The Triumph Over The Mediocre Self

This book will address numerous concepts. Initially there will be questions which are designed to find out where you, the reader, may stand as far as happiness and a meaningful life are concerned. At the end of this book there will be the same questions to take again to find out how the materials in this book may have helped achieve the objectives stated in the end of each chapter. The book contains assignments for each chapter and has specific exercises to do in order to reach the objective of a meaningful life – the intention of this book. This book is a sort of manual for the art and the science of living. None of us is given a parental manual (wouldn’t it be great if we were!), so mistakes are bound to have been made during the process of our rearing. This book asks you specifically to think outside the box of the traditional concept of health and illness. For example, we easily accept that stress can make us sick, but we have difficulty embracing the idea that love, laughter and a balanced life can make us well. We are willing to ingest chemicals in the form of prescription drugs that are alien to our body, but we are skeptical that natural substances, primarily the right foods, can heal. [Raymond Francis, 2002]. Once we know that our body has an amazing capacity to heal, that knowledge can be enormously empowering. Illness can be defined as imbalanced living on three levels: physically, psychologically and spiritually. Historically, we have looked to physical and mental health as separate, but no longer; they are interconnected. Bear in mind that our system of health around the world is a disease treatment system, not a healthcare system. The fragmented approach to mental health has led us to look at health in a compartmentalized manner rather than as the margin of totality (body, mind, emotion and spirit). To be happy is considered one of the most difficult skills that we have to learn in our lives. Unfortunately, the majority of us do not understand what happiness means, let alone spend time to work on its achievement. We may spend all of our lives searching for it through money, personal achievement, or other means, but not targeting the real direction of happiness. Happiness draws on both the world of science and the world of philosophy. One of the prerequisites of happiness is to have insight of your own condition as a person living in this world, and of what is happening inside of you psychologically. Once you know that, then you may move to learn the skills of being happy. The self is a very complex unit. Each of us has different personalities, traits, abilities and preferences, and sometimes we do not understand what is going on inside of us. Thus, self-concept theory is good foundational knowledge on the importance of our perceptions toward our personal existence. The concept is an old one; Rene Descartes proposed that a person’s existence depends on how the person perceives him/herself. We can create magic and access the place of inner peace by quieting our thoughts, and focusing on what is right in front of us. Undoubtedly, it takes practice and diligent training to control our sly minds. We also need to be aware of the inner chatter that our mind keeps running, like a monkey jumping from one idea to another, from one thought to another, with no stopping. Even when we sleep, our mind does not stop; thus we wake up tired and exhausted. Therefore, in order to derive some joy in our lives, we have to train our minds to be in the present.