Day 4 la de da

"Well ding dong I'm happy with that" - Ian, Come Dine With Me. Series 3, Liverpool - Day 4.

This man, ladies and gentlemen, is Ramez Sassoon. What a photo. A veritable ball of charisma. Old Ram’ here has published a heap of books and put together this little nugget of a website: successconsciousness.com that I am trying VERY hard not to be skeptical about.

The aim of SuccessConsciousness is to ‘provide practical information and guidance to help people live a better, happier, and more fulfilling life, and achieve both material and spiritual success’. Ok… I’m going to allow myself one cynical comment – why mention materialism?? If you’re positive you will get the materialist possessions you desire. Eugh. It’s as brutal as lottery and credit card advertising. But that’s it isn’t it – it’s not about positive mental thinking for your own benefit, to feel more relaxed and lead a more positive life – it’s merely an extension of capitalism – to own material things you want (but don’t need) and to use the techniques ‘taught’ in websites like this to achieve success

So t’otherwise, I’m all game. Yes Ramez, I am looking for techniques to develop my inner and mental powers, guidance for self-improvement, positive thinking and indeed visualization (?). I’m fascinated that Ramez had to ‘give up his steady job’ to launch this website and I truly hope it’s paying off for him, both materially and spiritually.

So, my mission for today from SuccessConsciousness, , I am going to embrace :

A simple technique, consisting of watching how people behave and act in various situations and then looking inside myself to find out if I behave and act in the same way under the same conditions. When I see people with certain traits of character, or a certain kind of behaviour, that I do not like, I will examine myself to see whether I possess the traits too. If I do, I will visualize and rehearse in my mind a different sort of behaviour. When I encounter traits of character of behaviour that I like, I will think about their advantages and benefits and importance in my life.

Right, I have had to take great liberties editing this passage because Ramez is particularly fond of HAMMERING A POINT HOME over several paragraphs. I do like this – it’s basically self-awareness, insight and wanting to be a ‘better person’. Tonight, a friend asked why I was doing this - why not just be positive everyday? Yep of course that is the ultimate aim in the long term, but for these 40 days I am going all out... there is no room for negativity (Sunday exempt from this statement) and each day I need a mission statement from someone like Ramez, or Debs from Day 1 to focus on. And Saturday is 'Ramez Day'.

Oh and yesterday went very well– let’s be honest, getting back to basics is pretty easy and lots of fun. This week has been fantastically positive.