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From recent reads ...
There appear to be two modalities of self-help. One focuses on what has gone wrong and how to try to make it right, and the other chooses to start with what is right and build from that. Could the consciousness be trained to focus only on the positive and the improvement upon it? Because the negative if often needed to appreciate the positive, why would we ever want to ax it out completely? Or perhaps it is like when someone loses his sight after being able to see for many years. He's already established the reference points and can expand from there. If you've been through hell, can you just decide to not act like you've been through hell anymore? ~ Beth Lisick, Helping Me Help Myself, p. 235
It seems like, at its best, self-help is probably supposed to remind us that we can be strong and in control, that we can do anything. The problem with this is that we are human. All we're ever going to do is stumble around. Sometimes we hit the sweet spot, and the rest of the time we spend trying to unravel the formula for how to hit the next one. ~ Beth Lisick, Helping Me Help Myself, p. 264
This could be straight out of my own youth ...
Okay, fine, I admit it, I'm a spooker. I get spooked easily. During my preparation for the Year 2000 bug, I bought so many boxes of low-fat Pop-Tarts that Kellogg's decided not to discontinue them after all. When Safeway started accepting debit cards, I was convinced that it was only a matter of time before I would have my Mark of the Beast credit-card number tattooed on my forehead, and that I would eventually have to pledge my allegiance to Satan before I could buy a half-pound of tomatoes and some maple syrup.
This, however, is in NO WAY my fault. It all started when my parents sent me to church camp one summer and we watched a movie in which the people in it just vanished from their driver's seats, playgrounds, and work desks and just flew up into the sky. The people left on Earth then either got crucified on light poles and billboards or had their heads chopped off by Satan's storm troopers. It was a terrifying film, and I now realize that it's not something a twelve-year-old needs to see. My view is that it's okay to inform kids about maxi pads and STDs, but let's save the rapture movie for driver's ed or pay-per-view. After I came back from church camp, I spent the next six months wearing a Ziggy T-shirt that proclaimed 'I'm a C.O.G.' (Child of God) as insurance to get beamed up, and worrying that if my best friend didn't come to school that day, I had been left behind because my mom hadn't washed Ziggy the night before. ~ Laurie Notaro, We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive, p. 85
There appear to be two modalities of self-help. One focuses on what has gone wrong and how to try to make it right, and the other chooses to start with what is right and build from that. Could the consciousness be trained to focus only on the positive and the improvement upon it? Because the negative if often needed to appreciate the positive, why would we ever want to ax it out completely? Or perhaps it is like when someone loses his sight after being able to see for many years. He's already established the reference points and can expand from there. If you've been through hell, can you just decide to not act like you've been through hell anymore? ~ Beth Lisick, Helping Me Help Myself, p. 235
It seems like, at its best, self-help is probably supposed to remind us that we can be strong and in control, that we can do anything. The problem with this is that we are human. All we're ever going to do is stumble around. Sometimes we hit the sweet spot, and the rest of the time we spend trying to unravel the formula for how to hit the next one. ~ Beth Lisick, Helping Me Help Myself, p. 264
This could be straight out of my own youth ...
Okay, fine, I admit it, I'm a spooker. I get spooked easily. During my preparation for the Year 2000 bug, I bought so many boxes of low-fat Pop-Tarts that Kellogg's decided not to discontinue them after all. When Safeway started accepting debit cards, I was convinced that it was only a matter of time before I would have my Mark of the Beast credit-card number tattooed on my forehead, and that I would eventually have to pledge my allegiance to Satan before I could buy a half-pound of tomatoes and some maple syrup.
This, however, is in NO WAY my fault. It all started when my parents sent me to church camp one summer and we watched a movie in which the people in it just vanished from their driver's seats, playgrounds, and work desks and just flew up into the sky. The people left on Earth then either got crucified on light poles and billboards or had their heads chopped off by Satan's storm troopers. It was a terrifying film, and I now realize that it's not something a twelve-year-old needs to see. My view is that it's okay to inform kids about maxi pads and STDs, but let's save the rapture movie for driver's ed or pay-per-view. After I came back from church camp, I spent the next six months wearing a Ziggy T-shirt that proclaimed 'I'm a C.O.G.' (Child of God) as insurance to get beamed up, and worrying that if my best friend didn't come to school that day, I had been left behind because my mom hadn't washed Ziggy the night before. ~ Laurie Notaro, We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive, p. 85