Tag: want

Why It’s Okay to Live a “Boring” Life If That’s What You Want

“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

Some people know from the time they are small what they are going to be “when they grow up.”

I, at various times, was going to be an archeologist, paleontologist, veterinarian, famous rock musician, famous film director, actor, studio guitar player, music production engineer, choir teacher, choral composer, less famous film director, film editor, screenwriter, alpaca farmer, or cattle farmer.

As of this writing, I make wedding films and assist my wife with wedding photography. There is no fame, enough money, but no riches and no acclaim. Despite being told how special, intelligent, and talented I was as a child, and how I could do anything, my life has ended up being quite ordinary and, dare I say, a little boring. And I wouldn’t change one bit of it.

Our culture seems intensely focused on passion and dreams. The most popular shows are all about people competing for the chance to live their dreams. The thing that stands out to me so starkly is the reactions of the people that don’t win.

So often they will say something along the lines of “I just don’t understand how I didn’t win. I wanted it so badly. I wanted it so much more than all the other contestants.” As if wanting and desire is all that’s necessary to achieve a goal!

I spent most of my life floating at a level of desire. Wanting things, relationships, experiences, sometimes having the desires fulfilled, most times not.

Even when I got what I wanted, it only would make me happy for a brief time, always looking for something outside myself to satisfy me.

Amid that was also the ego’s constant desire for specialness. I was smart and talented, so I deserve to be noticed and have an interesting job and a wonderful, amazing life. But life had different ideas for me.

After high school I was planning to attend a music school in California to study guitar performance. However, when I was nineteen, I left home for two years to volunteer for my church at the time. During those years, my priorities shifted, and I was no longer sure if living as a touring musician lined up with more important spiritual goals, as well as goals of wanting a family.

I shifted my thinking to music production, and then choral education after a girlfriend mentioned it as a possibility. I was going to teach choir. I had great times performing, composing, and learning.

Two years into my degree, my wife and I started dating and got married. Around the same time I transferred to a different college, in a different city nearby. I was not taking very many classes, but one by one, they all fell by the wayside.

One class I needed another prerequisite, another I had missed too much to catch up because of my wedding and honeymoon, and then I was left with a choir class that I soon realized I hated. Did I really want to do this for the rest of my life?

I withdrew from college and just worked. From the natural foods store, to the steak and buffet restaurant, to the parking garage, to the telemarketing center, to the law firm copy center. We talked about going back to college at some point, but could not afford to pay outright and did not want student loans.

When I looked at going back to college, I ran into a lesson I’ve tried hard to remember since. Too many careers that popped up would require me to have made different choices for the past twenty years to make them work.

I thought about going back to school to become a veterinarian, but it would take me a decade, and I would not have the advantage of having volunteered at a vet’s office when I was twelve to put on my resume!

During that time my wife started her wedding photography business. It took a few years, but eventually we had enough work that I could quit my other job and help her full time. At the same time I renewed my interest in spiritual development and discovered Dr. David Hawkins’ writings, which led to my present commitment to enlightenment as my primary goal in life.

If I had gotten everything I desired, I doubt I would have made those discoveries and learned that acceptance and surrender are a surer path to joy than following desire. Now I have nothing of what people would consider ambition. I have very few goals, and no five or ten-year plan.

It might seem that I have become some kind of shiftless drifter, accomplishing nothing. Overall in my life, I have tried to replace desire with intention, which is like the rudder on a ship. I have devoted myself to love, kindness, peace, and joy, and lots of waves crash against the bow of the ship, but it does not affect my heading.

With that, many things just fall into place, (or out of my life,) just without the seeking and grasping of passionate desire. I will automatically do or not do certain things because of that intention, because it is what I am.

I want to have enough for my needs, and to accept whatever comes in every moment. I trust that what comes is the perfect expression of potential in that moment. Now I know that the source of my happiness is inside me, and the circumstances of life cannot take that away from me.

That is what I mean when I say surrender and accept: accept the fact that whatever it is we want in life, we cannot control the outcome, and if we could, sometimes we do not know what is best for us anyway. Instead of a passionate striving to “accomplish” something, we set the compass, and start down the path.

We can only control our walking, not what the end of the path looks like or whether there will be anything at the end.

The more we find our happiness from within, the safer we are. We can pursue anything we want, finding joy in the process. Whether it turns out the way we envisioned or not becomes irrelevant, because we didn’t bet all our joy on that outcome.

I thought I wanted to be special and important, but life led me to something very normal and a little boring. I could try to change it, but it is the perfect life for me.

So if we haven’t made it to some dream life that is fueled by passion, there can be great peace in learning to find the joy in being ordinary. To those of us that are led to follow our dreams, just love the dream, and surrender the result. Maybe your dream will come true, but if not, being boring is pretty great too.

May 27, 2013
When You Don’t Get What You Want Something Better May Be Coming

“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

While every adoption story is different, they all start with a loss. Our loss turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to us.

I’ve had two migraines in my life. Both were when I was battling infertility and in a war with my body. My brain had had enough apparently.

The first migraine was on my way to work one day (different story), and the second was before a dinner party. My friend was inviting her close friends over to make an announcement. I knew what the announcement was.

She was going to tell us she was pregnant. I was as happy for her as an infertile friend can be, which is not very.

My migraine saved me that night. I didn’t have to go and pretend. Instead, I was alone in a dark room crying, which is where I would have ended up anyway. Now I know I was grieving the loss of my non-existent biological child.

In what turned out to be an oddly not-difficult decision to adopt, my husband and I were on the way to the adoption agency for the first informational meeting when we had the biggest fight we had ever had. Uncharacteristically, I was so emotional I told him to turn the car around. I knew this was not the time to begin our adoption journey.

About a month later we tried again. We were in the car, having just merged onto the highway on the way to the adoption agency, when we were sandwiched between two other cars in a three-way wreck. We were fine, but missed the meeting.

Our third try turned out to be a charm as we showed up at the agency relatively emotionally stable and in one piece.

Those who have adopted can confirm that timing is everything, especially in foreign adoptions when often the two files on the top of the pile get matched and a family is formed.

Was something cosmic happening so that we would show up at the right time to receive the right baby?

Once the adoption was underway and we were awaiting our sweet baby to be approved for release to us, I would talk to her. We even had a song, Coldplay’s “Yellow.”

I would sing, “Look at the stars; look how they shine for you,” because I thought we could see the same stars. I felt closer to her, knowing we were thousands of miles apart, but could see the same sky.

“You were all yellllllooo,” I would sing alone in my car, again and again.

I don’t know what it is like to give birth, but I cannot imagine it is any more terrifying or exciting than meeting your adopted child for the first time. We, along with the families we were traveling with, had taken over a hotel floor when the babies started arriving from the orphanage.

“Swenson” we heard our interpreter yell as he held out a baby, our baby. I don’t remember stumbling forward, but my husband has it on video. When I watch it I see myself holding our daughter and instinctively cupping her head and holding her to me.

She was dressed in head to toe yellow. Shirt, shorts, even yellow jelly sandals. This. was. my. daughter.

She was all yellllllooo.

I did not get what I wanted. I wanted to have a dinner party and announce that I was pregnant. I wanted to carry a child in my belly. I wanted to discover how the baby looked like me and how it looked like my husband.

I didn’t have a dinner party. I didn’t carry her in my own belly. She doesn’t look a damn thing like us.

But what I got? What I got was even better. I got a child that was meant to be ours.

This baby was so meant to be ours that we couldn’t make it to the adoption agency until the third try because it wasn’t time yet. This baby was so meant to be ours she was wearing head-to-toe yellow when we met after I’d been singing “Yellow” to her for months.

So yes, sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.

I daresay when you don’t get what you want it is because there is something better on its way to you.

Photo by egor.gribanov

May 16, 2013
The Hunger for More: What We Really Want and Need

“Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” ~Proverb

As a child, I was obsessed with other worlds—reading about alien planets, writing fantasy stories, or just playing video games. As a teenager, I longed to know as much as possible— who we were, why we are here, the meaning of life.

Later on, I started traveling. There was so much to see, so much to do, so many ways to look at the world. I wanted to see it all, touch it all, experience it all.

This need for more has existed throughout my life in its many forms, and I can thank it for always driving me to do great, exciting things. But at the same time, it has never allowed me to stay still, to just enjoy myself the way so many people seem to.

When I ignore this feeling, it starts gnawing away at me from the inside. It tells me that I am not doing enough, that I’m lazy, a time-waster. Some would call the feeling a feeling of becoming stir-crazy, cabin fever, ennui.

I look at it as a hunger. When I ignore that hunger, when I stop traveling or learning or creating or just doing, the weight of the world piles up on me and life suddenly feels like a suffocating, restricting place.

If I continue to ignore it, I tend to slip into depression or sadness; the smallest of stresses will bring me to tears.

But what is that hunger? Do we all have it, to some degree? Without the human desire for knowledge and development, we might all still be living in caves.

Without it, we wouldn’t have medical and technological developments, and we wouldn’t have art or poetry, perhaps. But on the other hand, we might not have war, hatred, and greed.

That hunger takes different forms depending on how it is channelled.

Given the right circumstances, we get creativity, ambition, and invention. Given the wrong ones, we get that dark, burning need to amass more and more money and power—that greed that can be seen in so many people throughout our history.

We often try feeding that hunger with money, power, knowledge, creative output, food, sex, or drugs. We desperately try everything to fill that void, apart from what we really need.

Four years ago, when I was on the verge of depression, a friend suggested that I try mindfulness. In short, the art of being in the here and now, of focusing on the senses instead of the thoughts, and of looking at thoughts objectively.

It took a while, but what my most successful moments of mindfulness showed me is that it is possible to be still, to absorb a moment fully, without that restlessness, that hunger, starting to tap its foot and demand to know what on earth I think I’m doing.

Quieting the nagging voice in my head has become an art of its own, now.

The most powerful moments are found walking through nature, just listening to the variety of bird song, or feeling the ancient strength of a tree against my back.

In those moments, another, older feeling comes to me. That feeling is of being one; one with myself, one with nature, one with everything. The flowers, the trees and the birds are just a part of it.

In the heart of a forest I realize something so true, so powerful, that it brings tears to my eyes.

We are animals. We are part of the earth, just as any animal or plant is. Somewhere along the line, we evolved to crave more, to be aware of our surroundings, and to think about ways to improve it. That craving brought us the modern comforts that we know now, but it also brought with it a world of suffering.

In our haste to become more, to know and to create, we also felt that it was our destiny to conquer not only each other, but also nature. But this very act of cutting ourselves off from our roots has had disastrous consequences for many.

Most of us crave companionship, whether we seek it by clinging to romantic partners or through a string of disconnected, drunken nights. We are addicted to social networking, perhaps not because of the technology itself but because it substitutes for that feeling of oneness, of connection, that we have lost.

We, in the developing world, are starving ourselves. This fast-paced, technology-based life, focused only on the acquiring of money and status is a twisted manifestation of a hunger that exists deep down in every one of us.

But what that hunger really is, what that calling inside us really is, is a call back to oneness, to our roots, which we ignore.

One way to describe it is that we all have souls, and that our souls are connected to the earth and everything on it. Or, you could say, every atom in your body was once part of something else on this earth, and will be again.

Without nature, we cannot eat or breathe, and yet we lock ourselves up in man-made cubicles and unquestioningly buy food from packets.

We also need to connect to each other. We might seem to connect online, but it is at the cost of face-to-face interaction, which is far better for us.

It worries me to see children glued to phones and games, ignoring the people around them. If we aren’t even teaching people to connect to each other and to their world, then there’s little wonder that so many people are unhappy.

Ironically, people slave away unhappily so that, one day, they can relax in the countryside or on the beach. That retirement dream might be nothing more than recognition that we need to surround ourselves with a more natural environment, not in some distant future but right now.

I’m not saying that we should abandon all human progress and go back to living in caves. Some inventions have saved lives and made it possible for us to live much longer and healthier lives. However, we need to look at the mental health problem we’re facing and consider all other possibilities before throwing drugs at people.

Nature therapy and mindfulness are growing industries, and have been shown to treat everything from substance abuse to depression and anxiety.

You can see the effects yourself; just sit in a park and close your eyes, listening to the birds or the running water. Turn off your phone and let yourself just BE.

Recognize that you were created by nature; that you are part of it and it is part of you. I have been so much happier since I honoured this core part of myself, and I want to share it with everyone.

I believe the hunger is a calling—a calling back to where we came from. We are each one tiny part of a massive picture, and when we disconnect ourselves from it we are denying ourselves the beautiful, meaningful feeling that comes from recognizing that we are all part of the same amazing world.

Photo by notsogoodphotography

May 8, 2013
Why You Aren’t Living Your Dreams and What to Do About It

“Your belief determines your action and your action determines your results, but first you have to believe.” ~Mark Victor Hansen

Screech!

The car engine’s loud revving got quiet. The tires came to a screeching halt.

This towering, slender, intimidating man, with a beard like the skin of a shaved porcupine, shut the driver side door behind him and approached me with thunder.

“Is this what you’re doing?!” he demanded. “On the corner—with a girl?”

It wasn’t her fault, but his expression almost made me turn around and look at her with utter disgust.

Instead, I was too busy quieting the butterflies in my stomach, looking up everywhere into his chiseled face except his eyes. His head blocked the sun like a solar eclipse on that urban street while his eyes burned a hole in my forehead.

“You’re going to throw away the championship for this.”

Never explicitly saying out loud what I did wrong, as he put me to shame, it made the unspoken truth stab my heart like a dagger, over and over, especially because I had deep admiration for this man.

As he walked away from the sidewalk concrete and drove off, I caught a glimpse of his long hairy calves in my peripheral vision and stared into the black pavement in deep contemplation.

Yanking my arm away from the hot girl next to me, like an annoyed child from an overprotective parent, I walked up the block and took the bus home.

I was sixteen when my tennis coach, this amazing man, taught me my first lesson in what it really meant to walk away from a grand vision you have in life, and the price you pay on your personal growth when doing so.

My sin: I had stopped showing up for tennis practice with two weeks left to a championship game that depended on my performance.

But why did I do that? And why do so many of us fail to do the things we want to do, resort to our old ways, and ignore our glorious vision in life?

Luck

A study by Janssen and Carton demonstrated how what scientists call the “locus of control” affects how timely we do things.

No, locus of control isn’t that awesome pose at yoga class! It’s our perspective on what’s really responsible for the outcome of things.

Do we take personal responsibility for things that happen in our lives and have an inner locus of control? Or, do we blame it all on luck and circumstance, otherwise known as having an external locus of control?

They gave forty-two students a homework assignment and found that students who had an inner locus of control started and returned assignments sooner, while those with an external locus of control started and returned assignments later.

We procrastinate more when we blame luck and circumstance for the results we get and avoid taking personal responsibility for what we want to achieve.

That’s what I did.

I hung out with my new girlfriend instead of going to practice so that I could retrospectively blame her in the event that I lost the championship. I have a girlfriend now, and she’s taking up my time. That’s why I’ll lose. It’s not because I didn’t take full personal responsibility. It’s her fault.

My tennis coach was trying to teach me the locus of control at the time, when the locus of other “things” controlled me more.

Fear and Limiting Beliefs

Research suggests a variety of reasons on why we fail to do things we want to do, but two stand out.

1. Fear of the unknown.

We can’t predict the outcome and the consequences it will have on our self-esteem. We do what we usually do to prevent our self-esteem from getting damaged.

2. The belief that we’ll perform better at a later date when we’re “more prepared,” which will likely never come.

This causes us to engage in indecision—on purpose, to validate our stalling.

In my case, I dated a new girl and stopped practicing to avoid feeling bad in the event that I lost the championship. I knew that I would win the girl, but wasn’t sure about the game, so I focused on the easy win.

Our human tendency to want to be right, certain, and safe can overshadow doing the hard work, breaking bad habits, and getting something we desperately want.

Old Conditioning

On Psychology Today, Ray Williams suggests that the brain is protective over its current habitual patterns. Achieving something new will require new behavior, and the brain will try to resist new patterns to protect its old conditioning.

The brain is also wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain and fear.

“When fear of failure creeps into the mind… it commences a de-motivator with a desire to return to known, comfortable behavior and thought patterns,” he writes.

Before you set out on a journey to achieve something, you must pay attention to the triggers that will happen in your mind, because your mind could derail you.

The most important factor in overcoming your mind’s tendency to keep you in your comfort zone is awareness.

The more aware you are of how your brain is conditioned and the lifestyle it’s trying to protect, the better equipped you’ll be to take action.

When my brain tries to make me curl back to comfort, I whisper to it, “Stop it! We must do this! Think about what we could gain in the long run.”

Awareness

While many “gurus” might tell people to wake up earlier, set priorities, and plan better in order to work toward their dreams, these tactics alone do not always help.

Why? Because it’s our mental conditioning that’s holding us back, and that’s what we need to change. It’s our fear of the future, and often, our lack of personal responsibility that keeps us from taking action, not the failure to create to-do lists and wake up at a specified time.

Keep a vigilant watch at how your mind will try to take you back to your old ways. This is the only way to change your conditioning.

Changing your mind and spirit first, letting go of fear of outcomes, and challenging your old conditioning may revolutionize the way you live so that you own up to what you want to do—and then do it.

April 24, 2013
How to Stop Obsessing Over Things You Want

“You only lose what you cling to.” ~Buddha

I want to be famous. I want to earn lots of money. I want boxes of expensive chocolates. I want people to like me. I want you to think that this article is the most amazing thing you’ve ever read.

Enough about me. Back to the Buddha’s quote. “You only lose what you cling to.” This doesn’t make any sense, does it? Surely you only lose what you don’t cling to?

I think there are two ways of making sense of this idea.

First, what we cling to slips away from us.

Think about soap in the bath. If you grip it very tightly, it pops right out of your hand.

If we’re really desperate for something, we’re less likely to receive it. This happens in lots of different ways.

A couple of years ago I came out of a long-term relationship and started dating. I joined an online dating agency and started getting in touch with different prospective dates.

I very quickly realized how insecure I felt. As soon as I started a conversation with anyone, I was desperate for them to like me, whether or not I actually liked them!

One man in particular seemed perfect for me from his description. He was an artist, he lived in a beautiful and remote part of the world, and he had a cute dog.

I imagined all the things that we’d have in common and all the sparkling conversations we’d have. I imagined visiting him and meeting his dog. I got a little carried away.

He could hear this desperation in my emails, and he soon drifted away before we ever began a proper conversation. I wanted a date with him so badly (or I thought I wanted it badly) that I scared him off. Like soap from your too-tight grip. Whoops! (more…)

May 17, 2011
Mindful Indulging: Having What You Want Without Guilt

“You only lose what you cling to.” ~Buddha

I used to cling to my identity as a person who didn’t eat donuts. To me, donuts represent all that is tempting and yet forbidden. Any self-respecting natural health doctor is not supposed to like donuts, right?

This image I held of myself almost cost me one of the important realizations of my life.

Twenty years ago I was in the midst of my training to become an Ayurvedic health practitioner. I held tightly and proudly to my dietary restrictions like a fundamentalist’s religion.

This ancient medical system of India dictated that since I was out of balance with too much phlegm, I was to avoid all wheat, dairy, fried foods and sugar. So donuts were definitely a no-no.

On my path to learn Ayurveda, I also began studying the Sanskrit language in which the original medical books were written. I found myself at a Yoga ashram in San Francisco, to attend a Sanskrit class, or so I thought.

What I promptly came face to face with was a 65-year old Indian saint in neon orange robes and dark, wrap-around glasses asking me “Who are you?”

As is traditional in an ashram, after our meditation and Sanskrit lesson, we all gathered around “Guruji” as he blessed the food that had been brought to be passed around and shared. A plate of glazed donut pieces came my way. I politely refused.

Looking back, I can’t even believe I did that. Not to mention I absolutely love glazed donuts. (more…)

March 16, 2011
Desire What You Have and Feel More Satisfied in Life

“Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.” ~Hyman Schachtel

I have a chime with the words “Desire what you have” painted on the front of it. It hangs from the window to the left of my desk in the treehouse where I write. I bought it a few years ago as an epiphany purchase.

It was one of those times when I was sucked into the vortex of a boutique in Minneapolis, the wallet in my pocket a burning inferno. I saw this beautiful painted chime dangling from the ceiling and I was so struck by the message, I put out the fire out and put my money on the counter.

I am so glad I did.

I love the simple wisdom of the phrase: Desire what you have.

If we desire what we have then no matter what our possessions, we are rich.

I love coming across it again and again because it reminds me to be aware of my thoughts and to be aware of what I have and what I am now. I need to be reminded.

When I sat down to begin writing I was looking for inspiration in The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. I came across this quote by the Dalai Lama:

“…our moment-to-moment happiness is largely determined by our outlook. In fact, whether we are feeling happy or unhappy at any given moment often has very little to do with our absolute conditions but, rather it is a function of how we perceive our situation, how satisfied we are with what we have.” (more…)

June 22, 2010
How to Want Less and Be Happy About It

“Happiness is a way station between too little and too much.” ~Channing Pollock

The vast majority of my life has been a giant race to get things I’ve assumed would make me happy.

More money so I could do what I want when I want. A more meaningful career so I could feel both fulfilled and proud of myself. More connections so I could feel loved and worthy. And mostly, more distractions so I could avoid acknowledging why I was unhappy with myself.

“I’m making progress,” I’d delude myself. “I’m pushing myself to accomplish big things that will help people all over.”

While those things may have been true, what I was really doing was chasing the possibility of happiness as it existed in an elusive tomorrow.

Tomorrow, when I’ve made a name for myself. Tomorrow, when I can be proud of making a difference. Tomorrow, when the stars align just right.

Though I still have to make a conscious choice to root myself in today, I’ve realized nothing I want will ever bring me joy if I consistently attach happiness to something just out of my reach. In fact, more often than not, attaining those things will just make me feel emptier because it will remind me of the void nothing can fill—nothing, that is, except me. (more…)

April 18, 2010