What is ‘in here’ is ‘out there’
We often fail to choose the uncomfortableness which life offers us. We fight against it. We rail against it. But we hardly ever choose to accept it. For instance we may have been born into a family which did not have the wherewithal to satisfy our needs and desires while we were growing up. We resisted the situation we found ourselves in and the more we resisted the more our angst persisted. We blamed our family even though they tried their best to satisfy our whims and fancies. Even after becoming adults the rancour remained. We continued blaming our family for the state of our lives. This habit of blaming the outside circumstances for our situation in life became a habit. We became victims enslaved by the habit of blaming.
To break out of this habit we need to choose our situation in life especially what dissatisfies us.
When we choose the uncomfortable situations we find ourselves in, we are consciously making a decision to accept the situation as is and negating the way we feel how it should be like as well as believing in our capacity to respond appropriately. We no longer feel the need to blame. We are free of the anger and frustration arising from our resistance to accepting the situation as it is. We can now become creative in finding ways to deal with the situation and respond to it.
However, our dissatisfaction with the situation will not totally vanish. But it will greatly subside. And therefore will not come in the way of our functioning effectively.
In life we very often believe that there is always one card missing in the hand which has been dealt to us. And we go on ruminating that If only we had a better job or a better boss or a better spouse or a better child and so on we would have been so much happier. We are convinced that there is a missing card in our lives. We never seem to reconcile ourselves to the situation we find ourselves in. We don’t choose our situation. In fact we need to be grateful for it. Whatever life throws at us we need to be grateful. Even the pain and suffering. Life and all it entails is a gift. We need to appreciate it. We are alive. That’s it. That is enough!
When we are in a position to accept and choose even our discomfort in life, we realise how much we can learn from these opportunities given to us to grow. What is the use of having a life in which we have got whatever we wanted and consequently remained human dwarfs incapable of maturing and growing up. Stunted and spoilt. Suffering matures us.
When we look into the eyes of an old person, very often living in a very simple manner in many of our villages, and who has lived through all the ups and downs of life, we see all the wrinkles on his/her face but when he/she looks at us we don’t see any bitterness or ugliness; on the contrary we see the beauty and grandeur of life in that piercing yet understanding gaze. It’s as if that person has touched the heart of life. That person has lived life. Life in all its diverse colours and hues. We are looking at deep wisdom even though that person may be illiterate. That person has found joy in whatever situation life has presented him/her with.
The problem is that we yearn for a life without any pain. And the more we resist the pain and go after pleasure and distraction, the pain persists. The more we try to contort reality to fit into our fantasy of a happy life, the less happy we are.
We live life holding onto irrational assumptions. For instance we assume that everyone should treat us well and if they do not then they need to be damned to hell. We assume that we need the approval of all and even if one person disapproves of us we are no good. We assume that we are born to live a life devoid of any tension and stress. And so on. These assumptions point towards the type of life desired by us. What it should be like. We hardly ever examine these assumptions and therefore live very unhappy lives. It is quite ridiculous to think that we create these assumptions and consequently live lives filled with unhappiness because of these assumptions. We have the freedom to change these assumptions. It means that we can create our own heaven or hell on this earth. What is ‘in here’ is ‘out there’. Nobody is to blame except us.
