COURAGE FOR LIVING

There is a yearning in most people's hearts to lead and live a happy life within the comfort of our environs, surrounded by the things we love most. The most common quest for billions of human beings living today is the quest to live and lead a happy life. A life filled with remarkable achievement, notable accomplishments, and a life without bounds. The word life is derived from the Proto-Indo-European word "lip" which means "to remain, persevere, and continue". Life is not passive. It is active, it is Passionate. Life is not an accident or mistake. Life according to the definitions above is not stagnant, dormant, or sluggish. Life is impactful; an active force and the way we respond to life is not by brooding endlessly over yesterday, rather, we put every circumstance into perspective, learn from our mistakes and move on with lessons learned.

Life is not like the road mark lines that divide the lanes, it is more like the vehicles that pass on the lines in fast, quick successions with vigor and gusto, controlled by drivers of all manner - the sad driver, the happy driver, the newlywed driver, the divorced driver, the single happy driver, the lonely sick and disturbed driver - all drive on the road towards a destination.

A deep assessment of your life would reveal a degree of dissatisfaction in respect to your goals, dreams, and aspirations. We react to these discoveries of underachievement based on our perspective. People all around you share the same inner feelings of underachievement. I am referring to your best friend, neighbor, girlfriend, husband, co-worker, and even your boss at work.

The source of unhappiness is something negative within you that keeps you unhappy. That "something" needs to thoroughly be examined. If you want to live a happy life then get rid of the negative "something" which makes you unhappy. A negative approach complicates the problems and increases the degree of unhappiness in your life.

Happy Living!

Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life or flourishing. Happy living is living a normal life free from undue pressures, problems, and tensions. Living is eating well, thinking well, and feeling well. Just tune up your mind to enjoy every moment of life and let happiness flow through you. The feeling of happiness is within you. Happy living is the reward of positive thinking can bring happiness to your life. If you cannot think positively, you cannot live happily. The feeling of happiness is within you. Don't blame others. Don't blame your fate or external circumstances for the lack of happiness in your life.

Courage?

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear". - Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. Courage is quality of spirit that enables you to face danger or pain without showing fear". - Winston Churchill

Courage is the ability to face danger, difficulty, uncertainty, or pain without being overcome by fear or being deflected from a chosen course of action. All the definitions above suggest that courage is the ability to take action despite fear.

True courage is more a matter of intellect than of feeling. It requires using the uniquely human part of your brain (the neocortex) to wrest control away from the emotional limbic brain you share in common with other mammals. Your limbic brain signals danger, but your neocortex reasons that the danger isn't real, so you simply feel the fear and take action anyway. The more you learn to act despite fear, the more human you become. The more you follow the fear, the more you live like a lower mammal. Courageous people are still afraid, but they don't let the fear paralyze them.

Whenever you fear instead of act, you lower your level of consciousness. You sink closer towards an instinctive animal and move away from becoming a fully conscious human being. You react to life instead of proactively going after your goals. You fall into a state of learned helplessness, where you begin to believe that your goals are no longer possible or practical for you.?

You become more and more like a mouse, even trying to convince yourself that life as a mouse might not be so bad after all, since everyone around you seems to be OK with it. You surround yourself with your fellow mice, and on?the rare occasions that you encounter a fully conscious human being, it scares the hell out of you to remember how much of your courage has been lost.

BRACE YOURSELF

Real courage is a mental skill, not an emotional one. Neurologically it means using the thinking neocortex part of your brain to override the emotional limbic impulses. In other words, you use your human intelligence, logic, and independent will to overcome the limitations you've inherited as an emotional mammal. Courage is a learned mental skill that you must condition.

There are several methods for building courage. But I will dwell on two.

The first approach is analogous to progressive weight training. Tackle your smallest fears first, and progressively train up to bigger and bigger fears. Start with weights you can lift but which are challenging for you, and then progressively train up to heavier and heavier weights as you grow stronger.

So grab a piece of paper, and write down one of your fears that you'd like to overcome. Then number from one to ten, and write out ten variations of this fear, with number one being the least anxiety-producing and number ten being the most anxiety-producing. This is your fear hierarchy. For example, if you're afraid of asking someone out on a date, then number one on your list might be going out to a public place and smiling at someone you find attractive (very mild fear). Number two might be smiling at ten attractive strangers in a single day. Number ten might be asking out your ideal date in front of all your mutual friends when you're almost certain you will be turned down flat and everyone in the room will laugh.

Now start by setting a goal to complete number one on your list. Once you've had that success (and success in this case simply means taking action, regardless of the outcome), then move on to number two, and so on, until you are ready to tackle number ten or you just don't feel the fear is limiting you anymore. You may need to adjust the items on your list to make them practical for you to experience. And if you ever feel the next step is too big, then break it down into additional gradients. If you can lift 290pounds but not 300, then try 295 or even 291. Take this process as gradually as you need to, such that the next step is a mild challenge for you but one you feel fairly confident you can complete. And feel free to repeat a past step multiple times if you find it helpful to prepare you for the next step. Pace yourself!

This process would enable you to cease reinforcing the fear that you exhibited in the past. And you'll condition yourself to act more courageously in future situations. So your feelings of fear will diminish at the same time that your expression of courage grows. Neurologically you'll be weakening the limbic control over your actions while strengthening the neocortical control, gradually moving from unconscious mouse-like to conscious human-like behavior.?

The second approach to building courage is to acquire additional knowledge and skill within the domain of your fear. Confronting fears head-on can be helpful, but if your fear is largely due to ignorance and lack of skill, then you can usually reduce or eliminate the fear with information. For example, if you're afraid to quit your job and start your own business, even though you'd love to be in business for yourself, then start reading books and taking classes on how to start your own business. Spend an afternoon at your local library researching the subject, or do the research online. Join the local Chamber of Commerce and any relevant trade organizations in your field. Attend conferences. Build network. Enlist the help of a mentor. Build your skill to the point where you start to feel confident that you could succeed, and this knowledge will help you act more boldly and courageously when you're ready. This method is especially effective when a large part of your fear is due to the unknown. Often just reading a book or two on the subject will be enough to dispel the fear so that you're able to take action.

Though we live our lives in parts, I challenge you to embrace the daring adventure your life is meant to be. You may go broke. You may experience failure and rejection repeatedly. You may endure multiple dysfunctional relationships. But these are all milestones along the path of a life lived courageously. They are your private victories, carving a deeper space within you to be filled with an abundance of joy, happiness,?and fulfillment. So go ahead and feel the fear - then summon the courage to follow your dreams.

"The only way to have a life is to commit to it like crazy." - Angelina Jolie

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose." - Robert Byrne?C