Introduction to Becoming Your Own Best Friend: 

            Early in my life’s career, when I could think well enough to decide what I wanted, I decided I wanted to lead the “good life.”  I wanted to feel good and do good!  So began my study of people.  What better way to learn than to seek and copy those who found a way to get what I wanted?  Observe, ask questions, copy the answers, use them, and I’ll have it too.  Who has what I want? … independence, joy, enthusiasm, purpose, belonging, peace-of-mind, peace-in-the-world, and whatever else might contribute to my well-being.

            To my surprise, I found many of the persons who “got it” lacked health, wealth, youth, weren’t physically attractive, and many didn’t even appear terribly bright. Even if fate and circumstance had not been kind, some made it in spite of severe handicaps!  And others, gifted with a full set of golden spoons, were quite miserable.  I kept asking, “What made the difference?” and collecting, benefitting from my profession of psychiatry, and to my present golden years.  The answers were not secret; they were readily shared.  They are offered on this free disk, with no obligation on your part.  The strens on loving and self-endorsement convey the basic skills for becoming one’s own best friend.  This collection of “strengths” explains the means others have used successfully.  Make them work for you as others, including myself, have benefited.

            Becoming one’s own best friend is actually the preliminary skill to a greater task, developing a newer manner of thinking.  Einstein’s greatest insight was not discovering the power of the atom, rather his declaration that “if mankind is to survive, we shall require a substantially new manner of thinking.”  The more important purpose of The ANWOT Guide is developing a newer manner of thinking, easily taught and learned, that results in ownership of one’s thinking.  This is called “self-mastery.”  Most persons allow their thinking to be directed by “others,” by the instinctual patterns programmed prior to birth by one’s genes, and the words, thoughts, understanding, and means of dealing with the world that have been passively acquired from their nurturers.  Self-mastery is the manner of thinking that frees us from domination and dependence on our first “masters.”   It is the means to modify the prevalent mode of thinking that emphasizes survival of the strong at the expense of the weak, dominance, win-lose competition, prejudice (pre-judgment), blaming others, hatred, “guilting” one’s self, and wasting valuable energy on destructive aggression.  The Guide explains why and how we can develop a newer way of thinking that promotes cooperation, sharing, love, independence, and the direction of our awesome mental powers to create weapons of mass construction.
 
            As the self-endorsement strens on the preliminary skill of becoming your own best friend work for you, you will want to go on to the more comprehensive task of freeing your thinking, what has been called, “becoming one’s own person.”  The Guide is presented as a series of “strens.”  Each stren is designed to add strength and/or wisdom to your thinking.  What is a “stren”?  Margaret Mead, the anthropologist, speaking to a group of health professionals, noted that our language contains many single concept words that express negative ideas but lacks appropriate opposites, viz. “worry,” “resentment,” “setback.”  Based on her insight, the group met and invented the word “stren” to mean any word, concept, idea, insight, etc. that adds to our well-being.  The Guide shares my lifelong collection of strens; I invite you to share and add to them.