PNTV: A Guide to Rational Living by Albert Elliot (#104)

Hey, guys, what's up? This is Brian with another Philosopher's Notes TV episode. This time we're going to look at a guide to rational living. It's by a guy named Albert Ellis, who you may not have heard of, and you may not have heard of this book, but Albert Ellis was one of the top ranked living psychologists of the 20th century. In fact, he was ranked number two in one study in the 80s behind Carl Rogers. And this book sold 1.5 million copies. A guide to rational Living. Albert Ellis was basically the godfather of the modern cognitive behavioral therapy movement. Really, really cool guy. Super straight to the point, funny, great book, packed with big ideas. We're going to look at a few of my favorites in this quick little episode and hopefully give you some more wisdom in less time. See what we got here. First, we'll look at the roots of neuroses. Look at the ABCs of suffering, by the way you're thinking. Distorted thinking is the root of all neurosis. We'll look at the ABCs of suffering, the importance of having good beliefs that interpret what's happening in your life and determine the consequences. We want to avoid a perfection kind of frantic pursuit of perfection. We want to think and act. We want to make our life an experiment by plunging in and giving our best and trying different things. Difficult does not mean impossible. That's a really cool idea. We want to accept ourselves and we also want to get into the flow. So let's take a quick look at some of those. As I mentioned, the first idea here is in the heart of this entire book is the fact that the root of all neuroses is distorted thinking. Let's look at what that means. So the basic idea here, the ABCs of suffering, Albert Ellis describes it, go like this. The ABCs you have action, beliefs, consequence. A lot of people think that it goes action, consequence, right? Something happens and you respond. Someone cuts you off on the freeway on the way to work and you get upset. Well, that's nice, but there's something in between that action and the consequence or your response, and that's your belief in what's going on. And basically what we need to do is step in between the stimulus and our response. There needs to be a gap. We've got to create a more conscious response in that gap. Stimulus, response. Can we step in and choose a more empowered response? And this is the belief step in the ABCs. Action, belief, consequences. And again, a lot of people think it's just this happened to me, therefore I responded this way. But it's just not how it works. So Those are the ABCs of suffering. See how you're responding to life? Are you just kind of reacting or are you choosing the most empowered belief in response to what happens that will dictate how you actually feel and the consequence of the action? Pretty powerful stuff. Here's another really cool idea here. Sonia Liebomirsky talks about barrier thoughts and we often have thoughts that get in the way of us thinking, thinking and being more happy. And she says this. Write down your barrier thoughts and then consider ways to reinterpret the situation in the process. Ask yourself questions like what else could this situation or experience mean? Can anything good come from it? Does it present any opportunities for me? What lessons can I learn and apply to the future? Did I develop any strengths as a result? Now, this is a big part of this whole process, right? What we want to do is we want to challenge our barrier thoughts. We often have really negative beliefs, negative thoughts that color what happens in our lives. And what she says is we've got to step in between and choose more empowering thoughts. So you want to notice and write down your barrier thoughts, the thoughts that are getting in the way of you experiencing more happiness. She says. Look, essentially all optimism strategies involve the exercise of construing the world with a more positive and charitable perspective. And many entail considering the silver lining in the cloud, identifying the door that opens as a result of one that is closed. It takes hard work and a great deal of practice. Notice both of those hard work and a great deal of practice to accomplish effectively. But if you can persist at those practices until they become habitual, the benefits could be immense. Some optimists may be born that way, but scores of optimists are made with practice. Very big idea. Alright, the next big idea we want to look at. We want to get rid of our frantic search for perfection. Albert Ellis says, we do not believe that any human can, for any length of time, feel perfectly or completely happy. And in fact, your frantic search for perfection in anything basically leads you to misery. So get rid of your pursuit of perfection. Be the optimalist we talked about in a prior email or a prior video. Rather, and remember this, as Maslow says, there are no perfect human beings and hate to break it to you, you're not going to be the first perfect human being. So even Dan Millman says there are no enlightened beings, that no one feels enlightened or the same way all the time. There's more or less enlightened moments. We have an opportunity at every moment to choose our most empowered response. Again, we go off in detail on that on The Optimal Living 101 video series. The Quit Being a Perfectionist one. Pretty good stuff there. So moving on, we need to remember that we need to change our thoughts and our actions. This whole approach is called cognitive behavioral therapy. It's important to change our cognition, our thoughts and our behavior. That's where the mojo is. So it's not just about thinking better thoughts. It's about taking better action. One of the ways we can do that is to take and make the plunge. Just kind of go out and live experimentally. As Ralph Wato Emerson says, all life is an experiment. The more experiments, the better. And Abraham Maslow again tells us, it seems that the necessary thing to do is not to fear mistakes. To plunge in to do the best that one can, hoping to learn enough from blunders to correct them. Eventually. Jump in. Give yourself the freedom of making your life an experiment. This is huge. Huge, huge, huge, huge, huge. We all make mistakes. And those among us who do the most extraordinary things are the ones who are most willing to make those mistakes. So let's get over our fear of failing and fail more. Learn more. Next big idea is tied to that. Just because something is difficult does not mean it's impossible. Difficult does not mean impossible. It's a big idea. Marcus Aurelius tells us, because a thing is difficult for you, do not therefore suppose it beyond mortal power. On the contrary, if anything is possible and proper for a man to do, assume, or a woman assume, that it must fall within your own capacity. If someone else can do it, you can do it. We're not talking about making the NBA All Star team if you're 4 foot 11 and 50 years old. But you can create a happy life. You can create a business you're proud of. You can create a family you're proud of. You can do all these things. So just because something is difficult does not mean that it is impossible. Remember that. And as you do that, accept yourself. When we fully accept ourselves is when we're willing to fail. Because then we know we're not putting ourselves on the line. So you might let yourself down at any given moment, but don't devil ify yourself you are worthy. You're a good human being who may have done things you're not proud of and may continue to do things you're not proud of. But that's fine. Accept yourself. Choose to do more wise things and behaviors in the future, but don't make yourself wrong. You Got to have a strong sense of self worth. We'll talk about that more in other notes. And the final big idea here is getting into the flow. So the reality is we have this really weird idea that we're going to be happiest when we're at leisure. When we're, as I say here, kind of, you know, a lifetime of drinks with pink umbrellas on the beach that will not lead to happiness. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi tells us about the paradox of work. We actually feel best when we're working, but we dream of watching TV or vacationing. But if you take a sample of people while they're watching TV and you measure their overall happiness, what you'll find is that on average they have mild depression. Very interesting watching tv, mild depression. Yet you take those same people during the day when they were working and they were engaged in their work, they'd actually feel pretty darn good. So there's this paradox of work. We think we're going to be happiest at leisure when we're actually happiest when we're working. Again, this is a scientific fact. When we're active, we can get into flow, which leads to more happiness. As Sony lie Bermirski tells us, happy people have projects. Happy people have projects. What are your projects? What's inspiring you? What are you doing? Go out there and rock it and remember the ABCs of suffering. Choose the most empowering way to interpret a situation. Get rid of your distorted thinking. You'll get rid of your neuroses and think and act. Take the plunge. Make your life an experiment. Difficult does not mean impossible. Accept yourself. Get into the flow by engaging in meaningful projects. There you go. Hopefully you got something meaningful out of that. Quick look at a guide to rational living. Hope you enjoyed. Have an awesome day. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. See ya.