Winners vs Whiners

It started out as a windy, rainy day. A tropical wave was moving through our area of the planet. It seemed like a planned beach barbeque was going to be washed out. By noon, it had cleared up. The barbeque went forward as planned. I am glad it did. I was introduced to a young man who inspired this article.

He was the epitome of 'young and earnest'; so full of questions and so eager for knowledge. We sat on the beach and talked for a couple of hours. I was impressed by how well read and how thoughtful he was. I was even more impressed by his desire to achieve something important with his life. He had somehow decided that I could provide him with some answers.

He kept at me, narrowing down his questions, forcing me to hone down my responses until he finally said, "What I want to know is... How can I create a happy, fulfilling and successful life?"

"That's all?" I asked with a smile. I suppose, at 19, it doesn't occur to you that is the same question most of us have asked at some point in our lives, perhaps repeatedly. I summarize below what I told him.

First of all, I said, you should know that what I have to say is only my opinion and you are going to have to decide for yourself what is true for you and discover for yourself what works for you. You can gain hints and clues, maybe even wisdom from others (maybe even from me); but ultimately, your life and its meaning, its purpose and its direction is up to you to define.

I believe it all comes down to the choices we make every day in each moment. The results that show up in our lives are determined by our personal choices about how to think, feel and believe. Sure, the individual circumstances we are born into have an influence. So does the education we receive from parents, schools and our culture; but the bottom line is we control the way our lives turn out by the choices we make.

Happiness is both the easiest and the most difficult thing to achieve. It is easiest because you do not actually need to have anything, do anything or become anything in order to be happy. You can simply decide to be happy no matter what is going on around you in life. It is hardest, because the world conspires to tell you that you cannot be happy unless you have certain things or do certain things or be a certain way. You have been trained to believe that your happiness is dependent upon your behavior or your attainment or your possessions. Stop buying into that crap. Simply choose to feel happy and you can be happy. Happiness, like Creator, can be found in your heart at any time you care to look.

Fulfillment is achieved when you are living your life according to a self-assigned purpose. You will feel fulfilled, no matter what you have or what is going on, when you are living on purpose. You will feel unfulfilled when you either have no identifiable purpose or when you are living your life according to a purpose that is not 'your own' or you are living your life in such a way as to be at odds with your purpose. The best way to create a fulfilling life is to discover and define what the purpose of your life is (free from the dictums or memes of society) and then to live each moment of each day on purpose or 'on your own path'.

Success is achieved when the results that show up in your life are in harmony with your ideals, whatever they may be. Since our choices of thought, belief, emotion and action create the results that show up, it is critically important to be able to get to a mental state where you can: first, become the observer of your thoughts, beliefs, emotions and actions rather than simply be caught up in the experience of having certain thoughts, beliefs, feelings and actions; and then, to learn to take conscious control of your thoughts, beliefs, emotions and actions. (There exists a technology of success and I have written much about it, so I will not elaborate on it here.)

Finally, the attitude that each person chooses is a big part of being happy, fulfilled and successful. It really is a matter of choosing to see the glass as half-empty or half-full. Whiners see the glass as half-empty; winners see the glass as half-full. Choosing to adopt an at