Practising intelligent co-operation implies being defenceless.

We come now to the third of Captain Life's conditions, namely, "You may wear no jewellery or weapons upon your person; only a laurel crown and a garland of wild flowers." What this means is that you must strive to feel good enough about yourself, that you do not need to impress others with your outer appearance, and neither should you be forever on the defensive. If you are truly feeling good about yourself, in the sense that you do believe you have value as a person, not in a conceited way, but in the sense of knowing from experience that you are a good male, or a good female, then you will be happy to show the rest of the world your true self. Being perfectly at peace with the way in which nature put you together, inwardly and outwardly, you will have about you an air of quiet confidence that is just as powerful as wearing a crown. Yet, that "crown" will be your own specialness, your uniqueness as an individual unit of that greater whole we term humanity.

The problem is, however, that very few people feel good about themselves, and therefore most of us are not happy to show our true self. This is because we find it almost impossible to live with our shortcomings, most especially those shortcomings which are somehow looked upon as forming part of our character. As a result very few of us ever like to own our shortcomings, and so we desperately try to hide them, even from ourselves. But the truth is that our shortcomings are nothing more than our undeveloped potential and, as such, are very much our passage to power and our ticket to freedom. Therefore not to own our shortcomings is to deny ourselves part of our potential, and if we do that, is it surprising that we end up being powerless and unhappy?

How does this work? Take the shortcoming of being stubborn. Stubbornness is really undeveloped tenacity and perseverance, which are most precious and valuable assets to have. The difference between them lies in how we use these assets. For example, if you happen to feel inferior to others, and you therefore use this asset to try to prove yourself always right, even if deep down inside you know that you are just being pigheaded, then this is not an asset, but a very real shortcoming which will do nothing for your relationships. If, on the other hand, you say to yourself, "I don't want to come across as a bigot, but I am going to persevere in overcoming my feelings of inferiority", then you are truly using your stubbornness positively, and therefore to your advantage. By tenaciously holding onto the belief that you do have value, and that you are not inferior to others, you will in time begin to see and prove this to yourself, simply because you are not prepared to just throw in the towel and give up on yourself!

Let us also look at the example of feeling inferior. For as long as you continue to believe that you are inferior, you will never be able to turn your stubbornness into tenacity and so it will always work against you, for what you are doing is using your stubbornness to hold onto the belief that you are inferior. By doing this, you will indeed prove to yourself that you are no good. If, however, you begin to look at why you feel inferior, you will soon begin to see that what makes you feel inferior is the fact that you are not so self-important and arrogant as others. In actual fact, the feeling of inferiority is only the negative expression of humility, a most honourable trait.

Therefore, instead of always feeling inferior, look at the positive side of this, and try to see humility for what it really is. If you can do this you will begin to understand that true humility is in fact unconditional love. Where there is humility there is never any sense of blame, for one can always see one's own responsibility for what is taking place in one's life. To be able to see and to own that responsibility is empowering, because we can always go on to change what we are doing if life is not what we would like it to be. Therefore instead of being a doormat, being at everybody's mercy, being a victim of circumstance, and consequently feeling hard-done-by and inferior, you can start taking action to change what you don't like, by changing yourself, your approach to life and, above all, by changing your belief in yourself.

Rather than playing the blame game, like everyone else, you will have found the necessary humility to take responsibility for your own actions. Furthermore, far from being a doormat, you will be setting the example of someone who believes enough in him, or herself to get on with their life, in the sense of "If you don't like yourself, then change yourself, instead of blaming everyone else for making you feel inferior and somehow less."

If you are not at peace with who and what you are, because you feel insecure and therefore inadequate in some way, you will be plagued constantly by fear, doubt and suspicion. As a result, not only will you be a nervous wreck, but so too will those around you, for our mirrors can never lie to us. In addition, your insecurities will rub off on them too. Above all, these insecurities will ensure that you will be quick to become defensive and, once again, because our mirrors cannot lie, those around you will also be quick to jump onto their high horses. If you wish to get others to co-operate with you intelligently, then you must acknowledge the fact that what you see in the mirror is only your own reflection!



There are no victims in this world. Through their actions people merely relfect for us our highest hopes and deepest fears.

In trying to work consciously with the concept of mirrors, the very first thing to acknowledge is that it is always a lot easier to see something in someone else than in ourselves. For example, when a friend comes to you for advice about how to cope with a particular problem, it is always very easy for you to see almost immediately what your friend should do. However, when you have exactly the same problem yourself, you suddenly find that you are at a loss as to what to do. The reason for this is that we are all too close to ourselves to be really objective, and without that objectivity things always seem to be in a muddle and therefore unclear. There are just too many personal interests, involvements, wishes, expectations, dreams, hopes, disappointments and whatever else in the way! In fact, the list can be endless. So the end of the story is that we need objectivity, and in exactly the same way as you need a mirror in which to see your face, so we also need mirrors in which to see our behaviour.

From this it is easy to see that there is no point in playing the blame game, for it stands to reason that it is just stupid to be angry with the mirror because it shows you your own ugly face! Therefore, instead of becoming all hot under the collar and therefore defensive, we need to look deeply into that mirror in order to try and understand our own behaviour. This is what we referred to earlier as, "being aware of another person's state of being". So we ask, "What in him is causing him to do such a thing?" "What in her is causing her to say that?" In other words, if your life is not working for you, (which, remember, is why you are reading this book), then have a good look at everyone around you in order to find out what emotions, feelings, thoughts, fears, doubts, insecurities, behaviour, or whatever else in you is giving rise to what it is that you are doing wrong!

When you start to look around you, the first question you should ask yourself is, "What exactly do they want from out of life?" Or, more precisely, "What exactly do I want out of life?" If you ask that question you will quickly enough come to realise that no-one is actually very sure about what they are wanting out of life. It is truly amazing to see how little people really do understand themselves and their own wishes. Take, for example, the wish, "I would like to meet someone I can marry, and who will make me happy." What for God's sake is that for a wish? How can you go through life saying, "Make me happy?" Yet that is exactly what people do, and then when the poor wretch who has been unfortunate enough to be your chosen one fails to make you happy, you attack him or her from a dizzy height for being a failure!

Clearly, if you want to be happy, then it is up to you to make yourself happy. And if you cannot make yourself happy, then who in hell's name gives you the right to demand that someone else should make you happy? So the second point we need to consider is the fact that whatever you do for yourself, or to yourself, automatically affects all those around you. Therefore if you make yourself happy, then you make those around you happy, which is the same thing as saying that if you uplift yourself, then you also uplift those around you. Why should this be so? The simple reason is firstly that life is a selfish process, (as opposed to self-centred); and secondly, that there is only one life of which we are all units.

Needless to say, this is a concept which is in direct contradiction to social conditioning, for we have all been taught that you should not be selfish. In other words, "I am not at all selfish, because I always put you first! I always try to make you happy, but you are so selfish that you never make me happy! Sob! Sob! Blame! Blame!"

I don't know about you, but I like being happy! And since I don't like sitting around waiting for free handouts, I prefer to get on with my life and thereby make myself happy. Damn right that is being selfish! But I simply don't care, because through my own experience of beingselfish I know how much people love to be with me. Why? Simply because I am happy and, in being happy, they too feel happy just by being around me! And of course, because they are happy, it makes me even more happy, and because I become more happy, they too become more happy! Does that sound conceited? Perhaps it does, but then that will only be because you like to be miserable, because you think that to be miserable is to be humble! But for me, being humble means that I am not so arrogant as to demand that others should make me happy.

The third point we need to look at is that if you give as much as you take, then life expands, the world around us expands and therefore your relationships, instead of being confining and restrictive, become a joyous journey of infinite possibilities. But once again, people are so conditioned into giving, that they give you presents, they give you their expectations, they give you their demands, they give you their problems, they give you their frustration, they give you their anger, they give you their misery and, in short, they give you a huge headache! In fact, people mostly only give in order to tie you up into little knots, for at the end of the day, most so-called giving is only yet another form of manipulation. "I give you so much, but you never give me anything in return!"

People are forever fighting because someone wants to give them something they just do not want. Yet life is not about giving or, for that matter, about taking. Life is instead a process of giving-and-taking. But in practice, people always want only to take, or only to give, and in such a way that it becomes almost impossible to distinguish with any real clarity what is the difference between the two.

So, you want to give me your crossness and bad temper, but you want to take from me joy and happiness; you want to give me your lies and hypocrisy, but you want to take from me honesty; you want to give me your love, to which is attached a whole long string of expectations and conditions, but you want to take from me unconditional love, and I am being unreasonable if I expect you to remember my birthday when you are so busy! Don't you think that is being just a little bit unfair? You have no right to impose your misery upon the world and then expect everyone else to give you happiness in return. All of us can take anything we want from out of life, provided that there is always a fair exchange of energy. Therefore, because I give much happiness, I can also afford to take happiness wherever I go. And because I choose to learn from everything in my life, I get, as well as take, clarity from everything, and so I can also give clarity wherever I go. It really is as simple as that. I take so that I can give, and I give so that I can take again, and so there is always an exchange of energy, and because of that I never want for anything and, as a result, I am always happy!

Nonetheless, in giving and taking, we should also take care that it really is a fair exchange of energy. In other words, don't try to take more than you give. If you wish to give only a little, then that is alright, as long as you take in return only as much as you have given. If, for example, you are feeling sad, and have only a little joy to give on that day, then give what you have to give, but don't expect everyone around you to shower you with joy in return. We all have our sad moments in life, but even sadness can be beautiful, and therefore life-enriching. Consequently, if you are sad, then you can also share your sadness, you can give your sadness, but remember that you will get sadness reflected back to you. Likewise, if you are angry for some reason, then by all means be angry, give your anger, but then also expect people to respond to you according to what you are giving and, above all, be responsible enough to take as good as you give

The fourth concept we need to address is that none of us can avoid our fate. This means that if we try to avoid our challenges in life by trying to cut ourselves off from them, we simply become ensnared by those challenges in such a way that we end up feeling like victims. In this respect remember that all of life is merely a system of relationships, of which the most important is the relationship between you and life in general. Therefore if you try to take from life more than you are giving, expect to be miserable. The reason for this is that all our challenges in life are there so as to enable us to become stronger, wiser, more successful and, in short, happier. So if you are trying to achieve happiness by not facing your challenges, then you are in effect trying to steal happiness!

But we all know what happens to a thief. Sooner or later, zap! You are caught! Consider. You are married, but in always only trying to be happy, you never want to face the challenges that your marriage is presenting to you. In other words, you want to take happiness from your marriage, but you do not want to do anything towards creating that happiness. Then one day, zap! Your marriage is on the rocks, the wheels have come off, and you are facing divorce.

Of course you could always shout out, "Why me, Lord? I only ever wanted to be happy, only ever tried to be happy! It was my spouse who was forever unhappy in our marriage and picking a fight!" Nevertheless, although in all such cases it is always the taker who feels victimized and trapped, the truth of the matter is that it is the taker who is the thief, and thieves should not be allowed to run around stealing from everyone! Therefore if you are being victimised in one way or another, check your taking! For example, if your house is burgled, where in your life are you stealing from others, and in what way? Are you stealing stationery from work? Do you underpay your weekly maid? Do you steal time from your family by not wanting to be at home too often because you don't see eye to eye with your spouse?

Finally, we can now begin to see what is really meant by the third of Captain Life's conditions: we cannot play the blame game, for the whole world is merely our mirror! As a result it does not in any way help to become indignant, to start becoming defensive or to try to justify our actions. By doing so we only reinforce the very things that cause us to be unhappy, since we always get exactly what we strive for! The universe always says, "Yes!" If you want justifications, everyone will give you justifications. If you want to be defensive, everyone will be defensive towards you. If you want to be aggressive, everyone will reflect aggression for you. If you want to steal, everyone around you will steal left, right and center. And if you want to be happy, and are prepared to work for that happiness, you will surround yourself with others who also want to work towards being happy.



To relate implies understanding.

Earlier we touched upon the fact that most people drift through life chasing some rainbow in the sky, and that there are very few indeed who know exactly what will make them happy. However, if we drift it means that we are at the mercy of someone or something else, and if we are chasing a pie in the sky, then, well......

The biggest cause of such behaviour is that none of us have ever been taught how to communicate properly. Consequently, we go through life never being able to express either to others, or especially to ourselves, what it is that is bothering us, or what it is that we would like out of life. However, not being able to communicate effectively means that one cannot relate properly to the world, or to others. But most important of all, it means that you will also not be able to relate to yourself, for if you cannot express even to yourself what will make you happy, then how can you ever hope to be happy? Moreover, if you are not happy, contented and at peace, you will definitely not like yourself very much, and through not liking yourself, you will not want to spend time with yourself. Instead you will always be out and about, desperately trying to escape your own sense of unhappiness, which, in the final analysis, means that you are trying to escape from yourself!

Yet, if you ask a person who is trying to escape from themselves what is wrong, that person will invariably shrug his or her shoulders and say, "Nothing!" This is what we term "undelivered communication", or quite simply the "nothing game". However, the irony in playing the nothing game is that there really is nothing wrong! The only thing that is wrong is that the person concerned does not know what it is to communicate either with him or herself, or with the world out there. Caught up in an endless sense of frustration that cannot be verbalised, but that can only be expressed by constantly being on the run in some way, such a person never finds the happiness they are seeking.

The only way of breaking that debilitating pattern is to learn the art of listening. Very few people ever really listen at all. Why? Because most of the time their low self-images tend to get in the way. As a result, people are either so busy arguing with you and pushing their own point of view that they cannot listen, or alternatively, they are so busy in their heads formulating what they are going to reply to you, that they also cannot listen. Does this sound familiar? If it does, it means you are doing it too!

If one feels bad about oneself because of a low self-image, then anything and everything said to one will be perceived as criticism. For example, if your spouse says to you that she is not happy in your marriage, the chances are that you will immediately start feeling bad about yourself. "Oh God! I have failed! I'm a bad husband. I'm a poor lover. I'm a bad provider, etc., etc." Feeling somehow inferior and inadequate because you are not making your spouse happy, you will start defending yourself by wanting to justify your actions. Rather than initiating the act of intelligent co-operation by guiding your wife towards communicating as fully as possible what it is she is feeling, or sensing, you instead feel attacked, criticised and you become incapable of listening properly. Conflict has surfaced in a big way, but it is not being used to uncover new knowledge, and it merely turns into more conflict, because your wife is trying to say one thing, and you are "hearing" something else. "I am not saying it is your fault, damn you!" "But you are saying that you are not happy, and since I am the one you are married to, that obviously implies that I cannot make you happy!"

So many relationships end up in a soggy mess because, as a result of feeling criticised and attacked, people always end up pushing points of view which even they are not certain of. In an attempt to defend themselves, (against what, one wonders?), they will generally start making wild statements in an effort to put forward concepts they do not even vaguely grasp, let alone being tried and tested knowledge. Therefore far from conflict leading to intelligent co-operation, and through that to new knowledge, it simply leads to so much garbage and eventually to the divorce court. This same thing of course happens also in other relationships, like for example, the workplace, where your defensiveness and garbage will get you fired!

Learning to listen properly is not at all difficult to do, for it is quite as simple as saying to yourself that you do want to listen to what the other person is saying to you. If you do that, you will find that even if that person is criticising you, you will not fall into the trap of feeling bad about yourself, but will instead become fascinated to see how you really tick in relating to others. By being able to see how you tick, and what makes you tick (or not), you discover that it is really very easy to shift the focus from feeling victimised to feeling empowered.

For example, if someone is accusing you of being cold and aloof, and you really listen in the sense of trying to figure out why he or she should find you aloof, you will without a doubt quickly enough begin to see why. Say your friend tells you that you are aloof because you behave in a distant manner by avoiding physical contact. If you are being honest rather than trying to defend or justify your actions, you will see that your friend is in fact right. Therefore to try and pretend that your friend is wrong will just be plain stupid. So, if you start to look at why you avoid physical contact, the chances are that you will come to realise that it is because, for some reason or other, you feel unlovable. Clearly, far from criticising you, your friend has given you a valuable pointer towards starting to improve your self-image, and thereby also to improve your relationship with others. In short, your friend is helping you to understand yourself better.

Realise that if the people around us do not point out to us what our shortcomings are, we would probably never find out or, at least, never bother to find out. What's more, through the art of listening we not only learn a great deal about ourselves, but if we bear in mind that we too are mirrors for those around us, we also learn a great deal about others by listening to what they tell us about ourselves, about themselves or about someone else.

In trying to develop understanding we naturally come up against what is best termed "unfulfilled expectations". So often, as a result of not really understanding either ourselves, or others, we have wild expectations that have nothing at all to do with the realities posed by life. For example, if you do not like yourself and therefore cannot live with yourself, it is completely unrealistic to expect someone else to like you or to live with you. Likewise, if deep down inside you believe yourself to be inadequate in your job, then it is once again unrealistic to expect your boss to believe in you. Yet this is exactly what people do, and then they become upset and feel hard-done-by when they do not get the acknowledgement which they are reluctant to give themselves. There is nothing wrong with expectations, provided you practise the give-and-take principle of life. In other words, if you are hard-working and trustworthy in your job, then it is only fair to expect acknowledgement for your work, and to be justly and fairly compensated for your labour. Likewise, if you enjoy your own company and honestly like yourself, then there will be no need for you to try and impress others by being arrogant, conceited and self-centred, but instead you can reasonably expect others also to like you. Therefore, once again we see how very important it is to get to understand ourselves properly.

It is only possible to harbour unrealistic expectations if we do not practise the mirror concept. Once we acknowledge the fact that others are merely our mirrors, then expectations tend to disappear like mist in the sun. For example, if I befriend a new person on the assumption that he will meet up with my expectations of what a true friend should be, he will without a doubt quickly enough begin to disappoint me in some way or another. If, on the other hand, I befriend that man because I have already seen that he is very much my mirror, I will never fail to enjoy his company, for every time we meet he will show me something about myself. Some of the things he shows me will be positive aspects of myself, which, of course, is why I like him. Others, though, will be negative aspects of myself, which, once again, is why I like to be with him. Through being shown these aspects of myself, I can learn to understand myself, and I can begin to work with both my strong points as well as my shortcomings in a much more conscious way than I would otherwise have been able to do. And what's more, since my shortcomings are my undeveloped potential, I am not going to be disappointed in my friend for showing me my own weaknesses! Nonetheless, if he really is a true friend, he will be just as keen to work on himself as I am, and therefore rather than supporting each other in our bullshit, we are going to be completely open and ruthless with each other!

One final word on mirrors. Sometimes we are shown an old mirror so that we can gain a greater belief in ourselves, and because of this it is important to learn to distinguish with total honesty between what is a present mirror and what is an old mirror. In this respect, remember that our mirrors can never lie to us, and therefore if you change, then so too must your mirror change. However, if you change but your mirror does not change, then that mirror will leave your life or, alternatively, it is necessary for you to leave that mirror in order to gain a greater belief in yourself.

Therefore, if you have in all honesty worked with a mirror every way you can, and you are convinced by your own actions that you have indeed changed, but still your mirror persists in not changing, then rest assured that you are up against an old mirror. In such a case, acknowledge to yourself that that person no longer mirrors for you what you have become. Look at their behaviour and realise that you used to do that, and that you still have the potential to do that, but also acknowledge to yourself that you are no longer guilty of that type of behaviour. If your mirror still persists, it means that you have to claim your power by moving on. If you don't make the move, you will invariably be forced back into your old behaviour patterns, for the simple reason that our mirrors cannot lie!



Ruthlessness and unconditional love are synonymous.

The biggest cause of people having a low self-image is the fact that the majority of humanity practices conditional love as opposed to unconditional love. This is a concept we can make as complicated or as simple as we wish. Speaking for myself, I prefer simplicity. So to put it in a nutshell, I term it playing "the nice guy". People are so concerned about being liked or, to be more specific, people are so self-centred and conceited, that they would rather lie than tell the truth. For example, which of your friends will speak to you with total honesty? Alternatively, which of your friends can you address with total honesty? Mostly it is always a question of, "I don't want to tell people my truth because I will hurt them. And if I hurt them they won't love me."

Parents especially perpetuate this dishonesty by teaching their children concepts such as, "If you listen to me and be a good girl, I will buy you a doll for Christmas." So the child keeps pretending to be a good girl or a good boy, even if it is really very wicked when the parent is not watching. In short, the child is being taught to lie about its behaviour, and the result of this social lying is, "Just keep telling me what I want to hear, just keep lying to me, and I will buy you a doll, I will be a faithful husband, I will be the best friend you have ever known, I will be the best employee you have ever had."

This dishonesty is what we term conditional love. In other words, "Just lie like me, like I have been taught to lie, and we will all live happily ever after!" However, if such a life is not for you, then realise that the only way to change this is to start practising unconditional love. Unconditional love does not mean that you must love someone even though he is stabbing you in the foot, raping your wife and robbing you of everything you possess. Unconditional love means that you love others enough to give them your truth even if it does mean they are never ever going to speak to you again, or that they end up calling you a mean, horrible bastard. Having such honesty is being ruthless. To be ruthless does not mean being cruel, but it means that you take pity neither on yourself nor on the person you are speaking to.

Once again this concept is in direct contradiction to social conditioning. However, unless you want to be a liar and live a life of lies, you have no option but to start being ruthless with yourself. "If I don't want to be ruthless with others, then it is only because I don't want to be seen as the bad guy!" "I don't want to be ruthless with others because I am a coward!" "If I refuse to be ruthless, I will end up compromising myself!"

Shortly we will look at the difference between compromising ourself and sacrificing something to gain something else. With a compromise, nobody wins.

Most people find it very difficult to be ruthless, and mainly because they feel too bad to use their anger properly. Anger is simply the desire to fight - to fight for what you believe in. So if someone is stabbing you in the foot, then get angry. Don't suppress your anger, just use it to be ruthless! Generally speaking, we fear to express our anger because, according to social conditioning, it is not nice to be aggressive. But the sad truth is that people who try to suppress their anger always end up being extremely aggressive! If, on the other hand, you use your anger when you need to, you will only ever become aggressive when you need to fight. The rest of the time you will be a well-balanced and even-tempered person who is a pleasure to be with.

It is very natural to become ruthless when anger surfaces, for in the face of anger fear retreats, doubts fall away, feelings of inadequacy and inferiority are temporarily forgotten and as a result there is in that moment always great clarity and a very real inner strength.

However, using anger does not mean that you have to scream and shout like a lunatic, or behave like a bull in a china shop. Using your anger means that you allow it to surface and, by not pushing it away, you allow it to guide you into clarity, then into ruthlessness and finally into the appropriate action. So if, for example, your boss is accusing you of not measuring up to your job description, then allow yourself to become angry, not in the sense of not listening, or trying to defend and justify your actions, but in the sense of, "I'm going to fight for this job, therefore let me listen with care!" If you do that, you will hear your boss loudly and clearly and in having that clarity you will know whether it is your own shortcomings or whether it is your boss that you have to fight.

If you use your anger in this way, it will always guide you to new knowledge rather than conflict, and therefore, far from being fired at work, or finding yourself in the divorce court, you will gain in strength and in self-confidence, and because of that, you will also gain the respect of those around you. I have never known any boss to fire an employee who can listen without being defensive, and who also has the backbone and the strength to fight for his or her job. Likewise I have never encountered a marriage that has failed where both people concerned are completely open and ruthless with each other in the sense of fighting to build a good relationship. To be ruthless and to use one's anger constructively is to strive for intelligent cooperation and understanding, both of which are needed in order to have a successful and meaningful relationship, irrespective of whether it is a romantic relationship, a professional relationship or the relationship with oneself.



Actions speak louder than words.

The final concept that concerns us here is one which is more often the cause of problems than anything else, namely, broken promises. First of all, know that if you promise anything to anyone, you are laying yourself open to being accused of lying. How can I promise you that I will always stay with you in marriage, or work for you, if I don't know what tomorrow will bring? I can only make a promise if it pertains to the moment. For example, I can stay with you now for who and what you are, and for who and what I am, but should either of us change, I cannot guarantee that I will still want to stay with you, or that you will want to stay with me, for that matter. Likewise, I can promise to work for you now, but what happens if you find someone better to replace me, or if your business goes bankrupt and you can no longer pay me my salary?

Promises are dangerous things, and although they are not bad in themselves, we should realise that it is a lot safer and considerably wiser to base our relationships upon action rather than promises. Therefore, if I am to stay married to you then that will depend upon the action both of us take in order to ensure that our marriage thrives. Similarly, if I am to continue working for you, then that will depend upon the action we both take to ensure that we have a continued working relationship that is mutually beneficial.

Unfortunately though, people tend to base their beliefs more on the strength of promises than in action, and so they always end up compromising themselves in one way or another. Here again we see the need to be ruthless. "Do not promise me that you will never again have an affair, prove it to me through your actions." "Do not promise me you will try harder. Show me!"

If, on the other hand, you find yourself in a position where you are caught in-between the devil and the deep blue sea, then still there is no need to compromise yourself, although you may well be forced into having to sacrifice something. For example, if your wife snores like a chainsaw and keeps you awake all night, ask yourself the question, "Is this marriage more important to me than lying awake all night?" If the marriage means nothing to you, then divorce the woman and marry someone who will coo sweet nothings into your ear all night! But if the marriage is important to you, then don't compromise yourself by lying awake all night, plug your ears, for goodness sake! In this case you will have sacrificed your hearing during the night, but you will be saving a marriage that is important to you.

Compromise! What a wonderful word that is! By making promises to each other, you and I can take our relationship anywhere we wish! Isn't that wonderful. "You just keep promising me you will never hurt me, and I promise you I will never be ruthless with you!" "I know I'm not very good in my job, but I promise to try harder if you promise not to report me to the director!" "I admit I stole your wife's affection, but I promise I will make her hate me if you promise not to tell my wife!" Don't you think compromise is a grand and honourable way to live?

Similarly, if you are having to work very long hours, and you don't like it, ask yourself, "Is this job important to me?" If it isn't, walk out and find yourself an easier job somewhere. But if the job is important, then go and speak to your boss. Don't just sit around feeling sorry for yourself, get moving and initiate the act of intelligent cooperation! Go tell your boss that you are fully prepared to work the long hours because the job is important to you, but can't you both find some sort of a solution for the fact that you feel hard-done-by? Perhaps a raise in salary will make the hours seem less long. Perhaps an extended vacation will make the long hours more worthwhile. Perhaps a promotion will make you feel less discontented. Perhaps just a kick up the butt from your boss will do the trick! In any event, one way or another, there is never any good reason for compromise, although often we have to sacrifice something in order to get what it is we really need or want. Remember the old proverb here: You cannot (always) have your cake and eat it!

This then brings us to that final question: "What do you want in a relationship?"

This is a question that only you can answer for yourself. No two people are alike, and so what I want will not necessarily be what will make you happy. Therefore, sit down and make a list of the things you honestly believe will make for a good relationship, irrespective of whether it is a romantic relationship, a professional relationship, the relationship with your kids, your family or with your friends. But in making that list, make sure that whatever you write down is specific and measurable. In other words, you yourself must know what you mean and how it can be accomplished in practical terms.

Once that list is complete, make another for what it is you would like in a relationship with yourself. In making this list, realise that whatever you are writing down is in reality a commitment to yourself. So, if you want the relationship with yourself to be a good one, then clearly you are going to have to do all the work! Once you have seen this, you will also come to the realisation that what you wrote down on your list for relationships with others is also your responsibility. If you want to be happy, you must remember that none of us live on an island and therefore we can only ever be really happy if we relate happily and successfully to the world around us. To do this, forget the blame game! Forget feeling sorry for yourself! Forget your social conditioning! Become ruthless with yourself and get stuck into using what you now know in order to change yourself and thereby to change your mirrors!