PBS aired Excsues Begone last night and I found it to be a very accurate insight. I have always liked to listen to Dr Dyer. He is so inspiring and motivating.

It has been a very long time since I listened to Dyer or read his books. But this excerpt has a decidedly different tone, than my recollections of his work.

It’s a very irritating piece of writing and really, hardly helpful.

Personally, I could go a very long time without hearing about Dyer! Good gracious, he keeps coming out from under a log, and never seems to give up needing attention. Pop Psyi went out quite some time ago, thank goodness.

Glance over some of his early stuff - no, don’t bother.

‘Suma the Elephant’ is a little book that looks like it’s for children but is actually a metaphor for adults.  Reading it, we see that the things that hold us back are actually little strings that would be easily broken.  The ending will surprise you and make you long for all the Suma’s in the world to be free!

Deniseann,

I’m always grateful to be on anyone’s prayer list, so thank you.

I remember when the draft was legal and the army wouldn’t dream of taking both parents. In fact, [correct me if I’m wrong] if there was another sibling serving or if you had a couple children, you were not eligible to be drafted. I see film clips on television news where one parent in just leaving for Iraq and another is now returning. I personally know of families where both parents are in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The children are often young and it’s widely known that this type of separation between parent and child under age 7 can lead to horrible abandonment issues that remain for the child’s entire life  [unless intensively treated].

While I applaud anyone signing up to defend my freedom, I really think it’s a poor decision to have both parents [or even just one] in the military when there’s a huge potential of death or serious injury.

Deniseann, while I thank you for your prayers, I’d like to redirect them to our people in uniform overseas. They need them a lot more than I do.

You take care. 

So it’s "self developement" now, is it? That’s a mighty big jump from the "self-help" plague of the 70s-80s-90s-100s.

Yeah, I usually hate this stuff too, but in this case — though the guy hardly knows how to write it — he’s trying to say something that I have seen for myself in "real life" and by Georgie, Girl it’s reveletory.

Let me tell it my way (short form): My last ‘guy’ was not only from an impoverished family …  his kids laid claim, with much glee, to their ‘white trash’ social status. 

I have a master’s degree from an ivy-covered university. Very Ivy. But I digress.

Anyway, I might have had the degree, but no love came with it, and I fell for him while working at the same site. Not a web site, an old-fashioned kind of site where people rolled up their sleeves and knocked it out.

Anyway, after but a few days by his side,  I was simply astounded by this man’s joy d’ vivre (sp?). He lived in relative squalor but his heart and mind were quite liberated from this. IT BOTHERED ME SO MUCH MORE THAN IT BOTHERED HIM. If you will think about this for a minute — that’s what this ‘self-help’ guy is trying to say. 

Anyway, we got together and my life became a joy because I had a guy who knew how to make life a joy … with nothing but heart, humor, and pleasure in the simplest things. He really knew how to do it, and it blew me away so much that we stayed together 10 years.

Once, we had an argument (these were not frequent as he simply refused the displeasure of it). He said to me: "I was happy before [moving into my nice big house], and if you want me to go, I will, but I’ll be happy no matter where I am. Will you?" 

 I learned so much from this simple man, really.  With him, patience was not only a virtue; virtue was, in fact, patience. And going slow. And doing things really well. Expecting little. Giving much. Taking pride in the humblest endeavors. I kid you not, it can be done.

 I think it beat that Harvard degree all to pieces.

Well, we’ve parted ways now, him back to a hovel (‘modest home’ simply will not work here) and taking care of old Uncle Waynie. And cookin’ fine.

I’m back now too, with me myself and I, keeping busy of course, and while I cry some, I don’t cry as much as I did ‘before’, because I learned too much from this golden hearted, resourceful man to ever go back  ‘home’ again.

I think this is what this ‘improvement’ guy is on to, despite his unfortunate choice of title and tack. But I was lucky, I didn’t have to try to learn it from a book. I wonder, in fact, if one can.

Annette’s story says it all … and maybe the best lessons DO come from life itself!  While my college wasn’t ‘Ivy League’ I do have a Master’s and am a teacher.  I used to feel attracted only to highly educated folks, married one and … he turned out to be the most awful man who mostly uses his smarts to manipulate people, very selfish and entitled.  Of course his charm act is so good that it masks the real person, for awhile.  Anyway, now that he is gone one of my absolute best friends happens to be very simple guy who barely graduated high school, yet this guy has a genuine heart of gold and such a refreshingly positive attitude.  So on the flip side, I agree that attitude is everything.

Yes we do often construct our own roadblocks and often need to blast through them instead of make excuses.  My marriage was a major roadblock but after 15 years and 2 kids, to anyone who says ‘stop making excuses’ I’d say ‘walk a mile in my shoes’  Sometimes it feels that some of those who write this stuff are on the high road looking down on those with issues they’ve never experienced - and with their own brand of judgement called pretension.  Maybe my road is not a superhighway, still I continue the journey.