Life will not give you what you believe that you need.
It may sound unfair, but that’s reality. Because it’s not true that you need it anyway. You want it, and that’s all that it is.
It’s only a desire.
That’s all that it is.
When you think that way, then you behave in a confident way, in a happy way.
“Okay, if you don’t want to, then I’ll dance with somebody else. Or I’ll sit at the table by myself and read my book.”
You see, if we get a different point of view, if we see this world as just being full of pleasures, so that if this pleasure is not quickly and easily available, then another pleasure is.
You drive down the street, turn on the radio to your favorite station and you get static, you don’t hit the radio. You don’t throw a temper tantrum. You don’t turn the radio off. You switch to another station.
Not your favorite station, but you listen. You stay in a good mood. And then after a while, you try your original station again, and it comes through without any static.
It’s cleared up, and you’ve kept yourself in a good mood.
Good things happen to people who keep themselves in a good mood. Bad things tend to happen to people who keep themselves in a bad mood, because of attacking other people’s pride.
Now, in analyzing romantic love, I’m not talking about humanitarian love or Christian love where you love everybody and his dog and cat you know, but romantic love where you are in love.
I haven’t read this anyplace, but it makes sense to me.That the main thing that I am in love with in romantic love is my own pride.
I secondarily fall in love with my mate because I rightly or wrongly believe that he or she is going to support my pride.
You see, my theory is correct.
The only way to test it, very quickly. is do we know anybody that falls in love with somebody they’re ashamed of?
I’ve never heard of somebody falling in love with somebody they’re ashamed of. They might be ashamed of how he slurps his coffee, or something else. But the overall feeling is pride.
And as we develop more and more shame for what he or she is doing or not doing, we move towards falling out of love.
Because in romantic love, the main thing we’re in love with is our own pride.
You never hear a woman say, “I fell in love with this old, fat, lazy bum.”
He might appear that way to other people, but she sees him in positive terms: his sense of humor, his sweetness, thoughtfulness, and so forth.
I’ve been thinking about this kind of thing passionately for many, many years.
It’s been my day and night hobby – my day and night career – to understand human emotions.
To understand what’s going on when a person is unhappy.
What’s going on when things are not working for them.
What’s going on when things work good.
So you really don’t know anybody who’s fallen in love with somebody they’re ashamed of. So then, it shows to us the importance of protecting their pride and our own.
And the more you believe you need something, you attack their pride. And believing that you need whatever you desire is an attack on your own pride.
This is why criticizing, complaining, arguing, and showing jealousy are the worst things that we can do, because that is experienced as an attack on both people’s pride.
You see, because the more you criticize and complain, the more your pride feels insecure or hurt, as well as the person that you’re arguing with.
Now, this is the idea of always agreeing with the other person, particularly their negative emotions. You see, if a wife is rejecting a husband, she is in love with her negative feelings, so she’s letting her negative feelings be in charge of the door.
So when he agrees with her negative feelings and does not defend himself, shuts up, sounds sincere, immediately the door opens. And he goes into her mind and heart.
But that’s not normal.
The normal thing is to try to reason with her, which means to tell her that those negative feelings may be right to a degree, but they’re also wrong. And boy, those negative feelings, they have to be regarded as one hundred percent right.
When you take all the blame and put not one drop of blame on her, that works.
You win by instantly and cheerfully losing.
Jesus taught that on the Sermon on the Mount.
A few years ago, my wife and I were visiting relatives in Austin for two very nice days. As we were leaving in the car, my wife and I alone, she gives me a criticism.
She says, “You shouldn’t have been confrontational with Margaret. You know Russell doesn’t like that.”
Well, my thought was, “I wasn’t confrontational with Margaret. She was with me.”
That thought zipped through my head, but I had already programmed myself to always agree.
So I said, “Honey, you’re right. I shouldn’t have been confrontational with Margaret. I should have learned my lesson three months ago when we visited, and Margaret and I got into a discussion and it didn’t work out well. I guess I’m just a slow learner, and I want to thank you for pointing it out to me that I could have handled it better.”
Notice that I switched from the issue of whether I was confrontational or not, to that I could have handled it better, because it was even easier for me to agree with that.
I could have handled it better by not even getting into a discussion with Margaret.
Okay, what happened then, when I agreed with my wife’s criticism of me? I did not defend myself at all. I got on her side and jumped on me.
Immediately she said, “But you were just trying to help.”
And I said, “That’s true. But my method was wrong, because it wasn’t helping.”
She said, “But I think Margaret has a very closed mind.”
I said, “I do, too. But my method was wrong because it was not opening that closed mind. And I want to thank you for pointing it out to me that I could have handled it better.”
She was very friendly and affectionate the rest of the evening.
Always agree.
I thought I was the only one who would really dream up this idea. Now I know everybody thinks about agreeing, but they think that that is weak and hypocritical and won’t work.
But I teach agree from a standpoint of strength, mature love. Because the other person is always right about something, even if they’re sixty, seventy, eighty percent wrong, they’re ten or twenty percent right.
If you talk about where they are wrong, they become more wrong. And if you talk about where they are right, they immediately become less wrong.
See, most people don’t know that if you agree and sound sincere to the other person, do not defend yourself, do not explain yourself, they will defend you.
They will reverse their position.
Amazing!
It works like magic!
A person says, “You know, I want a divorce.”
“I understand. I agree.”
It looks you’re moving faster toward a divorce, but you’re getting at the roots of why she wants a divorce. She wants a divorce because you’re always disagreeing with her.
She does not want a divorce from somebody who’s always pleasant and is always seeing her side and always agreeing with her.
That’s not the person she’s pulling away from.
She’s pulling away from the person who disagrees with her.
People don’t want to be married to somebody who’s holding a gun on them.
“You owe me love because we’re married. You’ve got to love me because we’re married.”
No, no. You’ve got to get rid of the hostility before her good feelings can show. And their hostility may seem to you like it’s totally independent of anything that you do. No!
You are supporting her negativism by your attitude of needing and pressuring and whining and complaining, and trying to argue for your way.
Just enthusiastically see it her way.
You’re happy to do whatever she wants.
Wow! That takes the props totally out from under her hostility. And so we want to continue this attitude.
You are acting secure now.
When you say, “You’re the only one that I can love, you’re the only one that I can be happy with, you’re the only one,” you’re really saying, “I’m a pea-brain. I can’t really see that the world is full of beautiful women or good looking men. I can’t see that. I don’t have any confidence at all. Don’t you want me?”
No, they don’t.
“I have no self-esteem, no nothing. Don’t you want me?”
And the answer is no.
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