You may think that life is hard and cruel. You may presume and experience that life is not easy, that life is full of pitfalls and incompleteness and so on. At the same time, life is more than you label it. You could swear a thousand times that life is the most difficult thing you know. You are convinced that your life has proven to be difficult. You could swear that you can prove it, and you could supply a long list.

That is one perspective. Open up to the fact that there are other perspectives. It doesn’t help you out very much to affirm that Life on Earth is a hard case. Why affirm it? Why would you ever want to prove such a thing?

Perhaps you will also admit that life is also a blessing. Transfer your thinking to those aspects of life that you would not pass up for anything. There are the big things and also the great little things. There is the birth of your baby, and there is the taste of coffee ice cream. There is your baby’s first word. There is your first love even if it didn’t work out. An insight. A dress you once had. The time you got a standing ovation in a college play. The sweet scent of flowers. The beauty even of flowers that do not have a scent. Your first touchdown. When you got an A in statistics…

C’mon, put your attention on the pleasurable things that have happened and continue to happen, the joys that can be counted on and you would gladly welcome again. Is this list not endless? Dwell on this list and not on an accumulated list of hazards. Give yourself happy signals. Plant more seeds of happiness in your life. Use your common sense. Give life a good press. 

We come back to your playing the role of victim, as if this somehow makes you a hero. Look, anyone can be a victim. All you have to do is lie there and be stepped on. Better to get up and stand tall.

Put some attention on your own posture rather than all the assigned faults you attribute to the world.

You have been armed with fears. You have invited fear ahead of time, even as if you thought you were smart and warding fears off. Starting now, focus on the beauty and awards of life. Thank God.

When there is the rainy season, relish it. And when there is sunshine, relish it. Let go of the whole idea of complaint and loss. You can’t lose. You are alive on Earth, and yet your existence does not depend upon Earth. Life is precious, and your life has been precious. That precise ever-changing example that your life on Earth has been is unlike any other and will not come again. Infinite possibilities. This specific life on Earth of yours is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You asked for it, and it has been given to you.

Change is the name of the game on Earth. Change in the relative world is inevitable, and yet you resist change again and again. You fight a game you cannot win.

Can you deny that life is also beautiful? Can you deny that you have had moments of pure splendor? Remember when you learned to ride a bike and sailed down a hill. Remember a beautiful sky and how you embraced it. Remember your flights of fancy and books that were and are dear to you. Where can you get all this except in life on Earth?

Remember what you achieve here and forget what you haven’t yet achieved.

Life on Earth gives you choices. It’s only an idea of yours that you make wrong choices. Living a choice may have been arduous, yet how do you know that it wasn’t the right choice? One way or another, you really do move forward. You really do live life in all its preciousness. Hand yourself the right propaganda. Write your own commercials. Pay attention to what you tell yourself.

If you can promote doom, certainly you can promote joy. You really can’t deny the existence of joy, so embrace it.