Tough Assignment

(A Toastmaster Basic Speech)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

        Learning how not to be unhappy: -that was a tough assignment I recently gave myself.   I know that happiness is a natural condition of being a person and happiness is easy.  But you know, learning, however, not to be unhappy can be difficult as I now realize.

        Unhappiness is certainly a self-defeating  behavior so why I ask myself can't I even begin to approach achieving this so-called happiness and with it an appetite for living!  I'm sure I do not need a professional background in counseling or a doctorate in the helping professions to understand the principles of effective living. For sure, I can't blame others for my unhappiness... it must be me myself who is causing it and therefore it is I who should do something about it.  And because  psychologists say, 'you feel what you think, and you can learn to think differently about anything - if you decide to do so'....it follows therefore that because I learned how to be unhappy, and now want to be happy, I can unlearn being unhappy...or learn not to be unhappy?

         But see, learning takes thousands of hours to comfortably get to a new habit... like driving!  I remember I had to put in mind the complex synchronization of clutch, stick, gas pedal, brakes - and more, until it became second nature to me...with great difficulty....with  lots of present-moment thinking and reminding and working.   So okay it was tough, but certainly was not a reason to avoid doing it.  But well, I guess I could then regulate my mind to do a physical task such as driving.   And it might work as well in the emotional world, right?   I also learned the habits I have by having had reinforced them.  I get angry, hurt, frustrated, because I learned to be these a long time ago.  So I should be able to learn to not be angry, not hurt, not frustrated just as I had learned to be all these self-defeating things!

        The issue here then, I guess, is choice.  Like opting for a life of misery rather than taking control.  Or vice-versa.  It's not whether I can control my feelings but rather whether I want to or will.   Because I  'feel what I think, and I can learn to think differently about anything at all  - if I decide to do so.'   So I can decide to treat pain and unhappiness with brain control.   I can  take control of my own mind and then practice feeling and behaving in ways  that I choose....like discarding hurtful emotions that immobilize...like getting in touch with my present moment which they say  is the heart of living.   Henry James, himself , in his The Ambassadors, gives the advice: Live all you can,  it's a mistake not to do so.   Even Tolstoy's Yvan Ilych brings about the notion of  'seizing every second of your life and savor it or you lose them forever'!

         So now, right now - I believe a decision should be made.  I should try to beautifully experience my elusive 'now' by allowing myself  to get lost in it. Then everything will fall into place, as they say.  With it,  I should also be able to find happiness. Which should also correspondingly parallel finding a state of not being unhappy.   And  I  would have my assignment done, don't you think?

Mister Toastmaster......