6. Motivate yourself with good feelings for a change! Many people motivate themselves with bad feelings! Even worse, they frequently motivate themselves to do what they don't want or enjoy! Use pleasant voice tones to talk inside your head. Use them to talk with others also. Think of enjoyment associated with completion of a project instead of many steps required. Focus on benefits of what/why you are doing activity rather than on any unpleasantness associated with it. Also focus on how good it will feel to be done with project and on to other things you enjoy even more.

7. Eat real food that protects your body from stress. Junk food decreases your body's ability to deal with stress. It also weakens your immune system so that you are weaker and more vulnerable to injury and/or illness. Ditto for alcohol and other self defeating habits. Exercise is close to magic bullet or fountain of youth. Make sure you get enough to make a major difference in your health/fitness levels. What is best exercise? Something that you enjoy enough to do several times a week for a lifetime.

8. Procrastinate until you feel better. You've been told that procrastination is a bad thing. You've been told wrong! I'm here to tell you that procrastination is one of greatest skills a person can develop. Imagine your life rapidly improving by procrastinating your usual responses like anger or discouragement. I know you want to get mad at your kids and I'm sure they deserve it, but for now, let's just procrastinate. We'll get mad at them Saturday or maybe next week. That yummy junk food is beginning to talk to you...well, since you are a procrastinator, let's just procrastinate eating junk until we are full from eating something healthier and don't want it. I know that sometimes you have a tough day and people are not sensitive to your needs but since you can procrastinate so well perhaps we could put off discouragement until Fourth of July or your maternal aunt's birthday.

9. You are special. Start acting like it. There is nobody else like you. You are truly unique. Never in history of our planet has there been another you. There will never be another you in eons of eternity that make up future. Never. You are one of a kind. When God made you He was simply showing off. Now, go do great things. You deserve them and are fully capable.

10. Everybody else is special too. Start treating them that way. Everything in # 9 above applies to everyone. Yes, even boneheads. The reason they are boneheads is that they don't know how special they are...yet. Your purpose in life could include teaching them. Remember: we did not come to this planet to fail. We came here to succeed on a massive scale doing right thing in right way for right reason while having a spectacularly good time helping others.

What strange whim, in history of humankind, has compelled people from every walk of life to leave their cozy home and embark on risky ventures? Perhaps this whim is not so strange after all. A multitude of conquests have been made for sheer joy of conquering against great odds. The operative word is pride, accompanied by excitement. To conquest-minded people infinite ease of heaven entails infinite boredom. To them life – together with struggle that is integral to it – is very thing that perfect happiness leaves to be desired. It is an opportunity to prove courageous and victorious, though it is also a risk of failing painfully.

Happiness is about grasping this opportunity with courage and gaining a victory over obstacles that stand between us and success in all activities that most matter to us. This victory is often strenuous and always limited, precarious, and transitory, and we are bound to lose battle in end; but that makes victory all more precious and worthy of savoring.

When trying to define activities in which we most care to succeed, we are forced to study our nature to know our purpose. Our growing wise depends on this study and this knowledge, leading to this definition. It begins with an awareness of our animal will to survive, as survival is foundation on which life, in truly human sense, is built. The awareness of life in this sense follows. It takes into account both our humanity and our individuality, as members of society with particular tastes and abilities to which a wide range of activities are suited.

The clearer we are about our purpose, more we can live our lives with determination and passion, and so with a greater chance of succeeding and achieving happiness. The reverse is equally true. It therefore stands to reason that in striving after wisdom we lay groundwork for success and happiness.

Laurent Grenier’s career as a full-time writer and philosopher spans over twenty years. He has released various articles in art and philosophical magazines. He has also written some philosophical essays, a collection of memories and thoughts, and a compendium of physiology and nutrition, still unpublished. “A Reason for Living” constitutes his best work to date.