The Authentic Life

1. Dr. Steve McSwain Speaker, Author, Leadership Coach, The Authentic Life© All Rights Reserved
2. What’s the one thing Everyone Wants, Few People Find, and Fewer Still Know Where to Look?
3. Happiness, Fulfillment, What Aristotle Called “The Good Life”
4. CONFUSED? Yes, Many are Confused, As to Where Such a Good Life is Found. Are You?
5. “All men are created equal… endowed with certain unalienable rights… among these…the right to Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS…” Even the Founding Fathers were confused. They believed happiness (or, the Good Life…Human Flourishing) was like a Commodity one pursued, claimed or captured.
6. We Know Differently Today • In year 1998, the American Psychological Association adopted the terms “Positive Psychological to refer to a new branch of study . • This new research focuses on human flourishing and “positive emotions”…from where they come, how they function, and in what ways they contribute to human flourishing…to happiness.
7. The Happiness Formula Martin Seligman, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Edward Diener 1998 American Psychological Association “Positive Psychology” Happiness = Brain’s Set Point + Life Situation + Voluntary Actions
8. Happiness = Brain’s Set Point 50% Genetic Martin Seligman
9. Happiness = Set Point + Life Situation The “Situations” or Life Circumstances where People Commonly Seek Happiness Martin Seligman
10. Happiness = Brain’s Set Point + Life Situation + Voluntary Actions (Choices) Martin Seligman
11. Right Choices Pathway to The Authentic Life © Path to Human Flourishing…What Martin Seligman Calls “Authentic Happiness”
12. 1) Choose to BE HAPPY “I choose to be happy because half my happiness depends on it.” -- Dr. Steve McSwain
13. 2) QUESTION EVERYTHING Who Am I? Why Am I Here? What Do I Believe? How Do I Want to Be Remembered?
14. 3) Create a LIFE MAP What is Your Life Plan? Where Will You Be in 5 Years, 10 Years, etc?
15. To See the World in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in a Wild Flower To Hold Infinity in the Palm Of Your Hand, and Eternity In an Hour – William Blake “Auguries of Innocence”
16. 5) GO DEEP, Life is Calmer There Meditate More than You Medicate
17. 6) LIVE IN SPACE, Not Time Every Now and Again… Pay Attention to Nothing
18. 7) Look for the LIFE LESSON in Every Experience “There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.” -- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Is this True?
19. 8) Do Unto Yourself as You Would have YOUR SELF Do Unto You “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” (The Golden Rule) The Way You Treat Others is the Consequence of the Way to Treat Yourself
20. 9)Think about DEATH… …DAILY “All my life I thought I was learning how to live; now, I realize I’ve really been learning how to die.” -- Michaelangelo What Value is There in Thinking from the End?
21. 10) Be FORGIVING …..and 4-GIVING You Cannot Give What You Have Not Received
22. Thanks for viewing. If you like what you’ve seen, visit my website and sign up for my newsletter. Follow me on Twitter and Facebook too. http://SteveMcSwain.com @DrSteveMcSwain www.Facebook.com/DrSteveMcSwainPublicFigure

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Introduction…
Tony Campolo
“I’m socializing 2 homo sapiens in the dominant values of the
Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they might be instruments
for the transformation of the social order into the teleologically
prescribed utopia inherent in the eschaton. And, what is it, my
dear, that you do?”
Author, leadership coach, counsel to non-p, faith-based orgs, & cong. Prof. a spiritual teacher and a prof speaker. In classroom, art of com; in talks art of living authentically. Tell you how authentic life so…when come to end…look back knowing you’re leaving this world more conscious, compassionate, and charitable. “I have come,” Jn 10:10 “abundant”
Talk – What’s one thing everyone wants, few find, fewer still know to look?
Confusion – Lucy and Charlie Brown – “Never been able to get one unfolded!”
Even framers Constitution confused – “All men are created equal…endowed with unalienable rights…among these…right to life, liberty…pursuit of hap.”
Word “pursuit” misleading…
“Pursuit” implies chasing…that’s it’s out there, somewhere – if this is what you believe your song for life will be “Somewhere Over Rainbow” you’ll find happiness when pot of gold is found – never find happiness. Implies it’s lost and you’ve got to find it. Cannot find what is not lost. Implies it’s outside yourself. You cannot find outside yourself what it is you are by nature.
Now, here’s what we know: Whole new branch of study “Science of Happiness” – 1998 APA (Amer Psych Assn) “positive psychology” – Professor of Psychology at U of Penn. Martin E. P. Seligman “father of positive psychology” along with other scientist, and since then, many brain researchers – studying happiness.
Enough research now Seligman and others like Daniel Gilbert at Harvard and Sonya Lyubomirsky U of CA at Berkeley…
Developed a HAPPINESS FORMULA
Happiness = Brain’s Set Point + Life Situation + Voluntary Actions
What does all this mean?
1. Brain’s SET POINT: 50% or half happiness is genetically predetermined. A. Lincoln, “People as happy as they make up their minds to be” No we now know “People happy as their parents were.” Some people see problem in every opp. Others see an opportunity in every problem.
2. Life Circumstances: if you’re healthy, wealthy, have lots of what people call good luck.
Now, strangely, this is the place we look for happiness the most and, yet, the scientists and researchers are telling us that life situation accounts for only about 8 to 15% of the happiness quotient…the happiness formula
4 most common LIFE SITUATIONS in which people look for happiness....
Pleasure – “Happiness happens…”
2. Position – career, promotions, recognition
3. People – “You’ll make me happy” – Couple “Pray God take one us”
4. Prosperity Lottery. Here’s what we know. Win lottery, you’ll be happy. Visit you 1 year later, back to same degree of happiness or unhappiness experiencing before winning. Same with tragedy or challenges. Lose loved one, limb…devastated. But, given a year or two, you’ll be back to same degree of happiness.
3. Voluntary Actions (Choices) 40% or more or, again, nearly half your happiness is determined by the choices you make. Always making choices. Sometimes bad ones, too. (Fellow – bad choices in business…it failed. Mortgage…it turned upside down, lost his house. Marriage…it failed. Finally filed bankruptcy. At 40, in pit of depression, chose see fortune teller, see if second half of his life would be any better. Looked into crystal ball. “Oh,” she said, “doesn’t look so good.” “What do you mean?” “Well,” she said, “looks like you’ll remain broke and depressed until the age of 50.” “Not surprising,” he said with a deep resignation. “Well, what happens then?” She looked again into crystal ball. “See good news and bad news. Bad news is, at age 50, still be broke and depressed, but the good news is, by then, you’ll be used to it.” In East, it’s called RIGHT CHOICES. If knew decisions make today change the destiny of your life tomorrow, would you decide today?
Today, give you ___ voluntary actions – choices or decisions you might make today, and every day, that would raise the level of your happiness and the very first one is…
1. Choose to be happy.
Why?
Well, if for no other reason, we now know for a fact that half your happiness depends on the choices you make so choose to be happy. Every morning I wake up, which is, by the way, involuntary so far as I know – I have mastered the art of being able to wake up pretty close to a predetermined time. My Dad did master it. But I can get close. But the fact that, while I’m sleeping and, for the most part, even the waking, my body functions without my conscious participation. Can you imagine having to choose every moment the functions of your bodily organs. Which really are just cells and do you know how many cells are in your body? 37 trillion cells. Psalmist looked into the heavens and with his limited ability saw thousands of stars and broke into song, “When I consider the heavens, the moon and stars which thou hast made, what is man?” (Psalm 8). Well if you want to really be moved look through a microscope and discover the trillions and trillions of cells, each a microcosm of the infinite macrocosm around us and all of these cells have built into them their own program of operation that you and I have virtually no participation in – but there is one thing you DO control.
You choose to be happy. Or, you choose to be miserable.
Now, if you meet a miserable person, half of it might not be their fault – maybe they’ve just got a negative set of genes and have had lots of bad luck in life and you and I, when we meet someone like that, shouldn’t judge them but understand and be compassionate. At the same time, however, there is a responsibility they and you and I and everyone must take for that which we CAN control.
2. Question Everything
Been questioning things all my life. “Why drive on parkways but park on driveways?”
Wife – dogfood “New and Improved Taste” Who would have tasted that to know?
Child grocery shopping eggs in carton – Dad passed through, Son you know in our household we eat a lot of chicken right? Right. Did you know that’s only bird we eat before its born and after its died? Eggs in shelf from carton and asked “Mom those chicken eggs? Right? The eggs in that little carton were laid by chickens? That’s right. “Mom how’d they get them chickens to sit that close together?”
Psychic on radio, If you so psychic wouldn’t you know who had a problem and call them?”
I’m talking about important questions:
Who am I?
Why am I here? 2 most important days in life…the day you were born and the day you figure out why.
What do I believe?
How do I wish to be remembered? The life you live today determines the legacy you leave for others.
Leo Tolstoy “Without knowing who I am and why I’m here, life is impossible.”
2 kinds of people in our culture: those who get the life they get; and, those who get the life they want. The latter get the life they want because they know what they want out of life.
Yes, it’s really that simple.
When I was young I was told over and over again, “God has a plan for your life.” But when I asked “What is it?” the answer was always about my life after death not my life before I die. I got the eternity thing worked out but I was pretty much left to myself when it came to figuring out what and whether God had a plan for my life now.
Most people are just spectators. They watch life unfold instead of creating the life they want. They may plan their careers, go to great lengths to develop detailed plans for building a home, even a vacation, but it never occurs to them to plan their life. Some people in fact give more attention to their grocery shopping list than they’ve ever given to their life, much less their day.
Mind goes in two principal directions…
The past – with its regrets, grievances, hurts, disappointments, as well as the occasional glories, moments of exilheration
Heard about mother put children out in back yard to play. Mother skunk and 3 baby skunks. “Run children run!”
2. The future – with its worries and anticipations.
Can you change the past or control the future? Then why would you worry about either? Jesus said Matt 6:33 Do not worry. Take no thought of tomorrow.
&quot;My Mind To Me a Kingdom Is&quot; Sir Edward Dyer
My mind to me a kingdom is, such present joys therein I find
That it excels all other bliss, that world affords or grows by kind.
Though much I want, which most would have, yet still my mind forbids to crave.
They get with toil, they keep with fear; such cares my mind could never bear.
Content I live, this is my stay;
I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look! What I lack my mind supplies.
Lo! Thus I triumph like a king, content with that my mind doth bring.
Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have and seek no more.
They are but poor, though much they have;
And, I am rich with little store.
They poor, I rich; they beg I give.
They lack, I leave, they pine, I live.
But all the pleasures that I find,
Is to maintain a quiet mind.
How do you go deep…develop the quiet mind? Practice meditation – the Christian version. Matt. 6. Jesus said “Go into your closet” How many of you do that literally? Metaphor referring to inner world – where there’s possibility for stillness, reflection, real prayer. Zen adage: Meditate for 20 mins (pray) every day. If too busy to do that, then practice for 1 hour every day.” Lao-Tzu, “Where there is silence, one finds the anchor to the universe.”
Mind goes in two principal directions…
The past – with its regrets, grievances, hurts, disappointments, as well as the occasional glories, moments of exilheration
Heard about mother put children out in back yard to play. Mother skunk and 3 baby skunks. “Run children run!”
2. The future – with its worries and anticipations.
Can you change the past or control the future? Then why would you worry about either? Jesus said Matt 6:33 Do not worry. Take no thought of tomorrow.
Ever had experience of thinking of someone hadn’t seen in years, pick up phone to call and they were thinking of you at precisely same moment?
Tell my experience – David and Linda
Ever heard the word “synchronicity”? (Bernie Siegel, early pioneers of mind/body medicine said “no such thing as random coincidences, only meaningful coincidences” – “Coincidence is God acting incognito.”)
Choose to BE HAPPY
QUESTION EVERYTHING
Develop a LIFE MAP (Life Plan)
Live in the NOW, Not in the Past or Future
GO DEEP, Life is Calmer There
LIVE IN SPACE, Not Time
Look for the LIFE LESSON in Every Experience
Do Unto Yourself as You Would have YOUR SELF Do Unto You
Think about DEATH…DAILY
Be FORGIVING…and 4-GIVING

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