Ok, here we go.
It won't be very long, because the few things I have to share are not difficult to convey, not difficult to understand, and quite easy to practise.
The manual will be approximately 15 short chapters, each less than 1,000 words. Each chapter will be about the length of a medium-sized magazine article; the whole book you'll be able to read at a sitting. You are welcome to print out up to one copy for yourself and one for a friend, at no charge, as long as you print it out in full, with the URL http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/manual.html and the words 'Copyright Pip Wilson, 2002-now' so some other person can't infringe my rights. Later I'll probably have it published as a book.
The basic idea of the FeelGood Manual is simple: most people can feel better and happier – dramatically, easily and quickly. There's a number of things we can do to feel better and happier that are so simple, a child could do them. Why doesn't everybody do them? Either because they haven't heard about them, or they choose not to. It's not because they can't.
Some people who write material on how to feel better and happier, seem to have some passion for complicating things. I don't think you will find that I do that. Nor will I explain myself in highbrow, academic English, though I could do that if there was a point to it. I'm smart, trust me.
I would go so far as to say that anyone who claims the ability to assist and advise people on feeling better and happier, but who presents you with complicated, obscure or expensive options, is either not communicating well, or is lacking integrity.
I make this bold assertion, because, perhaps like you, I've had it 'up to here' with teachers and preachers, rabbis and babas, mumbo and jumbo, New Age – Old Age, Bronze Age, Middle Age – spiritual-psycho-academic-esoteric, hoodoos and gurus, who won't let you get past Step B until you've completed Step A for 500 bucks or else joined some 'fellowship' where you will learn the Divine Secrets of Happiness if you just stick around 25 years and climb the ladder of mystery.
Maybe you feel like that too.
Anyone can do it
Am I being harsh? No, I don't think so. We've got used to happiness being sold to us like computers and washing machines. But learning how to be happier is so easy that anyone can do it; there are some very dumb people (and even a few smart ones) who love their lives and wouldn't trade places with anyone. Yet many therapies, teachings and religions seem to make it seem so awfully hard. I don't know about you, but I'll keep 'hard' for crossword puzzles and good sex. My life is busy, and if there are easy ways to feel better and happier, I'll take them over studying post-modern hermeneutics of Sanskrit sacred texts any old day.
And I don't much like the idea of seeing a shrink for the rest of my life at $110 per "Hmmm", unless, of course, I'm making great progress.
Having said that, what you will read in this manual is simple to understand, and easy to practise, but if you want to gain any benefits, you will have to practise. I won't pretend you can just read a book and you'll be OK. Isn't that's half of what's wrong with us today - we want quick fixes like our instant coffee? Sorry, wrong website. We do good espresso here.
I will write it in straightforward language like this. And I hope you will go straight forward with an attitude of 'practice makes perfect'. No, we won't get perfectly happy – ever – so you can forget about that for starters. But let's shoot for a high goal. Let's try to be 90 per cent happy, 90 per cent of the time. I like feeling good, don't you?
"Hmmm"
And you know something? I do feel about 90 per cent happy, 90 per cent of the time. I'm now aiming higher than that, about 95 per cent, because 10 per cent is an awful lot of not feeling very happy. But I won't aim for 100 per cent, because I still have a brain, and I live in the real world. Shit happens to me just like it happens to you. Someday I might tell you about some of it!
Happiness is a skill we all can learn
I use the term 'practice' in the same way that the word is used by a teacher (or coach) of piano, football, or any other set of skills that people learn. The manual's concepts are simple, but the better you work them, the better they will work.
Here I introduce this manual's first precept: The goal is progress, not perfection. If we are making progress every day, even in tiny increments, we are on track.
Consider this: a mathematician friend of mine explained to me how things grow if they increase by just one per cent each day. The extraordinary thing is that the number doubles every 70 days. If I have $500 dollars today, and this grows by just one per cent per day, within 70 days I will have $1,000. In another 70 days I will have $2,000. Here's the amazing thing: in less than five years I will have 12 billion dollars! But please note, we're not talking about money here. If you want to get rich, see a financial adviser.
To get a number like that, I don't have to double the number of dollars each day; I just have to have it increase by one per cent a day – a truly miniscule amount. Great things from small things grow.
Tell yourself you are going to practise happiness techniques so that you just improve by one per cent per day, and stick around for unbelievable feelgoods to happen in due course!
This is what practice is all about. Think of it like practising a musical instrument. If you practise, you will get better.
Happiness is a skill. It can be learned. That always confounds the shysters and the space cadets, who complicate it, or even want to keep it secret and thus sellable. You can learn it here, now. You don't have to go to a temple or academy.
I make no promises. Not even that these tips and techniques will work for you. They are my techniques, and I don't know you from Adam. That's where I part company with many of the preachers and teachers and people I have just criticised.
I won't say to you, "If you don't 'get' this program, it's all your fault". That appals me. If you don't get what I have to offer, it might be tough luck, but nobody will know the reason. It could be that it only works for some people. In fact, let me say right now: I know it won't work for everyone, and I don't know why. I only know what works for me. I hope it helps you; there is no fault on either side if it doesn't.
If it doesn't work for you after your most sincere, diligent attempts, then your misery will be refunded at the door. I've got no white robes, million-dollar lecture tours or doctorates in theology and psychology to live up to. We can go our own separate ways and still be friends. In the end, we make ourselves happy or not. (More later.)
If it's easy, why doesn't everybody do it?
I pose this question for us all to answer. I'm not entirely sure. I think that the main reason is that, as I said, it is a skill. Not everyone knows how, and there are many to lead them astray, as I said, with complicated methods.
Some people do not want to be happier. They are in a comfort zone of misery that gives them some rewards. I'll have more to say on this later, as well. Some people believe with all their heart and mind in dogmas that keep them miserable. Many of these people do not trust themselves, and so will not challenge those beliefs. This is because they believe that someone else's opinion is much better than their own. This must be one of the greatest causes of misery in the world, so I urge you to read the next chapter and trust yourself more.
Some people are sort of happy, but not very happy, and have no idea that they can be happier. These people are often the greatest stumbling block, not only to themselves, but to people like you and me who want to be very, very happy.
Those folk won't let you get away with being very happy, if they can help it. (Of course, we will have to cover these challenges in a later chapter.) I won't complicate this with psychobabble: the old-fashioned word for the dynamic here is ... 'jealousy'.
After I started being happy most of the time, I didn't quite believe it myself, so I didn't say anything to anybody for some time. 'Miserable', I understood. 'Suicidal', I was well acquainted with. 'Frustrated beyond endurance', yes I knew that one too. But 'happy'? Happy??!!! That was new.
After a little while, I made tentative steps to sharing my news of happiness with people. They welcomed it with open arms, correct? They asked me how I did it, right?
Wrong!! They told me I was lying. Or else they told me I was arrogant. Or they told me I was an arrogant liar. This is where I insert a LOL, because I am laughing out loud as I write it.
I made myself quite crestfallen at these reactions, so I didn't mention it to anyone for about another six months. At that time, I was still ignored or considered a bit nutty, but my crest didn't fall at all. By then I had realised that anyone who finds it laughable that someone might be happy, or who just can't believe it, is probably someone who is lacking the skills themself. Without exception, their opposition to the idea of the happiness I experience every day (even the 'bad' days) was so threatening to them, that I decided that it would be better to write something than annoy my friends and acquaintances.
You might find this happens to you, too. I've found that total strangers will ask me why I am happy, but those closest to me, and even mere acquaintances, don't want to go there. It is simply too hard for us to comprehend how to juggle, unless someone shows us how to juggle. And no one can learn to juggle unless they first have the desire to do it.
Bear with me. I can juggle three oranges or three apples, and, trust me, this stuff's not as hard as juggling.
What I can't do for you
The FeelGood Manual will not be about:
how to get rich;
how to win friends and influence people;
what sort of carrots, soybeans and lettuce to eat;
how to increase your sales;
how to get a better job;
how to get laid.
Sorry, I wish I could do that for you. Maybe someone else can – there are plenty of teachers and preachers out there.
Actually, many of them are, no doubt, sincere, and good at what they do.
I'm only here to share with you my techniques on how to feel better and happier, dramatically, easily and quickly. Other aspects of your life might improve if you get this 'program'. I hope it works for you as it does for me. At least, let's both give it our best shot.
Your private beliefs are none of my business
Why have I written the words in this sub-heading? For one simple reason: I'm writing this manual. No, seriously, I wrote the harsh words above because it's relatively easy to feel better and happier, and the beauty of this truth has been distorted, bent out of shape, prostituted, religi-fied (I made up a word!), difficultized (another one!) and sold back to you and me with strings attached and ridiculous sacrifices to make, for too long. It's time to cut the crap: there are too many miserable people out there, and too many crooks and dopes living off us!
Whatever your spiritual path is, The FeelGood Manual will not clash with basic spiritual precepts. I believe it will complement them. If you have no spiritual path, that's fine too. As you read on, you'll see that my respect for spirituality, like my contempt for mumbo-jumbo, is profound. However, I believe there are many paths to the mountaintop, and your path is probably as good as anyone else's. Maybe it's less bumpy and overgrown than mine, and I should be learning from you, who knows? I'll explain more as we go along.
I am not only grateful, but amazed that you have read this far, and I thank you. I'm amazed, not because I think the manual is crap, but because I didn't flash a university degree at you, nor a key to salvation, nor a bowl of mung-bean incense under your nose to get your attention ... and your wallet. I haven't used any jargon that you find in lots of books these days.
Yes, I have the university degree (some Psychology subjects, but mostly totally useless English and History), and I've been around the body/mind/spirit movement for more than 30 years and can talk the talk and walk the sandals, but this is about how to feel better and happier, dramatically, easily and quickly. They don't teach that in guru and preacher university these days.
My only credentials are that I was miserable, and now I'm not. Almost never miserable, almost always happy. In my humble opinion, we don't learn to swim from someone who doesn't know how to swim, and happiness is what we should look for in the people who we trust to advise us on happiness. No years of studying in universities, temples or Bible colleges could ever have given me the happiness I found for myself, almost by chance along the way.
Having said that, I would like to make it clear that if you are seeing a therapist of any kind, I am not recommending your departure from their services. In fact, if you choose to practise the FeelGood Manual program, there is no need to make any such changes unless you want to. I have no opinion on your therapist.
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip
| | Next |
The FeelGood Manual is now available as a printed book
We are not powerless over our emotions
If you've read it before ... why not read it again!
PRACTICE is what makes perfect.
Pip's program for personal change is about practice.
Progress, not perfection!
© Copyright, Pip Wilson, 2002-now
Happiness is not for sale.
Freewill contributions, according to what you think this is worth,
are gratefully accepted for the continuation of this work.
(click)
From 'Don't Worry, Be Happy'
Sung by Bobby McFerrin
Here's a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don't worry, be happy
In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry you make it double
Don't worry, be happy
Don't worry, be happy now
Don't worry, be happy Don't worry, be happy
Don't worry, be happy Don't worry, be happy ...
