Application of the Enduring Attitude as a Key to Self-Improvement

Abstract

The experience of some emotional pain in every human being’s life is necessary. Emotional pain is often manifested in the experience of the void. When a person is not feeling relevant such pain is normal and necessary. To experience pain, one must also be able to feel deep sorrow (Morinus, A. (2011). An open heart. Reform Judaism, pp. 63–64). Aside from sudden annihilation, the turning point from joy to sorrow or vice-versa can be tricky. Judaism and Christianity both teach that happiness cannot be achieved through mere attainment of material things. What we might wish to encourage the down-trodden is to pursue any improvement in their happiness by legal and moral means, using their own initiative and cunning to pave a new path through the dark cavities of an uncertain life. The true mark of success, perhaps, may not be what a person accumulates in terms of possessions, but may be measured by how much the person triumphed over their own despairs, foibles, and set-backs. One possible drawback to turning age 60 is lack of purpose (Gladnick, personal communication, January 19, 2012). Living a full life may, by necessity, include reductions in physical capability and loss of some portion of cognitive ability with some reaching levels of dementia separating them from their prior levels of normal existence. The concept of living in the happiness of the moment of just being alive and taking advantage of what is possible while suffering through the rough spots as a noble soldier of fortune in your own life may be enough to relax the soul to try to make bad into good; good into better; and better into best.