Suffering Is Optional: The Myth of the Innocent Bystander

Transactional analysis is the study of the ways in which people get stuck in certain ways of feeling and behaving by the accident of the particular kind of early experiences they have had and how they stay stuck in these, playing games to confirm that's how the world was when they were little and how it is still good, bad, or indifferent. It's incredible that if people were rough and harsh with you when you were a kid, some part of you still puts energy into looking for people who were apt to act rough and mean to you. In some way you let people know you expect them to be rough and cruel with you. You probably make it easy for them to be rough with you, and you may even bully the people around you into being rough and cruel to you.... This book is about pain, some psychologically induced, some physically caused in the form of accidents, broken bones, cancer, heart disease, arthritis, respiratory ailments, etc. A good deal of physical pain can be prevented or reduced by the way of life which induces exercise, rest, recreation and good food. Most people die, not of old age, but of despair from painful deterioration diseases which reduce body movement, hearing, vision, socializing, sexuality and high level joyous involvement in living. Scientific evidence is now being massed to prove that the pain and crippling of arteriosclerosis, heart disease, arthritis, etc. may be reversed by a life style which includes consistent exercise, rest and recreation, something good and adventurous to look forward to, and an adequate diet, low in refined sugars and low in cholesterol.