Your Self Improvement Blog

A couple of years ago, one the first day one of my Personal Development Workshops, I pointed out that, generally speaking, when you ask someone how they’re doing, the answer that you’ll get will be “not too bad”! The second morning of the workshop, one of the guys told us that, on his way in, he’d been listening to the radio. Half a dozen people had ‘phoned in for a quiz and, in each case, when the host asked the caller how they were this morning, the answer he got was “not too bad” – each and every one! And although I assumed that this type of down-in-the-mouth response was typically Irish – but I since found out that it’s universal. The French will tell you that they’re ‘pas mal’, the British reply in much the same way. And even my American clients tell me that, when they reply that they’re great, they’re really trying to convince themselves!

Even a quick scan at seventy years of research in psychology will tell you that not too bad is about as good as it gets! Ordinary people, to quote the celebrated mystic Tony deMello, sleepwalk their way through life without realizing that, in order to embrace life to the full, all they’ve got to do is wake up! Sadly, the average mind goes through life on auto-pilot – the research confirms that, using our psychological faculty of automaticity, we pay almost no attention to anything that’s going on. And, in not paying attention to our day as it unfolds, we completely miss the possibilities of life that are right in front of our noses.

So wake up – if you’re feeling not so bad reading this, then that’s not good enough! Why would you go through life in a comfort zone that has you, in fact, not uncomfortable enough for you to do pull yourself together and change your life? Do you have to experience a catastrophe or crisis to wake up? The evidence suggests that this might be so. The personal development guru, Ekhart Tolle, had to endure something like a total breakdown, had to end up living on a park bench, before it dawned on him that he needed to wake up!

Don’t sink so low. And don’t yourself down. Don’t let life pass you by while you’re moaning about not liking your job, while you get hassled over money, while you get hyper over the trials and tribulations of what you think is your life. Things are how they are because you’ve made things that way. And only you can change your life – you can transform it. All you have to do is wake up.

So, what does this waking up involve? Pay attention to, focus on reality, not the stuff that’s going through your head and making your existence mundane, routine and a disappointment. Open your eyes, see the reality staring you in the face. Come to your senses, smell the roses. God gave you five senses – isn’t it about time that you used them?

Popularity: 8% [?]