Welcome to the official blog site for The Pocket Guide to Happiness. Below is an excerpt from the book. Feel free to comment on this specifically or anything about the book on this site.
Where will you have your horrors in life lead you?
Even the most horrific acts in history have a silver lining. The holocaust is a great (and yet another wonderfully controversial) example. Horrifically terrible things happened during this time of our world's spotted and growth-ridden past.
No one person could or did for that matter stop these things from happening. Yes, there were many heroes that helped to lighten the blow and we cherish all those affected as well as those that did whatever they could no matter the cost. But there were also some insane advances in medicine and psychology (among other things) that might not otherwise exist today.
It's a sickening example but we can't change the past. Not taking the learning from it makes it all for not. We show our respect for the damned, deserted and deceased by allowing their experiences to teach us a few things about ourselves, each other, and the world around us.
Don't you think that is what they would want? Do you think they want their suffering to be for no reason? And the sooner we see the silver lining on anything we experience, the better off we are. It not only helps us deal with the pain involved in it, but starts the fire of learning sooner giving it the chance to start blazing more quickly. And this is the only kind of fire you want to let get out of control.
There are so many wonderful people out there. And trust me they far outweigh those that are struggling.
But it doesn't seem like it, does it? I blame the evening news. It's why I don't watch it. Exciting news is when something extraordinary happens. Now follow me on this. If people in general are wonderful, than that makes it pretty ordinary, huh? So the things that are astounding, thus making them interesting, are things out of the ordinary, like a murder, rape, tragedy, etc.
If the world were constantly in pain, then the news would have to be the good stuff, like how many babies were born or how many lives were saved. No instead we hear about how many casualties at war and the robbery around the corner from you.
Now I'm not negating that there is a lot of undue pain in the world and I'm not dismissing it as though "well that's just not my problem". And I'm also not blind to the fact that we need to all watch out and do our best to avoid getting caught in the line of fire of someone's desperation. I don't see the world through rose colored glasses. But I do choose not to focus on it. Don't focus on where people fall short. Focus on what potential good came out of it. Sometimes it's a stretch, but it's always there.
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Friday, August 14, 2009
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