Late last week someone asked me to recommend one book that could help them learn how to be happier and more content.  What seemed like an easy question at first glance became a challenging one for me to narrow down to one single book.  I ended up saying let me think about it for a few days.

Over the weekend I spent a couple of hours in my library looking through my favorite self-help books.  The heavily underlined “one book” I ended up chosing is a great one with a not so great title, which could be a reason it is not better known:  “Why Your Life Sucks and What You Can Do About It”  by Alan H. Cohen.  I admire his non-nonsense and direct manner of writing that pushes a reader forward who is ready to grow and change.  What follows are twenty random points I pulled from my underlining in the book.

1.  If the same things keep happening to you over and over again, with different people in different places, the only thing in common is you.

2.  The reason you are not where you want to be is that you are doing things you do not want to do.  If that sounds simple, it is.

3.  Attention is energy.  Whatever you feed to it, will grow.  Attention is intention.  Whatever you think and talk about paves the runway for what you will create.  When you pay attention to things you want to happen, you increase the chances of them happening; the same dynamic applies for the things you do not want to happen.

4.  Problems are not bad at all; they are just the beginnings of solutions.

5.  Something is bubbling inside you that would bring you rich rewards to express.  Your mission is to get in touch with it and do it.  Until you do, you will sense that you are missing out on something big.

6.  The last thought you think before you go to sleep is the one that ruminates in your subconscious through the night and emerges as the first thought you think when you wake up – so make it a good one.

7.  Your real enemies are the self-defeating thoughts, paltry expectations, and beliefs that you must live at less than full throttle.  You will experience as much pain as you are willing to accept.  You do have control over how much you hurt.  Pain happens, suffering is optional.  You can choose thoughts that bring you relief rather than imprisonment.

8.  A healthy belief will stand in the face of challenge.  Illusions will evaporate.  If you do not test your beliefs, they will be come your ruler and you their hostage.

9.  If you settle for less than what you really want, you will get exactly that.  If you expect your life to suck, it will.

10.  To really live, let go of any idea that anything outside you determines your destiny.  The force that determines your destiny is you.

11. When you finally trust yourself, you will know how to live.

12. If you do not value who and what you are, you will seek to borrow worth from the outer world.  You will look for validation from people whom you believe know or have more than you.  But since everything you need is inside you and no one can know more about your path and purpose than you do, any power you ascribe to external authorities must eventually explode in your face and leave you feeling worst than when you started.

13.  An experience that leaves you feeling empty, less-than, or needy does so for only one reason:  You entered into it feeling empty, less-than, or needy.

14.  The illusion is that relationships will take away the pain that keeps you feeling small; the reality is that relationships magnify the pain that keeps you feeling small.

15.  Those who go searching for love only find their own lovelessness.  But the loveless never find love; only the loving find love and they never have to search for it.

16.  Analyzing the past evicts you from your heart and imprisons you in your brain. Retrospect is a good teacher, but a mean spirited roadhouse; visit it occasionally, but don’t check in.

17.  If you need to learn lessons from your past deeds, they will emerge.  Don’t sweat trying to find them; if they are significant, they will find you.  When you are able to give thanks for everything that has happened, you are free.

18.  The reasoning mind is never satisfied; it will keep seeking for things to dwell on like a car radio scanning for stations but never stopping on one.

19.  Looking good doesn’t always lead to feeling good.  Feeling good always leads to looking good.

20.  The purpose of life is not to arrive safely at death.  It is to live so well that death or the fear of it cannot remove joy.

Thank you Mr. Cohen!  Your book helped to change my life for the better since I discovered it about five years ago in a used book store.  I am grateful for what you shared and pick up the book often to read a few of my underlining’s done during two cover-to-cover reading’s so far.  I am about to begin doing so a third time!

Change yourself and fortune will change with you.
Portuguese Proverb