EPTBuddhism’s basic tenet is something like this:
We are slaves to the compulsion to fulfil lofty ideals, which is why we find things to desire
We get unhappy when we cannot reach our desires
Ergo, happiness is truly found by not desiring anything
A spiritual teacher of sorts once told me that proper self-awareness changes your life from an emotional rollercoaster (each day filled with moments of varying happiness, sadness, anger, joy etc.) to an emotional cruise (by internally monitoring and managing your own emotions and inner monologue your day becomes far less vulnerable to sudden peaks of joy crashing into troughs of frustration etc.). The way I visualise it is, if you graphed your happiness over a day, the range or amplitude would be a lot smaller but the mean, median and mode happiness values would be higher.
I think of myself as on the whole being quite calm and relaxed. I certainly have times that I’m happier or more melancholy, but nowhere near the extent that I observe in others. Many people spend all their time absorbed in their anger that they missed out on that one thing they REALLY wanted (in three days, or three months, or three years, it’ll be irrelevant so chill out) or suddenly exhilarated by achieving that thing that they wanted (the high only lasts until a minor disappointment crops up to ruin it). I understand this, it’s what I was like when I was younger. I talked about this to one of my friends who is particularly prone. His response was that the trajectory (smaller variation) of my emotions isn’t living life to the fullest. I disagree, because by maintaining a greater perspective on things I enjoy the moments of my life consistently and contentedly. The alternative is sudden bursts of exhilaration that are accompanied by even more frequent states of dissatisfaction. As I see it, this is ultimately unfulfilling and ensures personal emotional state at any moment in time is essentially random.
Still, it’s up to each person to decide the best way to live life. Maintaining this kind of perspective isn’t the default and at first isn’t easy, but I’m throwing it out there for others to try (or to discuss if you have tried it). The next time some disappointment occurs in your life, you become angry, pissed off, don’t let your mood crash but think to yourself if you will still be concerned about this issue in a years time. In 99% of cases, your logical mind knows you won’t, so why is it such a big deal now then? Let it go.
One year ago to the day, were you in a bad mood? If so, why or why not? … It must have been some pretty big life event if you still remember. In the words of Meher Baba, “Don’t worry, be happy.”
If you found my reflections on life interesting, check out my first blog post here:
------
I started off my writing today on a completely different topic, but couldn’t find the train of thought to form it into a coherently structured post. When I do, expect a post entitled “The Path To Happiness”.
If you found this post a productive or insightful use of your time, my previous blog post can be found here:
Things That Matter In Life
