I read a little 4-pager of the life of Dr. Albert Ellis, the psychiatrist who wrote a New Guide to Rational Thinking. Years later he moved on to crystalize his amazingly liberating theory even further, and summarized it in the following words, the ABC's of self-management through all sorts of troubling situations:
"When an unpleasant activating event occurs at point A (such as the restrictions of old age) and when you then experience disturbed emotional consequences, at point C (i.e. anxiety, depression, rage, or self-pity), the main causes or creators of your disturbed C's are not your A's but your B's about those activating events. B stands for your beliefs about your A's. At point B, you CAN CHOOSE to have only rational beliefs or preferences, such as, "I don't like what's happening to me at point A, but I don't always have to get what I want to stay happy. I can still lead a reasonably happy life despite my – – (you supply) advancing age."
On the other hand, you can choose to subscribe to very defeating irrational beliefs or absolutistic shoulds, and musts, such as "Because I dislike what's happening to me at point A, it absolutely should not, must not happen – I can't stand it, I don't want to grow old! I will not grow old! I can't let it happen! What a horrible place the world is and will always be!" You thereby make yourself feel panicked, depressed, enraged, and or self-pitying.
Your greatest challenge in life is to accept the ABC's of life; to admit that you needlessly choose to further upset yourself. Therefore your path to inner peace is to internally dispute (and consequently limit) your irrational shoulds, oughts, musts and other dogmatic commands upon yourself, and upon others and on the world. What you allow yourself to "think" between your two ears will largely be the source of your own happiness and stability."
