I’m reading _The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why Being Your Whole Self—Not Just Your “Good” Self—Drives Success and Fulfillment_ by Todd Kashdan, and Robert Biswas-Diener.
In short, this book is about stopping the quest to get rid of all negative aspect in your life, and instead simply accepting them. If you try to be perfectly happy for 18 waking hours every day, even the best person is going to fall short 17 hours and then fell bad about that.
Page 38 describes ideas of Dr. Albert Ellis, the founder of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CB), something mentioned in my book. He cites three destructive beliefs:
- I must do well and win the approval of others to be accepted.
- Other people must ‘do the right thing’ or else they are no good.
- Life must be easy, without discomfort or inconvenience.
Take a look inside yourself. Do you hold any of these beliefs?
(lead image: Wikimedia Commons)