Strive to Be Happy!: Awaken the Sleeper Within to Create a Happier Life

© 2007 by Frank Losik. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4343-1107-8 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7111-7 (ebook)

IstBooks-rev. 10/10/07

Table of Contents

The Basics

Happiness

Dreams

Perceptions

Learning

Life Force

Maturing

Tips On Types

On Being Unique!

Uniqueness

Orienting

Reality Check

Focus & Style

Operating

Cognition

Input-Output

Coding

Pros & Cons

Developing

Completing

Sixteen Types

Type Circle

References

Who Am I?

Type Game

What Do I Want?

Values

Goals Work Sheet

How Can I Get It?

Introduction

Inventory

Starting Point

Change

Roadblocks

False Assumptions

Mind-Brain

Trial & Error

Choosing

Empowerment

Risk Taking

Best Option

Action Plans

Doing It!

Renewal

Basic Reading List

Mutual Support

Introduction

Rules Of The Game

Independence

Responding

Three Gates

Relating

Gifting

Forgiving

Marriage

We Need To Talk!

Introduction

Communicating

Receiving

Sending

Let’s Talk!

Conflict

Resolving It!

Managing It!

Appendix A

Appendix B

Two Steps

Type Profiles

Estp Troubleshooter

Esfp Entertainer

Enfp Motivator

Entp Innovator

Estj Supervisor

Esfj Helper

Entj Manager

Enfj Facilitator

Istj Provider

Isfj Supporter

Infj Idealist

Intj Strategist

Isfp Artist

Istp Specialist

Infp Humanist

Intp Scientist

About The Author

Striving!

So long as I can see,

…I will keep Looking.

So long as I can walk,

…I will keep moving.

So long as I can Stand,

…I will keep Fighting.

—Anonymous—

Dedicated

to

Linda & Marianne

ON BEING HAPPY!

The fault is not in our stars, But in ourselves.

—Shakespeare, JULIUS CAESAR—

He only earns his freedom and existence, Who daily conquers them anew.

—Goethe, FAUST—

Introduction

The best way to begin the task of creating a Happy Life for yourself is to take a look at what it’s like to be a Human Being. That’s not as easy as it sounds. Our concept of humanity is clouded by many conflicting messages. Many people are bitter, disillusioned, and confused. They have developed negative attitudes toward life, and they pass their pessimistic messages on to everyone with whom they come in contact. Too often our traditional philosophies and religions are no antidote for this kind of thinking. They tend to reinforce the idea of the individual as being depraved, unworthy of love, and incapable of changing on his or her own.

The philosophical point of view that human beings are inherently valuable, lovable, and capable is a relatively new concept. It is the product of modern Western thought, nurtured by the rise of intellectual freedom, and the prosperity that came from the industrial revolution. Various modern thinkers have given us insights to help us understand our basic drives, as well as our motivations, goals, and the hierarchy of our personal and interpersonal needs. Each has focused on only a piece of the puzzle.

Our task is to take from each what is meaningful and to blend it with the insights of ancient wisdom to form a useful guide for living. In this book modern thinking is blended with ancient teachings to create the basis for just such a Practical Philosophy of Life. But, as we shall see, knowledge is not enough. We must also put our ideas into action. Only then can we create a Happy Life!

DESIDERATA

Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their stories.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as you plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many people strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy!

—Anonymous—

Found in a 17th century New England Church

My Gift

Most of us spend the first thirty-five years or so of our lives trying to establish ourselves in some sort of career and some sort of family situation. Lacking our own reservoir of personal experience, we have either bought into our parents’ values and beliefs without really being able to test them, or we have charted our course to oppose them for whatever reason. In either case, we tend to live our early lives, positively or negatively, under the unconscious control of our parents and early care-givers.

Fortunately, most of us experience an identity crisis somewhere around our thirty-fifth year on the planet. We seem to be driven to go back to complete a task that we began in adolescence. We want to become more aware of our individuality, to define our own values and beliefs, and to chart our course, consciously, for the rest of our lives.

Resolving our identity crisis requires that we withdraw ourselves, at least mentally, from the hustle and bustle of our daily lives. Our efforts are best spent searching our being for the things that give meaning to our lives, that give us a sense of direction and the will to go on. It is also useful, during this time of reflection, to take notice of the results of other people’s experiences, their recipes for success.

In this book I have set down the results of my own personal search for identity and meaning. My journey led me into the formal study of counseling and psychology and then into a career as a Marriage & Family Therapist. It helped me to recognize and to accept my individuality with all of its strengths and its short-comings. I learned how to use my strengths in appropriate situations, how not to over-use them, and how to develop new skills to overcome my shortcomings.

I offer you the results of my experience as a starting point for you to work out your own answers to guide you in your own search for meaning and happiness.

Respectfully,

Frank Losik

The Basics

Happiness

BACKGROUND

Maxwell Maltz, the author of Psycho-Cybernetics, tells us that man is by nature a goal-striving being. He further points out that creative striving for a goal that is important to us as a result of our own deep-felt needs, aspirations, and talents will bring happiness, as well as success, because we will be functioning as we were meant to function. True success and true happiness not only go together, but each enhances the other.

If we are by nature goal-striving beings, then it seems to make a lot more sense to strive, consciously, for a goal of our own choosing than to be driven by unconscious forces or to live our lives out according to someone else’s idea of who we should be and what we should do. And, it also seems to make a lot more sense to strive for what we really want instead of some lesser, more easily attainable goal. What I am suggesting is that if we want to live a happy life, then we must make happiness our conscious, over-riding aim. Nothing less will satisfy us.

And, once we have set our sights on achieving personal happiness, we are free to explore the means of achieving that precious goal. With our life goal of personal happiness firmly fixed before our mind’s eye and ever present in our consciousness, we can allow all of our energies to flow into those task that will help us to achieve our goal.

RIGHTS & PRIVILEGES

When we speak about the rights and privileges of human beings, we are adopting an existential humanistic point of view. We recognize that humanity is merely a concept, while human beings, each and every one of us, come into being and act out our lives, from beginning to end, in the isolation of our own individuality. Because we are separate and distinct from one another, and because no one can

truly experience another’s reality, we must assert our basic needs in the form of rights and privileges.

As a certified Human Being and Member of the Human Race, you are entitled to certain Rights and Privileges:

o You are Valuable, Lovable and Capable.

o You are alone in and the sole occupant of your mind and body; and, yet, you are connected in some mysterious way to the whole universe.

o You may run your life at whatever speed you choose, and you may make pit-stops as often as you need for as long as you need.

o You can have whatever you want, so long as it is available or possible to create, and so long as you are willing to make the effort to get it.

o Your primary goal in life is your personal happiness.

RESPONSIBILITIES

o You must respect the rights and privileges of others, especially the weak and the slow-witted.

o You must bargain in good faith for the support of family, friends, and business associates.

o You must honor your commitments.

THE ROAD TO HAPPINESS

The Road to Happiness is marked by the twin guide posts of Creativity and Love. Within their boundaries lie all that is truly valuable in the Human Experiences.

CREATIVITY

Creativity means tapping into the instinctively innovative and productive parts of yourself. It is doing what your hand turns to naturally in your hobbies or in your career. It adds Zest to Life!

LOVE

Love means honoring yourself and others. It is a personal, one-on-one, kind of experience, the cornerstone of the family and of all true friendships. It adds Meaning to Life!

The twin guide posts of creativity and love are drawn from the wisdom and experience of such diverse thinkers as Bertrand Russell and Sigmund Freud. While they both used the expression, work, they clearly meant it in the sense that we use creativity today.

The idea of personally creating one’s self is at the core of humanistic philosophies, and it is what drives us to develop our individual potential. If that were all there were to life, we would all be, of necessity, completely ego-centric. But, it is not! Early on we are confronted with a paradoxical imperative that tells us that, while we must learn to put our own personal development first, we can only find true personal happiness by also reaching out to share our creativity and love with another.

PERSONAL CREATIVITY

The word creativity conjures up a variety of images. Unfortunately, those images, too often, are narrowly restricted to areas like, the fine arts: painting, sculpture, writing; science: new theories, new discoveries; or, business: labor or materials-saving inventions, creative entrepreneurship.

While these certainly are examples of the results of creativity, they are not examples of creativity. Creativity is not the result of some activity. It is the activity itself! Furthermore, these examples are far too limiting to define the natural energies that bubble up inside each one of us and seek expression in our daily lives.

Personal Creativity comes in as many sizes, styles, and shapes as we do. It expresses itself through one or more of our intelligence dimensions: physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. And, while it is uniquely personal, paradoxically, it contributes to shared experience. Sometimes that shared experience is very broadly felt; at other times, it is the intimate exchange between just two people.

One of the tests of Personal Creativity, then, is that the doer and at least one someone else are enriched by the experience. Another test of Personal Creativity is that when the doer is in the midst of his or her creative experience, there is a tendency to lose track of time and to become totally absorbed in the activity at hand. All other realities fade into the background as the creative activity takes full center stage and demands the doer’s undivided attention. At these times of peak performance, we are totally engaged in the creative process. We are at our best!

EXAMPLES

Perhaps the easiest way to understand the meaning of creativity and to get in touch with your own Personal Creativity is to think of it in terms of the special gifts that you possess.

Do you seem to have a knack for putting others at ease, so that their positive energies flow more easily? Then, perhaps your creativity is as a facilitator, or teacher, or parent!

Do you seem to have a knack for getting to the heart of issues that confound others? Then, perhaps, your creativity is as a problem solver!

Do you seem to have a knack for being able to quietly go about doing the every day household chores that make life so much more enjoyable for those you love? Then, perhaps your creativity is as a homemaker!

Do you seem to have a knack for being able to see both sides of a conflict and for gaining the confidence of the parties involved? Then, perhaps your creativity is as a mediator!

Do you seem to have a knack for being able to understand and present another person’s point of view clearly and forcefully? Then, perhaps your creativity is as an advocate!

What knack do you have that engages your energies and attention, and that enriches at least one other person?

CAUTION

Personal Creativity does not always equal commercial success. Contrary to a lot of popular myths, not everyone can make a living by performing their Personal Creativity. If you can, that’s great. There’s nothing better than getting paid for doing what you like to do. But, it doesn’t always work out that way. If you can’t, you’ll have to make a living some other way. Then, your Personal Creativity can become your favorite hobby!.

THE JOURNEY OF LIFE

The Journey of Life is a Process. It is everything that happens to you while you are striving to make your hopes and dreams come true. It is how you become who you are. The Journey of Life is both a means to an end and an end in itself. It is the means by which you become yourself and it is the opportunity to realize your Goal of Happiness, while you are experiencing that process.

The idea that life is a journey cautions us to become aware of the processes that we experience and master, rather than to become too absorbed in the milestones that we achieve. Milestones are fleeting moments; processes engulf us continuously.

Your career is an good example of a process skill. If you focus all of your energies on getting a degree or on becoming certified in a given profession, you may loose sight of the fact that those milestones, however important, are simply the means to your goal and not the goal itself which is the practice of your profession. If you focus too strongly on the milestone, you may wind up with no energy or interest in pursuing your career. You may find yourself lost in the mind set that you have already done all the work, and now you should just enjoy all the benefits.

THE ROLE OF CRISES

The Journey of Life is filled with Crises. And, you can’t reach your Goal of Happiness, unless you experience these crises and resolve them. Crises are the activities by which you become yourself.

The ancient Chinese symbol for Crisis is made up of two separate characters, the one for Danger and the one for Opportunity. All ancient, as well as modern, Wisdom tells us that every Crisis contains elements of both Danger and Opportunity. How you grow and achieve your happiness depends on how well you develop your skills for defining and resolving the dilemmas present in each Crisis. In a very real sense Crises Cause Happiness if we allow ourselves to learn and to do! How well will you learn to recognize and to Minimize the Danger in your crises? How well will you learn to recognize and to Maximize the Opportunity?

A lot of our conventional wisdom is based on the false belief that danger is not real, and that all we have to fear is fear itself! That was a great rallying cry for president Roosevelt back in the 1930’s, but it does not describe the reality of every day life. We are constantly faced with one crises after the other. Sometimes we focus on the element of opportunity; more often we see only the danger. Again, the paradoxical imperative teaches us that danger and opportunity are both sides of the same coin. Neither exists without the other. If we want to achieve our goal of personal happiness, then we must learn to accept and to deal with both danger and opportunity. And, we must learn to reject the simplistic, bumper sticker-type slogans that promise rewards without effort.

EXERCISE

If you were to look at your life from the point of view suggested above, how would you change your personal goals and expectations? How would you begin to identify and develop your own special creativity? How much effort would you be willing to expend to find and develop a meaningful, shared-love relationship?

Your Life Goal

_____________________________

The only goal worth pursuing for a

human being is Happiness;

and you have to work at it to get it!

_____________________________

How To Get It

_____________________________

Copyright 1997 Frank Losik Salinas, CA

Dreams

BACKGROUND

As wise, old Bloody Mary, tells us in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific, You’ve got to have a dream; if you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true? Dreams are the vehicles through which we create our own personal happiness. But, it takes more than wishful thinking.

Unfortunately, there is nothing particularly natural about being a human being and achieving personal happiness. Fortunately, you are not the first person who has faced this dilemma. Others have left formulas and recipes for you to follow. The challenge is your willingness to accept their wisdom and to practice putting it into action.

CREATING YOUR LIFE

Like all people you are naturally creative, and the most important task you have in your life is to create your own Happy Life. That’s a two-step process: first, you have to envision your Life, and then, you have to live your Dream. It requires:

o A distant aiming point to help maintain your balance in the bustle of everyday life. We call this, Your Dream.

o Realistic images to help overcome the roadblocks of fear, doubt, and guilt. We call these, Plans and Goals.

o Firm resolve and unflagging resilience to help sustain your momentum in the face of life’s inevitable setbacks. We call these resources,