I have no publicised birthdays of Facebook friends today, so I make today’s song dedication to the person who first introduced it to me; my friend Deborah J Ives who lives in Leeds.
My song today is ‘I Believe in You’. This song was written by Roger Cook and Sam Hogin. It was recorded by American country music artist, Don Williams. It was released in August 1980 as the first single and title track from the album ‘I Believe in You’. The song was Williams' eleventh Number 1 on Billboard's country chart. The single stayed at Number 1 for two weeks and spent 12 weeks on the country chart. ‘I Believe in You’ was Don Williams' only Top 40 entry, where it peaked at Number 24. The song has sold 286,000 downloads in the United States in the digital era.
The song was also a hit in Europe and Australia. It was best received in New Zealand, where it reached Number 4 on the pop singles chart and is ranked as the 38th biggest hit of 1981.
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This song completely escaped me until recently in 2020 after my friend, Deborah J. Ives from Leeds introduced it to me. I had never heard the song before then, but what a beautiful song it is! The words of the song speak to me as few songs ever do completely, and it refers to the wholesome beliefs that man holds in their wife, in family life, in children, and in old people.
I have long subscribed to the view that life is what you believe it to be and that there is nothing in one’s life that thinking it so will not make it so. One of William Shakespeare’s more memorable utterances are the words he places in Hamlet’s mouth as he suggests to Horatio that human knowledge is limited (Hamlet: 1.5.167-8):
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.
Any person who believes themselves to be all-encompassing when it comes to knowledge is an ass. The wiser one becomes, ironically the more one realises that the less they truly know for certain.
As a person, who ran away from completing his education for a decade during my teens, and who developed an educational hang-up as he tried to make up lost ground, I became an avid reader of books for the remainder of my life. I would read a book a day from cover to cover for around ten years. I spent all my spare cash on buying books, and I even built up a library of seven thousand books. I read these books of classical literature, believing that I was increasing my learning and knowledge with each page I turned and digested, but I was so wrong. It was not until many years later when I started to read primarily for the pure ‘enjoyment’ of reading that I really learned anything worth retaining.
From my extensive reading habit, I did pick up a great deal which helped me with my writing of dozens of published books in later life. When I review my best learning years of life, the real learning and awareness which stayed with me and influenced me most came from direct human contact and my experiences with other people. One of the best learning experiences I readily involved in my future life was ‘to give books away once read’ instead of ‘putting them back on the shelf to gather dust’.
My most profound learning, however, was from an American psychologist called Albert Ellis. Ellis, like myself, was a ‘Behaviourist’. Albert Ellis claimed that the prime motivational force influencing all disturbed emotional levels that produced problematic behaviour was one of holding a ‘false belief system’.
A ‘false belief system’ is the holding of a belief for which there is no empirical evidence that validates it as being factual. For instance, saying “I can’t stand (this or that) a moment longer!” is an obvious example, as the person uttering this false belief is obviously deceiving themselves. While the person concerned is saying “I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!” the one thing we can say they are demonstrably doing is, ‘standing it!’ It may be a fact that they may not want it, they may not like it or even find it hurtful and most distressing to experience (whatever it is they are saying that they cannot stand), but it is patently untrue to say “I can’t stand it!” when they obviously are standing it!
There are some beliefs that cannot be proven which Ellis would term as being an 'irrational belief' ‘such as a belief in the existence of a God’ for instance. Being a belief that is generally helpful in a Christain's life, Ellis would consider it to be beneficial at best and harmless at worse. However, at the heart of all problematic behaviour and unhealthy emotional disturbance lies an irrational belief which aggravates and exaggerates the circumstances that the person is unnecessarily feeling. All ‘problematic behaviour’ that leads a person to feel infinitely worse than they should feel is invariably brought about by the holding of an ‘irrational belief system’.
The real harm in holding false and irrational beliefs is that they exaggerate all of our genuine emotions beyond the scale of truthfulness. For instance, they make us feel ‘angry’ when we ought to feel ‘annoyed’ and ‘enraged’ when we ought to feel ‘angry’: they make us feel ‘sad’ when we ought to feel ‘a bit niffed’, and ‘desolate’ when we ought to feel ‘sad’. And, if there is one thing that we know about the functioning of the human brain and body is that whenever a person tells themselves “I can’t stand it!” they are mentally instructing their body ‘not to stand it’, as well as hold the corresponding feelings and emotional disturbance of ‘not being able to stand it’.
So, please keep a sound mind to one’s beliefs, as all positive and wholesome beliefs are healthy and self-enhancing beliefs, while most irrational beliefs are unhealthy to hold and actually harm the individual and prevent them from being hopeful or happy in the process. Have a nice day, everyone.
Love and peace Bill xxx
My song today is ‘I Believe in You’. This song was written by Roger Cook and Sam Hogin. It was recorded by American country music artist, Don Williams. It was released in August 1980 as the first single and title track from the album ‘I Believe in You’. The song was Williams' eleventh Number 1 on Billboard's country chart. The single stayed at Number 1 for two weeks and spent 12 weeks on the country chart. ‘I Believe in You’ was Don Williams' only Top 40 entry, where it peaked at Number 24. The song has sold 286,000 downloads in the United States in the digital era.
The song was also a hit in Europe and Australia. It was best received in New Zealand, where it reached Number 4 on the pop singles chart and is ranked as the 38th biggest hit of 1981.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
This song completely escaped me until recently in 2020 after my friend, Deborah J. Ives from Leeds introduced it to me. I had never heard the song before then, but what a beautiful song it is! The words of the song speak to me as few songs ever do completely, and it refers to the wholesome beliefs that man holds in their wife, in family life, in children, and in old people.
I have long subscribed to the view that life is what you believe it to be and that there is nothing in one’s life that thinking it so will not make it so. One of William Shakespeare’s more memorable utterances are the words he places in Hamlet’s mouth as he suggests to Horatio that human knowledge is limited (Hamlet: 1.5.167-8):
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.
Any person who believes themselves to be all-encompassing when it comes to knowledge is an ass. The wiser one becomes, ironically the more one realises that the less they truly know for certain.
As a person, who ran away from completing his education for a decade during my teens, and who developed an educational hang-up as he tried to make up lost ground, I became an avid reader of books for the remainder of my life. I would read a book a day from cover to cover for around ten years. I spent all my spare cash on buying books, and I even built up a library of seven thousand books. I read these books of classical literature, believing that I was increasing my learning and knowledge with each page I turned and digested, but I was so wrong. It was not until many years later when I started to read primarily for the pure ‘enjoyment’ of reading that I really learned anything worth retaining.
From my extensive reading habit, I did pick up a great deal which helped me with my writing of dozens of published books in later life. When I review my best learning years of life, the real learning and awareness which stayed with me and influenced me most came from direct human contact and my experiences with other people. One of the best learning experiences I readily involved in my future life was ‘to give books away once read’ instead of ‘putting them back on the shelf to gather dust’.
My most profound learning, however, was from an American psychologist called Albert Ellis. Ellis, like myself, was a ‘Behaviourist’. Albert Ellis claimed that the prime motivational force influencing all disturbed emotional levels that produced problematic behaviour was one of holding a ‘false belief system’.
A ‘false belief system’ is the holding of a belief for which there is no empirical evidence that validates it as being factual. For instance, saying “I can’t stand (this or that) a moment longer!” is an obvious example, as the person uttering this false belief is obviously deceiving themselves. While the person concerned is saying “I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!” the one thing we can say they are demonstrably doing is, ‘standing it!’ It may be a fact that they may not want it, they may not like it or even find it hurtful and most distressing to experience (whatever it is they are saying that they cannot stand), but it is patently untrue to say “I can’t stand it!” when they obviously are standing it!
There are some beliefs that cannot be proven which Ellis would term as being an 'irrational belief' ‘such as a belief in the existence of a God’ for instance. Being a belief that is generally helpful in a Christain's life, Ellis would consider it to be beneficial at best and harmless at worse. However, at the heart of all problematic behaviour and unhealthy emotional disturbance lies an irrational belief which aggravates and exaggerates the circumstances that the person is unnecessarily feeling. All ‘problematic behaviour’ that leads a person to feel infinitely worse than they should feel is invariably brought about by the holding of an ‘irrational belief system’.
The real harm in holding false and irrational beliefs is that they exaggerate all of our genuine emotions beyond the scale of truthfulness. For instance, they make us feel ‘angry’ when we ought to feel ‘annoyed’ and ‘enraged’ when we ought to feel ‘angry’: they make us feel ‘sad’ when we ought to feel ‘a bit niffed’, and ‘desolate’ when we ought to feel ‘sad’. And, if there is one thing that we know about the functioning of the human brain and body is that whenever a person tells themselves “I can’t stand it!” they are mentally instructing their body ‘not to stand it’, as well as hold the corresponding feelings and emotional disturbance of ‘not being able to stand it’.
So, please keep a sound mind to one’s beliefs, as all positive and wholesome beliefs are healthy and self-enhancing beliefs, while most irrational beliefs are unhealthy to hold and actually harm the individual and prevent them from being hopeful or happy in the process. Have a nice day, everyone.
Love and peace Bill xxx
