“I will say yes to every favor, request, suggestion and invitation. I will swear to say yes where once I would say no.” – Danny Wallace

“No!” is a wonderful word.

It’s powerful, it’s universally understood, and it stops everything in its tracks. By saying no, you’re instantly slamming the door and holding it shut, ensuring nothing else gets through.

But how many of us say “No!” way too often?

You see, “No” really holds us back in life. It closes us off to many of life’s wonderful experiences, and causes us to resist what happens around us.

When we say no, we’re swimming against the current. When we say yes, we’re swimming with the current.

Which do you think is easiest? Which produces less stress? Which is faster, and more enjoyable?

We say “NO!” to life’s funny randomness, when a passing bus splashes rainwater all over our new jeans. We shout “NO!” to our emotions, resisting and fighting grief, when our pet rat passes away. We yell “NO!” when we don’t get that promotion, which we’d been working so hard to achieve.

Long story short: we say NO to everything, too often.

We fight against what happens to us in life, rather than allowing it to be as it is. We resist it, rather than accepting it. We say “No!” rather than saying “Yes” – or even just “Okay.”

By saying “Yes!” more to life, we go with the flow. Things become more enjoyable and positive, less stressful and anxious, and often the situation turns out for the better regardless.

So, SAY YES MORE.

And what about saying “Yes!” more socially too? Say “Yes!” when you’re invited to that party. Say “Yes!” when you’re asked if you’d like lunch with the boys. Say “Yes!” when you’ve asked to go on that speed dating night, which you wouldn’t normally even consider.

(That’s what Danny Wallace did in his great comedy cum self-help book, Yes Man. He said yes more. It changed his life.)

So, if you’d like to flow more with the current of life… If you’d like to inject a little more excitement into your day… If you’d like to enjoy the random twist and turns of fate…

Then SAY YES MORE.

The Australians call it a “bias for yes.” The Spanish say “Si a todo.” Buddhists describe it as flowing with the river of life. In this book, we simply say yes more.

Try it out, even if just for a week. It’ll change your world.

Say yes more – and you will be happy.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” – Meister Eckhardt

We live in a fast-paced, microwave, drive-thru, Buy-It-Now society.

It’s a society that has forgotten to be truly grateful for the things around it. We only tend to be grateful for things when we no longer have them.

Think of the sense of relief you gain when you just get over an illness, and are so thankful that your turbulent tummy has now settled. Consider how appreciative you are when those tests come back clear. Or when the speeding camera doesn’t flash. Or when you finally find your lost child in the supermarket.

These are the moments in life when we realize how blessed we truly are.

Yet how many of us truly appreciate that on a day-to-day basis?

My guess is very few of us. We only become grateful of things when we think we don’t have them.

But here’s the thing: by counting our blessings every day, in a very literal way, we become happier people. Research across the globe in countless studies has proven this over and over again.

So, when was the last time YOU were truly grateful?

Think of all the wonderful things you have to be grateful for right now. It could be your family. Or your health. Maybe your home. Your friends. Your brain. Your heart. Your spirit. Even your DVD collection.

We’ve all got amazing things in our own lives that make us smile with joy. Things that bring a secret, loving tear to our eyes.

And if we can only learn to count these blessings every day, we’ll discover a true happiness and greater appreciation of the beautiful world we surround ourselves with.

So, if you can, make that part of your daily ritual. Count your blessings, briefly in the morning, and briefly at night. Then smile at the world for sending such great things your way.

Be grateful – and you will be happy.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.” – Helen Keller

Oh, come on. Admit it.

We all do it every single day.

Everybody enjoys wallowing in a little self-pity. It feels great to remind ourselves how terrible the world is. How we’ve not been given the right opportunities. How people are against us. How life has been a real struggle this past year.

Right?

But here’s a true secret to happiness. And it’s probably the biggest, easiest and quickest happiness secret you’ll stumble across. Ever.

If you want to be happy – just stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Self-pity, you see, is the worst kind of emotion. It eats up everything around, except itself. Soon, self-pity is all that exists, and you’re left feeling sorry for how poorly life has been treating you.

We’ve all felt like that, right?

Maybe you feel like life has dealt you a bad hand. Perhaps you’ve lost money, family or health. It could be that you’ve missed out on so many opportunities that others have been easily granted – and you think that fate really HAS been unfair to you.

And that viewpoint might even be 100% correct.

But STOP feeling sorry for yourself.

It’s not going to help the situation. It’ll only help you to wallow in a state of apathy, playing the victim. The kind of person that things happen to, but that can’t do anything about it. By stopping feeling sorry for yourself, you can actually get on and DO something about it.

Trust me on this one. This is the biggest ever technique for putting a smile onto your face.

If you want to be happy – stop feeling sorry for yourself.

You could close this book right now and you’d already hold the wisdom of ten thousand self-development courses, and double that number of self-help gurus.

And it’s so simple. In fact, it’s worth repeating (and rewording) one more time:

Stop feeling sorry for yourself – and you will be happy.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

How exciting to start a race without a clear direction to the finish line. As I blasted across the starting line, my heart racing and senses on high alert, my fellow hashers and I looked like a bunch of blood hounds desperately searching for clues and signs to follow. Always working as a team I could  hear someone yell “On, On” meaning they had found  “True Trail” and were heading in the correct direction.  When I found the marks of True Trail I was at once excited and reassured that I was finally on the correct path. There were no guarantees for success. Many would find their way, some would arrive faster than others, and a few remained lost until we sent out search teams. I have been lead through shopping malls, flea markets, across golf courses, up hills, and down many blind alleys.

In the end it was never about who came in first or last, but about the thrill of the adventure, following our intuition, working with team mates, laughing, cursing, and always smiling over finding the elusive True Trail or the frustration of yet another dead end.  The finish line was always a celebration of the hunt, of comradeship, and living life to the fullest.  Of all my road racing events, my time with my fellow Hashers has provided me with the biggest smiles and fondest memories.

“Wow, what a wonderful metaphor for life. I often step back and look at my life and wonder, “Am I On, On”, am I on “True Trail” or am I chasing a rabbit down a blind alley or worse yet, just settling for the same old comfortable trail?”

There are many lessons to be learned from the Hash House Harrier experience which  applies to finding Balance in our Minds, Bodies and Spirits:

1. The path to finding one’s true trail works well in a community with a common goal.

2. The willingness to take a risk going down a false trail in life but ready to make the necessary course alteration to find your  true trail.

3. Finding true trail requires an open heart and an adventurous spirit.

4. A willingness to leave your ego at home, not afraid to fail, look foolish, or asking someone for help is a formula for success.

5. Finding true trail is about the journey, the joy of seeking, learning, working together, the exhilaration of being a member of a team, and the joy of just doing it.

6. Learning to trust your inner voice, your intuition, and willing to take a Leap of Faith to find the answers.

7. Knowing that the risk of finding true trail may mean letting go of a strongly held belief or core value which we have held our entire life.

8. The rewards of finding true trail can be the joy of knowing your life is in balance, your body is healthy, your spirit is soaring, and your emotions are free from the burdens of fear, lack, and the unknown.

9. The excitement of joining others just like you who are seeking, willing to share, who will support you, never judge you, and are ready to catch you if you fall.

10. Ready to keep life in perspective, be willing to laugh, be silly, let your hair down, get in touch with your playful energy, and make every moment important.

Finding your “True Trail” is a metaphor for finding Balance in your Life. It is about opening your heart and mind to all of the wonderful possibilities in life. It is about revealing all of your beauty, radiance, and magnificence  in the human experience.

Happy Trails

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

Questions that have no answers leave us occupying our minds with some of nonsense of medieval times. What are those questions and why do we ask ourselves these types of questions?!

Since mankind existed on earth they have questioned the reason of their existence: why I am here? How and when did we become the only dominant creatures of the known universe? Are we really the only beings of our kind who possess this knowledge? What knowledge do we really possess if we can’t answer the most pressing questions?

Every time we begin to think about the beginning and ask those questions, we feel like jumping off the cliff! Are you cursed to be a thinker? When it comes to asking these kinds of questions, then it seems that ignorance would be an absolute bliss.

When we don’t find answers, why do we tend to blindly believe anybody who might say nothing more than nonsense? Why we are always looking for something to rely on? Is it because we are stupid or just because we are lost by not knowing better?

Looking for the beginning will never end as long as there are some cursed thinkers in the world; at least the world now is more open-minded to allow those who questioned life to be alive!

In the past, we have read of many prophets: men and women who had different kinds of inspiration that made their voices heard; carving their names into the history of mankind. Some had miracles and others were murdered. One of them spent some time inside a whale, whilst another changed the water into wine. Whatever they once did and whatever we were later told does not change the simple fact – those people had an idea and they struggled to defend their opinions to their last drop of blood. All the prophets, messengers and even the scientists who tried to change whatever people believed in have had a hard time getting people to understand their worldview.

Looking back thousands of years, most of the followers of all the prophets were people who had nothing to lose. These people found an element of freedom in the prophets’ messages. Most of the People who had a hard life and the slaves who found their freedom with the men who said that people are equal now are creating some kind of unbalance in the life scale.

Are we really equal? And who said so?

Thousands of years and people were divided to segments starting with the highest in power are the royals then the nobles, priests and teachers, then the public and slaves. Whenever the last to segments gets louder and louder the top segments practice their right of smashing them or as they thought it was their right to do so!

So when someone comes up with some kind of new opinions that says people are equal of course the people who were living in luxury will have a different word on that new prophesy.

The only thing that all the rollers who belongs to different faith and different language agreed upon is rejecting any teaching that will make people equal! It is about wealth and power so we shouldn’t be equal! Those people didn’t even think that slaves and labor are humans as if they were made of different mixture!

The trinity of power consists of three elements: authority, money, and god. To be able to rule you have to possess the three elements of the power’s triangle: authority to punish, Money to be desired, and god to convince the illiterate to believe that you were appointed by god and by obeying you they are obeying god! God was the means of justification of bloodshed throughout the history of mankind. Wars and massacres have often been conducted in the name of God.

The whole idea of life doesn’t make any sense and when the religions tried to explain the purpose of life they make it sounds like a fairy tale and some kind of terrifying nonsense. It is like telling a child that if he lies he is going to hell! If you look at the child’s face you will see fear and some kind of anger and confusion and deeply the child thinks you are insane.

When people got stuck and found themselves are miserable they refer their failure to the god’s well! As we all heard from many people, life is a test! It is an endless test that every religion claims that they have the right re-copies to pass it.

If I am not mistaken, all the religions in the entire world didn’t really explain any details of the reason why we are here? The majority believe that our only purpose is to obey and pray. So god created us only to worship him, really?! Did god need somebody to worship him and that was the only reason we have been created!

Too many questions yet to be answered before we can say that we are certain about any faith, have we answered those questions? If you are not certain about what you believe in or at least have evidence that what you believe in is right then how you would assume that others are wrong? What makes you right and others are wrong?

How can you walk if you don’t have legs? Definitely you can dream that you are walking on the clouds, but there is a huge difference between walking and imagining that you are walking in fact imagining something doesn’t make it real.

Faith is submission to a creator which means believe in the unknown Nothing wrong about having faith even if it is illogical but some people always feel the belonging to something beyond their understanding and from this point if they question they will end up believing in nothing or become a fundamentalist in their own dilemma.

Believing that life started from nothing is nothing but nothing. How a nothing becomes something from nothing without the well of someone?

Actually if you believe that life started from nothing then you believe in the creator and you don’t even know it.  All the religious texts clearly state that god created life from nothing – so before you deny the existence of a creator why don’t you read what was claimed to be from god in many books? Then, when you try to rely on the big bang theory you might find some kind of big bang in some religious texts!

If you want to enjoy your life then try not to think about things that god doesn’t want you to think about because thinking is a curse and ignorance is bliss when it comes to these kinds of questions!

Isn’t this what you have been told when you started to ask your teacher in school or a priest in a church that you are not allowed to ask certain questions?

This is the ignorance that spread throughout Europe, influencing people to support the kings’ plans to invade other nations and destroy their civilizations in the name of god. What do you think god is? A psychopath!!

Whether you have faith or not – if there is a creator, then he is capable of taking care of his own creation without your interference. What would happen if everybody didn’t believe in god? Will god get angry like a human and destroy you because he gave you the freewill to choose and then you didn’t chose what makes god happy!

If the creator said in all the books that people are believing in  that he loves you either you believed or not then why would he change his mind and say that you have to be killed because you didn’t believe , would that make sense to you ? would you believe that god or the creator is behaving like a human ?

Are you certain about anything in life? If you are, then ignorance is bliss. God bliss you.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

It is the You that is beyond not only the physical world but also the emotions of your mental world. Your higher self does not distinguish between good or bad, wrong or right, happy or sad – not because it is unable to but because it has no need to. It is the You that only knows balance. It is the You that is only Love. It is the eternal observer. It is absolute stillness.

Your Reality is An Illusion
Your higher consciousness knows that the physical, outside world you experience is an illusion of your senses. It knows that your circumstances, whether wanted or unwanted, are simply a reflection of your inner world. It knows that your reality is the mirror that allows your consciousness the opportunity to experience itself.

In this knowledge your higher consciousness is always still and at peace. It observes your success and your failure, your joy and your pain, your light and your dark and is not disturbed by any. Ultimately, it knows that it is all a dream.

A Case of Necessary Semantics
Some great thinkers and writers stop short of distinguishing between the subconscious mind and higher consciousness. Instead, they have granted unlimited power to the subconscious mind despite it being under the guardianship of the conscious mind. While it may be semantics, the distinction is imperative. Were the subconscious mind all-powerful and all-knowing it could not be subjected to negative programs for it would know better.

The term sub itself tells you that it is below the conscious mind. In fact it is the lesser counterpart in the hierarchy of consciousness and is what we have in common with the plant and mineral kingdoms albeit at varying degrees. In contrast, higher consciousness is above all. It is truly Omnipotent and Omniscient for it is One with the One Universal Mind. Like the subconscious mind, it is also subjective in nature, but not because it cannot distinguish between the opposites but because it is above them.

All Mind is One – Three in One
To better understand consciousness one has to distinguish between the three aspects of mind. This, however, can be misleading because it suggests that they are distinct from each other whereas the Truth is that they are One. There is no dividing line.

Ultimately All is Mind – it is the first of the seven Universal Laws. Higher consciousness is not something that needs to be acquired or sought after outside of yourself. You already possess it. All you need to do is become consciously aware of it and learn to access it.

Would You Let a 10-Year Old Run Your Life?
Most people are ignorant of their higher consciousness. Moreover, most people operate in a zombie-like state even at the conscious level, unwittingly allowing all the messages with which they are bombarded to be passed down to their subconscious mind for programming.

This ultimately leaves their lives in full control of their subconscious, which in this state is doing little more than running a bunch of programs that itself has no idea whether or not are beneficial. If this is you then essentially your life is being run by an ignorant and quite painfully stubborn ten year old.

Ultimately, if we are not consciously directing our existence, then it places us in a position no superior to that of plants. Just like the man who can read but does not do so has no advantage over the illiterate man.

Change the Chain of Command and Your Life will Change
Before attempting to consciously root out and replace the negative programs embedded in your subconscious mind, your first step is to change the chain of command. Decide now to place your conscious mind on guard at the door of your subconscious mind.

Decide now to allow only empowering, positive, nurturing messages to pass through that door. Decide now to hand over the direction of your conscious mind to your Higher Self and in so doing become the silent observer of your life.

Re-Programming Your Mind
Learn to be the unshakable witness to your old patterns and behaviors, knowing that they are simply illusions – the programs of a previously misguided subconscious mind. Know that through meditation, creative visualization and the repetition of positive affirmations, these old patterns will in time be replaced by new empowering behaviors and beliefs, which although just as much an illusion, will ensure your success rather than your failure.

By allowing your Higher Self to lead you, you open yourself up to a world of miracles in which you can consciously create your reality.

In a nutshell, consciousness forms the foundation of the power of your mind. Although there are three distinguishable aspects of consciousness all three are One. The difference essentially comes down to reason. The subconscious mind can not reason, the conscious mind is reason, and higher consciousness need not reason.

In other words, where your conscious mind is the commander and your subconscious mind is the subject, your higher consciousness is your kingdom. It is in reference to your higher self that Jesus Christ said “the kingdom of heaven is within”.

When you learn to consciously program your subconscious mind with the protection of your conscious mind and under the direction of your higher self, you will see miraculous transformation in all areas of your life.

About the author:
Tania Kotsos is the founder and author of Mind Your Reality. She has been studying mind power and the nature of reality for the last 15 years. After a successful 10 year career as an investment banker in the City of London, she decided to throw in the towel to pursue her dream of empowering people to transform their lives using the innate power of their mind.

Visit her website at: mind-your-reality.com

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

Paying alimony? Yeah, you decided to get married to that person, but you didn’t know they were going to divorce you and make you pay them. These excuses really do seem to make things easier. No reason to feel guilt or self-doubt. You did your best. Life happened to you.

Life happened to everyone. Your sister. Your friends. They all tell you the same thing. That no good mother is such you-know-what she wouldn’t let me keep living in her house, they say. Why do all of these various people do these horrible things to everyone? They’re just mean. They have grudges. They’re jealous. They are “haters.” They hate me because I’m beautiful. When viewed through an objective lens, most of these motives would seem flimsy, even silly, but through the eyes of a victim, these motivations seem to make perfect sense.

Victims Only Think About Themselves
When feel you are constantly being victimized in your life, you are actually being selfish. All you can think about is how terrible you’ve been wronged and how you are going to show those that victimized you.

Victim-hood leads to many negative emotions, pushing out any positive emotions that might have overtaken the victim. When you are so focused on yourself, you don’t think of other people and whether or not they are doing okay. You don’t think about how you can help them. Why would you? You’re the victim. You have problems. It slips your mind that everyone has problems. If you helped another person with their problems, it might actually cheer you up a little and give you some confidence. Can’t have that.

Helplessness Leads to Hopelessness
Victims are helpless. Someone that feels victimized typically feels no responsibility for the unpleasantness that has befallen them. With no responsibility in creating your own personal disaster, you were helpless to do anything to stop it. Therefore, you’re still helpless. You want, no, you need for someone to help you, to make everything better.

The longer this goes on, the less in control of your own life you feel. You’re completely helpless to do anything. There’s absolutely no hope for you, anymore. When there’s no hope, nothing matters. You get reckless. You do things just to make yourself happy for a few ephemeral moments. You spend money you don’t have. Your mind runs on and on with nonsense. You have nothing left. There’s no joy in your life. There’s no more reason to live. You have no future.

Why Has This Become Popular?
Victimhood has become the default state of a great many people around the globe. Why would so many choose a state of such utter sadness and disappointment? No one can say for sure. A popular view is that the the rise of the welfare state, shows like Jerry Springer, shifting cultural norms, and media in general are to blame.

Many victims would say it’s not a choice to be a victim. Once you are victimized, you have no choice, but to be a victim. That is the victim mentality in a nutshell. You have no choice. Anyone can, all of a sudden wrong you. Sure, this happens, but most of the time, you share some responsibility. If you were beaten and mugged, there’s no reason for that, but you were in that area at that time for a reason. You chose to be there. You didn’t know you’d be mugged, but you willfully decided to go to that place at that time.

Random bad things do, of course, happen, from time to time, where you don’t have much responsibility. But part of the responsibility of being alive is knowing that bad things are going to happen to you and that you are going to have to deal with them and move on. Say you’re laid off from a job do really well. Not fun, but there’s no reason to dwell on it. Yes, you were wronged by the company to which you contributed so much effort, but all you can do is move on and find another job.

If you can’t find another job, like so many Americans and others in today’s challenging times, take the opportunity to do your own thing and become one of the liberated self-employed. The freedom of never again answering to a condescending abusive boss is a blessing that is many times only facilitated when one loses the perceived safety and security of steady employment. Hardships are meant to provide the catalyst for positive change, but change scares most people. That’s why hardships are required to facilitate these changes.

Self-employment seems iffy to most people, but when you have no other choice, it’s a pretty good option. Once you’re confident in your ability to make money without depending on a boss, you’d be insane to ever want to go back to your old way of life. However, would you ever have really quit your well-paying job to strike out on your own? Probably not. Getting laid off, might have been the best thing that ever happened to you.

If you recede into victim-hood, asking why something so terrible ever happened to you and wondering why no one will help, you’re not going to realize the positive developments that will come from your trouble. Life isn’t an exciting challenge, anymore, it’s a monster springing out from behind a tree to slice you and dice you! You’re stuck. You’re a deer in the headlights. The car is going to kill you, and you can’t move a muscle. You aren’t going to figure out a way to become self-employed. You’ll get a minimum wage working for a boss who no one can stand.

You Have A Choice
Humans aren’t naturally victims for very long. Why is this such a pervasive attitude in today’s culture? People in power want you to feel helpless so they can control you. That’s why. Plain and simple. Who would work a low-paying, disrespectful service or outgoing call job, otherwise? But, have hope. No one can be a victim forever.

Keep Hope Alive
Sooner or later, everyone realizes they are the only ones with control over their own lives. Once you realize that you are never a victim, you can do incredible things. All of these people will have this epiphany after dealing with the bleak consequences of feeling helpless. They will take control of their own lives, and the world will be a wonderful place. A place full of confident, loving people doing everything they can to help other people to be as happy as they are.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

Here are some classic examples of how the impulse of instant gratification works in real life:

- If you are seeking a relationship, you want it to unfold as magically as in the movies, and you’re impatient about building rapport and getting to know someone. Beguiled by Hollywood, you believe that romance is as simple as locking eyes across the room, talking breathlessly, and effortlessly plunging into a whirlwind of pleasurable experiences.

- If you are looking for prosperity, you want a complete business-in-a-box that tells you how to get rich quick, and you’re impatient about studying the many facets of business and the rules of sound money management.

- If you are not well, you want medication or surgery that will provide an instant cure so that you can get back to your normal life, and you’re impatient about carefully selecting the foods you eat, reducing your stress levels, and considering a holistic exercise routine.

- If you are worried about signs of aging, you may consider a botox injection to get firm skin and instant youth, and you’re too impatient to bother learning the facts about botox–thus, failing to discover that it is a botulinum toxin, a complex protein produced by a bacteria whose effect is as toxic as food poisoning.

- If you believe in the value of instant gratification, you believe that faster is better, and you want fast food, fast technology, fast education, and fast service. It can’t be much good, you reason, if it’s slow. You equate slow with inefficiency.

Overstimulated By Technology
Partially to blame for the cult of instant gratification is technology, in particular the technology of mass communication and rapid transportation.

Technology was supposed to make life easier. With more labor saving devices, we were supposed to have more time, not less. What technology has done is make us addicted to stimulation. People feel an urgent need to be dialing someone on their cell phone instead of merely driving or walking down the street. Faxes and email make ordinary mail into snail mail. Everything is faster, not only digital connectivity, but how fast we communicate and how fast we travel. We constantly hope to do more in less time.

Hollywood, The Entertainment Industry And Role Modeling
Although amplified by technology, the impulse of instant gratification has always been a part of human nature. In the past it used to be considered a character weakness, but today it is considered a sign of personal efficiency.

Nowadays, people who subscribe to instant gratification are often, fast-talkers, fast-thinkers, and fast-movers. They idealize a fast life. They believe that they are modern people, hip to technology, savvy, cosmopolitan. Even lighting up a cigarette is considered too time-consuming. Why use a match when you can use a lighter?

The modern self-image owes a lot to the stereotypes of Hollywood and the entertainment industry, which has created a subliminal pattern of mass role modeling. In Hollywood, for example, heroes and heroines glorify the hyped-up personality and extol the virtues of a volatile lifestyle.

The average viewer is primed for five times the action than previous generations of movie-goers. Why, settle for a few fist fights as in the old Westerns when your new screen hero can blow up a fleet of police cars, cause multiple car pileups and ruin numerous lives in the same time frame? Blockbusters are not built on people simply talking and behaving normally. Celluloid adventures without massive disasters are no adventures at all.

A Change In Perspective
In the earlier part of this century, according to Sigmund Freud‘s Theory of Personality, the urge of instant gratification was considered a symptom of poor impulse control, an expression of weak ego boundaries.

Since the superego represented the principle of morality, the ego the principle of reality, and the id the principle of pleasure, an inability to delay gratification was the result of a reckless id that could not be controlled by the ego or the superego.

Today, these ideas are considered quaint. Life is not about staying balanced but about getting the most satisfaction in the shortest amount of time.

The Brain And Instant Gratification
Besides the pervasive influence of digital technology and the entertainment industry, Neurobiologists, scientists interested in learning how the brain and nervous system work, have discovered some interesting things about how low impulse control often starts in childhood.

One of these findings is the effects of drugs and alcohol on children.

Due to the stress of modern life, women tend to drink more alcohol than during previous generations. In the United States, 15 percent of women admitted in a survey that they drank alcohol, and of that number, 30 percent admitted that they drank during pregnancy. Drinking during pregnancy causes harm to the embryo.

The alcohol crosses the barrier of the placenta and damages the growing brain of the embryo. Many children are born with mental health problems due to alcohol ingestion in the womb, a condition called fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Children with FAS are often impatient and find delayed gratification almost impossible. However, alcohol is only one cause of stunted mental development in babies.

Drugs, ingested by pregnant mothers, both prescriptive and recreational, have also created havoc on the brain and nervous system of children. The cumulative effect, culturally, of drug and alcohol abuse by pregnant mothers has been a new generation of children less equipped to handle the stresses of modern life and more inclined to seek instant gratification whenever they can.

Another discovery by neurobiologists is that children who are able to demonstrate delayed gratification are more intelligent than those who demand instant gratification.

One study, conducted during the 1960s, has been a landmark in showing the correlation between delayed gratification and intelligence. It has been called the marshmallow experiment.

Walter Mischel, a researcher at Stanford University, worked with a test group of four year old children. He offered each one a marshmallow, but promised another one if the child could wait for twenty minutes before eating it. Some waited, others did not. The researchers kept track of the children into adolescence and found that those who had the capacity for delayed gratification scored about 210 points higher in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT).

Exploitation Of Instant Gratification By Industry
In any modern city, industrial interests, wishing to promote more wealth through consumerism fully exploit low impulse control.

In any city, billboards, slogans, banners, and shop signs assault the innocent pedestrian. The invisible fingers of the market manipulators are forever seeking to stimulate trivial desires and separate consumers from their hard-earned money, even enticing them to spend much more than they have through a credit system.

If people have a tendency to consume too many soft drinks, eat too many fast meals, take too many medications, and buy too many things that they simply don’t not need for their well-being, it’s because their sense of instant gratification is perpetually exploited. Neon signs, repetitive trigger words, colorful logos, and jingles influence consumers. This assault comes from gigantic billboards and electronic signs as well as from radios, commercials, computers, and print ads.

This exploitation of a need for instant gratification, does more harm than merely empty bank accounts. All kinds of aberrant behavior arises from distraught people, including domestic abuse, suicide, and criminal activity to compensate for cash shortages.

Instant Gratification And Emotional Intelligence
Daniel Goleman, the creator of the concept of emotional intelligence, believes that a person can handle difficult life situations well if they have emotional maturity – because they can clearly think about things, make the best decisions, and take the right action.

Positive emotions create positive thoughts and behaviors, and this is high emotional intelligence. Negative emotions, likewise, create negative thoughts and behaviors, and this is low emotional intelligence.

Emotions, triggered by the consequences of dealing with what happens after satisfying a moment of instant gratification, usually escalate problems. The fleeting happiness of consumption is followed by numerous negative emotions, spiraling from anger to despair

After dissipating income, people feel frustrated, and frustration leads to feelings of anger, and anger leads to acts of destruction, either through self-sabotage or lashing out at other people.

It is difficult to make sound decisions about self-worth, discipline, and proactive action in the grip of negative emotions. Those who feel negative emotions precipitate negative experiences for themselves and other people.

The higher a person‘s need for instant gratification, the lower their emotional intelligence.

How The Money System Has Changed And How To Think Long Term
The global recession is a symptom of how the money system has changed. The traditional money system is causing the human race to run out of resources, from fuel to food.

People need meaningful occupations. They also need to live within their means, avoiding irresponsible consumer spending. By reducing both national and personal debt, and by working on building goods and services of tangible value, it is possible to change for the better.

Although the modern world has been created by the ingenuity of generations of hard working people, few modern people have the patience to study, practice, and perfect skills. Young people want to have in a decade the level of wealth it took their parents a lifetime to acquire. This has resulted in people taking all sorts of economic shortcuts, including fraudulent practices in corporate boardrooms that affect stock exchanges.

Understanding the value of change, how do human beings turn their back on a culture of instant gratification that is causing havoc with the money system across the world?

How Thinking Long Term Can Lead To More Success For All
The most startling solution to date has come from the city of São Paulo. According to Business Week, in June, 2007, Brazilian populist mayor, Gilberto Kassab, did something unprecedented in the history of the modern world: he banned all advertising in São Paulo–making it the first city in the world to say no to advertising.

Although this sounds like a myth perpetuated by the radical magazine, Adbusters, a glossy American magazine that details how advertising perpetually feeds the neurosis of instant gratification, in São Paulo, Brazil, this dream has become the new reality.

The clean city laws brought down eight thousand billboards. A Brazilian can walk through the city streets without encountering manipulative messages from posters, flyers, billboards, and advertising on buses and trains.

Populist writer Roberto Pompeu de Toledo hailed it as “a rare victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash.”

The president of the city council, Roberto Tripoli, said, “What we are aiming for is a complete change of culture. Yes, some people are going to have to pay a price but things were out of hand and the population has made it clear that it wants this.”

Is Instant Gratification Short-circuiting Civilization Itself?
While it may seem rather dramatic to blame the ills of the world on something as simple as instant gratification, reviewing the story of how mass communication and transport technology, the sublime influence of Hollywood and the entertainment industry, the neurological problems caused by drug and alcohol on babies, and the brainwashing nature of modern advertising, the impulse of instant gratification does seem to heavily contribute to the foundations of reckless living on this planet.

With the virulence of commercialism reduced, people have a chance of establishing meaningful personal and cultural goals, spending more time getting to know each other better, and regaining an emotional maturity that will lead to long term benefits, like ideas on how to allocate resources so that everyone in the world can meet their basic needs for shelter, food, and drinkable water.

Long term success for all is only possible when intelligent thinking, feeling, and behavior is reintroduced to the world. Instant gratification is a trap that avoids building real wealth.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

Paradoxically, it is also the domain of our most destructive impulses.

Fictional characters like serial killer Hannibal Lecter become popular icons because at some level we recognize them as manifestations of dark desires we keep locked away in the dungeon of our Shadow. But Mozart, Shakespeare and Mother Theresa are imprisoned in this very same dungeon.

Dualism does not exist in the Shadow realm. There is no distinction between potential for “good” and potential for “evil” – it’s all the same. That’s what makes the Shadow such a frightening and dangerous place.

Yet it’s a place we must explore if we are to live fully actualized lives.

Dark Projections
Many avoid undertaking this exploration for fear of letting the monsters out of the dungeon. But the fact is those monsters actually have more power to dominate us when we attempt to suppress them. Left unexamined, they take the form of projection.

Suppressed Shadow monsters hijack our perceptions of our spouses, our children, our parents, our coworkers, our closest friends and bitterest enemies. We project them into political parties, religious institutions and corporations.

They are the source of our deepest resentments. They are the root cause of prejudice, envy, irrational fear and hatred.

When ruled by emotions like these, we are reacting to aspects of ourselves that we have suppressed. As the cartoonist Walt Kelly once put it: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

This isn’t to say that all perception of evil or wrongdoing is rooted in delusional projection. Far from it: people and institutions really do abuse their power and create very real threats. There is evil in the world. But when we are dominated by an unexamined Shadow, we react to such threats in destructive ways. In extreme cases, suppression of the Shadow drives us to seek out dangerous, life-threatening situations.

If we fear our own anger, for example, we may be drawn to angry lovers. Our attempts to change or fix the other’s behavior mirror our efforts to tame our own inner monsters. The lover’s actions may be inexcusable, but we – ruled by the impulses of our suppressed Shadow – have placed ourselves in a position to be hurt or even killed.

Of course, projection can take much subtler forms. A coworker or acquaintance that “rubs you the wrong way” undoubtedly has qualities you do not want to face in yourself.

If you often find yourself using the word “stupid” to describe other people, chances are you fear your own intelligence isn’t up to snuff.

Class envy – that pervasive barrier to abundance – is also projection. Whatever negative qualities you prejudge the wealthy as having – snobbishness, self-entitlement, dishonesty, greed, indifference to the suffering of those less fortunate – are sure to be qualities you keep locked away within and hidden from yourself, regardless of your economic status.

Most people never see the extent to which projections warp their perception of reality and keep them closed off from abundance and joy. Advertisers, political parties, the news media and even educational institutions play upon our tendency to project fear and hatred onto other groups, nations and organizations; we are socially and culturally conditioned to live in projection.

Dr. Carl Jung called confronting the Shadow and its projections the “First Act of Courage.” He and his proponents warn of the dangers that lie in wait if one undertakes this journey unaided, or before one is ready.

However, if you have glimpsed the extent to which your projections cause you unhappiness, you can begin to liberate yourself from them and at least get a taste of spiritual freedom without undergoing Jungian analysis.

Turning Off The Projector
In total privacy, write down your deepest fears, resentments and sources of hatred. Hold nothing back. You never have to show this list to anyone; burn it when you’ve finished if you wish. But get the list down on paper, in black and white.

Don’t limit yourself to people. If you’re terrified of spiders, write “spiders.” If flying in an airplane makes you a nervous wreck, write “flying.”

At this point, do not attempt to explain or justify or gain an understanding about the items on your list – just make the list without intellectualizing it. When you can’t think of anything more, tuck the paper away somewhere and leave it for a day or two.

As you go about your life, seemingly inconsequential “pet peeves” – things you suppose too silly to mention – might spring to mind. Make a note of them and include them on your list. When you are confident the list is as complete as can be, look at each item and simply ask yourself, “Why?”

Your list may well include people who truly have harmed you – people whom you feel justified holding in contempt. After writing out their sins and misdeeds, sit back and ask yourself if you have ever done – or wanted to do – the things this person did to you. If the person was verbally abusive to you, think about the most verbally abusive things you’ve said or wanted to say to someone. Consciously identify with the individual you so deeply resent.

In severe cases – an abusive parent, for instance – this may be difficult or impossible to do. If so, skip that person and move on to someone you resent for less traumatic reasons.

Attempt the same analysis with your fears. Why are you afraid of flying? If you know air travel is statistically safer than driving a car, and if neither you nor anyone close to you has suffered a plane crash, what is at the root of this fear? For most people, it is based on an obsessive need for power or control. Is that the case with you?

As you jot ideas down, cross-reference your fears with your resentments, looking for patterns. If your fear of flying is about control, ask yourself whether your resentments have a similar basis: you couldn’t control this person, or that person put you in a situation where you felt powerless.

In all likelihood, this list will prove to be little more than a penlight – a pinprick of illumination within the vast, inky darkness of your Shadow. But the mere act of writing it will bring an awareness of projections large and small that cloud your experience of reality and block you from the life you truly desire.

Conclusion
The Shadow contains the deepest mysteries and darkest secrets of our souls. It can never be completely mastered, but abundant living depends on the willingness to consciously confront it.

The minimal beginning suggested above can free you from at least some of your most destructive projections. When the major ones are out of the way, the smaller and more insidious ones become easier to spot.

As you clear away your projections and see the illusory nature of hatred, resentment and fear, you will become increasingly open to a great reality: the reality of joy.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download

In other words, whether you are happy with what you get depends on how it measures up to some norm. That norm depends on two things: what other people get (social comparison), and what you yourself are used to getting (habituation). It is hard for success in any form (money, status, prestige, and so on) to improve your happiness because as actual success rises, the norm by which success is judged rises in step.

A study, for instance, found Olympic bronze medalists to be happier than silver medalists. The bronze medalists, it turns out, tended to compare themselves with all the people who competed but won no medal at all, while the silver medalists compared themselves with the gold medal winners and tortured themselves with the belief that they could have – should have – won the gold. Similarly, in families, it has been found that the more your spouse earns, the less satisfied you are with your own job.

Because we constantly compare ourselves to others, we don’t feel good about what we have and who we are. The grass seems perennially greener in your neighbor’s lawn. Continuing with this metaphor, it might be said that the grass always seems to be greener in your neighbor’s yard because (1) you’re urinating on your own lawn and (2) you’re looking at your neighbor’s lawn from your lawn, and everything looks better from a distance. There is only one solution to this “grass is greener” problem: practicing self-appreciation. Self-appreciation involves both staying off of other people’s lawns and taking care of your own.

Appreciate Your Own Lawn
A key ingredient in happiness is appreciating your life as it is. You can do this by keeping an appreciation log. Just list the positive aspects of things in your life. List the positive aspects of what you have and what you appreciate about your life and the people in it. And be sure to make a list of what you appreciate about yourself. Do this at least once a week – every day is even better.

Science has found that the benefits of being grateful are optimized when you focus on appreciation at least once a week. This exercise isn’t about wearing rose-colored glasses as much as it is about appreciating what’s worthy of appreciation. Some things are just bad. If you can’t change them, learn to accept them.

When you’re feeling particularly frustrated, jealous, or hopeless, see if you can’t sit down and write out a list of things you appreciate about your current situation. By doing so, you’ll come to the realization that you have enough and do enough already. And when you do decide to get or do more, it will come from a positive, healthy, loving, inspired place instead of a dark, negative, and unhealthy bottomless pit.

To fully appreciate yourself and your life, you have to ignore what others think of you, what others have, and what others do. Only your thoughts influence your happiness. Others’ thoughts of you do not affect your happiness. Only your thoughts about their thoughts affect how you feel. Only your thoughts about what they have and what they do influence your feelings of well-being. You can change your thoughts and you can’t change theirs. What others think, say, do, or have has nothing to do with you.

The only opinion in the entire universe that is of importance to you is your own. And your opinion affects your entire life. Nobody else needs to get what you’re doing or agree with it. So replace your shopping sprees, working sprees, pleasure sprees, complaining sprees, and unhappiness sprees with an appreciation spree. Shop for things to appreciate about your life and yourself, not for things to purchase or improve. Never admire somebody else’s fortune so much that you become dissatisfied with your own.

Take Care of Your Own Lawn
An important way to appreciate your life is to take care of what and who you have in your life. Take care of the things in your life by giving them routine maintenance and keeping them clean and polished. Wash your car; dust your desk; use your kitchen to cook great meals instead of going out. When you care for them, your possessions will only grow in value. Take care of the people in your life in similar ways, figuratively speaking. Give your friendships routine maintenance. Check in on the people you care for; tell them you appreciate them. They’ll appreciate you back.

My mother and father believed in taking care of things. They worked hard to provide us kids with some rather generous and expensive gifts and they hated seeing those gifts lost, broken, or going unused. Despite their admonishments, however, we would inevitably tire of that new bicycle, video game system, compact disc, or toy and toss it downstairs into the cellar or garage, never to be seen again. We’d do that every year with something or other. Somehow, though, my parents’ lessons about taking care of things stuck with me.

Just as frequently as we’d toss a random toy or gift into the cellar, we’d find one there, too. It was like Christmas in July. There was always at least one old Christmas or birthday gift sitting there just waiting for us to retrieve it. We’d pull that old baseball mitt, chipped wooden baseball bat, crippled doll, rusty bicycle, or deflated football from the crack or corner in which it slept and run upstairs as happy as you’d be after finding a long-lost friend.

Then we’d break out the oil, the cleaning solutions, the wood glue, a rag or old T-shirt. And we’d go to work on that mitt, bat, doll, bike, or ball. Before too long, it looked and felt brand new. When we were done fixing it, we’d play with it as though we had just bought it from the store. Each and every time, I remember, I felt a mix of excitement and slight sadness that I had somehow unappreciatively let this great gift get musty, dusty, and old when it had treated me so well. From then on, whatever it was that I found I promised never to treat it so poorly again. For the most part, that’s what I did. Every summer I seemed to learn the same lesson: what you appreciate and take care of only grows in value. That’s the lesson here, too.

I’m still the same way. The only difference is that the toys are sometimes bigger and the stakes are sometimes higher. What’s more, I believe in taking care of my relationships and myself the same way. For instance, I work out nearly every day. I get a haircut every Friday. Simple things. They make a difference in how I look, yes, but the important thing is that they make a difference in how I feel. People do notice that, and I notice it, too. I’m happier.

About the author:
Robert Mack is the author of Happiness from the Inside Out. He is the resident life coach for Miami Life Center, of Travel & Leisure’s top twenty-five health and wellness centers. Visit him online at:
www.happinessfromtheinsideout.com.

Excerpted with permission from Happiness from the Inside Out  © 2009 by Robert Mack. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com or 800-972-6657 ext. 52.

Get your free copy of my new book:
The Principles of Successful Manifesting - How to make your life dreams come true.
Click here to download