Why you have no life. Why the man of your dreams never appears. Why your career is non-existent and you are perpetually struggling with money. Why no-one helps you or tells you they care about you.

You’re not “unlucky”. You’re not “cursed”.

You wake up and go to work. You go drinking at the weekend. You see your friends and watch TV. You go to parties and celebrations. You wonder what to do with yourself and where you’re going. You idolise famous people. You never make enough money and want to be rich.

And yes, something really is missing. Your life is missing any purpose or meaning, which is why it seems so sterile and tedious. All of these things are pointless.

At the beginning of the year, Jenny wrote this to me:

“I have made an active decision to make 2008 less about me (after the wedding of course!) and try to do one thing each day to make someone else happy. It’s a small aim but can you imagine the possibilities if every person made the same choice? If everyone brought a homeless person lunch? If every person gave £1 to one charity on the same day?

Such small things make such a massive difference and i don’t think people realise it.

Today i brought a coffee for a homeless man, persuaded someone i work with to use the points from his boots advantage card to get lunch for another homeless guy and made someone smile.

What did you do today to make someone else smile? It’s a question that should be asked every day i think.”

Let me explain. Nothing good happens to you because you don’t do anything good for anyone else or do any good in general. Read that. Digest it. Feel it in your gut. Those that do good for others and for all of us get it back for them in return. If you don’t give it out, you won’t get it back or have it happen for you. If your life is empty, boring, negative and uninspiring, it’s because you are. What a revelation. Go out of your way to find good to do and the world will give it back to you in the way you want it to.

But surely I’m a good person? I’ve never hurt anybody or killed anybody? I was nice to everyone today? I’ve tried to help people? Sorry, but being a “good person” isn’t enough, and never will be. Sitting around and expecting good things to happen to you just for not having done anything wrong is stupid. If you want to avoid being hurt and succeed, you don’t get there by being nasty ahead of the so-called “good guy”, you get it by doing good for others. The strong win the day, and the weak fail.

You are not “helping” or “being a good person” by:

• Being there for someone you care about
• Listening to a friend in need
• Not swearing or being nasty
• Not cheating on your bf/gf
• Calling when you say you will
• Turning up when you say you will
• Doing a favour for someone
• Staying silent when you want to shout
• etc etc.

YOU ARE MEANT TO DO ALL OF THESE THINGS ANYWAY. DON’T EXPECT A MEDAL.

Helping and doing something good means going out of your way. Making a real effort to be part of something bigger, selflessly helping someone else, giving to a cause, or working towards something. You spend the day looking for good that you can. Planning to do good. Fighting for others and designing ways you can help. Searching for things to do that will really help and be an inspiration. Not just being obsessed with the way you feel and the things you want. Wanting to help is not enough – you must DO it. The world doesn’t owe you anything and it won’t be delivering a nice package to a spoilt, selfish little brat like you anytime soon.

DO SOMETHING GOOD. THINK ABOUT HOW YOU HELP. DO SOMETHING SELFLESS. WAKE UP AND ASK YOURSELF WHAT GOOD YOU CAN DO TODAY.

Now that is a mission and a meaning for life. You do all the things you are supposed to, and then what makes it anything more is what you go out of your way to do. The special things you do that change the world for someone else.

• Get an alcoholic to AA
• Spend time showing someone something new that will help them
• Notice if someone is heavily depressed and get them help
• Pay someone a thought-out compliment
• Get an anorexic girl to eat
• Get someone who is bereaved to a counsellor
• “See inside” people and help them to understand themselves
• Make a commitment and go further than you should
• Stand up for someone
• Share your wisdom and what you’ve learnt
• Make a big gesture to show someone you care

There are reasons you sit there and do nothing. Mostly its fear, but you’re totally paralysed and have no idea how to get out of it. But when you were small you already had everything you needed and had no problem at all. You were conditioned to crumble, and you must reverse the process.

When you were young, you didn’t get the things you needed, emotionally speaking. Because you were small you didn’t understand what you needed, and automatically assumed it was your fault, and that you didn’t deserve anything. It never got resolved and stuck in your system. You took that into your adult life and now it governs everything.

You still think you don’t deserve anything, and are scared that if you do try to do anything it will be taken away or it will fail because you’re not enough. So you don’t bother trying, or wait for something to happen first that never comes. If you’re brave enough to give it a go, you assume when and if it goes a little pear-shaped that it’s because you don’t deserve it in the first place. So the cycle continues.

But that fear, anger and despair that you claim isn’t there combines to form a miserable cancer inside that never allows true character to develop. If you do nothing about it, you will fulfil your own prophecy, be stuck in the cycle as a perennial victim and suffer for the rest of your days. Failures are everywhere and they all want you to be part of the herd like them. You need to identify them and be ruthless in removing them from your life until they have changed and are able to be a positive part of it.

Characteristics of a person that always fails and never goes anywhere:

They:

• Are rude, selfish and childish
• Never apologise or admit they’re wrong
• Never ask for help
• Never tell anyone how they feel or admit they care
• Never take responsibility for themselves
• Always make the wrong decision - every time
• Are easily bored and expect others to entertain them
• Are defensive, paranoid and arrogant
• Never admit how they feel
• Are obsessed with what other people think of them
• Are always trying to make out they are someone else or more than they are
• Typically suffer some kind of addiction/lifestyle illness
• Can never be vulnerable, even in intimate situations
• Repeat the same mistakes over and over
• Never respect anyone else’s boundaries
• Are always waiting for their “lucky break”
• Never keep promises or remain loyal
• Think everyone will hurt and betray them
• Tell you what you want to hear
• Never can work out the “big” questions
• Are obsessed with material concerns

And most importantly:

They are so deluded that they can never ever see that they are like that. If someone points it out, they curl up into a ball and deny it all. They are too proud to be introspective, honest, resolve any of it or change.

Don’t angry with these people – feel sorry for them. They will never, ever go anywhere. Their lives will never take off. They think they’re “strong” and learn lessons only through pain, which reinforces their original ideas – they can’t see they are the cause of it in the first place. They’ll never be able to have a successful relationship, be trusted by anyone or find happiness. They live in fear and frustration every single day and infect others wherever they go. They go around hurting others, complaining about being punished despite their innocence and spend their years being continually hurt in return. Their lives are confused and virtually pointless.

It all comes down to this: they have no integrity or strength of character.

Those with no character cannot be trusted. They always have another agenda or are double-thinking. They betray. They pacify. They are weak, flimsy and change what they think with the passing wind. They can never choose a side or know what they think and believe. They cannot bear the disapproval of their friends. They have no principles and cannot stick to them if they set them. They are always looking for what is around the corner. They hurt people because they cannot deal with difficult feelings or communicate properly. They avoid anything awkward and can’t understand how you can still love even despite conflict and simply disagreeing.

I respect people with character. I may not agree with you or accept what you say or do, but i will respect you. I respect honesty above all things, even if it is painful. There are people i know who think i hate them, but i don’t. I differentiate between who they are as a person and their behaviour. I hate their lack of character. But i also believe they can change and grow it if they are willing. Life belongs to the strong; and the weak perish in their own failure. Those without character are weak – the fabled “good guy” who finishes last.

Personality changes all the time and is never constant: who we are is moulded and shaped by our level of maturity and our circumstances. Character is permanent and the basis of who and what we are.

What produces character?

“we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

These people have no character because they do all they can to avoid suffering – they don’t understand what it is, why it is important or what they may have done to cause it for themselves. Living life is a dangerous process and involves taking risks – the risk to be vulnerable, the risk to love, and the risk of trusting. A life of the good things comes from take the calculated risk that you could possibly end up suffering, and then enduring loyally to get what you want at the end. Sitting around doing nothing and suffering is not perseverance, it is pointless apathy and procrastination. When fear takes control we are frozen like ice. Only strength can melt it.

Are you one of these weak people? You’ll know immediately if you can say this sentence and honestly mean it, even if you’re scared. Courage is doing something in spite of fear.

“I’ve messed up. I need to make it up to those i’ve hurt. I want to change. No matter how hard or painful it will be, i will face up to it all, ask for help and be greater than this.”

Of everyone in the world, it is that type of person i have the very highest respect, love and admiration for, because it is the hardest thing to do.