Still Pursuing Unhappiness?
If expectation is the heart of disappointment, then story is the very brain. While the former breathes life into it, the latter gives it form and shape. So what story am I talking about? Well, I’ll save that for the next write up! For now, Remember:
SUFFERING IS OPTIONAL.
This is where I stopped last week, not so much for the lack of content but more so to avoid being too long and heavy.
Consider you’re waiting for a friend. It has been well over thirty minutes and he hasn’t shown up. You suddenly get a text from him saying he will not be able to show up! How do you react? I’ll tell you. The story you tell yourself is exactly how you react. We human beings love stories. In fact, I read somewhere that it is exactly why we decided to start living in communities in the first place — to gossip and share stories.
If you tell yourself that your friend is always unreliable or that he does this on purpose to disrespect you, you are going to be very furious. What’s worse is you have given your friend the power to decide how you are going to feel! How does that make you feel? On the other hand if you give your friend the benefit of doubt and perhaps consider a logical reason for not showing up, you might feel better. Maybe his bike broke down, maybe something more pressing demanded his attention. How do you feel now? Empathy is the key. Giving him the benefit of doubt releases unrequired pressure off you and relieves you of the stress that would have otherwise made your life hell.
Telling yourself the right story is very crucial for the well being of your mind. First of all, let us recognise that we are not living a daily soap. People are not half as bad as the movies and plays portray them to be. Believing in the goodness of humanity is as reassuring as it is comforting. Different people have different needs and different points of views. That’s it! There are hardly any people out there who are real life vamps or sadists who just love to derive pleasure out of other peoples’ woes.
Your story is your reasoning for what happened to you. More often than not we like to victimise ourselves and “villainise” the other and it’s natural too. Isn’t it? We empathise with ourselves since we know the theory behind our motives while we try and see through the intentions of others.
Our story is nothing but our point of view of things that are happening to us or to others. More often than not we attribute the causes of an action to one’s personality and not the situation. Take the example of the friend who made you wait. You attribute the flaw to his personality — “It’s what he always does” as opposed to the situation — “Maybe he is stuck somewhere”.
Our conclusions, if assumptions, must be verifiable and must work for us, not against us. As flag bearers of high morale standards we often burden our good selves with righteousness while conveniently placing the other in the light of low morale, and for what, to bear the wrath of our own conclusions!
So next time you feel a feeling remember to check the following-
- How you are feeling
- Remind yourself that you are responsible (in a way) for feeling that way
- What unreal expectations caused you to feel this way, if the feeling is not good
- What is the story you have been telling yourself that’s making you feel this way
- If you’re feeling awful can you change your story around to change how you feel
And this could be then called the Pursuit of Happiness!
Sharing a link for a poem I’d written once upon a time, seems to be relevant with this topic. If you like the poem you could buy the book too! sic!
https://medium.com/@formypoems/cry-for-happiness-b7e5e4c1bb3?sk=8395d6ce15ae1a8b472376074f47d2d2
