While you’re reading, be sure to visit the first Christine’s site. You’ll find a lot more that is interesting and helpful.

Albert and Ellis originally worded this

10. The idea that maximum human happiness can be achieved by inertia and inaction, or by passively and uncommittedly “enjoying oneself.”

I may have changed the meaning of this in my paraphrase, but the intent is that happiness will not come from leading a passive life. Happiness, and contentment, are side effects of engaging in fulfilling activities. To expect enjoyment, happiness, or contentment to result from being passive in one’s life is a destructive belief.

In changing ‘nothing’ to ’something’, you change the belief to one that is more positive and constructive.

I looked at the list very carefully and it just happens that this one most closely matches my thought process. Except for one thing, I would rephrase it this way:

“I can be happiest by doing something and at the same time passively enjoying myself”

I just can’t for the likes of me deduct how that is negative thought. Is it negative in comparison because statistically humans passively enjoy themselves by interacting with other human beings?

Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to make such extensive comments. I don’t agree with what you say, but many people, perhaps most, do. That’s one of the things I’m trying to change with this site. I’m not trying to force any views on anyone. Each person will make their choice about whether what they read is useful or not, and what is productive to apply in their lives and what to ignor.

Several things:

1. I’ve never read any NLP literature. If what you read here bears any resemblence to it, it is because NLP has built on prior work and thought, and because, hmmm, maybe the techniques are realistic and not poppycock.

2. You miss the point completely. Your emotions are not a part of you. They are something you experience. Yes, one of the channels of their creation is the neurochemical reactions throughout your brain and body. We have both a mind and a body, which may be two aspects of one tool. We are neither. You obviously believe you are a body, a product of purely material forces. In that case, all debate about free will and personal responsibility is a content free discussion. You are only a victim. You, for that matter, don’t even exist. You are as much an illusion as free will or personal responsibility. The nonsense isn’t that we are more than a random assemblage of atoms, but that we are only a random assemblage of atoms. It is that belief, along with the belief that one person has the right to physically enforce their will on another person, that has caused the majority of the pain, war, violence, and behavior destructive to the self and others in the world’s history.

3. Would I be able to avoid an immediate emotional reaction to the things that happen to me? No. That emotional reaction is as much, if not more, a habit of thought as anything else, though. One of the reasons you find the same poppycock all over is because it works. Your thoughts affect your body as well as your body affecting your thoughts. Neither one of them is you.

4. You seem to confuse material success with happiness and even common decency. The two are more often far apart than together. Once a basic level of physical comfort is reached, any more material success doesn’t nothing for happiness or contentment, and case could be made for it encouraging the exact opposite.

5. If you tortured me I would have the belief that you tortured me. If I invited you to torture me, I would have the belief that I invited you to torture me. Would I feel pain. Definitely! Would I hate you? Probably. But then, if you fell and broke your arm would you hate the floor you landed on? It would be my choice to hate you, forgive you, or treat you as if you’re the floor. I, you, and everyone else is responsible for what emotions we feel and sustain.

6. Emotions are useful. They serve an evaluative function in our lives. In simplistic terms, they are us telling ourselves this is good or this is bad. If the only way to get you to provide food for yourself is the fear of starving, the fear is useful. More useful is to provide food for yourself so you can do something more fulfilling. Action driven only by emotion isn’t useful. Emotions are most effective when guided by thought.

This is honesty. Abdicating responsibility for yourself and your life is not.

So tell me how positive you’d feel after I tortured you, other than the relief I have stopped, you might even feel grateful! But you’d be a broken man on some levels, and negative emotions would be in your mind placed there by me.

Why can’t I find any real information on this subject instead of positive mental attitude bullshit. Why are all the most successful people I know sadistic narcissistic assholes with as much positive mental attitude as a KKK lynch mob? None of this matches what I’ve seen in the real world. No, you aren’t completely in control of your emotions. They are a chemical electrical reaction controlled by interactions with other objects in the universe more so than by positive mental thinking bullshit. If you really believe what you say, let me torture you and see how positive you are then. I’d love to have your permission. Then you’d know how wrong you are.

This is pollycock and nothing more than telling people what they want to hear. If I bugger your anus with a pool cue then you will identify with the belief that you have been violated in a way society looks down upon by a stronger man and if you tell people they will look at you as a gay. If I promise not to kill you but use electrodes to torture you for hours I guarantee you won’t feel positive about anything (until I stop, then you will feel extreme relief) and so sure, your emotion identifies with the belief you are suffering and will continue to suffer, but your positive thinking pollycock won’t alter it.

I wish someone would be honest about these things. There’s so much nonsense out there.

Thank you for coming, and using what I’ve talked about here.

I’m glad the technique has helped. I’ve always found it useful. If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that you are in control of your life and emotions, and negative emotions hurt yourself more than whoever they’re directed at. Come again, a keep speaking up.