Active Inquiry

What motivates us to do what we do?

9th November, 2016 - Posted by Gavin - 1 Comment

Today seems like a good day to share Dave’s blog post on the importance of Optimism:

I’ll start by acknowledging that this blog post is two weeks late. I had a commitment to deliver it by the 24th of October, and I didn’t. Whenever I gave the blog any thought, I allowed it to overwhelm me. First I “didn’t know what to write about” and then, when I did think of something, it occurred to me that anything I would write was going to sound preachy, whining or judgemental. Then, by chance, I came across a piece on “Optimism”, written by a man called Steve Mueller. At the time, I was pondering on the question, “How do people get through the day in the face of so much negativity in the world – wars, corruption, increases in xenophobia, homophobia, populism – never mind what is going on in their personal lives?”. What makes people even want to get out of bed day after day? Mr. Mueller’s piece gave me an insight, and made me realise that I already practise many, if not all of the points he describes in his article. I won’t go into any detail: I’ll leave that for you to follow up. However, I will summarise briefly his key points, and you can decide if any of it rings true in your life.
1. Happiness comes from within. We are responsible for our own happiness – it is nobody else’s job to make us happy.
2. Seek out like-minded people – who wants to be around people who drain their energy?
3. There is opportunity in every difficulty.
4. Do not seek the attention of others.
5. Don’t play the blame game.
6. Don’t complain: do something about it.
7. Be grateful for what we have.
8. Let things go.
9. Life is not easy: don’t expect it to be.

In short, make the best of things.

1 Comment

Gwen

November 10th, 2016 at 6:09 am    

Good timing after all, Dave! Helpful for this week and this year ahead..

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