Sometimes I put my happiness on layaway. I think about how amazing it will feel when I move somewhere big enough for a dedicated office space. When I have a house with a lush backyard illuminated with twinkling fairy lights. In the interim though, I’m in a one-bedroom apartment with no green space. Yes, I have plants in containers, but it’s not the same as a true backyard. Does that mean I’m doomed to be unhappy?
I’m currently reading the Artist’s Way and one of the exercises is to write out your ideal day. My ideal day includes, you guessed it, eating outside in a lush backyard illuminated with fairy lights. The author, Julia Cameron, asks, “What festive elements of your ideal day can you have right now?” Well, that certainly isn’t a question I ever asked myself.
I don’t have a backyard, but I do have a walkway that serves as a porch so on impulse, I purchased fairy lights to string along the railing and a camp chair to sit in. I’m still waiting for the fairy lights to arrive but tada! For less than $20 I gave myself something I’ve been dreaming of for years, or at least a small taste of it. I don’t have to earn more money to move to a bigger place, and then find the perfect place, and then live there. I can give myself what I want right here, right now.
My happiness includes fairy lights. Photo by muhammad asif on Unsplash
It begs the question, “Why was I waiting?” I was waiting because I wanted things to be “perfect” first. I wanted my ideal and not the less-than-ideal, as if only the ideal could make me happy. But is that really true? Psychology professor Robert Emmons says:
Research on emotion shows that positive emotions wear off quickly. Our emotional systems like newness. They like novelty . . . . But gratitude makes us appreciate the value of something, and when we appreciate the value of something, we extract more benefits from it; we’re less likely to take it for granted.
In effect, I think gratitude allows us to participate more in life. We notice the positives more, and that magnifies the pleasures you get from life. Instead of adapting to goodness, we celebrate goodness.
In other words, I can be happier, right now, by celebrating goodness. By enjoying that I have a porch to sit on, that the fairy lights will twinkle in dusky light, and that a breeze ruffles my hair. I don’t need to wait to feel pleasure. I can feel content right here, right now. It reminds me of Mary Oliver’s famous poem “The Summer Day.” She writes:
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
As for me, I plan on creating my ideal life before everything is perfectly in place. I plan on giving myself the simple things I yearn for, sometimes for years, before it looks exactly how I think it should. Instead of adapting to goodness, I plan on celebrating goodness.
I dream of a world where we stop waiting to give ourselves the simple pleasures we long for. A world where we make our dreams come true before they are perfect, before they are ideal. A world where we recognize positive emotions wear off quickly but we can cultivate contentment right here, right now.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
As we enter this new year, I keep thinking about envy. Not the way I normally do in that my chest burns with the emotion, aching to have what someone else does. Instead, I’m thinking about something my former therapist told me, “Someone out there envies you.”
When he first said that to me, I balked. “What?!? My platonic relationships are great, but don’t most people think that? Who complains that their friends are awful? Other than those relationships, how could anyone possibly envy me? I’m not wildly successful, I don’t have a boatload of money, I’m single, and I don’t even live in a large apartment! What is there to envy?!?”
The reason I said that is I was doing exactly what neuroscientists recommend you don’t do to feel happy – comparing up, or in other words, comparing yourself to people who are better off than you are. How did researchers come to this conclusion about comparing up and down? They studied a cohort that’s rife with competition and comparison: Olympic medalists. One study of the 1992 Summer Olympics found bronze medalists tend to be happier than silver medalists because bronze medalists think about how close they were to finishing without a medal at all. However, the silver medalists think about how close they were to winning the gold.
I tried to capture an image that was green with envy. Here’s what I landed on. Photo by Runze Shi on Unsplash
The researchers didn’t just ask people how they felt after the fact, they studied facial expressions and we saw real-time evidence of this disappointment with McKayla Maroney and her now-famous pout. In 2012, she was a crowd-favorite gymnast, expected to win the gold for her individual event. Instead, she made a mistake that caused her to miss the gold medal by one-hundredth of a point. She won the silver and disappointment was written all over her face.
It makes sense of course, but thinking this way, of what could have been and isn’t, what you missed out on, etc. is deadly, literally. Another study found silver medalists’ life expectancy is less than that of gold and bronze medalists and it’s posited this is due to the perceived dissatisfactory competition outcomes. These medalists were so upset about missing the gold, their lives became shorter. Yikes. So what’s the solution here? Compare down, and also maybe broaden your perspective.
I received a dose of perspective a few days ago. A woman whose career I’ve envied for a while isn’t doing so great personally. She got divorced and moved out of the home she bought with her spouse. When I heard the news, I felt pity. Instead of wishing I had this woman’s life, I felt grateful that I don’t. Yeah, her career success would be great, but I don’t want to experience what she does. Furthermore, to bring it back to my earlier comment, my relationships are healthy and fulfilling. I take it for granted that I love and am loved, but not everyone experiences that. In other words, I’m feeling the contentment my spiritual teacher advocates.
He says santośa, or contentment, means a state of proper ease. “Contentment is not at all possible if the individual is running after carnal pleasures like a beast. As a result of extroversial analysis, the objects of enjoyment go on increasing both in number and abstraction and that is why one’s mental flow never gets any rest. Under such circumstances how can one attain perfect peace of mind?”
They can’t, which is why contentment is so crucial. Santośa is not about being satisfied with the crumbs of life. It’s not appropriate to tell someone who is near-starved to be grateful for eating every three days. Everyone has a right to a full and respectful life, and at the same time, there’s something to remembering what we do have and realizing someone out there envies us.
I dream of a world where we spend more time practicing gratitude for what we do have instead of lamenting what we don’t. A world where we recognize if we saw the inner workings of other people’s lives, we wouldn’t want to trade places with them. A world where we practice contentment and compare ourselves to people who have less than us, not more.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I have a tendency to romanticize/idealize places. I think that if only I could live in _______ all my problems will be solved. That’s an exaggeration, but not by much.
I suffer from sleep problems, as in, I don’t sleep well and I’m extremely sensitive to noise even with a white noise machine and earplugs. People kept telling me to move to a super remote place because remote places are quieter, and then I’d be able to sleep through the night. So I did. I temporarily moved to a retreat site in Missouri where the closest town – 20 minutes away – has a population of 2,000 people.
The grass is NOT greener on the other side.
When I got there, I found that the grass was not greener, so to speak, but just as green as anywhere else. Much to my surprise I still had problems sleeping – a train ran through nearby with a loud whistle, I heard planes flying overhead, the hum of the refrigerator bugged me, etc. I don’t regret the decision because moving to Missouri gave me a sense of freedom and relief I hadn’t experienced in probably years. I didn’t worry about anyone playing loud music on the weekends because I couldn’t even see my closest neighbors. I checked the mail whenever I wanted (in my last place the mailbox was locked and the key hung in my landlady’s house); if I needed a trash bag I walked into the main house and grabbed one. If I needed some spices I went to the commercial kitchen to get them.
Missouri was good for my soul but not for my body – alas, I still wasn’t sleeping. The whole thing made me realize external places are not what need to change, I need to change. I broke down and bought myself some sleep headphones, i.e. headphones specifically designed for sleeping, which I didn’t know existed until about a month ago. If being literally in the middle of nowhere was still too noisy for me, clearly nowhere except a sensory deprivation tank will be quiet enough.
Mostly what this all means, what I’m taking away from the experience, is nowhere is a magic bullet, nowhere will cure all my problems because the majority of my problems are internal. That’s not to say some places aren’t better than others – some places are more suited to my needs, but it’s unrealistic to think moving somewhere will make all my troubles disappear. More likely, I’ll have new and different problems. No place is a utopia as much as I like to fantasize about one. I do think the world can be a better place, but again and again I see a “utopia” manifests with effort and perseverance, not some magic wand or a plane ticket.
I dream of a world where we realize going somewhere else won’t make our troubles disappear, they might just go into hiding for a while. A world where we realize usually we are the ones that need to change. A world where instead of fantasizing about a place where the grass is greener, we realize the grass is just as green.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
In yoga there is a concept of santosha, or contentment that I’ve always struggled with. I am rarely content with what I have and am usually focused on what’s next as opposed to what is. This week I had two interactions that brought some perspective.
When I flew back to the West Coast a couple of Saturdays ago, I started chatting with the guy next to me. I asked him if he liked where he lived and the answer was, “No.” When I asked him why he’s lived there so long he said because of his job. In that moment, I felt a swell of gratitude and contentment.
So, I know I’m inferring some things, but this guy sure looks content!
My gypsy lifestyle is not without its challenges (hello moving more times than years I’ve been alive), but the one thing I will say is if I’m unhappy in a place I’ll move. I’d much rather take a chance on an uncertain future than a discontented secure one. I love that about myself. I appreciate the fact I’m willing to take a risk, to do the scary thing, in the hopes it will pay off.
In this same conversation, my seatmate asked me if I traveled much. My curt reply was, “Yes.” It got me thinking about all the places I’ve been lucky enough to see in my life. Usually I’m comparing myself with others and coming up short. I’ll think to myself, “Yeah, I’ve traveled a lot, but I haven’t traveled as much as so-and-so,” or, “Yeah, but I haven’t been to _____.” I’m constantly striving ahead instead of being content with what I have. In that reflective plane ride, I felt appreciation for the places I’ve seen, and the places I’ve lived.
A few days after I arrived, I got my haircut. The hairdresser started telling me about her life and I was again amazed to hear about someone’s life that is so different from mine. She’s 23 and has never lived anywhere else. She’s barely left the state. She also told me about her sister, who is close to my age, and has the sort of life I thought I would have at 30: married, owns a house, possibly babies in the future. Her sister also hasn’t left the state or lived anywhere else. In that moment, I peeked into the life of someone else and found that in fact I am content with my own.
What I am getting at here, perhaps poorly, is that so often I look at what I don’t have, how my life doesn’t look the way I think it should, and I forget to remember what’s great about it. And I don’t mean the things we’re all grateful for – a place to sleep, enough to eat, great friends – I mean the character traits I possess, the way I choose to live my life. I see possibilities of other ways of being and I feel content because despite everything, life is pretty good.
I dream of a world where we’re all able to cultivate contentment for ourselves. A world where we want what we already have. A world where we take the time to pause and congratulate ourselves for what we’re doing right. A world where we have santosha.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
What’s coming up for me this week is patience and timing. I feel like I finally know and understand that virtue. I realize things happen on God’s timeline and there’s nothing I can do about it.
There are some things in life I really, really want. In the past I’ve taken steps to attain those goals and felt impatience/frustrated when I didn’t get what I wanted the very minute I wanted it.
When I moved to
I see how God has a timeline and it more than likely does not match up with mine. I mean, really, I joined a temp agency and didn’t get a stitch of work. Not a single job. I just have to laugh because clearly it all happened when God deemed fit.
It’s a lesson I’m applying to my current situation as well. I really want to be in a relationship. I really want a companion in my life. I get out a lot, I know tons of people, I’m on a dating website, but it’s not happening. I’m doing everything a person can possibly do but it’s not manifesting. Here’s the thing. It’s not up to me. Not really. The timing has to be right, not just for me but also for whomever I’m going to end up with. My life is clearly guided by a force greater than myself, a force that knows what’s in my best interest and that’s something I’m learning to accept.
I guess what I’m saying is I finally accept there are some things (many things) I do not control. Many things, like timing, are out of my hands. I can finally accept that. And in my book acceptance is a synonym for patience. I accept I’ll be in a relationship when God deems it time; I accept I’ll get to the front of the line at the bank when I do; I accept the bus will come when it does. When I accept what life is I feel patient. I can either beat my head against the wall in frustration or I can enjoy what’s before me. (This is where being present comes in.)
I choose to accept my life as it is, to feel content with what’s before me. I choose to enjoy my situation, feel satisfied with the present moment, and know everything has a timeline and will eventually blossom. I choose to savor every drop of my life because this moment is all I have. I know some things take a while and I’m finally willing to wait.
I dream of a world where we realize change can happen at any moment, every moment, not just externally but internally as well. A world where we recognize things happen according to God’s timeline and in the meanwhile the best we can do is enjoy what is. I dream of a world where each person is filled with ease and patience and joy. A world that caters to our best interest as opposed to instant gratification. A world where patience is valued, where we’re willing to wait for what we want. A world where we are present and content and happy.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
There is a concept in yoga that I have struggled with for years. Santosa, or contentment, simultaneously makes perfect sense and yet completely baffles me at the same time.
On the one hand contentment seems completely called for. To me it translates into not being greedy, to feeling satisfied with the amount of money, power, and esteem we have in life. It makes sense because resources are limited. The opposite of contentment brings to mind Ebenezer Scrooge, from Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Carol.” The fellow who acquired more and more wealth and essentially sat on it while those around him suffered in poverty. Clearly greed is a bad thing. One only has to look at how the desire to acquire more leads to misery for yourself and for others (ahem Bernie Madoff. May you see the error of your ways and may others learn to forgive you).
At the same time, contentment in the broader sense, such as being satisfied with what’s before you, being satisfied with your lot in life, completely confounds me. I just don’t get it. I obviously beat the drum for change repeatedly. So where does contentment fit into that? How do I reconcile contentment with my constant impulse/desire to improve not only myself but the world around me? How can I feel content with homelessness and yet at the same time work to eradicate it?
I think maybe it has something to do with knowing our limits, knowing how much we, on an individual basis, can accomplish. Yes, I can give the homeless man on the corner a granola bar and no, I am not in a position to build him a house. And while I constantly want to do more, give more, be more, contentment lies in recognizing I can only do so much. Me, in this body, in the position I am currently in, at this moment, can do no more than smile at the homeless man and offer him food.
(As a group however, it’s a different story. United as one is a different matter, which I’ve already written about.)
I think the other piece to contentment is living in the moment and feeling satisfied with the present. This is the hardest part for me. Truly. When I stay present and in the moment I love it, but it’s not my natural inclination. Rather my thoughts are something like this:
“Ugh. Why is it so hot outside? Why can’t it be cooler? This weather is horrible. I wish it was spring. I can’t believe I have to wait so long for spring to come again.”
I find it hard to enjoy what is, to not future trip, and I often wish things were different than they are. I guess I’m saying I think contentment lies in reveling in what is. Enjoying the moment, enjoying the heat, enjoying waiting for the bus, enjoying the situation you are currently in because you’re in it and it’s your life and it’s all you have. Sooo much of my mental energy gets expended on thinking about the future. Worrying, lamenting rather than enjoying what’s before me.
I’ve gotten much better since moving to California, (when you don’t know where you’re living two weeks in advance you learn to live in the moment) but it’s a daily process.
So I don’t know, I guess I reconcile santosa and service just by letting them coexist. Just by trying to feel content and grateful for what I have, content with what I, as an individual can do, and also working to change things little by little.
I dream of a world where everyone feels content and grateful for their lives. Where we work to improve ourselves and the lives of those around us but in a balanced way. I dream of a world where gratitude reigns and where we all truly live our lives because we stick with the moment. Because we savor what is before us. Because we are truly present. I dream of a world where everyone everywhere feels content, feels satisfied, feels joy. I dream of a world where daily we work to fulfill our mission on this Earth and also feel satisfied with what we’ve accomplished. Where we love what we’ve done thus far and also love what we will do in the future. I dream of a world where everyone everywhere wakes up feeling lovely because, oh right, this is life I’m experiencing and life is grand.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.