Real World Advice -- I'm Great When I Remember

George Kazakos
February 2011

Sun Myung Moon, June 6, 2011

Life has a funny way of sometimes smashing into you. It's kind of like the wind; sometimes the wind will come at you from one direction and then suddenly switch its flow and come at you from another.

When great things happen, we find ourselves face-to-face with great challenges and often times these challenges are things that we don't have control over, like the wind. When we are faced with great challenges, if we depend on the circumstances to dictate our mood, then truly, we will be out of control and we will end up being subject to whatever happens. So what can we do to stay in control of "me"?

I ask myself, why am I happy? Well, just because! Because, I can either let circumstances put me in a good or bad mood, or I can simply choose to be in a good mood, just because; for no reason.

Many times when we're in a bad mood we blame our circumstances because then, we are let off the hook of being responsible for how "my life turns out". It's very easy to blame circumstances and give ourselves permission to "not take responsibility for myself"; "I don't need to take responsibility for my life and I can easily blame other things".

We need to change this blame-mentality and instead tell ourselves that "I'm the CEO of my life and I cause who I am regardless of what happens around my life". Challenges will never cease to blow our way; they'll be there until the day we die. They're always going to come at us, smashing into us from unexpected directions, so don't bother trying to solve all the problems -- that's never going to happen because problems just have a way of finding us. Instead, think of being affected in regards to what "I choose": it's really a choice between "who I chose I am" and "let the circumstances choose who I am".

When I face life's challenges choosing who I am, then I'm always doing great! When I forget that I'm doing great and get angry or have some kind of breakdown, I'll just simply remind myself: "I'm doing great and I'm the CEO of my life and I'm going to determine that". When I remember, I'm doing great. That way, life is pleasurable and you're not depending on things to happen or not happen to keep you happy.