BELIEF SIX: I AM RESPONSIBE FOR BEING LOVABLE, HAPPY, WORTHWHILE, AND BELONGING

 While self improvement flows from how you live with others you alone are responsible for making it happen. In previous lessons we learned to seek change , recognize your inner spirit, to be free of past determination, believe you can directly know about truth and knowledge, and find development in the way you relate with others. These are  crucial beliefs. Considering these five points all together leads to the conclusion that you have the ability, power, and responsibility to be lovable, happy, worthwhile, and belong in a positive relationship with another that will result in self growth.

To simplify what must be done let me list three steps of:
1. Choosing; which refers to deciding on a plan of action. 
2. Doing; which refers to acting on your choice in step one.
3. Becoming; which refers to accepting the change which will naturally happen to you following the first two steps.

So to illustrate how these three steps can work let me recount a saying that I used when raising my children. It certainly did not work all the time but now that my children are adults I hear them putting these same words to their children. “Happy People are Happier!” Sounds nonsensical but it implies that if you want to be happy you draw from within. You take responsibility for you own happiness and do not expect others to make you happy.

Thus the first steps to be happy are: 
   1. Choose to be happy 
   2. Start acting or behaving with happiness. 
   3. Then accept being a happy person. The same three steps can be used to become loving, worthwhile, a contributing member of a group, forgiving, accepting, and being non-critical as discussed in the last lesson.
Again, these three simple steps are: 
    1. Choosing  
    2.  Doing  and then
    3.  Becoming.


         SELF-INSIGHT QUESTIONS FOR PRACTICAL                                                      APPLICATIONS

                                    BELIEF SIX

1. How can I take responsibility for being lovable, worthwhile, happy, and belonging?”
 

2. Why do people expect others to make them happy?

3. Will a short non- coordinated Bill be happy choosing a career of being a basketball player or a Mary who has a poor memory be successful and happy pursuing a career in chemistry? What other factor must be considered in each of these two cases?

4. Could either Bill or Mary or anybody choose to be loving, forgiving, non-critical, and responsible?

5. In what areas of living does choosing, doing, and becoming work and when will it fail? Another way to ask this is where and when am I able to choose it, then practice it and find that it will naturally follow that I  have that attribute?

6. When and where in my life have I been most successful in taking personal responsibility for self change and personal growth to become a better person?


7. What is the most important thing I have learned from this lesson and discussion?