Why Your Life Sucks: And What You Can Do About It - Softcover

Cohen, Alan

 
9780553383621: Why Your Life Sucks: And What You Can Do About It
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0553383620 ISBN 13: 9780553383621
Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

The in-your-face, no-hype guide to getting happy…

Your life sucks if…
• You routinely make someone or something more important than you
• The life you are living on the outside doesn’t match who you are on the inside
• You say yes when you mean no
• You try to fix other people
• You’ve forgotten to enjoy the ride

When your life sucks, it’s a wake-up call. Now self-help guru and bestselling author Alan Cohen invites you to answer that call, change your course, and enjoy the life you were meant to live. In ten compelling chapters, Cohen shows you how to stop wasting your energy on people and things that deaden you–and use it for things you love.

With great humor, great examples, and exhilarating directness, Why Your Life Sucks doesn’t just spell out the ways in which you undermine your power, purpose, and creativity–it shows you how to reverse the damage. Here is an encouraging but loud-and-clear reminder that in every moment we generate our own experience by the choices we make, and that today is the best day to begin your new life.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Alan H. Cohen is the author of 18 popular inspirational titles, including The Dragon Doesn't Lives Here Anymore and Dare to be Yourself. A frequent guest on television and radio, he conducts life mastery seminars in Hawaii and on-line, and is an acclaimed keynote speaker for educational, health, church, and corporate groups. He lives on Maui, Hawaii. Visit www.alancohen.com to learn more.

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You Give Your Power Away

Before baseball star Mickey Mantle died, he faced and came to terms with his lifelong alcoholism. As he was withering of liver disease, Mickey held a press conference at the Betty Ford Center. A reporter asked him, "How would you like people to remember Mickey Mantle?" Pale and gaunt, still sporting his Yankee cap, he replied, "I would like them to think that I finally made something of myself." I was shocked. One of the most loved and celebrated sports heroes of all time--my hero--did not respect himself until he took back the power he had given to his addiction.

A few months later, Mickey Mantle died. Soon afterward I saw a touching newspaper cartoon showing Mickey meeting God, depicted as a person. As the two ambled down a long road in heaven, God placed his arm around Mickey's shoulder. Mickey turned to God and wistfully remarked, "I can't believe all the errors I made." God turned to Mickey and answered, "But you gave them a ninth inning they'll never forget."

We have all given our power away to something--many things--and our lives have sucked for it. We have bestowed undue power to lovers, money, bosses, addictive substances, fame, dream homes, religious dogma, parents, children, doctors, lawyers, agents, therapists, psychics, teachers, policemen, politicians, sports heroes, movie stars, gorgeous men and women, business moguls, the news, and occult sciences. The list goes on; you can add more of your own.

You give your power away when you make someone or something outside of you more important than what is inside of you.

If you do not value who and what you are, you will seek to borrow worth from the outer world. You will look for validation from people whom you believe know or have more than you. But since everything you need is inside you and no one can know more about your path and purpose than you do, any power you ascribe to external authorities must eventually explode in your face and leave you feeling worse than when you started. The question is not, "Have you given your power away?" The question is, "How can you get it back?"

Unsucking your life is an inside job. You do not need to import power, for you were born with it; you just need to plug the holes in your bucket through which it is leaking. The quest is about peeling away the lies and illusions you have been told--and went on to tell yourself--that have kept you living smaller than you deserve. When you do, you will be amazed to realize how much you have settled for. Then you will have little patience for halfhearted living and reclaim your right to live from choice rather than default.

Any experience that leaves you feeling empty, less-than, or needy does so for only one reason: You
entered into it feeling empty, less-than, or needy. The illusion is that relationships will take away the pain that keeps you feeling small; the reality is that relationships magnify the pain that keeps you feeling small. And yet there is a gift in the process: You remember that the source of your strength is inside you.

Perhaps the final lines of Woody Allen's classic movie Annie Hall sum up how we stay trapped in painful situations: A man says to a psychiatrist, "My wife thinks she's a chicken and she's driving me crazy!" The psychiatrist asks him, "So why don't you leave her?" The man answers, "I can't--I need the eggs."

You don't need the eggs anymore. They are rotten, taste horrible, and don't nourish you. When you elevate others at your expense, nobody wins. When you source your life from inside out, everyone wins. As you strike gold in your own self, you will quit giving the people in your world a carbon copy of the terror that runs their lives, and give them a ninth inning--or a first, or a fifth--they'll never forget.


How You Give Your Power Away and What You Can Do

You Put People on a Pedestal

Former child movie star Shirley Temple Black discovered a flaw in the pedestal game at a young age. She recounts, "I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph." The savior she sought was also seeking a savior in her.

Idols always fall on those who worship them. The bigger the idol, the harder it crashes. If you think any person has the power, wealth, wisdom, beauty, talent, or strength to rescue you from your deficits, you set yourself up for trouble. Yes, there are people who can help, support, and teach you. No, there is no one out there who can save you. That is something you have to do yourself by recognizing you already own what you seek.

When you have a crush on someone, you will be crushed. That's why they call it a crush. You crush reality out of the other person by seeing them through the eyes of fantasy, while you crush your own self-worth. Face it: Crushes buy you a ticket to a wild emotional roller-coaster ride. For every giddy rush you experience, you will soon be plummeting. Mr. Right smiles at you and you are in heaven; the next day he looks the other way and you are in hell. And you call this a relationship? You wrap your soul in a little package, hand it to someone you don't even know, and instruct them, "Here, do with this as you wish."

Crushes stay in force only from a distance. It is easy to make a god out of a movie star, rock idol, sports hero, girl in the class above you, executive across the hall, someone else's spouse, or amorphous cyberspace fantasy lover. But if you spent time on a daily basis with your idol, you would discover they are a real person, just like you. You would find things you like about them and things you don't like. He compares you to his former lovers and picks his toenails at the kitchen table. She has morning breath and unresolved father issues. In a short time your fantasy lover crashes from Mount Olympus to Brooklyn. Ah, now you can have a real relationship, built from the earth up instead of heaven down. And along the way you will discover your own worth, intrinsic in you rather than bestowed by them.

If you indulge someone else putting you on a pedestal, be prepared for an insurrection. When they discover you are not who they thought you were or they cannot have you, out come the spears. It takes just a six-inch fall for a halo to become a noose. Rock star Selena was killed by the former president of her fan club. To avoid such an untimely demise, stand naked in your humanity and refuse to accept goo-goo-eyed adoration, which always comes with a price tag.

In the course of my work I have occasionally received letters from women who believe I am their soul mate. While I feel complimented, there is one problem in the equation: They don't really know me. They read my book or attended my seminar, and decided I am the one for them. (Yes, I have done the same kind of thing.) When this first happened, I didn't know how to handle their expression of affection and gave them ambiguous responses or none. But my nonplan backfired. Sooner or later I would receive an angry letter chastising me for letting them down and not being the person I claimed to be. But I never claimed to be that person. They claimed I was that person, and were upended by their lofty expectations. Then six months later I would receive another letter saying, "Please forgive me. I was insane." Now I am very careful not to put others on a pedestal or encourage anyone to do the same to me. I respond as one perfectly imperfect human being to another, which honors them along with me, and paves the way for true communication. Plato explained, "True friendship can occur only among equals."

Cults are an extreme example of giving power away to a spiritual...

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Verlag
Random House Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2005
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0553383620
ISBN 13 
9780553383621
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
224
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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