Dr. Laura Schlessinger - Stop Whining, Start Living

I have spent my whole career striving to help people be and do their best and claim joy from the struggle that is life. The irony is that the struggle to be happy has been a lifelong and difficult one for me too. I have come to see this has been a blessing, since my struggles have helped me understand and motivate others, and the helping of others has fed back into my experiencing joy in life.

I have written many books covering just about every aspect of interpersonal and intimate relationships. This book is different. It is about your relationship with yourself and a coming to terms with the limitations of life and acceptance of opportunities for great peace and happiness.

Simply put, you have to decide for whom you are dancing, through life, and why. Are you still trying to get a mommy or a daddy to love or approve of you? That was my ballet, and it led me to constantly look for new challenges to prove my worth, with the frustration of never finding what was, ultimately, impossible: love through success.

Are you not dancing at all, lest you be criticized or rejected for not dancing well enough? Are you dancing with new partners every moment because you crave the feeling of that first touch? Are you dancing roughly, stepping on others feet, hoping to remedy your hurts by delivering even greater ones?

These and more are some of the themes of this book. My goal is that even before you get through the introduction, youll tear up, let down your guard, and open your heart to the prospect of making your life more of a pleasure to yourself and to others.

R obert, one of my listeners, sent this to me with a note that said, Thank you for helping me to learn this lesson of life. It makes me quite proud to read and hear that folks have learned certain values from me that have given their lives some contentment, direction, or purpose. I have long thought that the ultimate meaningfulness of our lives comes from fulfilling our obligations to others.

For most of us, others means friends, family, or colleagues. But what if, as in the case of Robert and me, you are total strangers? How does one become obligated to a stranger? Who is a stranger? Is the person behind you in line at the grocery store or gas pump a stranger to whom you owe nothing? Does that mean you are free to take advantage of your opportunity to dominate his or her time and resources, or be otherwise disdainful? Some people seem to get an actual rush from those stolen moments of pseudo-importance and power.

All strangers, though, are people like you. Have you seen the commercial where individuals see strangers doing good deeds, and then in their turn do something for anotherand so it keeps going? Not knowing peoples names doesnt mean you dont matter to them or they to you. Look at every human being as an opportunity to advance humanity and add something positive to the rsum of your life.

Does that moments emotional high from the anonymous win of one-upmanship last? No, it generally doesnt. By the time you get home or to work, youre probably in a worse mood. Why? Ugly sentiments breed uglier feelings, and the inevitable downward spiral continues.

Too many people think that feeling good comes from competition, from beating someone else out for something, be it a parking space or an inheritance, or gaining an edge over someone, be they siblings, coworkers, even spouses and children. These are mentalities that drive people deeper into despair because although these wins might mean momentary glee, the deeper needs for admiration, love, and respect are never met.

You cannot demand or grab love or respect. Demanding it will result only in resentment, fear, or dislikeeven hatred. Grabbing it will not satiate your innermost desires for loving connections, given openly and without reservation. And that which you grab or demand will not have the mirror on the wall reflect back what you need to see.

You dont deserve anything you havent earned. And a lot of what you get that is challenging, unpleasant, or horrific wasnt earned either. The key to a satisfying life is to strive toward the former, and survive the latter with your humanity intact. That, my friends, is not easy.

John, another listener, wrote,

Long ago I discovered that life is a day-to-day process. Life has its BMW (Bitch, Moan, and Whine) days, and its days of joy. The bumper sticker S ** t Happens is a reflection of reality. One of Gods little jokes is that you dont get pretty flowers without feeding them the proper amount of excrement, not too much and not too little.

I found that the quality of my life very much depends on what I focus on and the environment that I choose. It is difficult to be negative when you make the choice to be around positive people.

The key is choice. Are there days of profound depression? In my life, yes. Then I hear one of my trainers shout GOYAGet Off Your Anatomyand do something about it. Sometimes doing something about it takes support, and sometimes I can do it on my own.

Open up the newspaper or turn on your computer any day and you will find page after page and blog after blog about death, mayhem, murder, betrayal, vicious reputation and personal attacks, lies, dirty politics, injustice, Hollywood stars undermining our government, ethnic cleansings, assassinations of the innocent, daily rapes and murders of mothers and children, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes claiming lives in an instant, dictators fomenting terror, and the like. It makes one wonder, What is there to be happy about?

Patricia submitted her answer to my radio program,

My mother- and father-in-law taught me that life is for the living and we should never whine about how bad we had it or have it. They lived through the Depression and my mother-in-law had three bouts of cancer (breast, vaginal, colon) and is still alive and cancer free but in a nursing home with macular degeneration, osteoporosis, and angina. But every time we visit, she asks about our day, whats new? how is the weather?never complains about anything. She is eighty-eight and still conquering.

My father-in-law died two years ago with Alzheimers. Until the end, even when he could hardly swallow, he kept trying to help. If you came to visit, he put his drink up and pushed it toward you, offering you a drinkstill in some small way trying to be of use.

He was eighty-six when he died peacefully with his son and myself by his side. His funeral was the best attended Ive ever seen, with people talking about how he always helped them and total strangers who were in need. God bless.

When I first read Patricias letter, I choked up. Quite frankly, it is truly difficult to imagine being the slightest bit easy to get along with, cheerful about anything, caring about anyone, when youre suffering so very much. When Im confronted on my radio show by a caller who is clearly going through a nonvoluntary hell, asking me why he or she should even bother with anyone or anything, I fall back onto two flowers from the cesspool of the Holocaust: the Righteous Gentiles (Christians who risked their lives, and those of their children and relatives, to save Jews from the Nazi death camps) and the known acts of compassion by concentration camp victims who shared their last scrap of food with someone who was soon to die anyway, or who tried to observe their religious rituals in an environment which would seem to deny the Divine.