THE WAY TO HAPPINESS

Happiness lies in engaging in worthwhile activities. But there is only one person who for certain can tell what will make one happy - oneself. 

The precepts given in this blog are really the edges of the road: violating them, one is like the motorist who plunges off onto the verge - the result can be wreckage of the moment, the relationship, a life. 

Only you can say where the road goes for one sets his goals for the hour, for the relationship, for the phase of life. 

One can feel at times like a spinning leaf brown along a dirty street, one can feel like a grain of sand stuck in one place. But nobody has said that life was a calm and orderly thing: it isn't. One isn't a tattered leaf nor a grain of sand: one can, to greater or lesser degree draw his road map and follow it. 

One can feel that things are such now that it is much too late to do anything, that one's past road is so messed up that there is no chance of drawing a future one that will be any different: there is always a point on the road when one can map a new one. And try to follow it. There is no person alive who cannot make a new beginning. 

It can be said without the slightest fear of contradiction that others may mock one and seek by various means to push one onto the verge, to tempt one in various ways to lead an immoral life: all such persons do so to accomplish private ends of their own and one will wind up, if one heeds them, in tragedy and sorrow. 

Of course one will have occasional loses trying to apply this blog and get it applied. One should just learn from these and carry on. Who said the road doesn't have bumps?

It can still be traveled. So people can fall down: it doesn't mean they can't get up again and keep going.

If one keeps the edges on the road, one can't go far wrong. True excitement, happiness and joy come from other things, not from broken lives. 

If you can get others to follow the road, you yourself will be free enough to give yourself a chance to discover what real happiness is. 

The way to happiness is a high-speed road

to those who know where the edges are. 

YOU'RE THE DRIVER.

FLOURISH AND PROSPER

Sometimes others seek to crush one down, to make nothing out of one's hopes and dreams, one's future and oneself. 

By ridicule and many other means, another who is evil-intentioned toward one can try to bring about one's decline. 

For whatever reason, efforts to improve oneself, to become happier in life, can become the subject of attacks. 

It is sometimes necessary to handle such directly. But there is a long-range handling that seldom fails. 

What, exactly, are such people trying to do to one? They are trying to reduce one downward. 

They must conceive that one is dangerous to them in some way: that if one got up in the world, one could be a menace to them. So, in various ways, such seek to depress one's talents and capabilities. 

Some madmen even have a general plan that goes like this: "If A becomes more successful, A could be a menace to me; therefore I must do all I can to make A less successful." It never seems to occur to such that their actions might make an enemy out of A even though he was no enemy before. It can be classed as an almost certain way for such madmen to get into trouble. Some do it just from prejudice or because they don't like someone."

But however it is attempted, the real object of such is to make their target grow less and fail in life. 

The real handling of such a situation and such people, the real way to defeat them is to flourish and prosper. 

Oh, yes, it is true that such people, seeing one improve his lot, can become frantic and attack all the harder. The thing to do is handle them in one must but don't give up flourishing and prospering, for that is what such people want you to do. 

If you flourish and prosper more and more, such people go into apathy about it: they give it up completely. 

If one's aims in life are worthwhile, if one carries them out with some attention to the precepts in this blog, if one flourishes and prospers, one certainly will wind up the victor. And, hopefully, without harming a single hair on their heads. 

And that is my wish for you:

flourish and prosper! 

TRY TO TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WOULD WANT THEM TO TREAT YOU

This is a positive version of "The Golden Rule."

Don't be surprised if someone seems to resent being told to "be good." But the resentment may not come at all at the idea of "being good": it may be because the person factually has a misunderstanding of what it means.

One can get into a lot of conflicting opinions and confusions about what "good behavior" might be. One might never have grasped - even if the teacher did - why he or she was given the grade received for "conduct." One might even have been given or assumed false data concerning it: "children should be seen and not heard," "being good means being inactive."

However, there is a way to clear it all up to one's complete satisfaction.

In all times an in most places, Mankind has looked up to and revered certain values. They are called the virtues. They have been attributed to wise men, holy men, saints and gods. They have made the difference between chaos and a decent society.

It doesn't absolutely require a heavenly mandate nor a tedious search through the thick tomes of the philosophers to discover what "good" is. A self-revelation can occur on the subject.

It can be worked out by almost any person.

If one were to think over how he or she would like to be treated by others, one would evolve the human virtues. Just figure out how you would want people to treat you.

You would possibly, first of all, want to be treated justly: you wouldn't want people lying about you or falsely or harshly condemning you. Right?

You would probably want your friends and companions to be loyal: you would not want them to betray you.

You could want to be treated with good sportsmanship, not hoodwinked nor tricked.

You would want people to be fair in their dealings with you. You would want them to be honest with you and not cheat you. Correct?

You might want to be treated kindly and without cruelty.

You would possibly want people to be considerate of your rights and feelings.

When you were down, you might like others to be compassionate.

Instead of blasting you, you would probably want others to exhibit self-control. Right?

If you had any defects or shortcomings, if you made a mistake, you might want people to be tolerant, not critical.

Rather than concentrating on censure and punishment, you would prefer people were forgiving toward you, not mean nor stingy.

Your possible desire would be for others to believe in you, not doubt you at every hand. 

You would probably prefer to be given respect, not insulted. 

Possibly you would want others to be polite to you and also treat you with dignity. Right?

You might like people to admire you. 

When you did something for them you would possibly like people to appreciate you. Correct?

You would probably like others to be friendly toward you.

From some you might want love.

And above all, you wouldn't want these people just pretending these things, you would want them to be quite real in their attitudes and to be acting with integrity.

You could possibly think of others. But above you would have worked out the summary of what are called the virtues.

It requires no great stretch of imagination for one to recognize that if he were to be treated the way regularly by others around him, his life would exist on a pleasant level. And it is doubtful if one would build up much animosity toward those who treated him in this fashion. 

Now there is an interesting phenomenon at work in human relations. When one person yells at another, the other has an impulse to yell back. One is treated pretty much the way he treats others: one actually sets an example of how he should be treated. A is mean to B so B is mean to A. A is friendly to B so B is friendly to A. I am sure you have seen this at work continually. George hates all women so women tend to hate George. 

Carlos acts tough to everyone so others tend to act tough toward Carlos - and if they don't dare out in the open, they privately may nurse a hidden impulse to act very tough indeed toward Carlos if they ever get a chance. 

In the unreal world of fiction and the motion pictures, one sees polite villains with unbelievably efficient gangs and lone heroes who are outright boors. Life really isn't like that: real villains are usually pretty crude people and their henchmen cruder; Napoleon and Hitler were betrayed right and left by their own people. Real heroes are the quietest-talking fellows you ever met and they are very polite to their friends.

When one is lucky enough to get to meet and talk to the men and women who are at the top of their professions, one is struck by an observation often made that they are just about the nicest people you ever met. That is one of the reasons they are at the top: they try, most of them, to treat others well. And those around them respond and tend to treat them well and even forgive their few shortcomings.

All right: one can work out for himself the human virtues just by recognizing how he himself would like to be treated. And from that, I think you will agree, one has settled any confusions as to what "good conduct" really is. It's a far cry from being inactive, sitting still with your hands in your lap and saying nothing. "Being good" can be a very active and powerful force. 

There is little joy to be found in gloomy, restrained solemnity. When some of old made it seem that to practice virtue required a grim and dismal sort of life, they tended to infer that all pleasure came from being wicked: nothing could be further from the facts. Joy and pleasure do not come from immorality! Quite the reverse! Joy and pleasure arise only in honest hearts: the immoral lead unbelievably tragic lives filled with suffering and pain. The human virtues have little to do with gloominess. They are the bright face of life itself. 

Now what do you suppose would happen if one were to try treat those around him with

justness,

loyalty,

good sportsmanship,

fairness,

honesty,

kindness,

consideration,

compassion,

self-control,

tolerance,

forgivingness,

benevolence,

belief,

respect,

politeness,

dignity,

admiration,

friendliness,

love,

and did it with integrity?

It might take a while but don't you suppose that many others would then begin to try to treat one the same way?

Even allowing for the occasional lapses - the news that startles one half out of his wits, the burglar one has to bop on the head, the nut who is driving slow in the fast lane when one is late for work - it should be fairly visible that one would lift oneself to a new plane of human relations. One's survival potential would be considerably raised. And certainly one's life would be a happier one. 

One can influence the conduct of others around him. If one is not like that already, it can be made much easier by just picking one virtue a day and specializing in it for that day. Doing that, they would all eventually be in. 

Aside from personal benefit, one can take a hand, no matter how small, in beginning a new era for human relations. 

The pebble, dropped in a pool, can make ripples to the furthest shore. 

The way to happiness

is made much brighter

by applying the precept, 

"Try to treat others as you

would want them to treat you."

TRY NOT TO DO THINGS TO OTHERS THAT YOU WOULD NOT LIKE THEM TO DO TO YOU

Among many peoples in many lands for many ages there have been versions of what is called "The Golden Rule." The above is a wording of it that relates to harmful acts. 

Only a saint could go through life without ever harming another. But only a criminal hurts those around him without a second thought. 

Completely aside from feelings of "guilt" or "shame" or "conscience," all of which can be real enough and bad  enough, it also happens to be true that the harm one does to others can recoil on oneself. 

Not all harmful acts are reversible: one can commit an act against another which cannot be waived aside or forgotten. Murder is such an act. One can work out how severe violation of almost any precept in this blog could become an irreversible harmful act against another. 

The ruin of another's life can wreck one's own. Society reacts - the prisons and the insane asylums are stuffed with people who harmed their fellows. But there are other penalties: whether one is caught or not, committing harmful acts against others, particularly when hidden, can cause one to suffer severe changes in his attitudes toward others and himself, all of them unhappy ones. The happiness and joy of life depart. 

This version of "The Golden Rule" is also useful as a test. When one persuades someone to apply it, the person can attain a reality on what a harmful act is. It answers for one what harm is. The philosophic question concerning wrongdoing, the argument of what is wrong is answered at once on a personal basis: Would you not like that to happen to you? No? Then it must be a harmful action and, from society's viewpoint, a wrong action. It can awaken social consciousness. It can then let one work out what one should do and what one should not do. 

In a time when some feel no restraint from doing harmful acts, the survival potential of the individual sinks to a very low ebb. 

If you can persuade people to apply this, you will have given them a precept by which they can evaluate their own lives and, for some, opened the door to let them rejoin the human race. 

The way to happiness is closed

to those who do not restrain themselves

from committing harmful acts.

RESPECT THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF OTHERS

Tolerance is a good cornerstone on which to build human relationships. When one views the slaughter and suffering caused by religious intolerance down all the history of Man and into modern times, one can see that intolerance is a very non-survival activity. 

Religious tolerance does not mean one cannot express his own beliefs. It does mean that seeking to undermine or attack the religious faith and beliefs of another has always been a short road to trouble. 

Philosophers since the times of ancient Greece have disputed with one another about the nature of God, Man and the universe. The opinions of authorities ebb and flow: just now the philosophies of "mechanism" and "materialism" - dating as far back as Ancient Egypt  and Greece - are the fad: they seek to assert that all is matter and overlook that, neat as their explanations of evolution may be, they still do not rule out additional factors that might be at work, that might be merely using such things as evolution. They are today the "official" philosophies and are even taught in schools. They have their own zealots who attack the beliefs and religions of others: the result can be intolerance and contention. 

In all the brightest minds since the fifth century B.C. or before have never been able to agree on the subject of religion or anti-religion, it is an arena of combat between people that one would do well to stay out of. 

In this sea of contention, one bright principle has emerged: the right to believe as one chooses. 

"Faith" and "belief" do not necessarily surrender to logic: they cannot even be declared to be illogical. They can be things quite apart. 

Any advice one might give another on this subject is safest when it simply asserts the right to believe as one chooses. One is at liberty to hold up his own beliefs for acceptance. One is at risk when he seeks to assault the beliefs of others, much more so when he attacks and seeks to harm them because of their religious convictions. 

Man, since the dawn of the species, has taken great consolation and joy in his religions. Even the "mechanist" and "materialist" of today sound much like the priests of old as they spread their dogma. 

Men without faith are a pretty sorry lot. They can even be given something to have faith in. But when they have religious beliefs, respect them. 

The way to happiness can become

contentious when one fails to respect

the religious beliefs of others. 

BE COMPETENT

In an age of intricate equipment and high-speed machines and vehicles, one's survival and that of one's family and friends depends in no small measures upon the general competence of others.

In the marketplace, in the sciences, the humanities and in the government, incompetence can threaten the lives and future of the few or the many.

I am sure you can think of many examples of these things.

Man has always had an impulse to control his fate. Superstition, propitiation of the right gods, ritual dances before the hunt, can all be viewed as efforts, no matter how faint or unavailing, to control destiny.

It was not until he learned to think, to value knowledge and to apply it with competent skill, that he began  to dominate his environment. The true "gift of heaven" may have been the potential to be competent.

In common pursuits and activities, Man respects skill and ability. These in a hero or athlete are almost worshiped.

The test of true competence is the end result.

To the degree that a man is competent, he survives. To the degree he is incompetent he perishes.

Encourage the attainment of competence in any worthwhile pursuit. Compliment it and reward it whenever you find it.

Demand high performance standards. The test of a society is whether or not you, your family and friends can live in it safely.

The ingredients of competence include observation, study and practice.

LOOK

See what you see, not what someone tells you that you see.

What you observe is what you observe. Look at things and life and others directly, not through any cloud of prejudice, curtain of fear or the interpretation of another.

Instead of arguing with others, get them to look. The most flagrant lies can be punctured, the greatest pretenses can be exposed, the most intricate puzzles can resolve, the most remarkable revelations can occur simply by gently insisting that someone look.

When another finds things almost too confusing and difficult to bear, when his or her wits are going around and around, get the person to just stand back and look.

What they find is usually very obvious when they see it. Then they can go on and handle things. But if they don't see it themselves, observe if for themselves, it may have little reality for them and all the directives and orders and punishment in the world will not resolve their muddle.

One can indicate what direction to look and suggest that they do look: the conclusions are up to them.

A child or adult sees what he himself sees and that is reality for him.

True competence is based on one's own ability to observe. With that as reality, only then can one be deft and sure.

LEARN

Has there ever been an instance when another had some false data about you? Did it cause you trouble?

This can give you some ideas of the havoc false data can raise.

You could also have some false data about another.

Separating the false from the true brings about understanding.

There is a lot of false data around. Evil-intentioned individuals manufacture it to serve their own purposes. Some of it comes from just plain ignorance of the facts. It can block the acceptance of true data. 

The main process of learning consists of inspecting the available data, selecting the true from the false, the important from the unimportant and arriving thereby at conclusions one makes and can apply. If one does this, one is well on the way to being competent. 

The test of any "truth" is whether it is true for you. If, when one has gotten the body of data, cleared up any misunderstood words in it and looked over the scene, it still doesn't seem true, then it isn't true as far as you are concerned. Reject it. And, if you like, carry it further and conclude what the truth is for you. After all, you are the one who is going to have to use it or not to use it, think with it or not think with it. If one blindly accepts "facts" or "truths" just because he is told he must, "facts" and "truths" which do not seem true to one, or even false, the end result can be an unhappy one. That is the alley to the trash bin of incompetence. 

Another part of learning entails simply committing things to memory - like the spelling of words, mathematical tables and formulas, the sequence of which buttons to push. But even in simple memorizing one has to know what the material is for and how and when to use it. 

The process of learning is not just piling data on top of more data. It is one of obtaining new understandings and better ways to do things. 

Those who get along in life never really stop studying and learning. The competent engineer keeps up with new ways; the good athlete continually reviews the progress of his sport; any professional keeps a stack of his texts to hand and consults them. 

The new model eggbeater or washing machine, the latest year's car, all demand some study and learning before they can be competently operated. When people omit it, there are accidents in the kitchen and piles of bleeding wreckage on the highways. 

It is a very arrogant fellow who thinks he has nothing further to learn in life. It is a dangerously blind one who cannot shed his prejudices and false data and supplant them with facts and truths that can more fittingly assist his own life and everyone else's. 

There are ways to study so that one really learns and can use what one learns. In brief, it consists of having a teaching and/or texts that know what they are talking about; of clearing up every word one does not fully understand; of consulting other references and/or the scene of the subject; sorting out the false data one might already have: sifting the false from the true on the basis of what is now true for you. The end result will be certainty and potential competence. Not unlike climbing a treacherous mountain through brambles but coming on top with a new view of the whole wide world. 

A civilization, to survive, must nurture the habits and abilities to study in its schools.  A school is not a place where one puts children to get them out from underfoot during the day. That would be far too expensive for just that. It is not a place where one manufactures parrots. School is where one should learn to study and where children can be prepared to come to grips with reality, learn to handle it with competence and be readied to take over tomorrow's world, the world where current adults will in their later middle or old age. 

The hardened criminal never learned to learn. Repeatedly the courts seek to teach him that if he commits the crime again he will go back to prison: most of them do the same crime again and go back to prison. Factually, criminals cause more and more laws to be passed: the decent citizen is the one that obeys laws; the criminals, by definition, do not: criminals cannot learn. Not all the orders and directives and punishments and duress will work upon a being that does not know how to learn and cannot learn. 

A characteristic of a government that has gone criminal - as has sometimes happened in history - is that its leaders cannot learn: all records and good sense may tell them that disaster follows oppression; yet it has taken a violent revolution to handle them or a World War II to get rid of a Hitler and those were very unhappy events for Mankind. Such did not learn. They reveled in false data. They refused all evidence and truth. They had to be blown away. 

The insane cannot learn. Driven by hidden evil intentions or crushed beyond the ability to reason, facts and truth and reality are far beyond them. They personify false data. They will not or cannot really perceive or learn. 

A multitude of personal and social problems arise from the inability or refusal to learn. 

The lives of some around you have gone off the rails because they do not know how to study, because they do not learn. You can probably think of some examples. 

If one cannot get those around him to study and learn, one's own work can become much harder and even overloaded and one's own survival potential can be greatly reduced. 

One can help others study and learn if only by putting in their reach the data they should have. One can help simply by acknowledging what they have learned. One can assist if only by appreciating any demonstrated increase in competence. In one likes, one can do more than that: another can be assisted by helping them - without disputes - sort out false data, by helping them find and clear up words they have not understood, by helping them find and handle the reasons they do not study and learn. 

As life is largely trial and error, instead of coming down on somebody who makes a mistake, find out how come a mistake was made and see if the other can't learn something from it. 

Now and then you may surprise yourself by untangling a person's life just by having gotten the person to study and learn. I am sure you can think of many ways. And I think you will find the gentler ones work best. The world is brutal enough already to people who can't learn. 

PRACTICE

Learning bears fruit when it is applied. Wisdom, of course, can be pursued for its own sake: there is even a kind of beauty in it. But, truth told, one never really knows if he is wise or not until he sees the results of trying to apply it. 

Any activity, skill or profession, ditch-digging, law, engineering, cooking or whatever, no matter how well studied, collides at last with the acid test: can one DO it? And that doing requires practice. 

Movie stuntmen who don't practice first get hurt. So do housewives. 

Safety is not really a popular subject. Because it is usually accompanied by "be careful" and "go slow," people can feel restraints are being put on them. But there is another approach: if one is really practiced, his skill and dexterity is such that he doesn't have to "be careful" or "go slow." Safe high speed of motion becomes possible only with practice. 

One's skill and dexterity must be brought up to match the speed of the age one lives in. And that is done with practice. 

One can train one's eyes, one's body, one's hands and feet until, with practice, they sort of "get to know." One no longer has to "think" to set up the stove or park the car: one just DOES it. In any activity, quite a bit of what passes for "talent" is really just practice.

Without working out each movement one makes to do something and then doing it over and over until one can get it done without even thinking about it and get it done with speed and accuracy, one can set the stage for accidents. 

Statistics tend to bear out that the least practiced have the most accidents. 

The same principle applies to crafts and professions which mainly use the mind. The lawyer who has not drill-drill-drilled on courtroom procedure may not have learned to shift his mental gears fast enough to counter new turns of a case and loses it. An undrilled new stockbroker could lose a fortune in minutes. A green salesman who has not rehearsed selling can starve for lack of sales. The right answer is to practice, practice and practice!

Sometimes one finds that what one has learned he cannot apply. If so, the faults lay with improper study or with the teacher or text. It is one thing to read the directions; it is sometimes another thing entirely to try to apply them. 

Now and then, when one is getting nowhere with practice, one has to throw the book away and start from scratch. The field of movie sound recording has been like that: if one followed what recordist texts there have been, one couldn't get a bird song to sound any better than foghorn - that is why you can't tell what the actors are saying in some movies. The good sound recordist had to work it all out for himself in order to do his job. But in the same field of the cinema there is a complete reverse of this: several texts on cine lighting are excellent: if followed exactly, one gets a beautiful scene. 

It is regrettable, particularly in a high-speed technical society, that not all activities are adequately covered with understandable texts. But that should not stop one. When good texts exist, value them and study them well. Where they don't assemble what data is available, study that and work the rest of it out. 

But theory and data blossom only when applied and applied with practice. 

One is at risk when those about one do not practice their skills until they can really DO them. There is a vast difference between "good enough" and professional skill and dexterity. The gap is bridged with practice. 

Get people to look, study, work it out and then do it. And when they have it right, get them to practice, practice, practice until they can do it like a pro. 

There is considerable joy in skill, dexterity and moving fast: it can only be done safely with practice. Trying to live in a high-speed world with a low-speed people is not very safe. 

The way to happiness

is best traveled with competent companions.