"Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck." ~ Dalai Lama
Let me tell you a story. I first read it in a book on Taoism, but since then I've seen it in at least a dozen other places, each with its own variation. Here's the gist:
There is this farmer. His favorite horse is running away. Everyone tells him this is a terrible turnaround and that he is sorry for them. He says, "We'll see."
The horse comes back a few days later and brings a whole herd of wild horses with it. Everyone tells him this is a wonderful twist and that they are happy for him. He says, "We'll see."
The farmer's son tries to break one of the new horses, it throws him and he breaks his leg. Everyone tells the farmer that this is a terrible turn of events and that they feel sorry for him. He says, "We'll see."
The army comes through the village. The country is at war and they are forcing the people to fight. They leave the farmer's son alone because he has a broken leg. Everyone tells him that this is a wonderful turn of events and that they are happy for him.
The farmer says: "We will see."
Now let me tell you who I was when I first heard this story. I was twenty-three or twenty-four trying to break away from drugs, quit drinking, and change my life in general. I'd recently rolled my car into a field, lost my wife and most of my friends, and moved to West Texas to start over.
I was smart enough to know something had to change, but I wasn't smart enough to know how, so I tried to do what I thought were smart people – I went into them Library.
I came across a lot of weird things at first, like alternative theories about the history of the world, cryptozoology and things like that. Not really the change I needed.
One day I went to the library looking for a book on the Mothman, but Stephen Hawkings A Brief History of Time sat in its place. I didn't know about this book or the things it was talking about, but the title was cool and the libraries are free so I checked it out.
It is hard to exaggerate how much this book has revolutionized my view of the universe and my place in it. It was exciting to see how much was out there that I didn't know. Atlantis and Bigfoot were replaced by quantum mechanics and string theory.
I finally came across The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav and rearranged my worldview. Since I grew up in a fairly strict evangelical home, any kind of Eastern philosophy was completely outside of my frame of reference. This prompted me to study Taoism and Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism, and the history with which I started this post.
I began to realize that I had a mind, but I wasn't my mind. Meditation showed me how this mind was always reaching for different things and wanting them and reaching for them. It was a longing and aversion machine.
It wasn't long before I realized that these things were just wanted to have, and that none of them were that important. I just wanted what I wanted because I wanted it.
That changed everything.
I had spent the last fifteen years running from one thing to another to avoid anxiety, fear, anger, and depression. I did this through drugs and alcohol and took crazy risks with my life. These things have consequences.
These consequences were car wrecks, prison, hospital stays and a long series of broken relationships. I was so intrigued by my desires that I ran through life with my eyes closed, blindly chasing them, with predictable results.
Realizing that I wasn't my mind gave me a sense of objectivity about the things I wanted and the things I didn't want. It taught me that I didn't have to be so interested in having or avoiding things. That made me stop running.
I've learned that it is overrated to assert yourself. Once we realize this, we are much less prone to the whims of a weak, fragile, and capricious mind.
Why we don't have a business what we want
There are three main reasons why we have to be careful about investing too much in what we want:
We are emotional beings driven by things like hunger and poor sleep.
We are largely geared towards short-term thinking. The immediate benefits often outweigh the long-term consequences.
We experience time linearly, so the future is completely unknown to us.
Let's look at these.
Hungry, angry, lonely, tired
I often encourage people to remember the acronym HALTS to use when making decisions. It stands for hungry, happy, angry, lonely, tired, stressed and sad.
These are all common emotional states, and they are all terrible times to make a decision. We have all heard the advice not to go shopping while we are hungry, and there is a reason for it – it is good advice. You will buy more groceries than you need based on how you are feeling at the moment.
I'm not sure I've ever seen good decisions from these emotional states unless luck has stepped in and let the person off the hook. It all makes sense when we think about it.
Anger turns off the best parts of our brain. Situations keep getting worse and worse when we choose to speak up in a moment of anger.
When we are sad the whole world seems bleak and it feels like it will never change. This is fine unless we make long-term decisions based on the idea of a threatening, overwhelming world.
Stress makes even the smallest things feel overwhelming. We can't make good decisions when we make our bed or go shopping, sounds like monumental tasks.
When we are lonely we probably let the wrong people into our lives just because we need someone. This opens us up to toxic, manipulative, and malicious people.
Our brain is slow and sluggish when we are tired, and unfortunately our decisions are rarely our best.
So-called positive emotions are also not certain. I know that on days when I was happy and feeling a little better than normal, I got too involved in things.
When you put all of this together, we can see that the things we want are weak and change depending on our mood. The things we want become much less important when we realize that maybe we only want them because we slept badly or skipped lunch.
Short-term planning
Our immediate answers are rarely long-term. This makes sense because most of the things our body needs are immediate – food, sleep, shelter, sex, going to the toilet, etc.
The problem arises when we focus on meeting these needs to the exclusion of the things that are good for us in the long run. I wasn't stupid – I'd always known drinking and drugs were a problem. The problem was that rational James was usually overruled by mad James.
I had good intentions and they continued as long as I did not avoid temptations. My long-term planning was solid until short-term fun was ahead of me. It was annoying to see my determination and dreams keep coming out the window.
As I mentioned above, our needs are weak when we begin to explore them. Why do you want chocolate Why do you want a beer Why do you want to go for a walk Why do you want to go to Disney World?
We have all possible answers to these questions:
Because I deserve it.
Because I have to relax.
Because it's a beautiful day outside.
Because Disney World is the happiest place on earth.
However, these do not really hold up when we examine them.
Why did you deserve it?
What does it mean to relax?
What makes it a nice day?
What makes Disney World the happiest place on earth?
If we go on, we always come to the realization that we just want to feel good one way or another. We want to feel good in order to feel good. There's definitely nothing wrong with that, but it's ultimately groundless and we can't let it rule our lives.
Not feeling good is part of the human experience. You will get sick, you will have days that are not as good as other days, you will sometimes have a headache. These things are inevitable.
The things we want here and now are rarely the best things for us in the long run. For this reason, long-term planning requires intentionality and energy. It may be impractical, but it's true.
We cannot predict the future
As a kid I remember thinking it was weird that we couldn't remember the future. If I could remember what happened yesterday, why couldn't my brain go the other way?
This is one of the major limitations of our species and the most important reason why we shouldn't hold onto too tightly the things we want. We don't know how anything will play out, including what will happen when we get what we want.
I drove through Lubbock, Texas, skiing once or twice a year. Lubbock is a city in the desert, and while I've come to love it here, I don't think anyone would describe it as beautiful.
Lubbock has some dubious awards. We were voted America's boring city, worst weather in the world, and I recently read that we have the worst diet in the United States. Our rates of poverty and violent crime are roughly twice the national average, and we score high on things like child abuse and teenage pregnancy.
I always swore I'd never live in a place like Lubbock if I could get through here, but moving here twenty years ago saved my life. The place I loved, Austin, got me down to earth. It was only a matter of time before I was dead or in jail.
On the other hand, the place I swore I would never live has given me a college education, a family, and a thriving business – all things that I thought existed only to other people. I honestly close when I think what my life would have been like if I hadn't moved.
There were minor examples along the way. I worked in a CD store and loved it, but one Sunday a company came in and said they were going to close the store. They gave me a two week paycheck so they could pack up the shop and move out. It was so abrupt.
It sucked, but that led me to work in hotels where I could be paid to do all my homework and still have time to read. I blew all the Russian classics, did all the A & # 39; s and spent a lot of time with my son when he was little. I will always be grateful for that.
Before I opened my practice, I worked at a private university. For someone with sixty or more jobs in their life (my wife and I made a list), working on a college campus was amazing – it was the first place I thought of as a "forever" job.
When things went bad they all went bad and it was obvious it was time to go, but I was fine. I ignored some issues that I shouldn't have ignored and it caught up with me. When I left, I was burned out and sick all the time.
This catapulted me into starting my own business because I saw no other options. I never saw myself as responsible enough for it and people told me I had no head for it.
Six years later my business was very successful and gave me more freedom than I could ever imagine, but even that was not the end. I recently closed my office to stay home with my kids, another twist I couldn't have seen coming.
We are trapped in linear time, so we don't know what's coming around the corner. Sticking to one thing or the other as the right thing or what we "should have" have often results in us missing out on the amazing things right in front of us.
Accept what we get
My life has been a series of tough lessons evoked by my selfish, legitimate and stupid choices. They've all taught me one thing in one way or another: I don't know what's best, so most of the time I don't have a business in getting what I want.
Things like having a library book in the wrong place, closing the company I worked for, and moving to a city I didn't like all made the best things in my life. I wouldn't have chosen any of these if I had the choice.
We are emotional, short-sighted beings who have no access to the future. Learning to cultivate acceptance for things that are beyond our control often opens up amazing avenues for us. I know it has it for me.
About James Scott Henson
James Scott Henson has worked with people for nearly two decades as a social worker, counselor, meditation teacher, and now a coach. He writes, podcasts and posts on Instagram about mindfulness, compassion, intentionality and gratitude.
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