Last night, while spending time with friends and a few new faces, a topic came up that's been on my mind ever since.
We all experience periods in life that are less than pleasant. Sometimes it's a loss, a challenge, a crossroads, or a void. Other times it's just this vague fog where nothing seems to motivate or inspire us. We feel stuck, uncertain, disconnected, or simply uninspired.
And what do we do? We immediately start measuring the experience against all those lovely human constructs we've come to accept as normal. We should be doing more, accomplishing something, making progress, figuring things out. Surely, if we're not moving forward, something must be wrong.
As though we're somehow failing at life because we're not actively accomplishing something.
And then our nervous system gets involved. We don't like feeling uncomfortable or uncertain, so naturally we want to fix it. We want to feel happy, fulfilled, inspired. We want to know where we're going and what we're supposed to be doing.
This sucks. When will it end?
Before long, we're not only dealing with the original circumstances, we're carrying the added weight of resisting them. We want answers, guidance, solutions, relief. Something that tells us how to get from where we are to wherever it is we think we should be.
Preferably with a timeline, thank you very much.
But I think we're missing something in all of this.
We have more influence over how we experience these periods than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. We talk about being the writers of our own stories, but how often do we actually approach life that way, particularly when the story takes a turn we didn't anticipate or particularly appreciate?
Consider duality, the idea that we experience and understand our world through contrast. Light and dark, joy and sorrow, highs and lows. One gives context to the other. Would we recognize happiness in quite the same way if we'd never experienced sadness? Would we appreciate the light quite as much without knowing darkness?
And if we entertain the possibility that we're here to experience, learn, and grow, doesn't it stand to reason that some of that learning is going to be uncomfortable?
Think about the things you've learned in your own life. How many of your more meaningful realizations came during periods when everything was going beautifully? I'm guessing at least a few came from experiences you'd have gladly skipped at the time.
That's not to suggest every painful experience happens for a reason, or that we're supposed to enjoy suffering. Some things are genuinely awful. Loss hurts, uncertainty is uncomfortable, and sometimes life simply doesn't cooperate. But I do think we're quick to interpret discomfort as evidence that something has gone wrong, rather than considering what the experience might have to offer.
Maybe we're being challenged to reconsider something we've always believed, or discovering what we no longer want. We might be learning patience, boundaries, resilience, or how to be comfortable with not having all the answers.
Or perhaps we're learning that our worth has absolutely nothing to do with how productive we are.
There's a thought.
Instead of being the pack horse, be the rider.
Rather than trudging along under the weight of everything we're carrying, we can climb into the saddle and take a look around. Where are we? What are we carrying? And how much of that weight is actually necessary?
We can acknowledge that something is difficult without allowing it to consume the entire experience. We can recognize our frustration, disappointment, or uncertainty and still get curious about what might be happening beneath it. What am I resisting? Why does this bother me so much? Is there something here I haven't considered?
And sometimes the answer may simply be that we're exhausted and need a break. That's a perfectly worthwhile realization, too.
I'm not suggesting we can decide to be happy or think our way out of every difficult situation. Our emotions and nervous systems don't necessarily operate on that schedule. But we aren't entirely at the mercy of the stories we're telling ourselves, either. We can question our assumptions, reconsider our perspective, and become more intentional about where we're directing our energy.
There's an old saying, this too shall pass. And it will, one way or another. Life keeps moving, circumstances change, and so do we.
So why do we spend so much time waiting for life to get better before allowing ourselves to enjoy it?
Somewhere along the way, we've come to treat joy and fulfillment as rewards for getting things done. Once we've reached the goal, resolved the problem, paid the bills, figured out our purpose, or finally gotten our lives in order, thenwe can relax and enjoy ourselves.
But what about everything that happens in between?
We can spend an extraordinary amount of time revisiting what's wrong, worrying about what might happen next, or lamenting how far we are from where we want to be. And the more attention we give those things, the more they begin to define our experience.
The universe answers you where you are.
If we're constantly looking for evidence that life is difficult, unfair, or that nothing ever works out for us, we're probably going to find plenty of it. Not necessarily because life is conspiring against us, but because that's where we're directing our attention. We notice what reinforces what we already believe, and before long, it becomes the story we're living.
But we're surrounded by other experiences, too. We just don't always give them the same consideration.
Did you laugh today? Have an interesting conversation? Notice something beautiful? Accomplish something small that you might ordinarily dismiss because it wasn't particularly impressive?
How often do we overlook those moments because we're so focused on the bigger thing that hasn't worked itself out yet?
We don't have to pretend the difficult things aren't happening to appreciate what's going right. Both can exist at the same time. In fact, that's the whole point of duality, isn't it?
And when we begin giving those small victories, unexpected pleasures, and ordinary moments a little more attention, something shifts. Our circumstances may not have changed at all, but our experience of them has. We're no longer allowing the most difficult part of our lives to dictate how we feel about the whole thing.
Maybe the universe isn't necessarily handing us a different set of circumstances. Maybe we're becoming more receptive to the possibilities that were there all along. And perhaps that shift in attention begins to change what happens next, too.
After all, what we notice influences what we believe, what we believe influences the choices we make, and those choices have a way of shaping our experience.
I think we underestimate how much joy is available to us in the middle of an otherwise imperfect life. We can be uncertain about our future and still enjoy today. We can be working through something painful and still appreciate the things that are going right. We can feel frustrated, disappointed, or completely uninspired and still find something worth smiling about.
One doesn't cancel out the other.
And rather than spending so much of our lives trying to get through the uncomfortable parts, what if we gave ourselves permission to experience the whole thing? To recognize the challenges without becoming consumed by them, to celebrate the small victories without dismissing them, and to stop treating every period of uncertainty as something that needs to be fixed?
I'm not suggesting it's easy. I certainly haven't mastered it. But I do believe we have more influence over our experience than we often realize, and I'm beginning to wonder how much of our discomfort comes from the circumstances themselves versus our insistence that we should be somewhere else.
Or from what we've been choosing to focus on while we're here.
Maybe THAT's the lesson.
