Questallia

1. Are you worried about something more than once a week?
2. Are you sad that people do not behave the way you want?
3. Are you nervous about others not doing what they should?
4. Are you going mad because your partner did not wash the dishes?
5. Do you often think of revenge?
6. Do you often remember bad things from the past?
7. Do you believe your past is dictating your future?
8. Are you overwhelmed with buckets of urgent – not important stuff?
9. Do you feel like being the prisoner of events?
10. Do you think that people are evil by nature?

If you answered yes to any of them, then this may concern you. Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine how happy you could be if only there was nothing to worry about, if only people did what you expected from them, if only you had a lot of good luck and only nice memories, if only you always had a choice or if only all people were good by nature.
Well, if you liked your image, then it is time for you to know that you can feel like that every day and every minute of your life.

Did you ever hear about NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)? One of the NLP principles states that “The map is not the territory”, which means that what you see is not the reality, it is only your image about this reality. In the view of NLP, whether or not there is an objective absolute “reality”, individual people in fact do not in general have access to absolute knowledge of reality, but in fact only have access to a set of beliefs they have built up over time, about reality. The best illustration for this principle are optical illusions: what you see may not be real. If you remove the element that generated the illusion, then you’ll see something totally different. So, you don’t need to change the reality to get to happiness, you just need to adjust your map. Let’s take the most annoying things and see how you can look at them from a new perspective:

1. Worry. You don’t need to be a philosopher to see that your worries will never change the facts. They will only affect your feelings and your behaviour, they will generate an artificial realm with you in its center, thus affecting your health and your happiness.

“If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?”

- Shantideva 

2. External factors. You may say here, and you would be right, that you cannot control the others, or you cannot dictate the course of events. Of course you can’t! What you can control here is your perspective. Imagine that you are spending your vacation alone in an exciting area, with lots of places to be visited and it rains for three days in a row. You are upset, aren’t you? Imagine now the same vacation and the same rain, but you are not alone, you are there with your new lover, with whom you feel like spending as much time as you can. Do you feel the same about the rain? Surely not! Now you see it as a chance to enjoy the time spent with your partner, a chance to get to know each other better and to enjoy great moments together. So, is the rain good or bad? It depends of your choice. Yes, you cannot control external factors, but you can control your choice of feelings. It is entirely up to you, when something strikes you, to sit down and complain or to stand up and seek for opportunities and solutions. There was a story of two brothers, raised by a drunken father. As they grew up, one of them became a very well known and appreciated businessman, rich and strong, having a happy family around him. The other became a junky drunken, lost in thoughts of hate and anger. When asked what determined their way in life, they both replied: “With such a father, what else could I have done?” So, as you can see, it’s all a matter of physics: the law of action and reaction. Action occurs, you cannot take control of it, but the reaction is all yours, it is all in your power, so carefully choose the way you react.
3. Bad luck. I once asked somebody if he believed in luck. He said to me that “There is no such thing as luck. For me, luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”  It is true. Opportunities are everywhere around us. It is our task to be prepared to spot and take them as they come. Think no further than how you met your partner: maybe it was just a smile in the subway, you smiled back, then a conversation started, then you exchanged phone numbers… and here you are today, 20 years later, having lived a happy life which started with a smile. If 20 years ago you did not pay attention to that smile, you would have missed all those years, wouldn’t you? 
4. The past is always there. Yes, it is there, but it does not define who you are. The way you perceive it defines who you are. It is your brain who decides, not some facts, figures or feelings which are history already. There is a great book, 1894, written by George Orwell, in which there was a so called “Ministry of truth” whose task was to change the past according to the present needs of the Party. The employees of that ministry were re-writing the history according to instructions from the Party. So that imaginary country had a fresh new history whenever necessary. You can think of your brain as if it were your Ministry of Truth. I’m not telling you to change the facts, I’m telling you only to change your perception of facts, so you can move on and live your present life in happiness. Instead of thinking “Oh, my boyfriend left me, I’m no good, everybody will leave me, I’ll die alone”, try this: “My boyfriend made the choice to leave me, he must have been blind not to appreciate me, so he does not deserve me. I don’t want to hang around with people who don’t appreciate me, anyway.”  So, don’t allow the past to ruin your present, by no means.
5. People are evil by nature. This is not true. There is a NLP principle saying that “behind every behaviour there is a positive intention”. Just think a little bit: you are not a born killer, you usually don’t kill anything and anybody, but you would kill a mosquito on your leg without hesitation. Why is that? Because this was the best choice you saw at that moment. It is exactly the same with people: they do evil things only because that is the best choice in their mind at that moment, not because they have something against you. Don’t understand from here that you should suffer all sort of things from everybody, just because their intentions were good. It is just that this way of looking at things helps you to prevent developing feelings of hate or resent. Think of people as they are part of nature: you don’t get upset with the rain because you caught pneumonia, do you?

Was all this helpful for you? You still don’t believe that a small shift of perspective can enlighten your life? Try it for a month, then come back and share with us your outcome.

Do you have questions? Ask Questallia. Or ask your friends. Or ask yourself. There is always an answer out there.

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