Most of us are weighed down by wishing things could be different in our lives. We feel sorry for ourselves that our lot in life is not as good as we would like it to be. Fortunately, we can work on our attitude to feel better off. How would you feel if you suddenly won the greatest lottery prize ever? You’re thinking of a colossal amount of money, right? Well, there is a greater lottery prize than that and it’s something you have already won: being born.
Although it’s a fact that you were born, appreciating been born is an attitude that we can choose to cultivate and remind ourselves of regularly. If you can develop this way of looking at your life, you should be able to feel extremely fortunate to have been born at all. This attitude should make it easier to feel that you have been handed a one-time opportunity to make as much of your life as you can. With this attitude, we can all start with the feeling that we really already have everything we need to be happy and that any other stuff we would like to be different is less important by comparison. If you can convince yourself that you are extremely lucky to have been born, that should help you to feel more positive regardless of anything else in your life.
So, we can compare being born with winning the greatest possible lottery prize. You can also tell yourself that every morning: “I have another day. I have won the lottery prize all over again.”
We can’t avoid feeling sorry for ourselves from time to time. The key is to catch ourselves at it and strive to avoid getting stuck there. You can also state today’s date when you get up in the morning and say to yourself: “Once this day is over it will be gone forever and I could miss the chance to enjoy it. Let’s see what I can do to make it a memorable, happy day.” And, at the end of the day, instead of dwelling on problems, you can review your day and pat yourself on the back for all the good things you did, however small.
It also helps to compare our lives to the greatest imaginable two-week holiday in some paradise location with someone we would love to be with. Imagine how thrilled you would be and how much you would enjoy the first week of your holiday-of-a-lifetime. But, suppose you start feeling sorry for yourself at the start of the second week as you realize that you only have a week left. So, why are you letting yourself get depressed that you only have a week left? You’re spoiling the second half of your holiday. This is a form of self-pollution. You can’t avoid noting that you only have a week left but you can remind yourself of how lucky you are to have this holiday and you can work at doing all you can to enjoy it right to the end. We need to do this with our lives too. When we notice that we’re feeling down, we can say to ourselves: “Why am I feeling sorry for myself when I have so many reasons to feel fortunate and so much living left to do?”
What's Most Precious to You?
The idea that you are incredibly fortunate to have been born ties in with the realization that there is nothing more precious to you than your own life. This is why we don’t want to die and why we would give up all our money if we thought it would save our lives. It is important to recognize how precious we are to ourselves and also to all those who love us. This is the basis of empathy, because the next step is to realize that the same is true for everyone else. All people are precious to themselves and to the people who love them. Putting ourselves in their shoes is what empathy is about. OK, so what does this have to do with our own happiness? Well, one of the things that we all want most of all is to be liked, accepted and loved. The best way of increasing our chances of being liked, accepted and loved is by being nice to other people. We make ourselves relatively less lovable by being mean or indifferent to others.
Realizing how precious everyone is to themselves and their loved ones and how much we all want the same thing is the fundamental reason for being nice to people. Also, you can’t be nice to others if you are often in a negative frame of mind yourself. We need to start by making ourselves as happy as we can be and then helping others feel as happy as they can be. One of the most enjoyable and rewarding things we can do is to help others feel more positive and happier. We get what we most want and give ourselves the best chance of being happy, therefore, by helping others get what they want: warmth, affection, kindness, liking, acceptance and love.
The point about often feeling too negative to show warmth and kindness to others underlines a deeper fact that we are often way too self-absorbed. We spend way too much time ruminating on our own problems, needs and desires and not near enough time thinking of others and what we can do for them. Ironically, being too self-absorbed, too me, me, me, is a sure recipe for long-term unhappiness because we will never obtain what is most important to us by dwelling too much on our own needs.
See also Be More Positive