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What if all our problems in life came from one place? Well, guess what? In a sense, they do!

They come from one single thing – wanting certain results.

If you look at anything that stresses you or makes you angry or frustrated, you’ll find that you get those feelings because you want certain results. And all the methods we’re taught in order to make us calm or relaxed or grounded only end up creating more problems, because they’re playing the same old game. They tell us that certain results are better than others (being grounded is better than spazzing out), and give us new methods to achieve our new goals. But being human, we will sometimes succeed at these goals, and sometimes fail. Just more spinning on the merry-go-round, never realizing that it’s so easy to step off . . .

An Important Meeting

Let’s pretend I have an important meeting with my boss tomorrow. Now, if I really want this meeting to go well, and if I really want to keep my job, then I can get really nervous about the meeting.

But what if I realize that this job isn’t all that important? After all, if I keep the job, I’ll simply continue to be stressed and have to put up with the expectations of my boss. But if I lost the job, then maybe I’d be forced to do something creative with my life, like trying to make money by pursuing one of my dreams.

Who knows what is good or bad?

A Birth

To take a more serious example, let’s pretend that a friend of mine is giving birth tomorrow. I could get really nervous, especially if I’m invested in seeing the child born healthy and alive. I mean, this is just natural, right? Of course we want the child to be born healthy and alive! You see, we desire a certain result. And because we want this, we get really stressed.

But let’s take a look at something. Pretend, for a moment, that the child is not born ‘healthy’. Let’s say the baby has no legs.

We might think this is terrible, but how do we know? If the child had both legs, perhaps she would have merely grown up and settled for a regular job that didn’t really excite her. But perhaps not having legs will someday inspire her to create a foundation that in turn inspires handicapped people to make their dreams come true. The opposite could also happen, but the real point is that neither leg-full nor leg-less is necessarily better or worse. It just creates a different set of circumstances for that person. A person can do almost anything, regardless of the circumstance of having legs or no-legs. It is only when we have a certain desire regarding that child that we become disappointed. For instance, if I’m a great guitarist, I might be depressed if my child emerged without arms. How will I ever teach them the joy of the guitar? But some things can be even more miraculous and inspiring if we overcome apparently insurmountable obstacles. Check out this video for an example.

Let’s make this even more emotionally powerful. How about if the child is born dead? Unarguably tragic! But when I mentioned this to a friend, she told me that her brother would never have been born if her mother hadn’t had a stillbirth because her mother was only planning on having one more child. Maybe the stillborn child would have also been a wonderful person, but the point is that we don’t know the ramifications of the events that unfold in our lives. In this case, my friend might never have known the brother she now holds dear.

The Power of Not Knowing

When we come to see that we don’t actually know what will make our lives better or worse, we can start to have fun with imagining ‘what would happen if . . .’

Maybe I’ll imagine that my house and all my money is taken away from me tomorrow. If I think that having a house and money is going to make my life better, then I’ll probably be upset. But with this new perspective, I can have some fun with it!

What would it be like to be homeless? Where would my life go after that? Would I start writing a book about what it’s like to live on the streets? Would I wander off into the wilderness and come back in six years to teach people about the wonders of nature? Would I become a professional cat burglar and live a life of excitement and high drama? Knowing myself, I’d certainly find some creative new way to dance with the situation.

You, too, can dance with situations if you cease pretending that your current life is the best it could possibly be. Why is it that we prefer a life of drudgery and monotony (often called ’security’) over a life of adventure and challenge? You can bet that on your death-bed, you’re not going to look back and think how wisely you spent your years going to the same job day in and day out.

Chase your dreams! We all think we’d like to, but we’re too afraid, because we so desperately want everything to happen in certain ways.

When we acknowledge that we don’t know better than life, something miraculous happens. We find that every moment unfolds perfectly, because we’re not having expectations of how things ‘should’ happen. The greatest disasters become the greatest opportunities.

And the funny thing? If we look back to the example of the baby being born, it’s easy to think that it is horrible and inhumane if we don’t want the baby to come out healthy and alive. But really, it’s just the opposite. By acknowledging that we don’t know what is better or worse, we can greet the child fondly and with love, legs or no-legs. Besides, wanting the baby to come out healthy isn’t going to make the baby come out healthy. For all we know, the same thing will happen whether we’re invested in a healthy child or whether we feel that whatever happens will be perfect!

In fact, wanting the child to come out healthy might actually do more harm than good. Wanting certain results creates tons of stress in our lives, and scientists are just discovering how harmful stress can be. By wanting the baby to be born in a certain way, we might be flooding our bodies (and the baby’s body) with stress hormones – which probably isn’t good for anybody. Again, the point is that desiring certain results (and often fearing any other result) isn’t necessarily the best way to achieve the things we want in life. It’s an interesting paradox until we discover that we function just as well when we change the way we desire.

Finding balance and peace in your life isn’t about getting a new perspective or learning relaxation exercises. It’s about being truly Aware of what is happening right now, and ceasing to apply all our own dubious ideas of what is better and worse.

Pretend that you know what is best, and you can continue on the route of trying to force life into shapes it was never meant to take. Admit that you don’t know, and life will be free to unfold in all its perfect beauty.