Choice and Need

Is it not better to want to be with someone than to need to be with them? 

When I had this state of mind, I was light and unencumbered by the pains of love.  It was a joy to feel the fluttering of the heart.  For a short time I was the latter.  I felt a need to be with someone.  That was not a good time for me.  They were my breath and without them I felt like I would die; codependent.  There are a lot of other influences that were involved, but I believe that the need was the water for what was a very difficult time in my life. 

I also think that I would rather be wanted than needed. 

If I can live without something, but choose to live with it, does the fact that it is a choice not make it more powerful?  I can choose anything, but I choose that.  Someone can choose anyone, but they choose you.  We have no choice but to breathe, but we can always choose who to be with.  I suppose there is a certain comfort in someone needing you because there is less chance they will leave you.  But there is weakness in that.  At that point, you need them too.  You cannot be truly happy because without them you do not feel whole.  

But you are whole.  You are everything you need to be. 

Thinking on this, I find a great happiness in the people who are in my life.  They choose to share this with me and I choose to share it with them.  Of the billions of people on the planet, we have decided to buddy up and be together in this great fucked up wonderful brilliant powerful awe inspiring experience.  And if one chooses to leave, that is okay because I have all I need to be happy within the one person who will never go away.  Myself. 

He is an alright guy. 

Namaste

p.s.  Don, you are definitely one of the people I choose to share this shit with.  You are a great friend and a great human being. 

Striving and Living

I spend a lot of time trying to be happy, trying to get in shape, trying to do one thing or another.  The goal of trying is to reach a point where you can say, “Hey, I did it.  I rule.”  I wonder, though, if in the process of trying, I am missing out on something.

Life

This is kind of a weird thing.  We are all conditioned in one way or another to strive for something.  What do we want to be when we grow up?  What school do you want to get in to?  How much have we saved for retirement?  When is our next promotion?  Where is a relationship going?  And on and on and on.  This is kind of a gray area for me, at this point anyway.  If I really think about it, it makes sense, but it goes against how I have been thinking for most of my life.  Having a goal gives a sense of purpose, but if you follow Buddhist thought, the purpose for living is being happy.  I like that idea.  

The purpose for living is being happy.

Soak that in.  

So, do we just kind of float along on a gentle breeze and enjoy the moments we are given?  Is it to that degree that we live?  Or is it more that we ride along a river, feet in the water and feeling the sun, and if we see something that catches our eye, we paddle to it so that we might enjoy it until we push off and follow the flow of life?

Should we avoid forming goals all together?  What about little goals?

I like having little goals….or do I like that they give me a sense of purpose?

Answer:   I don’t know.  

The slippery slope of over thinking is looming ahead of me, so before I hit it I think I have some sort of an answer to part of this quandary.   Part of that answer, in fact, lies in not over thinking.  To pursue something at the cost of all else will cause us to miss out on a great dealt that life has to offer and ultimately that goal, that thing that we are striving for, won’t bring us happiness.  Getting the job, finishing a race, hitting a weight goal, or writing a blog are not sources of happiness.  They are just things.  Yes, we find some pleasure in them, but they have that every tricky trait that all things have…Impermanence.  We finish them and they are done.  If you tie your happiness to that goal, you will lose the joy it gave you when it goes away. 

So, I think that the whole idea here is to enjoy the little adventures you take – doing a play, writing a book, running a marathon, working for a promotion, climbing a mountain – but don’t tie yourself to them.  They are what they are for the moment they are there.  When they are gone, let them go.  There are others to be had.  

This “goal” of mine to find happiness is constant, and I think that I focus a lot on the end result – the happiness that I will feel.  In doing this, I might be missing out on the happiness I can feel right now.  Maybe this is the lesson to learn here.  

And that we don't need to finish something to say "I rule."  We already do.

“A man who says he knows is already dead. But the man who thinks, ‘I don’t know,’ who is discovering, finding out, who is not seeking an end, not thinking in terms of arriving or becoming - such a man is living, and that living is truth.”

-Krishnamurti

The Happiness Balloon

I tie my happiness to others too easily.  This is a dangerous practice because giving that to others takes it out of my control.  I also tend to trust immediately and am blinded to the "negative" side of people.  This combination is a recipe for disaster.  My heart brain yells at me all the time, but unfortunately, my heart yells louder.
I don't dislike that I trust or that I tend to see the positive in people.  I am happy with this.  I feel like those are good things that have survived a time when trust became an issue.  I am a bit withholding when it comes to more than friendship, but my initial gut reaction is to trust.  I don't mind this even if it does cause me some anxiety.  What I feel that I need to avoid doing is giving my happiness away.
I don't know why I tend to treat my happiness like a balloon that I tie to a child's wrist.  Any parent knows that the balloon will eventually be seen flying in the air waiting to get caught on a tree or power line, no matter how much the kid says they will keep it close.  I believe that most people are like that child.  They don't want to hurt anyone.  They won't take the balloon and put a pin in it.  There are some, but they are few thankfully.  It is so important that we are happy first and that we don't give this happiness to others to control.
Reading that, I feel like it sounds like I am saying that we shouldn't share our happiness.  I am not saying that at all.  What I am saying is that we must be happy with ourselves, by ourselves.  If we are not, no one else will ever be able to make us happy because, like us, they are also trying to find their happiness and the two may not coincide.  Helping others to be happy is wonderful.  But you can not make them happy any more than they can make you happy.  Right?

I read all of that and I see moments where I am sure and moments where I am confused.  This post is like a dumping of ideas and I am trying to sort it out.
I don't believe that others can make us happy.  They can bring happy times and laughter and joy and friendship and all that good stuff, but they can't make us happy.  I can't remember the number of times that I would be at a party with good friends having fun and I would be wrapped up in my head and my insecurities.  None of those people could make me happy.  I had to choose it.  In this same way, we can not make others happy, we can only be there to provide some light and some good times.

This is all a struggle for me because it is an old habit, one that I am trying to break.  I have started by doing things that I can be proud of so that I can look at myself and say, "hey, you are an alright dude."  I am also reading and trying to find answers.  I have chosen to add the challenge of a woman in my life, but that is not a bad thing.  It is just that, a challenge.  I am trying to share my balloon with her, but not tie it to her wrist.  I hope that this path, this method, will help me.  My heart and my brain are saying that it will.  At least they aren't fighting.

http://bodhisattvaextraordinaire.tumblr.com/post/16057508995/happiness-taken-with-instagram

My Rearview Mirror

Let go

I stare at those two tiny but powerful words and I have a hard time understanding them.  What does it mean to let go?  How do we let go of something?  Is it as simple as a decision?  It is easy enough for us to tell people that the way to heal and move on is to let go.  Let go of the bad feelings and the experiences and move on.  Part of allowing ourselves to be detached consists of letting go, or maybe more accurately not holding on in the first place.  Perhaps the challenge lies in overcoming a way of thinking that I have followed for a long time.  

We are made up of the experiences we have had.

This is true, I think.  We experience, learn from it, grow and repeat.  Looking back at the things that have happened in our lives, it can be apparent why we do the things we do.  So, if we let go of experiences, do we forget them?  Is that even possible?  Or is it more that we look at the experience for what it was?  Words spoken are words spoken.  Our reaction to them is something separate.  In the same way, something that happens is neither good nor bad.  It simply is.  However we decide to react to it, we learn. 

Letting go, then, is the act of getting past the emotions that were present.  The anger, the frustration, the negativity are all in the past.  They are no longer reality.  Does that then mean that we also let go of the positive emotions? 

I think so.   

It is strange to say that, but to hold on to any emotion is living in the past.  Being that person who had their best years in high school has never seemed like a good thing, and perhaps that is why.  I think that part of being human is living life and enjoying things as they happen, learning from all experiences and loving the people around us.  When those things move into your rear view, let them go.  The horizon is our destination.  I don’t believe that it would be correct to say that it is damaging to look fondly on the pictures in our memories.  Getting together with old friends and laughing about the stupid shit you did together is powerful and bonding and part of what makes a great relationship.  It is important, however, to not dwell on that stuff. 

There was a part of my life when I spent a lot of time looking at what life was like for me when I was in my early 20’s.  What an amazing time.  There was freedom and a sense of possibility.  But I kept looking at those years, the people, the partying, and I lost sight of what was in front of me.  I kept my attention behind me and ended up crashing.  I have spent the last few months trying to get my focus off the bad that came out of that crash.  Looking at it, I have spent a lot of time looking at my history and have missed chances to really enjoy what I have now.  

Maybe that is what it means to let go.  

I feel like I should apologize for the disjointed rambling that this post seems to have.  It was a culmination of questions and musings.  But I think I have learned something, made the water a little clearer.  That is always a good thing.

Seeing the Mountains

I believe that I am trying to be something that I am not, or at least not anymore, and this may be the source of some of my anxiety.  There was a time when I was laid back and relaxed when it came to the people in my life.  I don’t know for sure why that has changed.  Perhaps it is because I have absorbed some negative experiences that have affected my ability to trust.  It could also be that these experiences and the ones surrounding them have left me with a hole in my confidence and self -esteem.  

I have a feeling that this hole may be a key ingredient in this recipe for a fucked up mental state.  

For a while, I was using someone to fill the hole as it grew.  I was relying on an individual to help me stand and keep me strong.  They were my crutch for stability and the drug that kept the pain away.  This is not healthy.  (no kidding, right?)  Since then, I have been stumbling around like an addict searching for my next high; searching for something to help me stand straight again.  The one place I have been dodging around is inside myself.   I suppose it is a relief, then, that I don’t have to look too far to find what I need.  

I am not the person I used to be.  No one is.  We change and grow and mutate as the world around us changes.  We choose what will be allowed to wear us down and what will pass us by.  I made some poor choices and allowed things to knock me down that I should not have.  I know that I can’t change it, that I can’t undo what has been done.  The struggle now is to grow from it and move on.  I think it a mistake to say that I will work to go back to the person I was.  I can’t.  No one can go back to an earlier self any more than a stone can undo the changes made by the water.  The stone changes, grows smooth and is more beautiful after.  

I look at my newly born jealousy and it makes me a bit sick.  I don’t like being this way, but it is the way that I am….for now.  Can we look at things like this and make it into something else?  I don’t know.  By meditating on the mountains in our mind, we can see them for what they are.  They are often little more than pebbles that trip us up.  I have yet to tackle any of my mountains, but my experiences have helped me keep them in perspective.  I see them now.  There they are in front of me, clearer than before and though they are formidable, they are apparent.  I know the obstacles that I have to overcome, at least.  Now it is a matter of finding the right guide, the gear, the plan, and the patience to climb the mountains to make them pebbles once again.


I am big on this mountain/pebble thing.  Not sure why, it just seems to fit.

Pebbles Become Mountains

Attachment to things, people, ideas even, is a struggle for me.  I have been dating a woman who seems to naturally be able to be detached.  She recognizes the impermanence of everything almost at a subconscious level, or so it seems.  I envy this about her.  I am trying to learn it from her.  I believe that it is important in achieving this "happiness" that I am seeking. 
Because I tend to be a "feeler" and often over emotional, it is a challenge for me to remain detached, especially from people.  Whatever I feel, I feel deeply and get hooked easily and readily.  I would not give this up.  For all of the pain that I have experienced because of it, the amount of love that I have felt overrides the negativity.  I believe that as I progress in obtaining the peace inside me, this overflowing love will be a gift so great that I will have no choice but to share it.  A key to progression is learning to be detached so that the giving is free and without condition. 
It is this attachment that has me writing blogs like yesterday's.  I spent a day home sick after that.  Luckily for me, I spent it with my woman who knows that I have days where I am sad for no reason.  She is wonderful because I can tell her that I am sad and I don't know why and she takes it in stride with everything else.  Her response was, "what do you need?" which is the perfect response.  I thought I needed a day to myself.  Maybe I did, but what I had was a day with her talking freely and sitting in the sun or in the house.  I said things that needed to be said, and I felt better.  In talking to her, I opened my self up to myself so that I could see what was really bothering me. 
I get inside my head and get lost in the infinitesimal space that is my mind.  The things that I don't say try to grow to the size of that space.  The smallest pebble becomes a mountain. How often do we do this?  I know that I do it all the time.  It is a challenge that I have recognized and work to prevent. 
In this case, that pebble was my insecurities and issues with trust thrust upon another person as something else, so that pebble became a tac. 
It is once again a pebble.  Although it is still there for me to stumble upon, I can see it.  Because I can see it, it is no longer anything other than what it is.  I need to feel attached to someone, to seek happiness through them.  I know this.  I have known this for a long time, I think.  I am only just now recognizing it for what it is.  In this recognition, there is freedom, a realization.  A pebble is a pebble, not a mountain.  Look at it for what it is and it becomes something beautiful that you can say you found peace from.  Look at it as something else and it becomes a mountain that you struggle to climb.  
 
When she asked me what I needed, I told her that I wanted her to stay but at the same time I did not want to use her to be happy.  In saying this, I felt a sort of lightness that comes with the few epiphanies we are lucky enough to find.  From there, we talked.  For me talking is a way to let things go.  Like the words off of my tongue, the problems and struggles go the way of the wind when I speak them.  They become smaller, less important.  I know this is a constant lesson for me.  One day, I will learn it and in that day I will be a step closer to detachment. 

namaste


"Why is there this urge to identify, to be attached? Why is one human being attached to another? Does not attachment breed fear, fear of losing what one is attached to? Being attached, you may become jealous, frightened, anxious, which are obvious phenomena. You are attached because of your own insufficiency, loneliness. And so out of your own insufficiency, loneliness, a sense of lacking, you cling to another. So is attachment love? Where there is attachment there must be exploitation. And we use that word love to cover up all this. And is love jealousy? None of these things exist as attachment when you have understood that that emptiness in yourself can never be filled by something else. You have to look at it. You have to not escape from it, observe it totally. In attachment there is fear, there is anxiety, there is hate, all the conflicts in relationship; and where there is conflict can there be love?"
-
Jiddu Krishnamurti

The Water Muddied

I awoke this morning and already the grip of anxiety was strong in my mind.  These are the days I struggle more than most.  I broke down in the shower, my tears washing down the drain with the water.  I cried because I wonder if I will actually make it to the end of this.  I am not sure what all "this" is, but it feels like a road, a journey perhaps, which would mean it has an end.  At the finish line is freedom from feeling this way.  Maybe I am lost.  I have no map.  All I have is a compass and I follow it, but without any idea of where I am going I seem to end up neck deep in bogs too often. 
Or maybe it is not a journey at all.  Maybe it is simply what it is.  As zen as that sounds, I am not sure what it means.  If there is no end to this wandering, what is the point? 

I keep reading in some vain attempt at finding a point or an answer or some glimmer of hope.  That is not really what I need to be doing.  For all of our struggles, the answer is inside.  This is also where the struggles lie.  We create our own problems and obstacles and make them real by believing in them.  All of this, then, blocks the view of the answer.  Muddying our own water is much easier than allowing it to clear.  Today, the water is thick with fear and anxiety.  I am really struggling, but I feel something new. 
There is a part of me that is trying to let go of whatever this is.  But that part is small.  A child in a world of grumpy and depressed grown ups. 

I don't know where I am going with this.  I suppose it was an attempt to see things clearly, to get some of the poison out of my head.  Moments like these are the ones where I will find the largest growth.  I have to believe that.