Choosing Your Best LIfge Now draft May 2013

Questions for me:

How many convictions, how many habits can a reader remember?

Choices come out of convictions.

Choices result in habits, which build our character.

CHOICES:
Your BEST LIFE NOW 
Your future love and happiness! 
Choose your habits carefully! 
Foundations for a brilliant future

Foreword:

 Jesus answers the big questions Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What is the meaning and purpose of life? How can I determine what has value? How can I determine what is right and wrong? What is success? What is happiness?

Some definitions:

Success:
I believe success should be defined as the progress toward a good goal.

Happiness, though universally pursued, is little understood.  It is usually seen as a temporary feeling that things are going my way now. It is usually pursued as though our efforts can bring it, but experienced as a result of luck and random chance.

I believe, in most cases, happiness has several aspects.

When I am happy,…

I feel that I am important, loved, and valued. 

I'm free enough to make important choices

I have hope for better days ahead, 

I have some fulfilling work 

I have time for some fun now.
My health is good enough to give me freedom to enjoy life....

THE PESkY PARADOX

Success and happiness are wonderful, of course.  Success can lead to happiness.  However the road to success is paved with failures, small and large.  And happiness is rarely, perhaps never, achieved by seeking happiness.

Why is this?

Short-term success is often achieved by pursuing short-term goals.  A test score, a weight loss program. A successful performance. But, in the long term, happiness is actually achieved by pursuing other goals.

Have you ever tried really hard to remember an actor’s name? As long as you try to remember, it will never come to you, but if you can get your mind off the question, the name often pops into your head.  It is a silly example but happiness may be seen this way, too.  Only when we take our mind off seeking our happiness do we actually achieve it.

Intro:

What is success?
Steps to success

Set a goal, set priorities, be enthusiastic, work, work, work, never give up.
Convictions are ideas you hold to be true at a deep level in your heart.  You may never have put your convictions into words.  You may be surprised what your true convictions really are. Your actions reveal to all what your TRUE convictions are.  Your convictions determine your decisions and choices, which develop into habits, the sum of your habits is your character.
Habits

Chapter  1 

Why bother?

Life’s Basic Questions

Your convictions, choices, and habits are your way of answering these basic questions of life.  Even if you have never thought deeply about these questions in an explicit way, you are answering them each day.  I invite you now to begin to choose your best life now by thinking deeply about these questions.

What is my purpose? Every religion and philosophy attempts to answer this question.  Why are you alive? Are you an accident?  Eat, drink, and have fun? Get married and have more children who will not know their purpose? Do some work?

Where did I come from?
By now you know that you came from your parents. But thinking beyond that and outside of that, where did you come from?

Where am I going? I know where my grandparents went.  I can see their tombs. Is that it? Is that all?

Values: How can I know:

     What is right and wrong? Is there a right and wrong? Who says?  Does ti matter?  

     What is valuable and 

     What is worthless?
My time money and energy will be spent in one way or another.  My life will not last forever.  How should use, spend or save my time, energy, money? In the next chapter we will begin to answer this question.  It is all about love!
Chapter 2
It is all about love.
Love, the greatest thing in the world

You were born to love and be loved. This is the best thing a human can do.

There are of course, many kinds of love:
A mother’s love.
Love for country
The love of a lover

LOVE IS A WAY OF LIFE!

THERE IS NO BETTER WAY to spend our lives than in loving the people around us.  Love is a way of doing, more than a way of feeling.  We make choices about how to treat people and those choices become habits which become our character.  How brilliant it would be if our character were built from years of making choices and developing strong habits of LOVE!!!

But choosing to love is choosing the well-being or happiness of another as more important than our own happiness or well-being.

Another leg of the pesky paradox is that our greatest success and happiness come when begin to seek the success and happiness of another.

One conviction: It is not about me.

How great is love?

It is better than being instantly able to speak in a foreign language. It is better than being able to tell people all about the future, and all about God’s message.  Love is better than the power to tell a mountain to move over to the other side of the ocean.  And amazingly, love is even better than the pure unselfishness of a monk or saint who gives away everything and even sets himself on fire!


We already said that love it a way of acting and choosing.  What kind of choices? What kind of doing?

Love chooses patience and kindness, chooses NOT TO BE JEALOUS!,  Love chooses not to brag or be proud.  Love is not rude.  Not selfish, Does not get  angry easily.  Love does not keep track of things people do against it.  Love does not have fun doing things that are wrong!  Love is happy with speaking and seeking the truth.  Love bears up under suffering, keeps on trusting, stays strong in hope!

Love treats others like it would like to be treated!


STOP AND THINK!

What traits of love are easier for you?  Which are harder? Are there some you have not even thought of?
Can you choose two or three to think of this week and look for opportunities to show a specific aspect of love?
Do you think you want to be a person who exhibits the traits of love until they become habits and the foundation for your character? Why or why not?

Take Action:

Decide to live a life of love.

This choice will be the foundation for your life and for the discussion in the rest of this book.

Spiritual Health
 For a healthy heart and spirit, we must think deeply about unseen realities...your source and your destination. Where did you come from? Where are you going?  Does it really matter?

Japanese people often say that they do not have any religion, but this is actually a religious statement.  It means, My religion is ME.  At a deep level, I believe I AM GOD.  I work and play so hard that I have no time to think about God or about the after life.  I work hard at keeping harmony in my home, neighborhood, company or school.  However, even these relationships are often based on bullying and manipulation, and give little true satisfaction as a human relationship.  At important life events, I do the ceremonies at the temple or shrine, and even on Unlucky Years, I      

participate in the rituals and get the charms or the red presents or clothing.  Even though I am busy, exhausted, and  unfulfilled, I can still say I have no religion.  My heart stays empty or broken and when I suffer a shipwreck in my life, I do not know where to turn.  There is little understanding of  of forgiveness and soon I build up a long list of broken relationships and my life becomes more and more narrow.

3. Your mind-your treasure Build good habits now to last a lifetime.

Just like your body, your mind needs a balanced diet and regular exercise.

Unlike your body, which can throw off, out or up, stuff that will damage it, your mind tends to hold on to that stuff, especially images that are sexually perverted or too intense, violent images, etc.  You can decide now to choose wisely what kind of input you will allow into your precious mind.  Remember that it will not easily be gotten rid of.

How to take care of your the amazing gift: your mind.

Your mental diet:

A variety of good literature.

Classics.

News

History

Fiction

Nonfiction

Essays

  

A minimum of gossip, or light, or silly literature.

No pornography.

4. Purity: visioning your best marriage now.

Though marriage is losing popularity in pop culture, and losing its meaning in secular culture in general, it is still the optimum relationship for humans. To preserve a culture and a civilization, it is a basic unit of life structure and forms the foundation for the rearing of children and even the care of older adults in later life.

 your vow
your hopes and dreams 

5. Your physical health.
Food and exercise-you only get one body. foundations for a brilliant future
6. Time
Youth does not last forever no rewinds!
7. Good humor You can choose your attitude every day and create peace and kindness in your home, your school, your community, and your world!