How to Do Everything and Be Happy by Peter Jones

Author:Peter Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2011-01-09T16:00:00+00:00

It’s easy for me to sound righteous here, but in fact there are many, many examples I could use from my own life where, due to a total lack of effort, lack of focus, on my part, I ended up with a situation that was less than satisfactory. I call it Living by Default.

Living by Default appears to happen whenever we assume that things will work out ok because they should, and/or we’ve expended very little effort on deciding what it is in life we actually want.

For instance, when I was a much younger man I naturally assumed that I would meet someone, fall in love, get married and have kids. I wasn’t particularly fussy about who that someone might be, how or when this great romance was going to happen, or anything about the kids other than there would probably be some. I was just happy to wait and let it happen. That was, after all, how life was supposed to work.

It was only in my thirties, when I noticed that people had stopped describing me as an ‘eligible bachelor’ and started instead to question my sexuality, that I realised that there was quite a strong chance that the woman of my dreams was not going to knock on the door and invite herself into my life. Believe me when I tell you this was a shock. Due to my complete and total lack of focus on the relationship front, Life had delivered to me my default setting – i.e. no one.

My friend and fellow author Wendy Steele says, ‘A life lived in fear is a life half lived.’ I’d like to suggest that Living by Default has the potential to be worse. You only have one life. And if you choose to let it take you where it wants, like a leaf floating in a stream with dreams of someday reaching the ocean, that’s your decision to make – just don’t complain to me if you find yourself trapped on the rocks, or snagged by overhanging branches.

If, on the other hand, you’d rather not leave your happiness to chance, well that’s an altogether more exciting attitude and something I’d very much like to be a part of.

What are you waiting for? Let’s get started.

And where do we start?

By figuring out what it is you actually want.

Making a Wish List

Imagine that, in a moment of madness, you’ve decided to start redecorating. And I don’t mean just slapping a fresh coat of paint on the walls – I mean major changes to your living space, the sort that involve a lump hammer being taken to that annoying dividing wall – and, in the process of undermining the structural integrity of your home, you discover an ancient-looking oil lamp within the wall cavity. You take off your rubber goggles, pick up the lamp, give it a rub and hey presto – an eight-foot genie is standing amongst the plaster and broken tiles.

‘Master,’ he says, ‘I have the power to grant thee three wishes.

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