How to Become Happy Against All Odds II

In the first article, I stated 3 golden rules to become happy. You make yourself happy or unhappy, you are responsible for building a solid ego and you must always look at the positive aspects of life, no matter how bleak the situation may appear.

Building a solid Ego

True, it is easier said than done. It takes a long time and a lot of efforts to reach inner peace with yourself. One of the basic conditions is to love yourself as a human being. How can you love others if you dislike your self?

The remarkable psychologist Carl Rogers expressed the following: “He used the term congruence to describe the match or fit between an individual’s inner feelings and outer display. The congruent person is genuine, real, integrated, whole, transparent.” 

A solid ego, I previously mentioned the inner and outer ego as forming the whole Ego, is made of congruence between what you think of yourself and what you show the outside world. You may believe me or not, but people are a lot more perceptive than we think. If the congruence does not exist, resulting in what we call hypocrisy, their reactions to your behavior will be negative.

So good human relations are based fundamentally on congruence, or, said more simply, on honesty. I realize that nobody is 100% transparent and genuine all the time; we would not be humans if we were. But just think of the reactions caused by a child’s innocent comment, such as “Why is this lady so fat?” The child is totally congruent with his/her feelings, yet we shush him/her out of embarrassment, thus creating in him/her a feeling of inadequacy. We should accept their comment, knowing there is no malice involved.

A therapist can certainly help you find such congruence, but you can do it yourself by analyzing your feelings and their congruence with their display in public. As an adult, you of course won’t express criticism of others as a child would; but what you can do is look at the positive side by looking for ways to help others.

Being positive by helping others

There is no better way to strengthen your Ego than by helping others in a genuine fashion. There are multiple ways to do it, but it is not a matter of giving money to charity, though that doesn’t hurt if you really want to make a difference.

The best way to help those in contact with you is to listen actively when they communicate something they feel is important. Very few of us know how to really listen, because it requires a rare commodity in our modern society: Empathy.

Empathy is literally putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes; it takes practice yes, but most of all, it takes genuine interest and congruence. That’s the secret of really good therapists, but anybody can do it.