While you may not give up completely, there are many times when, lacking strength, you settle for less or choose a symptom, as I chose headaches. Perhaps the beginning of gaining strength is becoming aware of the bad choices you make. Just knowing that you choose much of your misery yourself will help you get the idea that it may be worth trying to make a better choice. If you believe your misery just happens to you and you have no control over it, then you will never get much more than what you are getting now from life. But there is a fact of life that keeps many of us from recognizing that we choose a lot of our misery. That fact is that for many of us the world we live in is miserable. If you argue that the world may be responsible for a great deal of our inability to make the right choices with our lives you have a lot of truth behind your argument.

Of course, much human suffering is the system’s fault. Of course, everyone in the world should be given a fighting chance for love and worth, and should be raised in a way that gives him or her the strength to fight for a fair share, but the facts are that the world is not the way many of us would like it to be. 

My job, as a psychiatrist and educator, is to try to help the weak grow stronger regardless of their situation. As a citizen I try to make the world better—that is my ongoing responsibility (it’s yours, too). But the thesis of this book is that many people, weak and strong, can help themselves to be stronger, and an important new path to strength may be positive addiction. If more of us gain strength maybe we will make a better world; there is little chance we will do so if too many of us are weak.

William Glasser — Positive Addiction (pp. 10-11)

We are all aware of someone in our lives with an unhealthy addiction. Many of us struggle with different addictions ourselves. William Glasser posits that we can use addictions to our advantage if we have the strength to choose positive addictions. We have the ability to let go of unhealthy addictions and add positive addictions into our lives.

Full disclosure. . . . this is an area I have struggled with most of my life. I have flirted with positive addictions several times but for one reason or another, I inevitably slip back into old habits. This is something I am currently working to change.

The sentence in bold above is a pretty harsh reality. So often we feel like our misery just happens to us. We assume we are victims of our circumstances and we’re helpless to change things for the better ourselves. This is a lie we believe and it affects every aspect of our lives.

You do have the power to change your life for the better. Sure, it may be difficult to sort out at first, but what is more important than sorting out your life? It’s the only one you’ll ever have; why not make it the best life possible?

Is there one unhealthy addiction you could discard from your life soon?

Have a blessed day.

Peace and Love,

~Travis