I am proud of my friends
I don’t believe pride is an emotion anybody should be proud of experiencing if
“pride is an inward directed emotion that exemplifies either a high sense of one’s personal status or ego (i.e., leading to judgments of personality and character) or the specific mostly positive emotion that is a product of praise or independent self-reflection.” (Wikipedia)
Especially Epicureans should be ashamed of it and work hard at getting rid of it as soon as possible since its ugly head indicates an over-inflated ego or a dangerous vulnerability to praise. If independent self-reflection should lead to pride one ought to improve one’s self-reflective skills. Urgently.
I can’t help feeling proud of my friends, though.
It took me over forty years to understand that I don’t understand the correlation between my needs, my desires and the way I satisfy those desires, resulting in stressing myself, my friends and family, my coworkers and supervisors, clients and suppliers. It took me another five years to read all the relevant books on Epicurean life techniques and happiness studies to work my way out of the jungle and another five years to hone my tools by using them to set people free of their self-defeating beliefs and unhealthy habits and help them dismantle the walls they build between themselves and their pathway to happiness through congruence and stress-FREEDOM. It took me another year and the invaluable support of my wife to write a wise AND funny book for those who are interested in spending the rest of their lives walking toward their own happiness instead of working for their own or someone else’s greed.
My friends, however, must have been born wise and don’t seem to need the distilled fruits of hard-earned practical wisdom packed in nicely wrapped palatable pieces of advice. They must be champions in analyzing their desires, in satisfying their natural needs through synergistic satisfiers, in keeping their lifestyle and behavior patterns in line with their values and attitudes, serenely threading down their own proven pathways from pain to pleasure, producing their own happiness though congruence and stress-FREEDOM.
I must assume they do all this judging from the absence of their comments on the excerpts of my book that I have been publishing in sequels in my blog. The only topic they mildly reacted to was sequel 15: “How Is It Possible To Find Romantic Love? “
Complete strangers ask me when will my book be available in print and on kindl, when will I start training and coaching sessions on the Galenian Epicurean Conduct of Life, or at least publicly speak about it. (Which I don’t’ know yet. I still have to take care of my health and the happiness of my family.)
But it’s a relief that my friends are doing well, confidently threading their own pathways toward happiness.( Or what they believe is happiness?)
It’s a shame to feel proud but who could help not being proud of them? (Maybe Epicurus?)
I thank you all for your encouraging words
I accomplished yesterday everything I scheduled: took a walk with the kids, cut, captioned and uploaded on youtube the video with our cat, Buddy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNUJmPcB1_Q
I also found time to cuddle with my daughter and play the Wii with my son. I had good chats with my wife and it was an extra bonus for us to watch my daughter transform our cat into a turtle (by putting him under the laundry basket) or into “grocery” (by stuffing him into a shopping bag:). She also helped me with cooking the breakfast, which was fair, since we cooked one of her favorites: sunny side up eggs.
I talked to my 80 year old dwindling mom on the phone and she was delighted by the way her sister and her family take care of her in their own home. She said she was happy she didn’t have to go into a retirement home with strange people but could stay with her family.
I read a few more pages from Bryson’s “Mother Tongue” which I enjoy (like everything he writes:) enormously. He even mentions on page 41 the Bolyai University where I went to college ages ago. The number of languages he mentions is definitely too low (2,700), today we think that there are almost 7000 languages spoken:
http://www.wycliffe.org/about/statistics.aspx
(Oops, I forgot that I promised not to waste my time with research and trying to prove my statements…;-)
I was surprised to get so many emails and Facebook messages and especially to find out, that some of my friends are cancer survivors.
I thank you all for your warm, encouraging words.
Today it’s very cold but I dont’t have to drive to Madison: I will work “remotely” in my home office. And I will start right now before the family wake up and holler for breakfast.
Being an employee is stressful
I read that working to make others richer is stressful:
http://cbr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/2/57
Managing Envy and Jealousy in the Workplace
by Kim Dogan and Robert P. Vecchio
Negative emotion is a common experience for many employees. Competition for rewards, resources and recognition drives much of the animosity and ill feelings associated with employee envy and jealousy. In this article, the causes and consequences of employee resentment are highlighted. Factors that contribute to greater levels of employee resentment include reengineering, diversity and generational conflicts. In addition to reduced performance, dysfunctional consequences of negative emotion include stress, job dissatisfaction, withdrawal, retaliation and poor citizenship. The article concludes with a set of five specific suggestions for reducing and managing negative emotion at work: (a) giving consideration to emotional maturity at the time of hire, (b) using teams and participative management, (c) implementing an incentive system that supports employee cooperation, (d) encouraging open communication and (e) placing high achievers in mentor positions.
My conclusions:
Being an employee – i.e. working to get others richer – implies competition, animosity, resentment, jealousy and envy. Its consequences are stress, job dissatisfaction, withdrawal, retaliation and poor citizenship.
My suggestions:
Avoid working for making people rich altogether. If you feel like working, do it :
- to make yourself happy i.e. to get the “flow” experience
- to make your friends and/or family and/or community happier
church going
My mother, 78, felt pretty well today, with her glucose level sinking below 300 mg/dl so she decided to go to church again with her aged friend. Meeting other people of her age, her cultural and social background, speaking the same language, going through the same rituals makes her feel happier. She thinks the price she had to pay – a little hypocrisy – was worth while paying. She met old friends, changed information, walked. Existing communities are easier to adhere to than building new ones, which always takes some extra effort.
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