Corrective Measures

Idle Thinking – About Idle Thinking.
Idle Conversation & Gossip – Ideas to help you avoid these undesirable problems.
I Am Not A Fool, I Am Not Stupid – About Personal Negative Abuse and how to beat it..
Temperament. Anger – Ways to beat the bad temper problem that many of us have.
Change Your Environment – Change your surroundings for peace of mind.
Controlling Arrogance – How to deflate an inflated person.
Self Discouraged – How your regrets work in your favour.
Break Bad Habits For The Fun Of It – Go ahead – make a change for the better.
Mistakes – How mistakes are a great advantage to us as we go through life.
Negative Simple Pleasures – And how they keep us away from the real pleasures in life.
A Guaranteed Way To Help People – About helping people in a positive, productive manner.

Idle Thinking

This was once a big problem for me when I had not much to do. I found that my thoughts would wander. Years ago I never thought of this as a problem, but in recent years I noticed that the content of my idle thoughts were just not worth listening to or thinking about. Sometimes I would just rave on in my head about pure nonsense or negative things, like bad thoughts. Sometimes I would wonder what I was thinking about and why I would possibly waste my time on wistless thoughts.

Example: Sitting in the sun on a hot Summers day with nothing to do I had miscellaneous thoughts, most of these thoughts were bad thoughts. I mean bad thoughts such as not thinking well of other people, or not thinking well of myself, or things that I have to do or have previously done. Then I started to worry about some of my debt’s and I was thinking about them in a very negative way.

A simple way to deal with this problem would be to get up and do something constructive like:

Mow the lawn
Do some gardening
Visit a positive thinking friend
Make a cake
Read a book
Write a poem
Say a prayer

Obviously idle thoughts can set a person in a bad mood or make a person feel negative, so obviously we should not let idle thoughts take over our thinking even for a little while. The easiest way to remove idle thoughts is to think about something else. But sometimes we may actually be enjoying the idle thoughts even though we know that we shouldn’t be thinking like that.

Example: You may be happily married but one day you notice a good looking person of the opposite sex walking by and you look and wonder… If one is to let those thoughts take on their own life one would be considering an affair etc.

The repercussions of the above example are not good, so we should obviously not think of other people in this way. To do this we can find some subject that has been on our mind and bring it up while looking the other way. You can also write down a list of things that are important to you and find a subject that you need to think more about and when these (sometimes tempting) idle thoughts come about you can blank them out with the new subject. With practice you can tear away these bad thoughts with ease. But first you need a “will” to remove bad thoughts in the first place.

Idle Conversation and Gossip

When we are in other peoples company we sometimes try to impress them with what we know. Impressing people should never be a goal in anybody’s life, it is on the same level as bragging and if you have been in the company of loud braggers like I have you will know the feeling they give you – it is not pleasant. Our goal when in conversation should be to enjoy the other persons company and listen (at least) as much as we talk.

When you are in someone else’s company no matter who they are you may discover that idle conversation comes up. Idle conversation is much like idle thinking, idle conversation isn’t really about much and it can easily lead to gossip. Gossip of any sort is not going to do anyone any good at all. Talking about other people can be a rewarding experience as long as you are complimenting the missing person, or are discussing an event that the missing person was a part of and you want to know the history of the occasion. Saying bad things about the missing person does not help anybody, especially since most people who discuss other people in gossip never say anything of the sort to their face. And remember “what goes around, comes around”. If you prefer other people not to talk about you behind your back then please don’t talk about other people negatively behind their back.

You may be popular amongst gossipers if you join in with some juicy details but people will respect you more if you don’t say anything in gossip.

The secret is to turn the conversation around to something more enjoyable when idle conversation comes about. Once this is done then the other person will ‘take a bite’ at the new subject and better things are to be had from that moment. Always be on the lookout for negative idle conversation where you are concerned and train yourself to not create it.

If long silences happen during a visit with a friend try not to create idle talk with them for the sake of talking, consider leaving and coming back that afternoon or on another day. You could also ask the person a constructive question like:

How are the children?
Can I see your flower garden?
Can I please see your latest painting?

And then (hopefully) a more meaningful conversation will appear for the duration of your visit.

Now we come to that pastime that has worn away many creative hours with its listless pleasure. We would have all had to sit in on a gossip session at sometime during our life. We sit, we watch, we listen, the people that are talking have that secretive, and sometimes sneaky look in their delighted restless eyes. People seem to come alive with total ecstasy when they have a chance to show their importance by telling stories about other people.

My advice here is for you to avoid this situation at all costs. Gossip never did anyone good and many people who have trusted people have been hurt by idle gossipers and their ever-lashing snake-like tongues.

A game that I like to play when people gossip is changing the subject to something different and watching the gossipers reactions. Some look befuddled, some look disappointed that their big moment is lost – the reactions are interesting to say the least. I try to change the subject to a major event or some big news event that happened recently, all the time trying to aim for something positive. I admit that this is a bit cheeky but it can work to diffuse the gossipers circle. Because the gossiper knows how I will react tp their gossip they refuse to gossip around me.

When you enter a group conversation try to add something positive, maybe some information that the general public is interested in. At all times try to be an interesting talker and a generous listener.

I Am Not A Fool – I Am Not Stupid

When we do something foolish or what we call stupid, we tend to mentally call ourselves “stupid” or “foolish” or even other demeaning names. We need to get our facts right or we hurt our self-confidence badly and possibly even permanently. We should never brand ourselves in this negative manner. Your mind and your life are much too important for them to be ruined or abused in this way and especially on a permanent basis. Take my word for it, you are not a fool. This is Personal Negative Abuse (PNA).

When we do a foolish thing we need to realise that we have done a foolish ‘thing’ and are not a personally permanently foolish (or stupid) person because we made “a mistake”. So we shouldn’t call ourselves negative self-abusive names, and we should never let other people call us these names because all people make mistakes, it’s a part of life. If you catch yourself saying to yourself in your mind or out loud that you are foolish then backtrack your thoughts immediately and restate what really happened. Say “That was a foolish thing to do” or “That was a silly thing to do”, try not to use the word stupid because it is so soul-destroying. We must avoid Personal Negative Abuse (PNA) throughout our lives.

By doing this you tell yourself that it was a single incident and not a permanent problem for you. A single incident is a moment in time when a person went off track, did a foolish thing and now is getting on with life. Nobody on this Earth who has their mental well being in order is an idiot, fool, twit or stupid, this I can guarantee. I know that you are not foolish or stupid, but you must make sure that you are treating yourself in the correct manner so that you can mentally approach each day knowing that it will be a new experience and not approach each day thinking that you are an idiot – this would be destroying your current day before it is even started! This PNA sets you up for being abused by other people as some people take advantage of people who have a low opinion of themself.

Start each day afresh and consider yourself new to this particular day, your thoughts are new and this is a new day and there will be new oppurunities. Say positive things to yourself and if you live in a negative environment avoid those who may say negative things to you. Say to yourself “All things become new today.” A new day is a fresh start, look forward for a good completion of the day. And remember during the day you do many things right. If you do something that you think is foolish then consider it as single event in a day of good happenings. Live to be happy and be satisfied in your new attempts to have a successful day.

Many children who are brought up being called a fool or idiot (and the like) often abuse themselves verbally (after they have reached adulthood) when they do something wrong because they are recycling their parents or other relations negative comments. Some adults may even hit themselves physically in frustration when they do something wrong because their parents hit them (like across the head) when they were frustrated. This appears to be part of human nature to copy what others negatively did to us. Remember most children, even if they are tormented by their parents still believe that their parents were right in the way that they treated them, this may be conscious or subconscious with the child.

I believe many adults are suffering from this problem and the sooner it is corrected the better for them. We have the same brain capacity when we are born, it is our life’s experiences that can change our ability to deal with ourselves. Be good and kind to yourself, you deserve it simply because you were born as a human being and are equal to all other humans. Don’t let yourself and those that love you down.

Temperament – Anger

Every person is stacked with emotions which are used to help us deal with life. If our emotions are not used in the manner that they were designed for we get out of control. It is like using oil, if we use a very thin oil in a car the motor could seize. Obviously we cannot drive anywhere in our car if this happens. But if we use the correct oil for what it was made for then we will have no trouble.

Our emotions are a lot like that. Anger is one of the most misused emotions. To prove the point I will mention what often happens when some people stub (bangs or bashes) a toe against a hard object. Many people will curse or use bad language and possibly yell at the person who (may or may not have) put the object there as if they intended on the angry wounded person stubbing their toe. The correct action would be for the person to hop over to a chair and sit down and rub their toe, then make enquires about how the object got there without losing their temper and have a genuine concern for others who may stub their toes on the same object.

Please note that maturity means control of ones emotions.

Many of us learned how not to control our emotions from our parents who in turn learned from their parents or relatives and so on. It is often hard to break “family traditions” whether they are good or bad. In many families we had a parent that spent most of his or her time with us and that is normally the parent that causes all this confusion. I am not asking you to ‘have a go’ at that parent or anything like that. Whatever mistakes your parents made in the past are part of the past, but we would do well to remember these mistakes so that we don’t make the same mistakes with our own children. These memories should not be forgotten but they should be put aside and stacked away in our memory banks – please don’t bring them up often as they will only make you feel miserable.

Anger can be used when a person is in need of courage. When a person has used all means to try to do something anger can come into play. But one time when anger seems to be useful is when a person needs to gather courage to fight in situations like a parent trying to defend his or her young ones, although keeping calm is always considered a good thing to do. When a person gets angry they tend to lose their thinking ability, or at least the ability to think calmly.

Some people have reported that anger is helpful when they need physical strength. An example is if a fathers child is stuck under a tree, the father may get angry at the situation (or the tree) and his anger will help give him strength to lift the tree, or any large object in fact, and free the child. History has many records of such displays of amazing human strength when the mind, body and emotions get all fired up for action. I have used this method when trying to undo a bolt that is jammed. I first get frustrated and then I feel myself getting angry, so I take a deep breath and even though I can feel the anger boiling up inside of me I calmly take a hold of the spanner and let the anger (controlled anger) build up strength inside me and then I heave and more often than not the bolt comes loose. But if I hadn’t have had that extra strength I wouldn’t have been able to loosen the bolt. So in situations such as this anger can actually be useful. But it also must be carefully controlled by a stable mind.

Today anger is used in situations where it does not need to be used. Anger often leads to violence towards ones loves ones. This is a true misuse of anger. To be slow to become angry is a good thing. We need to gain control of our anger and use it only when we need to use it, which you will notice is hardly ever. Think about it. When was the last time you really needed to get angry at anyone? In many cases you probably needed to get angry once in a while or maybe a few times in your lifetime. Some people have actually lived most of their lives without getting angry. Part of anger control is realising where anger should be used and not to use it when other emotions should be used.

A great mistake often seen is that people get frustrated and then get angry and a result of that frustration. This is alright in situations when we need to lift huge objects or rescue somebody but not during a frustrating moment in our day.

So how can we deal with anger itself? You may or may not realise it but we all get some kind of warning before we lose our temper. It may be a feeling or a sudden build-up of feelings. It may be a physical tenseness which comes over us like a dark cloud ready to spur us on to do wrong. It could be a physical feeling mixed with tenseness that build up together until the person explodes, or the build-up is so fast that the explosion is almost instantaneous.

You will need to use all your senses to find out what the trigger, or triggers are, before you lose your temper. Look for anything that happens everytime you lose your temper. You must also be in total control of your mind before you attempt to find that trigger. Obviously if you are “on drugs” or are “drunk” then you will not be able to get a clear-headed clue to what the trigger is. If you always take drugs or drink alcohol before you lose your temper then the answer is plain and clear, you have to give up the drugs and alcohol permanently and learn to accept the other joys of life, the healthy ones. Healthy for you, healthy for your family and friends. You will live longer and your life will be happier.

I have noticed that other people around us like family members or friends can also notice when we are about to lose our temper. You can consider talking to these people and asking them to help you deal with this problem. If you have always (so it seems) lost your temper, keep it in mind that it is not your fault, you were most likely taught unconsciously from somebody else, but you are sadly left with the job of dealing with the problem.

Also you could try looking at the things that set you off. Do you get angry because something is not the way you want it? Does this happen often? If so, then you could try to control your emotions when you see this situation arising again. Try to change the situation into a positive situation. An example is if you ask somebody to do something and they didn’t do it and you lost your temper, you ask again and then the second time you lose your temper because it still wasn’t done. Before this happens walk away and tell yourself that if it happens a third time you will force yourself to treat the situation differently, instead of losing your temper which will do nobody any good at all. Try to joke about it or smile and ask politely why it wasn’t done. Create a positive anchorism for the event. Do this often and you should never lose your temper. Learn to stop yourself losing your temper anytime.

Also we can try to see things as they really are and you may not get so angry in the future. If a person gets angry at the family dog often, he or she could try to realise that a dog is not as intelligent as you. Neither are any of the animals on this planet. If you get angry at your children, realise that children have yet to learn the ways of adulthood and that sometimes they do not easily understand what we want from them. We may confuse the child’s thinking, and the child is too scared to tell us so because the child knows that we will get angry and possibly yell at him or her. Always be ready to treat those who don’t know as much as you with kindness and gracefulness. If you get angry at a person often enough that person will try to avoid you and you may even scare that person so much that they will tell you anything to avoid your anger. Also you will make that person nervous which will cause that person to make mistakes and then give you more “reasons” to be angry.

Frustration is a warning system that we have that is useful for telling us that something is getting to us mentally. This feeling is a warning to ‘step back’, take a deep breath, possibly count to ten and then relax. Frustration is a warning system that is supposed to be used to let us know when things are getting out of hand for us and it is time to relax, not get angry. The feeling of rising frustration will stop you getting angry if you know how to use it.

Learn to use frustration that way and you will find that life will be so much easier and happier. We have learnt to dislike the feeling of frustration, but really we should welcome this feeling as it will save us pain and embarrassment if we listen to the warning that frustration gives us.

It is also important to remember not to lose your temper if you have a serious temperament problem. In the above example the person lost their temper twice, you should be able to only lose your temper once or catch yourself before you lose your temper the first time. Keep at it, anyone can do this and succeed. You can pray for strength to help get you over this problem. Nobody is born violent and you are not naturally violent. If you get angry it could be for many reasons, maybe you were frustrated as a child and you have found a way to release this anger as an adult. Maybe you had a bad tempered parent or parents as your only real role model’s. Whether you know why or not, the point is that you are not a cursed person who was put on Earth to make other people unhappy including yourself. You are still that special little baby that was born many years ago as an innocent first-class human being.

Don’t ever let anyone try to take away your decency of mind or the innocence of life from you. No matter what mistakes you have made and no matter what you have done, as long as you are alive you have the chance to make amends and prove that you have the courage to change and be a worthwhile individual. Keep at it, I am on your side and so is God. With God on your side you cannot fail just as long as you keep at it and never stop trying.

Change Your Environment

What we view with our eyes on a daily basis can really make a difference on how we behave or enjoy our day. If our working and home environments are dark and gloomy then we tend to feel that way when we are there. What we need here is to boost up the happiness, and as some people put it “brighten up our day”. We need to make changes, changes for the better. Keep in mind that any positive changes that you make will also benefit your work mates, boss and family as an added bonus.

If you are not allowed to boost up your work environment you can always make mental changes because it is the way that you “see” your office or work place that makes a difference. You can tell yourself that those boring, drowsy buildings are the place that bring money into your home and that you need them at this time in your life to be happier. And always remember that a simple flower can make a big difference in a gloomy workplace.

Be prepared to go against the flow a bit to improve your working environment or home. And don’t be surprised if you dazzle a few people with the new attitude that you may have, if people are used to you being a bit gloomy just ignore it and any comments that they may make that are negative, in time they will get used to the idea and more than likely join in and help you.

We people like to see and have change around us all the time and the reason for this is that we thrive on challenges, many people don’t know this or understand this but it is true. This is why we are so grumpy and miserable when our life seems to be “just standing still”. Do you know somebody who is always unhappy, grumpy and complaining and who appears to be accepting few challengers in their life? I have met many people like this and it is sad to watch them waste away their lives because they are afraid to take on new passion for change and new challenges for the fun of it.

Controlling Arrogance

All people can be considered equal. We all have faults. We all make mistakes. We all have controlling emotions like anger, love and kindness. We are all here on Earth to live out our lives in the best way that we can according to the lifestyles that we choose.

Some emotions try to take control of us sometimes. These emotions need to be controlled so that we stay on a stable mental level and can deal with life with a clear level head. When you loose your temper or lash out at somebody you are not in control of yourself, therefore your emotions have gained control for a period of time. Sometimes we get arrogant. We want to stop this happening or at least keep it to a bare minimum so that it is not really noticeable.

One emotion that harms us and everybody around us is arrogance. People need to realise that we are all equal and nobody is better than anyone else even if the world may think that they are. If you look back on your past you will remember all the silly things that you did, you can remember the bad things that you did and the things that you are ashamed of. You can use these memories to help you control arrogance. The moment you feel arrogance all you need to do is remember that you are not perfect and your personal history shows this, and that you will never be perfect because as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow you will make mistakes in the future. Perfect people do not make mistakes, but please do remember there are no perfect people.

I’ll let you in on a little secret that I use to stop me feeling arrogant. Yes I am ashamed to admit I have had that emotion, but I am not perfect and I am almost always the first to admit that. If I feel that all empowering feeling of arrogance building up within me from something that I have said or something that I have done I suck in some air, filling my lungs and as I slowly let the air out I imagine that I am being deflated. I do this because I want the arrogant feeling to be deflated and leave me.

With a bit of practice you would be amazed at how well this works.

Self Discouraged

If you have done something and you are discouraged with what you did, don’t be alarmed because at least you are disappointed with yourself. It is those people who are not disappointed with themselves when they do something wrong that have a serious problem, but not you. Being disappointed with yourself is normal, it is like having nerves that tell you when you have touched something hot. Being disappointed with yourself is the same, it is a warning to yourself that you have done something wrong and you regret it. This is good, just don’t let it blow you away into negative land.

I am sure that we have all met people in this world who certainly seem to have no regrets when they do something wrong. I for one am very pleased that I am not one of them, I believe that would be a very sad way to live and I am sure that you will agree. Those people never face what they do wrong and they would not have any true friends, I would imagine that very few people could ever love them and those few friends could never expect any love back for their efforts of true friendship. Even though my emotions may hurt me and I feel bad when I do something wrong I realise that to not feel bad is a terrible thing – so I am happy with the way my emotions show me what’s happening.

By seeing it the way that it really is then you can understand why you get these feelings and how to react to them. Be proud and happy that you have a conscience and that you feel down when you have failed your expectations of yourself or even when you feel that you have failed others. You can now try to work out ways to stop you doing the thing that made you feel this way. Be positive that you have a starting point and use it to move forward.

Even if you repeat the same mistake after reading what I have written here, the information still applies for as long as you are alive. Remember this, as long as you are alive and breathing there is always hope. So as long as you are alive you can continue to try to be a better person. Please don’t persecute yourself and torture your mind with worry and disappointment as it will only make matters worse for you and by doing this you will stop yourself finally reaching success. The shining light at the end of the tunnel cannot be seen if you create a wall of darkness and unhappiness around you because you have failed at something. You must be able to pick yourself up again and start walking forward with the full intent on winning over whatever it was that defeated you momentarily.

Positive thoughts of success are your friends, negative thoughts of regret, pain and agony are your true enemies. Like all people you make mistakes, accept that you are not perfect and work forward to correct the errors that creep into your mind, actions and life, and someday soon you will overcome them.

Break Bad Habits – For The Fun Of It!

We all have habits, many that we gained as children, such as walking, feeding ourselves, crawling, watching television, and the list goes on and on… I mentioned television because most children in western countries start watching television at a very young age, it is considered a good way to teach children and keep children occupied while the parents are busy.

To experience new things in our lives we could take away some of those old habits that are considered a normal part of our lives. We can exchange those habits for something else. The thrill of walking on a beach or walking through a forest, doing something exciting and new can have a big affect on the way that you see life. Television is a contant habit for many people, many people are addicted to television to the extent that they will take the phone off the hook or turn off the ringer so they are not interrupted while their favourite soap is on or not answer the door for the same reason. Many people make dinner at certain times so that they don’t miss their favourite television program. I have witnessed some people who refuse to go out because they don’t want to miss a television episode.

I once went to a friends fortieth birthday and we had a barbecue then a few drinks, the conversation was good and everyone was having fun, adults were talking (and laughing), children were playing, and then to my surprise the whole event was put aside so that everybody could rush inside the house to watch a soap on television. I was very disappointed and so were my two children Tracy and Rachel who were about 5 and 6 at the time. Imagine tossing aside an event for an hour or so, an event that only comes once in a persons lifetime, because “something” was on the tellie.

People put aside their happiness sometimes just because of habits, smoking is another example. Overeating, is a habit that destroys happiness and lives. Going out every Friday night with our friends is a habit that we do because all our friends do it, to break the habit is hard, we may have guilt or think that we are letting our friends down because we are not with them.

Over the years I have broken many habits and it was not easy all the time but it always brings good results. Give it ago, exchange one habit for something else – see what happens. Open a whole new world up for yourself. Life can be fun, life can be a joy. So get out there and enjoy it – you will never regret it!

Mistakes

All through our lives we make mistakes, this is really just education working for us. Mistakes are a part of living, animals make mistakes and people do as well. But people use mistakes to learn from in a much more detailed way. An animal can repeat mistakes over and over again, and some people can as well because they have not yet learned the educational value that mistakes teach them. We humans have the ability to log our mistakes in our memory to help us not repeat mistakes. Our ability to do this is much greater than what is available to animals.

Through our lives we are often taught that education can only come from a classroom at school, but this is not true. Life is an educational system on its own and many of the events we go through are teachings that we can learn from. In today’s society often when a person makes a mistake they are scorned for it or even laughed at after the misfortunate incident. This teaches us to regret mistakes and loath them when they appear. We feel very bad when we repeat mistakes and the teachings of other people lead us to believe that we have to be perfect and not make mistakes. But of course we know that everybody makes mistakes whether they like doing so or not.

When you goof up it is a lesson to learn from. If you do not learn the lesson then you more than likely will repeat the mistake, maybe even often. These repeats confirm to your brain that you are a failure and useless. This is also not true, but it looks that way to the person making the mistake. Sometimes people get frustrated with us when we make a mistake and abuse us for our failure, this is a mistake on their behalf. By having faith in ourself and God we can get over our mistakes and know them for what they are and then move on knowing that the mistake was just a mere lesson that life has taught us while we try to develop into a more mature person.

All people of all ages make mistakes, because we are all learning until the day we leave this world. This is the main reason why we need to view mistakes as educational tools and not a stressful intervention into our lives.

Negative Simple Pleasures

When life is hard and we have little money to afford the more luxurious pleasures in life, we humans tend to dote on the simple pleasures of life in order to satisfy our natural want for more in life. These Negative Simple Pleasures (NSP) don’t, and never will satisfy us. But when we think that we have nothing else, and nothing else (good or happy) looks to be coming in the future in the short term because our future looks so dismal we try to hold on to these negative simple pleasures even if they are morally wrong or bad for us. When life is hard humans try to hold onto anything, often people or things that are not worth holding onto.

An example of simple cheap negative pleasures that poor people tend to delve into are drinking excessive amounts of alcohol. Teenagers are included in this mainly because they often have less funds than adults so they try to get as much as a kick out of life for as small an amount of money as possible. Other Negative Simple Pleasures (NSP) could include drug and solvent abuse, so-called social parties (functions & events) normally held in some small suburban home or back yard, etc.

Those who have more money to spend tend to buying elaborate homes and sometimes more than one home, touring the world by ship or plane, buying clothes that are ‘in fashion’ or maybe they are just happy to work and build a business that they can be proud of. Those with more money often have more fun. The more money that they have the more options that they have available. Some people are just happy to be out of debt and live a quiet happy life in a suburban area, others like to own a farm and others prefer to enjoy the wonders of nature. Those with less money steer themselves towards the cheaper or free attractions.

This is not to say that all poor people are unhappy or abuse themselves with negative simple pleasures. It’s just that some do and these are the cases that we read so much about in the news or hear about on the radio and television.

Simple pleasures are normally cheap or absolutely free and to our way of thinking this is an advantage. The disadvantage is the long term affect that the negative simple pleasure may have on us mentally or physically. A good example of this is smoking cigarettes or marijuana. Today we have a false part of society which is accepting these forms of negative simple pleasures and tries to tell us that it is alright to do them. The reality, which has been proven often (but the results are often ignored), is that both of these negative simple pleasures are very bad for ones health – yet we ignore these statements for the small amount of pleasure that we get from these health risks.

Another example of negative simple pleasures is the praise a teenager will get from their friends for doing something that is obviously wrong morally or physically. But the praise is so important to a young person who is desperate for some sort of recognition in this world of masses of teenagers that they will sometimes go to great extents to gain the pleasures of praise. It may even look to the teenager that this type of praise is free but it is not because the teenager has to pay some sort of price to receive it. Sometimes the price is their life, sometimes their health, sometimes their pride and self worth and sometimes somebody else pays the price.

We will even go to great lengths to defend these negative simple pleasures because deep down inside we think that they are all that we have. We build a desperate feeling to try to create a list of good reasons for being active in these negative simple pleasures. The result is often an absolute conviction that we have built a convincing case for the negative simple pleasures that are harming us. Many of life’s simple pleasures are bad for us physically and mentally. If you do something that is moralistically wrong, even if you pretend to yourself and others that it is acceptable to do what you do, your innermost subconscious will feel the pain and deep down inside you will suffer. This feeling will affect your life. Your attitude will be affected by it and the way that you live.

If a negative simple pleasure has a hold on our life then we cannot either mentally or physically grow from it, because it is holding us back. This is mainly because we know, deep down inside, that we are being weak by participating in the simple pleasure. We need to build a defense against these harmful acts and use our natural common sense, logic, and our love for ourselves to push these negative simple pleasures aside so that we can then reach out for the more satisfying (long term) pleasures that life has to offer. Remember that you have the same strengths and abilities that other people have, all that is holding you back is you.

An example for Christians is that if they are involved in a negative simple pleasure that is considered moralistically wrong it would also be considered by Christians as ungodly. Obviously this would hold back the Christian persons spiritual growth. A Christian who is participating in an ungodly act will obviously not move forward in the faith. Their spiritual connection with God is distanced with ungodly acts so they shouldn’t be permitted for any reason. Being deeply spiritual in the faith should be a goal for a Christian because it brings them closer to God and that is the main reason for being a Christian. God cannot help you if you will not help yourself. There is no point in helping somebody who keeps doing negative things to undo the help that is being given to them from God.

In cases like this we need to be truthfully honest with ourselves and look deep into the things that we do that we know society disagrees with or that we know in our hearts is wrong. The way to do away with these negative simple pleasures that harm us is to replace them with something that will actually give us good positive results and build up our self esteem. We need to build up our belief in ourselves.

Christians can try to remember that their body is Gods temple and that all Christians should do all that they can do to look after their body. By praying to God and believing that the answer will come Christians will be led to a way to correct the problem. Faith is the key here along with patience and a will power to be a good decent Christian and a want to lead a good life.

If we remove from our lives the small negative pleasures that harm us then we can replace them with a will power to achieve the more exciting and fulfilling pleasures that the well-off have. My goal here is to tell you that the small negative pleasures can be replaced with a desire to do better with your life. Nobody was born perfect, but nobody was born a failure either. Perfection as a person is nearly unachievable (I believe that we can come very ‘close’ to being a perfect human being), but failure is very achievable. That is why we must ensure that we are always moving away from failure and as long as we are continuously making an effort to be better people then failure cannot get a solid grasp of our lives. If we give up then we are opening the door to failure, so lets keep that door closed. Lets try to be as close to perfection as we can.

Change Your Thrills

We people tend to have a few bad habits that are sometimes not respectfully or morally good. We get a big boost when we do these things and a feeling that could be called good, but obviously in many other ways is not good. You need to look deeply into your heart to know what is good and what is bad. Please try to be honest with yourself as this is the only way that you can learn to be a better person. Being honest with yourself will help you find the truth about yourself.

We can change these feelings from bad to good by readjusting our thoughts. If you have a habit that currently thrills you but you know that it is not a good thing to do then try to concentrate on those things that you know are good. By doing this you can exchange the thrilling feeling from one thing to another thing. This may not be easy at the start, but as time goes by and you tell yourself that the change is for the better for you then you will eventually win.

If you are a Mother or Father who has some bad habits that you get a thrill from you can learn to exchange those thrills towards your children’s lives. With lots of happy, loving, encouragement towards your children you can build up a deep love for all the activities that involve them. You can take them on camping trips or ride horses or motorbikes with them. Take them for a hike, ride with them on bicycles. Get the idea? You are transferring the past thrills for new more encouraging thrills and you are involving other people who will in turn bounce their appreciation of your love back to you.

If you are single consider changing your lifestyle in ways that will excite you and cause you to feel triumph. Do things that you have never done before. Let the world know that you are valuable and worth being with. You may have to change your friends but that’s alright because your gain will easily outweigh that small sacrifice.

Lets fill our lives with joy and fun. Being popular is fun so lets try to do that in a happy, honest, popular way. Look for ways that you can boost your life with the joy of living. Your present financial state does limit your fun to a degree, but it does not stop you having good old fashioned honest fun or a happy life.

A Guaranteed Way To Help People

There are many ways to help people change from a bad lifestyle to a good lifestyle. This should be one of the major goals of any government, to change those who, under the governments care, need help to change for the better of the nation and themselves. Many methods have been used with many different results, but there is one way that would have the best results for governments and all of the human race.

The human mind reacts to good feelings better than harsh treatment. Many people live in cold, unhealthy environments and others in warm healthy environments. Those in the cold unhealthy environments tend to be in a worse mental state than those in the warm healthy environment. Also attitudes appear to be very different. It has often been said that “A pat on the head will encourage anybody. But a beating will not encourage anyone.” Mostly the result of a beating is not a lesson learned. It is more than likely that anger, resentment and bad feelings will result and often a will to ‘get back’ at the person who caused the beating is the main result.

The above paragraph was written to give you an idea about two different ways to get results. One the harsh way – force. The other, the encouraging way – kindness. If you want to change a persons lifestyle to help that person, the best way to do this is to encourage them to change. Nobody will change from being a criminal to a good citizen unless they can truly understand the full benefits. If all a criminal knows is a bad lifestyle then its up to the rest of this world to show them a better lifestyle, one that can lead them to being happy.

To help people we need to have a great love for all people, no matter what lifestyle they lead and no matter who they are, or what they have done during their life. We need to see that all the peoples of the world are one. In a controlled environment we should be able to change many hardened criminals lifestyles using these techniques. People only know what they know is real, and in many cases ‘what they know’ is not what is real to the rest of the world or is not “real” at all. If a person grows up in a particular lifestyle then they will in turn believe that this lifestyle is the way to be. We need to help those people change with the utmost love and tolerance. The end result needs to clearly be in our minds before we take on the job of changing a persons belief in themself and lifestyle. Lots of care is obviously needed and being an understanding person will help for the better of all involved.

People also react to different treatment in different ways and for each individual it can take different amounts of time to change from one lifestyle to another or from one belief system to another. We all have different development rates of change. We must be quietly persistent and patient as we gently guide a person to a way of life that is foreign to them, a lifestyle that is at first strange to them, something that they didn’t, don’t or have never really understood. To change a person you need to give them a new understanding, while at the same time give them a new belief in themself. You need to create a ‘will’ in the other persons heart to change, so that the other person will want to voluntarily take the required steps to move forward in personal development. You also need to have a belief in the human race to get the required results, a negative feeling towards people will only harm the situation and the person that you are wanting to help will ‘feel’ your attitude toward people and will react accordingly.