Living Big. Пэм Гроут

      We adopted most of our attitudes without consent. We picked them up from our families or our culture or that ubiquitous, “They say.” It never even occurred to us that we could choose a different set of attitudes.

      We can.

      The first attitude we must adopt is that our life is up to us. We must take responsibility for designing our own lives.

      Most of us believe our main job in life is to set boundaries, to figure out what isn't working and then to get rid of it.

       People who do us wrong?

      Gone.

       Parents who didn't act like Ward and June Cleaver?

      Out the window.

      This attitude totally negates who we are. It's like signing the papers to a new house, walking in the front door, and then storming out because there isn't any furniture. There's only one person who can furnish the house. It's up to you to create the kind of life you want.

      So often we get indignant while we're looking at our lives and say, “I deserve much better than this.” And you're right. You do. But it is your responsibility and only your responsibility to create “much better than this.”

      Yes, you may be in a relationship that isn't loving. You may have a job that doesn't trip your trigger. But who is the one and only person with the power to change those things?

      Calling out a search party for the next guy, the next job, the next self-help book is like calling in the fire department to blow out the candles on your birthday cake. You don't need the fire department. You don't even need a candle extinguisher. You have the power to blow out your own candles. You have the power to fix every single thing that's not working in your life. First you have to grow your attitude.

      John F. Kennedy posed an oft-quoted challenge to the citizens of America: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” This is the essence of Living Big. Ask not what your life can do for you, but what you can do for your life. Living Big means looking for the potential in what's already there. It means saying to yourself, “I accept what I have. And here's what I can do with it.”

      Quit looking. Take what you have now. Take the relationships you have now. Take the job you have now. Take the home you have now. And turn them into something beautiful.

      We must take back our power. We must say, “I am a loving person, a strong, mighty person, and there is nothing in my life that cannot be restored to wholeness. And it's up to me—and only me—to see that this happens.”

      HOW IT WORKS

      ILLUSIONS MISTAKEN FOR TRUTH ARE THE PAVEMENT UNDER OUR FEET.

      —Barbara Kingsolver, Poisonwood Bible

      In the chapters that follow, I'm going to present seven BIG attitudes that are second nature to People Who Live Big. The good news is, these are all attitudes you used to have. They're attitudes from your childhood, attitudes that are hard-wired into your very being.

      Living Big makes the argument that these childhood attitudes are the big, important things in life—the attitudes we had before we learned it was wrong to jump on the bed.

      Let's go back to our childhoods, when anything was possible. Back before we learned to “wipe that silly grin off” our face, before we were told to “watch out,” “be careful,” “avoid strangers.” Other than the bit about drinking eight glasses of water a day, most of what “they say” is wrong. Or at least irrelevant, unnecessary, and unproductive for growing a big life.

      Marianne Williamson tells the story of a little girl who showed her teacher a picture she had painted of a purple tree. The teacher, said, “Sweetheart, I've never seen a purple tree, now have I?”

      “That's too bad,” said the little girl. “That's really too bad.”

      And while it's “too bad” that you, too, might have forgotten about purple trees and the unfathomable depths within you, it's “really good” that you're here now, ready to remember.

      1. Thinking Big: The Attitude of Boldness, or why it's not necessary to “be careful.” By the time we start grade school, most of us have heard the phrase “Be careful” at least 10,000 times. It's practically a mother's moral imperative to utter that warning every time her kid jumps on a jungle gym, joins a soccer team, or pursues the boy she has a big crush on.

      Instead, we should urge our kids to throw caution to the wind.

      “Get out there.”

      “Take risks.”

      “Fall flat on your face.”

      Being careful gets us nowhere. If Martin Luther King, Jr., had been careful, he'd have never had a dream that someday people would not be judged by the color of their skin. If Christopher Columbus had been careful, he'd have never made it to the New World. Hey, as far as his parents knew, the world was flat and he was at great risk for falling off the edge.

      The first attitude of Living Big is Thinking Big, or the Attitude of Boldness. People Who Live Big are not careful. They don't settle. They do not feel obligated to do things just because their parents did. Or because the Joneses did. People Who Live Big don't care what anybody else thinks. They, as Nike likes to say, “just do it!”

      2. Giving Big: The Attitude of Service, or why it's unnecessary to “always look out for number one.” “They say” it's important to watch our backs, to protect our own space. But ironically enough, the defining moment, the turning point for each of the Big People profiled in this book was the moment they finally decided to “get over themselves.” Andrea Campbell met twenty deformed kids from Russia while sitting in a doctor's office and realized, “Whoa, what do I have to worry about?” For Patch Adams, it was having empathy for a lonely guy who had no friends. James Twyman got over himself by working with homeless AIDS victims.

      The second attitude of Living Big is Giving Big, or the Attitude of Service. It's being able to give everything you've got without the slightest thought of recompense. You don't have to have a big intellect or a great talent to be a giant. But you must rise above the mediocre thinking that insists it's only prudent to “look out for number one.”

      3. Blessing Big: The Attitude of Kindness, or why you should “always speak to strangers.” From the time we're old enough to toddle away, we've been told we should avoid people we don't know. “They say” it's prudent to be cautious until we get a letter of recommendation.

      After all, they say, “There are lots of crazies out there.”

      But you know what? 99.9 percent of all the people in this world are really nice. For every loony bin that makes the news, there are 5,000 people who would gladly give you the coat off their back. By being suspicious, distrustful, unwilling to talk to strangers, we promote suspiciousness and distrust, plus we miss out on a huge group of wonderful friends.

      So I say, “Speak to strangers.”

      In fact, speak until there are no strangers.

      The third attitude of Living Big is Blessing Big, or the Attitude of Kindness. It means connecting with other people. Spreading love and goodness. Each of us is assigned a plot in the big cosmic garden. We can either tend it kindly and joyously, or we can watch mindlessly while it grows weeds.

      4. Making a Big Difference: The Attitude of Commitment, or why you should never “just sit there and watch TV.” This is probably the biggest deterrent to living a full, joyful life. Passivity.

      We have become viewers instead of doers. Recent studies show that