HAVING THE CONFIDENCE TO KNOW THAT I CAN, AND WILL,
HANDLE ANY SITUATION IN LIFE
THE CORE COMPONENT FOR HAPPINESS!
Once I know that I can, and will, handle life no matter what the circumstances or situation, I actually become "fearless". This means that I am free from all faux fears, though in a true danger my mind will initiate fear. Faux (false) fears are based on false beliefs and can be eliminated without harm. Real fears are based on true beliefs, such as "me see tiger, me afraid, me run!" The latter are, of course, beneficial as they protect from real dangers AND they disappear once the danger is over. False beliefs and faux fears, by contrast, will often keep generating past the time that fear is needed - "what if...", "I'm not safe in the future", "gee, I'm really screwed up and I better worry about it" (as a false strategy).
HOW IS IT DEFINED?
I wrote a piece called Must Learn How [Life] Things Work To Achieve Competence - Without Life Competence, You Can't Be Happy. In this case, I was referring only to "Life Competency", NOT competencies in other areas, though some of them are helpful. For instance, obtaining competency in literary works may be satisfying as a "hobby" or interest and/or it may help a person to generate some confidence that he/she can learn, but it is a peripheral competency and one that has little relative value in life compared to learning life competency.
Life competency basically, obviously, refers to being capable of handling those things that produce the needed results to be able to navigate life successfully in terms of producing maximum happiness. Part of maximizing happiness is being able to handle and eliminate the negative effects of something that happens to us - we need to manage those well or life will not possibly be lived at a high level(!).
And, yes, that competency would include quite a number of competencies. Let's look at what those are AND prioritize them. Understand that some of the "bigger competencies" become better due to mastering some of the "contributing competencies", so there is a question of which order to put them in chronologically. Basically, I need to develop some of the underlying competencies on the way to achieving the big competencies.
THE CLEAR WINNER!
Knowing how to handle and manage one's own thoughts and fears is the clear winner for the most important life skill, yet people skip it or get to "barely good enough" to survive but not thrive. (I'll come back, later, to the components that are necessary in order to be able to do this.)
In order to be happy, I must be able to psychologically handle anything that comes up. Circumstances happen, or, as Forrest Gump noted "sh-- happens."
THE PROCESS
A person who is life competent may have an initial reaction or impression, but he/she immediately pauses to intervene in the thinking process, instead of letting the emotion take over to initiate a poor, ineffective, non-thinking barrage of upsetting thoughts.
He/she "inquires", using the higher brain, to assess the situation in perspective and to decide what is needed and then decides the action and the internal conversation that is needed.
He/she brings out, and accesses, an arsenal of pre-thoughtout "sentences" and "systems" that will help handle, and calm, the primitive brain . Those thoughts are called "perspective thoughts" (such as, "how important is this?"), "coping thoughts", "statements of reassurance", "who I am in life", and such. One of the biggest perspective realizations of all, which is also required if one is to be happy, is the realization that there is "no fault" - yes, this goes against all of your training, but it is absolutely, provably true - and is massively worth the effort to fully "get it" deeply and permanently. When learned, it will blow out a massive number of false, harmful beliefs!
[These thoughts are initially devised and then "rehearsed"; they are best kept in a referenceable 'place', such as in one of the reminders notebooks, and put behind a tab label from the table of contents provided. These thoughts are "installed", to the point that they are ready for use, in the moment(!).]
And, when there is time after the initial handling is finished, he/she sets up a plan of action to adjust the body and the mind so that it creates happiness and eliminates the false beliefs/thoughts and the false fears that cause the negative emotions and negative projections of consequences.
THE GRAND PERSPECTIVE STATEMENT
The grand perspective statement is "This is very small compared to life itself and its potential. I can still function well enough to create happiness and am hugely ahead of the game to have been born. I am still well off! Now I will choose what to do and will be able to actually follow through to still have a good life or perhaps an even better one!"
THE "ENOUGH" REALIZATION
Some people think that to be competent enough to have confidence that they must be great at all things or good in many things. But if one is competent enough in managing one's perspective and beliefs, one can have a wide variation in competency in "outside" areas.
But one does not need "good" competency (see example in the sidebar) in "handling" technology, time, finances, investments, plumbing, social or any other outside areas. If one has an accepting and modest outlook on life, all that is necessary is that one have "sufficient" competency to get by without any meaningful harm.
So, not spending too much might be a sufficient financial skill plus. Investing can be handled by reading the articles in the sidebar and no more knowledge is needed. And one can easily get more than sufficient knolwedge by reading 3 books and perhaps taking a simple, local class at one of the community learning organizations.
For most things, people must just hire the proper expertise when needed, so it would be foolish to spend alot of time learning about something which only needs to be done occasionally.
The test of anything, from a higher perspective, is "will it harm my survivability or will I be ok and have enough to get by?" If the answer is yes, you're fine - and you've always been fine despite how awful you thought things would be - nothing really happened!
Instead of having to be competent in many areas, spend the time on being competent in perspective on life and in fear and self criticism management.
