Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Your Erroneous Zones

"Take a look at the way the world works.  To put it succinctly, you can never please everyone.  In fact, if you please fifty percent of the people, you are doing quite well.  This is no secret.  You know that at least half of the people in your world are going to disagree with at least half of the things you say.  If this is accurate (and you need only to look at landslide elections to see that forty-four percent of the population still voted against the winner), then you will always have about a 50-50 chance of getting some disapproval when you voice an opinion.

Armed with this knowledge, you can start to look at disapproval in a new light.  When someone disapproves of something you say [do], instead of being hurt, or instantly shifting your opinion [behaviour] to gain praise, you can remind yourself that you've just run into one of those folks in the fifty percent who don't agree with you.  Knowing that you'll always get some disapproval for everything you feel, think, say or do is the way out of the tunnel of despair.  Once you expect it, you won't be inclined to hurt yourself with it, and you'll simultaneously stop equating the repudiation of an idea or a feeling with the repudiation of you."

~ Wayne Dyer ~

No comments: