7 Scientology Principles That Could Help Increase Property Values in Your Area

I work with real estate agents for a living and I was thinking about this the other day: If someone were to apply the information in the book The Way to Happiness in their neighborhood, wouldn't that help make their community a better place to live - thus driving up home prices in the area? Realtors say that the three key things in selling a home are "Location, Location, Location". Improving the location that your home is in without even having to move seems like a pretty sweet deal to me. Take a look and you decide.

1. Set A Good Example
If one were to set a good example in their community, wouldn't their neighbors respect them more and want to help them out? Wouldn't it also make for less community dispute? For example, if a neighbor ran out of room in his/her garbage can, you could set a good example by offering to let them stick their trash bag in your garbage can. I'm sure you could think of a million little ways this would work - like you wouldn't allow loud parties at your home late at night - so no neighbors would have to call the police to tell you to keep it down.

2. Support A Government Designed And Run For All The People
If one were to support a government designed and run for all the people - and rallied others around the idea - wouldn't that make for better, more sensible laws in your community? The silly laws would be thrown out and the helpful laws would be voted on. Also, decent people would be voted in as community leaders - not uneducated or downright criminal people. You'd have a decent person representing you and your community in government.

3. Do Not Harm A Person of Good Will
If your community was a place where no one of good will was harmed, don't you think the word would get out and people would want to move their? Certainly the people who were of good will. Also, wouldn't that make it a better place for you and your family to live? It would definitely make for a tighter community.

4. Safeguard and Improve Your Environment
Haven't you ever looked at your neighbor's lawn in disgust? Or perhaps you live in an apartment - have you ever walked past someone else's apartment that simply smelled terrible? I know I have. If you were to go on a campaign to safeguard and improve your environment, that neighbor couldn't help but be involved. Most people would rather live in a clean, beautiful environment than a rundown, dumpy one. This point alone could help property values for an entire block.

5. Be Worthy of Trust
Have you ever "borrowed" something from your neighbor and somehow never got around to returning it? Come on - I may not be able to see that sheepish smile, but I know it's there. :) What kind of relationship do you have with that neighbor (or friend or colleague or enemy)? Probably not as good as when they trusted you. Work on being worthy of trust. Not only will you become known as a "good guy (or girl)", but your community will listen to you if you have an idea, want to do something helpful, etc. People who are not trusted, aren't listened to.

6. Try Not to Do Things to Others That You Would Not Like Them to Do to You and
7. Try to Treat Others as You Would Want Them to Treat You
Ah, the golden rule. How many problems do you think you would have avoided had you not stared down your neighbor, left an angry note on their car, let your kids TP their home or even got into legal battles with them. Of course, legal battles have their time and place, but don't you think a lot of that nonsense could be avoided if you were just able to treat them how you would want to be treated and didn't do things to them that you wouldn't want them to do to you?

So, there you go. It seems to me that if someone were to apply all of thse principles, they would make their neighborhood so awesome that no one would want to move and everyone would want to move in! Tell me what you think.

Do You Have Questions?

If you have questions about Scientology or think that I should have covered something in my blog that I haven't covered, by all means, comment below. I'll try to answer your questions the best I can by responding to your comments or by doing a blog post about them.

The Hollywood Education and Literacy Project

The Hollywood Education and Literacy Project is something that I have been involved with and volunteered at for many years. It's a really cool program that does one-on-one tutoring for people who need it in order to boost literacy around the world. They use the study technology that L. Ron Hubbard put together. It's a very cool program.
Anyway, I got a great email from them, asking for a donation in order to help the newest addition to their staff, George the Plant, get a new home (pot) as he was cooped up in his current one. George - being a very generous guy - would give any additional money to the HELP project. I had to give a donation then - I mean helping kids and plants? What else can you do? Anyway, I donated some money and one of my own plants, Charlotte, to keep George company. My friend at HELP, Zach, sent out another email showing Charlotte and George meeting for the first time and I am in it too! I have to post it, it's just too cute.

Dear Friends,

As most of you know this is George.

We here at the H.E.L.P. School have started a fundraiser to buy George a new pot because he needs room to stretch and grow. George decided that any donations over the cost of his pot would be given to the H.E.L.P. School to buy new courses for the students. (He is such a great guy)

Not only have we been receiving donations from people who want to help George but also we received a new friend for George named Charlotte.

I just wanted to thank Julia Scott-Douglas for her contribution to George and for bringing in Charlotte to keep him company.

George, Charlotte and Julia

If you would like to make a contribution to George please call Zach Bolger at 323.463.2100. It is a tax deductable donation and you will recieve a personal thank you card from George for donations over $25 and a special gift for over $50.

Sincerely,
Zach Bolger & George
H.E.L.P. Home Education Program

323.463.2100

©2008 Hollywood Education and Literacy Project (H.E.L.P.). All Rights Reserved. H.E.L.P. is licensed to use Applied Scholastics-- educational services and materials based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard. Applied Scholastics is a trademark and service mark owned by Association for Better Living and Education and is used with its permission...

Can You Be Right?

Have you ever run across a situation where you knew you were right and another person with a different opinion knew they were right? Happens almost every day, right? Well, last night I ran across just such a situation. I am pretty darn sure I was right and the other guy was damned if he was going to be wrong. So, what to do? Here's what L. Ron Hubbard has to say as excerpted from the chapter You Can Be Right from the Introduction to Scientology Ethics Book:

"One tries to be right always, right down
to the last spark.

"How, then, is one ever wrong?

"It is this way:

"One does a wrong action, accidentally or through oversight. The
wrongness of the action or inaction is then in conflict with one's necessity to
be right. So one then may continue and repeat the wrong action to prove it is
right."

...

"For rightness is the stuff of which survival is made. And as one approaches the
last ebb of survival, one can only insist on having been right, for to believe
for a moment one has been wrong is to court oblivion."

So how do we cure this desire to repeat wrong actions, just to prove you are right? Mr. Hubbard has the answer for that too:

"But by getting the offender off the compulsive repetition of the wrongness, one
then cures it.

"But how?

"By rehabilitating the ability to be right!

"This has limitless application - in training, in social skills, in marriage, in law, in life.

"Example: A wife is always burning dinner. Despite scolding, threats of divorce, anything, the compulsion continues. One can wipe this wrongness out by getting her to explain what is right about her cooking. This may well evoke a raging tirade in some extreme cases, but if one *flattens the question, that all dies away and she happily cease to burn dinners. Carried to classic proportions but not entirely necessary to end the compulsion, a moment in the past will be recovered when she accidentally burned a dinner and could not face up to having done a wrong action. To be right she thereafter had to burn dinners."

*Flatten (a question): Flattening something means to do it until it no longer produces a reaction.

Part of this article can be found here. If you want to read the whole article, buy or borrow the Introduction to Scientology Ethics Book. You can check out your local library, get it at the Church website or go into a Scientology Church and look at it in the Church library.

Sex and the Tone Scale

I just completed the "Starting a Successful Marriage Course" and in it, it talks about the tone scale (where people are at emotionally, are they enthusiastic, interested, bored, overtly hostile, covertly hostile, fearful, sad, etc) and how they react to the subject and action of sex. Here is a brief overview:

• People who are enthusiastic in life have a high enjoyment level and very moral reactions toward sex.


• People very interested in life have a high interest in the opposite sex and are faithful to their partners.


• People who are bored in life have some disinterest in sex, mostly because they are not interested in anything. Sexual action can be performed, depending on physical ability.


• People who are openly hostile are disgusted with sex and have a revulsion toward sex. When people are very hateful, they can use sex as a punishment.


• People who are covertly hostile will be promiscuous, perverse and sadistic. They do not enjoy sex, but have a hectic anxiety about it. Here is the pervert, unfaithful lover, easy marriage and quick divorce.


• People who are constantly sad are often impotent and are anxious about sex, with only occasional efforts to procreate.
  

More info can be found in the course above and in the book: Science of Survival, which is a really informative book that talks about people and how to understand and deal with them.

Another reason I thought I'd bring the above info up on my blog is that I've run into situations with my friends where they weren't being so sane when it came to sex with other people. To me, a lot of the information that I read in the course above and in Science of Survival helped me understand what they were going through and how to help them.