TEN IRRATIONAL IDEAS

Irrational Idea #1
You must have love or approval from all the people you find significant.

Irrational Idea #2
You must prove thoroughly competent, adequate, and achieving.

• Variation:  You must have competence or talent in some important area.

Irrational Idea #4
You have to view things as awful, terrible, horrible, and catastrophic when you get seriously frustrated, treated unfairly, or rejected.

Irrational Idea #5
Emotional misery comes from external pressures and you have little ability to control or change your feelings.

Irrational Idea #6
If something seems dangerous or fearsome, you must preoccupy yourself with and make yourself anxious about it.

Irrational Idea #7
You can more easily avoid facing many life difficulties and self-responsibilities than undertake more rewarding forms of self-discipline.

Irrational Idea #8
Your past remains all-important and because something once strongly influenced your life, it has to keep determining your feelings and behavior today.

Irrational Idea #9
People and things should turn out better than they do and you must view it as awful and horrible if you do not find good solutions to life's grim realities.

Irrational Idea #10
You can achieve maximum human happiness by inertia and inaction or by passively and uncommittedly "enjoying yourself."
 

From:  A new guide to rational living, by Albert Ellis, Ph.D. and Robert Harper, Ph.D., 1975;  Institute for Rational Living, Inc.