order to speak of things, Landmark adds some words to one’s vocabulary that, at first, just as in school, may seem strange to you, but which are very useful. (In school, people have to go through a subject a number of times to learn it if it is at all complex. Accountants go through Accounting 101, Accounting 201, etc., each time, while repeating the same subjects, learning more in-depth understandings.)
(Some “fear” beliefs can be triggered to cause one to “make up” things about Landmark, but those are factually unfounded – it is just that the reasoning used will ‘threaten’ old ideas that we thought were true – and 'that may cause some discomfort'*, but the end result will make life much better and actually decrease discomfort over the rest of one’s life.)
THE IMPACT OF VALUES
Part of our “philosophy of life” or viewpoint is something we call values. Somehow we created some meaning that is attached to things, behaviors – and we create ‘beliefs’ that essentially “rank” things in terms of “value”. For instance, we might value honesty, which causes us , as we recall the value in our minds, to ‘be’ honest in a situation. And/or we might value strength, which might help us to be stronger and more disciplined in getting what we want.
Notice that in each sentence the “value” that we attribute to something is ultimately expressed in a way of ‘being’, such as 'being' “honest, strong”. Other ways of being are numerous, and include being: authentic, alert, disciplined and other ‘qualities’. There are other ways of being that we are not likely to value, unless we ascribe something convoluted to them - lazy, undisciplined, weak. The value, I would propose, in a way of being is an exact reflection of what we believe it contributes to our lives. If it doesn't reflect the contribution or does harm, then it is not a valid value!
Make no mistake about this. We can “justify” via a “racket” or dysfunctional thinking and beliefs. For instance, we could say: ‘Well, being lazy is good because then I am not as anxious.’ But, if one fully examined that statement, one would find that it is fraught with beliefs about causes and effects that are simply not true and may actually create the opposite.
It is essential, therefore, that we create well-reasoned beliefs of what has value (those beliefs = our values) for it is the filter that determines the ways of being we will choose to get what we truly want in life (happiness, satisfaction, contentment – only the end results we want in life ).
While we get caught up in believing that the ‘means is the end’ we want, often we are mistaken (falsely believe it to be).
RETURNING TO THE ‘GRAND OVERVIEW’
If you go through and really look and develop your life philosophy, you will eventually end up not thinking your happiness is dependent on outside events and people.
You’ll fully realize that it is a waste of time trying to control those as they are not controllable (duh!). If they are not controllable, it is not a good idea to live one’s life being at the “effect of” them, depending on them to determine your happiness or not. [This is a key life factor, being as dependency free as is practical.] You’ll see that you can be happy just in being the ways you truly value. After all, isn’t the ultimate “be” to “be” happy. Some “be’s” are the end result* we seek in life.
(The word "be" is too broad for our discussion purpose here. Being smart is a condition and not a “way of being”. Being handsome or beautiful or attractive are conditions and not ways of being – and definitely are not the paths that cause happiness – see the Happiness section.)
IT IS WORTH YOUR TIME AND EFFORT
What this is all leading up to is to have you have enough of an overview of the elements of a life philosophy that you can see what they are and how changing them will be a tremendous boon to your life. And from that, hopefully, you’ll see that it is worth your effort, especially with an effective and efficient learning plan, to learn and apply an effective philosophy for a much, much, much, much happier life.
THE COMMITMENT
From this reading, I
___ Am not convinced it is worth the time
___ Am convinced enough to begin the process to see if it has as much value as
claimed.
___ Commit to fully develop my life philosophy to serve me at the highest level in life.
____ I will follow the learning plan or an effective revision of it.
Declared this _____day of _______________, in the year ____________.
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