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True Contentment

Most individuals blame their sadness .......

By gabrielPublished 2 years ago 3 min read
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Most individuals blame their sadness or irritation on something outside of themselves. After all, wouldn’t life be almost ideal if the important people in our lives just did what we wanted or what we thought was best for them? This is the type of mentality that keeps the agony going!

I believe that the majority of today’s dissatisfaction stems from crucial individuals in our life refusing to cooperate. Can anyone identify with that? Have you ever had a youngster make a decision that puts their life in jeopardy? Have you ever had a significant other move or make a job decision with which you disagreed?Have you ever had a boss that micromanaged your work and never acknowledged your accomplishments? I believe you get the picture. Any one or a combination of these factors can cause us to feel unhappy, and I’m sure you can think of a few more.

When we’re in circumstances like these, it feels like our lives would be so much better, happier, and more meaningful if the people in our lives would simply cooperate and be the way we want them to be. While this may be true, I also believe the following.While we are busy attempting to persuade our significant others to do things our way, the behaviors we use to convince them to do things our way are precisely the behaviors that harm, and eventually kill, our relationships.

You’re familiar with the behaviors I’m referring to: punishing, guilting, whining, nagging, threatening, criticizing, “the silent treatment,” and, if we’re very cunning, rewarding control, also known as bribery.

If you’re one of those individuals who like to negotiate and open lines of communication first, you’re in the minority. Consider this: When negotiations fail, what do you usually do?

Nagging is one of my more sophisticated tendencies. Just ask my kids: I’m a world-class nag. You’re familiar with the procedure. “How about tidying up your room today?” says the narrator. “Are you going to go to that room today?” I ask thirty minutes later, as the youngster sits in front of his video game. “What about that ROOM?” two hours later, a few decibels louder. Then it’s “Will you get off your lazy a*# and tidy your blankety blank blank room!!!!” as a final irritant. Have you ever been? Was it successful in cleaning the room? In my experience, it seldom did.

However, I’ve had several parents tell me that nagging works, but my following inquiry always gets a different response — at what cost? How much did it cost to clean the room? There was the cost of you losing control and becoming someone you probably didn’t want to be, and there was also a cost to your connection with your child. Do you think that after an interaction like that, the two of you will be ready and eager to have a meaningful conversation about life or anything else you’d like to discuss? Most likely not.

What I’m about to say most likely contradicts what you’ve thought for the bulk of your life: that you, and you alone, are solely responsible for your happiness. You are functioning from the outside in instead of the inside out if you are waiting for someone to do something differently or for something specific to appear in your life in order for you to be happy.

I’m not here to advise you to stop doing what you’re doing right now. If you want to stick to your beliefs that happiness will come when your husband becomes more affectionate, your children become more obedient, your wife becomes more supportive, your boss becomes more appreciative, or you get your education, pay off your credit cards, buy your first home, etc., then go ahead. Those of us who wish to practice inside out thinking, on the other hand, don’t appreciate giving others the authority to determine our happiness or any of our other moods or emotions. We understand that we are alone responsible for ourselves.

I can assist you in being the person you want to be and experiencing the feelings you desire by altering what you do and how you think about things. I’d want to leave you with a quotation from Jimmy Dean. “You can’t control the wind’s direction, but you can change the sails.” This is what real inside-out thinking looks like. People and events will be what they are in our immediate environment. Although we have little influence over other people’s actions or unpredictable circumstances in our life, there is always something each of us can do to better handle such situations.

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