Other than ourselves, we don’t have control over much else in this life. At times, we probably struggle to control ourselves as well. How many of you can say that you are in full control of your emotions and actions one-hundred percent of the time? Did you ever regret behaving in a certain way or saying something to someone that you wish you didn’t say? Do you ever keep doing the same thing over and over again even though you know that you’ll feel bad afterward? This type of pain or grief is self-induced.
It’s not easy to be happy and peaceful one-hundred percent of the time, but I believe we can increase that percentage simply by keeping our own behaviors and actions in check. I heard someone say many years ago, “if you want to feel good, don’t do things that make you feel bad”. I can’t say it any plainer than that. Instead of focusing on aspects of our lives that we cannot change, why not put that time and effort into changing what we can…ourselves. There are even parts of ourselves that we can’t change such as many physical attributes and our genes. And, as hard as we try, we will probably not be able to change everything about our personalities, behaviors and feelings. But we can definitely make significant improvements.
I believe we were shaped by the environment in which we grew up and our genes. We cannot change either one of those but we can change the person we have become emotionally and spiritually into a different person, a better person, if we choose. Many of the posts on this site deal with accepting life’s challenges that may typically cause suffering or pain. Here we are working with suffering created by our own actions and feelings. Having a good self-esteem plays an important role in our happiness and peace. We can immediately begin to feel better about ourselves by not doing those things that make us feel bad. So think about your behaviors and actions that you don’t like and try to change them. If doing something makes you feel bad, don’t do it. This may not be as easy as it sounds. It may take more time than you had hoped. You may also make the behavioral correction and have a set-back where you again do whatever it is that you do, that makes you feel bad. Try not to be discouraged, none of us is perfect. Life isn’t always all or nothing, get yourself back on track and keep trying.
Some behaviors may not be easily fixable and change may come more as a result of years of spiritual practice or professional psychotherapy. From my experience, changing certain behaviors requires diligence, extreme effort and patience. There was no magic answer. There wasn’t anything anyone else could do for me. I had to be sick and tired of a behavior and I had to be the one to modify that behavior, to stop doing the thing that made me feel bad.
We can certainly help our own cause on the road to happiness by simply not doing things that make us feel bad. If behaving in some way makes us feel bad, then that should tell us that we are probably doing something wrong. Happiness will naturally develop as a result of right-living.
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