The Two Rules for Happy Living

I have always enjoyed the book Scientology A New Slant on Life. It's very simple and insightful . Two thing I've learned from it that I've found invaluable are the Two Rules for Happy Living. These are:

"1. Be able to experience anything.
"2. Cause only those things which others are able to experience easily."

That's pretty deep, huh? When I first read number 1, I was like "no way can I be able to experience anything. Who would want to do that anyway? Well, L. Ron Hubbard further explains:

"To be happy one only must be able to confront (which is to say, experience) those things that are. Unhappiness is only this: The inability to confront that which is. Hence 1. Be able to experience anything."

Well, that doesn't seem to bad. I can face the nitty gritty of how things are.

The second rule isn't so hard. I can understand that causing others to experience things they don't want to experience can upset them. In the book, L. Ron Hubbard puts it like this:

"All bad acts, then, are those acts which cannot be easily experienced on the target end."

That makes sense to me. In an extreme example, shooting a person is something they can't easily experience, thus it's not a good act to do. Not so extreme - you're mom isn't will to experience you sugar high, so when you take a cookie without permission, she's likely to get upset. You know you're not supposed to do it, so you don't feel so hot either.

So, try out the two rules and see if they make your life happier. Let me know how it goes.