Chances are it's another snake oil salesperson in disguise trying to sell something in order to make a few bucks and will tell you anything you want to hear in order to do it. People in the health community are probably the best at it because they can really play on your biggest fear; mortality.
Then there's the "security" industry who are expert at conjuring up the worst of worse case scenarios to lather you in paranoia to have you convinced that there is "something" out there that's coming for you. What it is depends on what they are trying to sell you; whatever works. Fear is a great motivator.
Then there's the marketeers and psychologists (there's a lot of them in the industry) who; for a few bucks, a seminar or retreat or two, can give you the key to whatever it is your looking for. Success, wealth, beauty, muscles; anything on your bucket list will do.
It's all about getting you to behave in a certain way in order for them to achieve certain results which usually translates into profits.
Do this takes a lot of talent because it can be tricky at times.
For example, Koreans eat dogs. Here we love them like our children. Who's behaving the best of the two? Behavior is a matter of conditioning which cause me concern when I look around today and wonder if this is not just a trailer for Idiocracy.
Point is the "norm" is not necessarily healthy and being outside the box (a social reject) might just be the better path. A tried and true concept of mental health has yet to be formed. The best psychology has been able to do is define the unhealthy conditions after the fact and intervene. That's not prevention, and much like our present medical model, serves another agenda; dare I say, making money. A cure for cancer? Not going to happen. Why? No money in it. Same goes with mental health. Psychologists would wither and die in a healthy society. For example, if people would come to the realization that concepts like love, happiness, sadness, etc. are just made up by people who need a way to market something. The realization that there is no such thing as love, happiness, blah, blah, blah would put a whole lot of people out of work. Still. as Fritz P once said, "there's no anxiety in the present" and it seems that the present is nothing more than an ongoing stream of experiences that; if interrupted, cause anxiety and transforms a bunch of folks into neurotics trying to figure out something that doesn't need figuring out. 12 step folks refer to it as "letting go and letting god" rather than trying to harness and can a specific experience, putting a label on it, and selling it as something one lacks or is deficient in.
Someone on this thread mentioned Gnostic's and got me to thinking about why they were banned from the Christian community. All they preached was a simple solution to all your ills; want to find God? Look within!
Why was that a dangerous message then and now? Simply put it cut out the "middle man", the broker, the banker, the priest, who without would leave you poor, lonely and destitute. Without the guy with the "keys" you were doomed. In religious terms it was the keys to heaven while in psychology (which is a religion of sorts; lot's of guru's) it was the keys to happiness, love, and a slew of other emotional elixirs that could not be had without a prescription.
If you want to find out how to be in the world look no further than the animal kingdom. Watching a mother with her cubs or the father defending the turf, or building a nest and gathering nuts for the winter. It's a lean, mean, and highly efficient way to live in balance with the plane. No elaborate Ron L Hubbard schematics or a library packed with how-to books. No lectures, seminars or weekend retreats. And most important it's free and available to all.
Amazing how animals not only figured it out but have been following the same playbook since the beginning and pass it on by example from generation to generation. They stay in the present and it doesn't get complicated which is something humans have managed to completely corrupt and distort; all in the name of progress. One look around and it's easy to see how far that got us. The human garbage is piled so high it's literally killing the planet and, of course, everything on it. The solution for those that can afford it, is to start the search for another inhabitable planet to begin the process all over again and to hell with everyone else. I call it survival of the dumbest.
To get back to keys; I'd just say, quit getting all uptight, anxious, stressed out about not being happy. While you're doing that you just missed out on being happy in that moment.
Happiness, sadness, pain, anger, depression, anxiety, fear, pleasure is all there inside of each of us along side God (if you want to go there) and is in a continuous state of flux. There's no grabbing on to one lest you end up in the same trap a cocaine addict falls into in chasing the ever elusive perpetual high.
The only thing that stops most of us from living a "present" life is fear. Fear of the unknown and in following ourselves in believing that if we do this, or that, or this and that, we can take control. It's no wonder that almost, if not, everyone on the planet is neurotic given that the reality is that nothing is "known" in any finite sense. Not even death. Ask a Buddhist.
On that frightening note I'll remove myself from the soapbox and go about the business of living my life as best I can with what I have. Good luck to the rest of you.
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