Do Wisdom Quotes Really Help You?

by Gavin, Unlock Your Happiness.com
(Cape Town, South Africa)

Since I started on Twitter recently, and on Facebook some time ago to keep in contact with my daughters overseas, I've noticed that a lot of people post 'wisdom quotes' much of the time. For some people, it's virtually all they ever post. So wisdom quotes are obviously popular and many people presumably derive benefit from them.

Here are a few examples from today's posts in Twitter, and one from Facebook:

"Some people succeed because they are destined to, but most people succeed because they are determined to."

"Remember, you only have to succeed the last time." - Brian Tracy

"Life is in the living every hour of every day."

"Love and gratitude can dissolve any disease." - Rhonda Byrne

"Quality begins on the inside... and then works its way out." - Bob Moawad

"Heaven on earth is a choice you must make, not a place you must find." - Dr. Wayne Dyer

Do these statements really improve the quality of your life?

Because quotes such as these don't really inspire me terribly much, this got me to thinking about why that should be.

Perhaps the biggest reason of all (for me) is that most of the quotes I see posted online speak about how life should be (even though it isn't); or about what we as individuals should be like (yet we aren't). Virtually none of them ever includes any practical suggestion as to how to make such states real - how to realize them as our own living reality.

I guess this is normal, because the quotes are probably taken from some writing or speech that had a lot more in it, and the quotes are just a sentence or two to inspire the reader towards self-improvement.

A case of the cart before the horse?

Nevertheless, I feel that such isolated quotes tend to put the cart before the horse, so to speak. In fact, they omit to mention the horse at all -- the horse that pulls the cart towards the desired destination, whether that destination be love, health, material success or happiness.

Brief quotes, on their own, therefore leave us with a very short-term (perhaps less than a minute) inspirational boost. But I'm willing to bet that this feeling is often quickly replaced by a feeling that is less inspirational -- perhaps a sense of dissatisfaction, frustration, disillusionment, a wishing I could be like that, or wondering whether I will ever experience that reality, and so on. I have observed the same thing with the hundreds of statements one reads about the Law of Attraction and Abundance.

So, where is the how-to part?

You will find the how-to part for a better and happier life on the Web pages at Unlock-Your-Happiness.com. It is there for the taking -- at no cost. And it is summarised here once again:

• Allow the mind to move away from thinking, towards the stillness within - every day. This unlocks more of our already-present creative consciousness from within and takes us progressively towards the desired destination inferred in the many wisdom quotes we read. The method I use for this is called Conscious Mental Rest. It can be learnt at no cost via the audio files and follow-up e-mails in the course offered on the website.





• Listen to and, importantly, follow your inner prompts so that, increasingly, what you think, say and do will be perfect for you in that exact moment. The habit of hearing and following one's in-tuition isn't developed overnight; it needs to be practised daily, moment by moment, especially whenever there is a choice or a decision to be made. Every time you do this you will experience immediate changes for the better. It is progressive. It starts to snowball as you sharpen your 'in-tuition' by listening to the inner teacher, the Self, and then obeying it.

That's it! That is the formula for happiness and for experiencing a more fulfilling life. It is just so very simple.

Moving towards spontaneous right action

One of the important benefits of an effective meditation technique, or of daily time-out sessions of Conscious Mental Rest, is that it allows the mind to move beyond thinking to quieter and more powerful levels of consciousness. As a result, we progressively and spontaneously develop those sought-after characteristics and tendencies so often spoken about in wisdom quotes.

It just happens, all by itself. We start to change ... from within ... without having to make a whole lot of changes from the outside.

Exercises to help the process along

To help sharpen your awareness of what is right for you in any moment, work through the website section on Conscious Mental Attention if you haven't already done so; and in particular the pages about the three habits: truthfulness, kindness, appreciation.

I promise you, this is not pie-in-the sky thinking or theory. This is the real thing. It is all practical and easily implemented. And it works -- from Day 1. It is subtle, sometimes almost imperceptible. But it works.

Do the work to create the change

This reminds me of the two French women in the Meryl Streep movie titled 'Julie and Julia'. The three co-authors -- American Julia (Meryl Streep) and the two French ladies -- were having tea together and discussing why one of them should have her royalty reduced because she had not contributed equally to the cooking book project. When she protested, the one French co-author repeatedly explained to her quite bluntly: "Because you didn't do the work!"

We can't expect to experience any change if we are not prepared to do the work. But the work towards more happiness and peace of mind is so light and enjoyable, so let's do it anyway. And if we can share the formula with others, that's even better.

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