I Like Me

Do you spend all your time worried about your friends and family?

Do you work hard doing everything you can to help them?

…leads to burnout, doesn’t it?

…but isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing?

What about all those folks who are always “looking out for number one?”

Don’t people hate them?

Aren’t they just being selfish?

Me first – then you

Marcus Aurelius addressed this very issue in his Meditations.  (Isn’t it comforting to know that the ancients wrestled with the same problems we do?)

“Ignoring what goes on in other people’s souls – no one ever came to grief that way. But if you won’t keep track of what your own soul’s doing, how can you not be unhappy?”

I like this saying.

It reinforces the idea that we can’t always be concerned about other peoples’ problems, but we must always monitor our own.

We must be aware of what is going on in our “inner world.”

I mean, we all want to be happy.

Everyone is looking for the key to successful living.

Life will not be so hard if we understand ourselves.

Self-knowledge is power

Here’s what I think:

The level of happiness or unhappiness we experience in the world at large is a product of our internal happiness or unhappiness.

The key to a better quality of life lies within!

So let’s boil this down into the world of finance and personal relationships:

• Every financial advisor has an opinion. The goal is not to get a consensus. The goal is to determine what is right for you.
• Getting in touch with your own thoughts and feelings is an active process. It requires planning and organizing just as does any other activity.  In the final analysis, you have to learn how to live with yourself.
• Form a good relationship with yourself and you will be able to form good relationships with others, both on a professional and a personal basis.

Getting better all the time

You know what the best news is about this whole idea?

It’s not so hard to like yourself.

It’s really just a question of  accepting yourself – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Sure you have work to do, and opinions to get, and stuff to learn.

But your starting point should be that you’re okay, and just want to get better.

Are you okay with that? Do you like yourself? How does it feel?

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