“Don’t Live at the Mercy of Other People!”
People react to this quote by Vernon Howard by telling themselves they already know this, and their reaction keeps them from further investigation. Every day someone will remark, smile, frown, or use angry words, and if unaware, you will be affected by them without knowing it. This is why Vernon Howard says over and over again to slow down your life. So you become increasingly aware of how easily you are swayed and influenced. This opens you up to a whole new world inside of yourself.
Vernon Howard says: “Use every daily experience to grow by getting something from it.” Both big and small experiences.
Once you discover that you are easily influenced, you place yourself psychologically in a new inner place to learn more about the unseen life. Placing attention on this invisible life that we know so little about changes the quality of your life. With your hard work at becoming more conscious, your life changes from being an endured life to a fun life. You will be shocked to see you are the only problem you have. You have been keeping your happiness from yourself.
Your attitude changes and you will ask yourself: What else am I missing or not seeing? This question and further investigation is what changes your life.
“Go slower through life, it won’t hurt you.” -Vernon Howard. Go to work on your inner life. There are many ways to separate from your reactions and the freer you are from them the happier your life becomes.
Recently, I got to see how affected I became when an angry, lost man barked at me. I did not bark back, but remained silent and watched the full experience of reaction thoughts coarse through my mind. “You can’t let him get away with that” to “Why is that man the way he is?” Putting more and more attention on my reactions and staying with it, not resisting it, brought a new realization that I was letting my reactions sway my day. I was giving my life away to silliness.
Separating and dropping it (my disturbance) broke me out of thinking I had to think about the event. “Now is new” came to mind, and I could see I did not have to continue reliving and repeating this experience in my mind. This was clear proof for me that Vernon knew what he was talking about. Use everything in your day to see what you are all about. You will make many, many self-discoveries and those self discoveries with make you a happy fellow inside. Your spirit will be light-hearted and you will be cheery. This is good.