Page 48 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

and also be sincere. You can be happy and also be compassionate. In fact, loving

someone while you are unhappy does not show up like love at all.

Fred Knipe talked to me about how we human beings have learned to use
and abuse unhappiness—he said he had made a list for me of the secret reasons
why people think they should feel bad. “If I feel bad, then that proves I am a
good person,” he said. “Or, if I feel bad, I am responsible. If I feel bad, I’m not
hurting anybody. If I feel bad, it means that I care. Maybe if I feel bad, it proves
I’m being realistic and aware. If I feel bad, it means I’m working on something.”
That list gives us powerful motivation to be unhappy. But as Werner Erhard
(personal transformation pioneer) taught in his well-known seminars, happiness
is a place to come from, not to try to go to.

I once saw Larry King interviewing Werner Erhard by satellite from Russia,
where Erhard was living and working. Erhard had mentioned that he might be

moving back to the United States soon, and Larry King asked him if coming
home would make him happy. Erhard paused uncomfortably, because in his
view of life nothing makes us happy. He finally said, “Larry, I am already
happy. That wouldn’t make me happy, because I come from happiness to
whatever I do.”

Your happiness is your birthright. It shouldn’t depend on your achieving
something. Start by claiming it and using it to make your self-motivation fun all
the way and not just fun at the end.

32. Be your own disciple

So, why do I claim we have no willpower? Is it a misguided desire to protect
myself? Is there a secret payoff in saying I have no willpower? Maybe if I
absolutely deny the existence of willpower, I am no longer responsible for
developing it. It’s out of my life! What a relief!

But, here’s the final tragedy: The development and use of willpower is the
most direct access to happiness and motivation that I’ll ever have. In short, by
denying its existence, I’m shutting my spirit down.

Many people think of willpower and self-discipline as something akin to
self-punishment. By giving it that negative connotation, they never get enthused
about developing it. But author William Bennett gives us a different way to think
of it. Self-discipline, he notes in The Book of Virtues, comes from the word