I had to shorten up your comment a bit because it was really long, but I wanted to thank you for it just the same – you added a lot of value to the conversation.

And yes, you are right – the platitudes run rampant. The world has become so caught up in being politically correct that people have forgotten that – as you indicated – sometimes you just need to get up, dust yourself off, take responsibility, and then decide how things will be from now on.

Often times a crisis is indeed the catalyst for positive change, although at the same I encourage people to NOT wait until something bad happens. If you do, then the entire lifestyle improvement process is built from a negative point, rather than a positive point.

I am both a minister and a recovered alcoholic. I speak from both personal and observed experience.

But once people realize that something isn’t working well for them, the door is opened for the dramatic change in their attitude that will lead to happier (not necessarily more prosperous) lives.

And no, this isn’t about learning to be happy about being kicked to the curb. This is about standing back up, dusting yourself off and hitch-hiking away from that curb, never to accept defeat again.

So, let me salute you for this excellent post and encourage you to post more along the same vein.

Absolutely ecstatic to have helped in any way, and if this post inspired you to be honest with yourself and start working towards your idea of perfection, then I am happy to have been part of that process!

Thanks for the comment, Christopher!

Yep – exactly! The grass is always greener on the other side because we SEE it as greener on the other side. We’ve all got our own walls to paint, and the people who create wonderful lives for themselves (or colorful walls) are the same people who have a crowd around them, and the crowd is always wondering how to get what the wall painters have.

Or, alternatively, some of the people in the crowd may be perfectly happy to just watch other people paint, and that’s cool, too. However, for those who want more than their lives are presently giving them, the lesson to be learned is that it is US that gives to our lives, not the other way around.

Thanks for your comment, Fred!

While others are busy involving themselves painting their own walls, you are standing there every minute admiring how beautiful their walls keep becoming by the minute. Stop doing do, get your own brush and start painting your own wall. You will soon find the idlers, just like you were, gathering around admiring your own wall.

Get Up and LIVE!!!

Fred.

As alternative viewpoints go, that is an awesome point to ponder! If all we ever do is make decisions based on what we know, and all we know is based on decisions that we’ve made in the past, and we make decisions based on what we know…

It’s the fire feeding the flame, ya know?

Well, from what I know right now, I choose to HAVE control over my life, and if that attitude is merely the by-product of the life that I’ve led so far, I’ll take that!

Thanks for the great comment, Matt!

You learn all of your social behaviors from your social contexts (your environments), which dictate how you’re going to think, what you say, and what you do. If you suddenly decide that you’re life is “in your power”, you only learned a new social role from a new social environment. Nothing is 100% completely in your hands; in fact, your life is NEVER in your control, at all. It’s always up to your contexts and environments. New thoughts and new viewpoints are just the byproducts of new contexts and new environments.

That’s the sociological view of human behavior; it’s highly fascinating, but highly dismissed in the personal development world. Starkly contrasts with what you say, but it’s fun to entertain and think about!

Thanks for the comment, and it’s funny you should say that because I actually just went through a lot of thinking in that regard myself. With a potential (and desired) move on the horizon, I have been working on deciding which direction to go. Now that I have decided, it’s crystal clear what I have to do to make it happen.

That being said, when writing this post, I was thinking more about people who have things in their life that they already know that they don’t want, yet they continue to let those things hold them back from happiness.

I was also thinking of people who have a goal or a task that they want to accomplish, and even if that goal or task is not some huge lifetime decision, it is still something that they want, yet they continue to let other people hold them back from achieving it.

There is just no excuse for that behavior!

This is powerful stuff, Aaron. Unfortunately, most people struggle with figuring out what they really want from life.

That’s the 1st step in this process. After you’ve got that part down, you have to take responsibility for getting there.