3 Great Rules For Mental Health

Dorothy Carnegie wrote a book that was published some decades ago called Don’t Grow Old, Grow Up! In this book she offers advice on how to live a long and fulfilled life that is well balanced in every aspect. It covers everything from spiritual maturity to having great friendships and a healthy marriage.

Rules for mental health
I found the section of the book entitled “Three great rules for mental health” particularly interesting. In this section she gives three simple rules that will help you have great mental health. They are simply: Know yourself, like yourself, be yourself. Whilst these are by no means the only ingredients to having great mental health, they are very important ingredients and for this reason they do require your attention.

Know yourself first
She advises that every person needs to learn to know themselves first. This can be done in a number of ways. The first is to learn to cultivate moments of solitude. The act of being alone is important in order to allow you to refresh youself and think clearly without distractions.

In today’s time I am sure she might have advised that you turn off your cell phone once in a while too. It is amazing how much a part of some people cell phones have become. They never want to switch them off, never want to leave a call unanswered and always treat every call like an emergency.

I have developed the habit lately of always having my phone on vibrate and, at times, switching it off altogether. Sometimes it is an unnecessary distraction and those emergencies we always anticipate rarely occur anyway. Why not switch off the phone, leave everyone for a while and have a few hours to yourself? Done regularly, it would do you a lot of good. It was Robert Cecil who said “Solitude shows us what should be; society shows us what we are.” Only in being alone can you hear your inner voice clearly.

Break the habit barrier
Breaking the habit barrier is her second piece of advice in the section on rules for mental health. A habit is a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behaviour that is acquired through frequent repetition. Habits can be good, but in this particular instance she is referring to breaking bad habits. You must become aware of habits you have developed that are not in your bets interest in the long run and that could be hindering you from growing as a person.

Develop excitement and enthusiasm
This would naturally lead to the third point, which is to develop excitement and enthusiasm. This is sometimes a difficult thing to do, especially if you are stuck in doing something you do not particularly enjoy and feel forced to do. Unfortunately, that is the definition of a job for most people.

By far the best and most natural way to be excited and enthusiastic is to do the thing you are most passionate about. For some that is their work and for others it could be a hobby or a business venture. The important thing is to recognise for yourself what you are most passionate about and to pursue that thing with everything you have.

Otherwise life becomes a matter of just “getting by” and boring. As some studies have shown, boredom can be stressful when coupled with monotony. Developing inner resources to avoid boring yourself and others is therefore another piece of wisdom to come from the book.

Do not conform
Dorothy goes on to address conformity and calls it the “refuge of the frightened.” How very true. You conform because you are afraid of the consequences of being different. You conform because you are not convinced that your way of seeing and doing things might actually be better. It is a scary prospect to think that we can be unique and different.

The safest thing to do in such cases is to be like everyone else. Blending in is safe. Standing out is dangerous and scary. E.E Cummings said “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

The reality is that unless you stand out and be yourself, you will never really fulfil your true potential, no matter how successful you become as a conformist. This is one of the most important rules for mental health. Each person is created different with a different thing to contribute to humanity. As Dorothy says “Be yourself by developing your own convictions and standards; then have the courage to live with them.”

Nurture your mind
The last section of the rules for mental health is about nurturing the mind in order to develop a mature mind. She calls this an “adventure in adult living.” It makes real sense when you think about it because from the time you mature physically in your teens there is very little else that happens to you to show that you are growing. your mind then takes over from your body as the new frontier of growth. If you are smart enough to recognise this, that is.

“Developing your mind through intellectual activity” is one of the most rewarding things you will ever do with your life. It will bring you and others immense benefit and holds the key to everything you ever want or desire in life. To the extent you develop your mind is the extent you succeed in life.

Lastly...
If you desire to lead a good and healthy life mentally then you must follow these 3 great rules for mental health - know yourself, like yourself, and be yourself. A lot depends on these three things. John Mason sums it up as he says “You were born an original. Don't die a copy.”