My good old friends and I went to a remote place in India a few years back.
We spent two nights and three days there and had a wonderful time together: the place was good, the conversations were great, and the food was amazing!
A month after, one of our enthusiastic friends went to the same remote place again with his relatives.
He stayed in the same resort with one of his relatives and booked the same rooms in hopes that he would recreate the same experience with his relatives.
Not surprisingly, it did not happen.
Our enthusiastic good old friend could not enjoy his second visit to the same beautiful place!
It was designed to happen that way.
The reason?
Comparison with the past.
Whenever we try to recreate the same memories again, we compare the present happenings with memories. The present and past are going to be different.
Comparison is the root cause of unhappiness.
But we, humans, not only compare, we compare a LOT!
“Everything in excess is a poison.”
~Theodore Levitt
Except for Love. Maybe. But this post is not about Love. This is about how we often (and unknowingly) ruin things by doing them in excess.
We like Yellow Dal so much that we eat it every day. Soon after a month, we stop loving Yellow Dal.
We get fanatic about keeping fit and engaging in too many daily exercise activities. In less than two months, we lose interest in exercise and stop doing it on a sour note.
We like a person so much that:
- we keep thinking about her (or him);
- we want to spend time with her;
- we want to keep that human happy even at the cost of our own liking and happiness!
It is a surefire formula for creating an amazing disaster down the road!
Because most of us have seeds of a scarcity mindset planted within us, we tend to maximize even a small experience that makes us happy.
This behavior is neither intelligent nor natural.
Any object in nature does not work like that. It does not maximize. Imagine how a Rose blossoms: it does not try to optimize the properties that make her beautiful and full of fragrance.
When the Rose is at her absolute best, she receives Love from everyone. Its gardener, the lovers who consume the Rose as a vehicle to express that beautiful feeling called Love in this world, the warmest greetings that are exchanged to convey the good vibes.
But Rose doesn’t care if none of the above happens to her. It just enjoys being the Rose. Isn’t it so?
The Rose – or any object of nature – does not try to do anything too much. Only humans do. Why?
Because humans think that they can make themselves happy through the act of maximizing by doing too much, but it never happens.
The very search for happiness implies that the chaser is not happy!
Most humans are slaves. Slaves of pleasure. And because they cannot sustain their happiness, they tend to do “more” of what can give them such pleasures and make them happy.
Ineffective strategy.
Because happiness is a myth. The idea of happiness is born as a reaction to suffering. If human beings did not have sufferings, they would not seek happiness. Think for yourself!
Everyone in the world is looking for happiness … because everyone is suffering. So instead of trying to maximize the pleasure of engaging in ‘too much’ of doing certain activities, it would be more useful to seek freedom from suffering.
Alright, so how does one get free from suffering?
Through an awareness that happiness is a momentary emotion. One cannot build a home in it. Through awareness, one naturally begins to be immune to the chase of happiness.
And you know what? If you are unaware, know you are sleeping without realizing you are sleeping. You might want to do something about it! 🙂
