The Right and Wrong of Life
One of the principles I learned early on my path to happiness was, “All behavior is useful when applied in the right context!”.
This can be a hard one for many of us to agree with and usually due to the context in which the behavior is applied. And some of these examples in the worst case result in death or jail and sometimes with a perceived failed life. But it is always due to the misapplication of a behavior.
The key is to separate the behavior from the context and to have choice. We are not defined by our behaviors but more the lack of behavioral choice and choosing the best bad choice. For example many of us have a belief and/or an identity that we are not good enough and the pain we endure in order to not have the feeling of not being good enough.
I think one of the biggest misapplications of this is right versus wrong. We tend to globalize this thought process through too many areas of our life. When solving most math problems or learning our addition tables then evaluating the answer as right or wrong is not only proper but extremely useful.
An even better way of looking at the results of our lives and achieving our desires is to evaluate our life through the lens of working and working better. The path to finding your happiness is littered with aspects that worked or could have worked better or didn’t get the results we desired. These ineffectual behaviors are our best attempt to survive and to live another day but are usually left unexamined.
A wonderful and even more useful way at evaluating where we are on our path to behavioral capabilities and personal happiness is to practice and apply the evaluation technique of working and working better.
What in life is working that allows you to experience happiness and what could work even better?
Rather than having an unwanted experience, ask yourself – what about this behavior is working and in service of what I wanted at one time. This takes effort. Ask this question over and over until you understand the positive intent behind. Then ask yourself – what else might work even better?
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