Shyly's Delight

All self-help books are bullshit?

"Shyly's delight" delivers. No fake, no fail. Your life, just the way you pictured it - a loving, passionate marriage, a happy, successful family, a fulfilling home and work life - everything you've ever dreamed of. You can have all that, everything the laws of physics will allow. You can't change the cards you were dealt, but you can play those cards to their fullest attainable value, reaping everything from life that can be had by commitment, attitude and effort. You give me 40 minutes, I'll give you better results every day for the next 40 years.

From Chapter 5: A happy marriage? He drives, she rides shotgun.

... Like this: Even if I am trying very hard to be Sociable, if you keep me waiting, my Driven impatience will start to show. Getting annoyed annoys the people around me to no good end, but it's bad for me first and worst. If I can remind myself that my only job is to pursue my own values - and then actually get on with it - everybody wins, starting with me.

If I want to avoid the repulsion loop that results from my indulgence of my ineradicable dyspossibility, I have to take my impatience in hand, patiently explaining to it that everything will work out in due course - and probably not before - even if I choose to ruin it all with a futile, petulant display. There are always delays - to me it seems sometimes that the universe is composed entirely of needless, inexplicable delays - so before I get cranky about that, I make an effort to do something else instead.

Want a happy marriage? It's easy. Whatever he is at work, at home the husband should manage his behavior as a Driven Sociable: A definite agenda with a focus on affection and enjoyment. And whatever she does outside the home, within it she should be a Sociable Driven: Affection and enjoyment in pursuit of valid and valuable goals.

He nurtures the relationship by his cultivation of it and she cultivates it with her nurturance. In the minivan of their family, he takes the driver's seat and she rides shotgun. His job is to get them where they're going, hers is to get them there alive and content. Each helps the other, but this division of responsibilities is not just hugely beneficial, it's the only way a family can work happily.

There's one other factor in here that no one ever thinks about: Time. Quality time? Quantity time? How about time enough to get the job done? There is no such thing as a quick hug. An embrace takes time to register to your body, but it takes time to take form in your mind, too. Everything of love - for everything you love - is expressed with commitment, attitude and effort over time. Not just the time it takes to hug, but the time it takes to hug each other that way every day - in every way you can think of - for fifty years and more.

That works and nothing else does. Doubt me? Go look at happy families - the couples you know with happy kids and grandkids. Happy families work out this way because this is the way human beings work. This is the way our constituent physical, mental and emotional components are made to work together. This is the way happy couples successfully stay together, and this is the way they raise bright, happy, productive children.

How did they get all that - the real version of 'having it all'? By loving like Labradors, that's how. ...

Shyly's delight is about the real 'having it all' - the joy and peace that come when you dare to work, play and love like a frisky Labrador...