PRINCIPLE 7, BE EASY TO PLEASE

The Seventh Principle of Self-love is that you must reduce your needs. Be easygoing.

Reduce your emotional needs as much as possible for feeling the need for things like a fancy car is increasing pain for yourself – all desires that are not fulfilled are a bit painful at least. You have to do this forever. Obviously, you have to have some needs. You want food. You want drink. If you did not feel a need for them you would probably die. When the surplus feelings of needing are dealt with that is when you become selfish in the sensible and real way by needing very little. Don’t generate unnecessary needs for yourself and there will be less to disappoint you. The only thing you need to be happy is you and you have got you. When you reduce your emotional needs you still work for things like nice houses and trendy cars but you do it without the compulsion of needful desires and that way you get more enjoyment out of life and whatever you achieve is more worthwhile. Having too many needs will leave you in the habit of being anxious and self-pitying. The disciplined person can be starving to death in a desert and still not be worried about it. Feeling awful about it will only make her plight worse.

Happiness is achieved when you find more to be happy about than unhappy about in yourself. Remember, do not frustrate and reduce the peace you feel by looking for super self-esteem for that is failing to reduce your emotional needs to the basics. Just let whatever happiness comes come and welcome it even if the previous moment was happier.

To need a person or thing unnecessarily is to use them to fill your self-inflicted voids and is caused by fear and stupidity. This is true whether it is a physiological need such as the need for food or an emotional need such as for love. It is as far from love as you can get for needing makes demands on them to make you happy and all such demands are unfair and opposed to their freedom. To fail to let others be as free as possible is to maltreat them. Your outlook becomes one of refusing to be happy unless the “loved” object does x,y or z. To find happiness in yourself is selfish and is the one true selfishness.

When you just accept this happiness you will cease to consider yourself good and valuable because of what good you do or have done or will do to others but because of what you are. You will consider yourself good and valuable because you have found happiness and possess the will and power to be happier. Your being happy the rational way is the only thing you can consider worthwhile. We do good to others because we are happy and not because we want to feel good about ourselves for doing good. It is when we are detached like that, that we don’t have to fear our feelings turning sour and our happiness increases automatically. Respecting the freedom of others rescues us from loneliness.

Don’t try to change others. It is up to them to change themselves and the only person who you need to change in your life is yourself for you are the most important person to you. You will never be happy if you keep trying to interfere with others instead of working on your own self-development. That is making a need for yourself that you could do without.

Belief in God, divine revelation or in magic is evil for it is to blame for all the evil worked in its name simply because it is not needed and is something extra for humans to wage war over as if we don’t have enough excuses for strife. Those who support religion are being supportive of evil for they should know better and the secrets of the gospel are written on every heart and mind.