...I was a skinny science nerd and very self conscious. I had a friend who looked like a Greek god, was a top athlete, and was very popular with girls. I remember thinking, "I wish that I could be like _________; he must have a great life." Two weeks after thinking this thought, school ended for the summer, and my friend took a job on a bridge-building project as a carpenter's helper. After one day on the project, he stepped on a loose piece of plywood, and fell through the scaffolding 35 feet to the street below. He broke about ten bones and stayed in a body cast for the next 8 months. I was pretty stupid then, but I learned a good lesson. I never again wished that I could be anyone else but me. Later, I learned that my friend, who was so popular with girls because of his good looks, was gay, so what I had thought was a great attribute for having girlfriends turned out to be meaningless in the context that I had imagined.
Even if someone sees through the illusion of selfhood and gets free of the mind it doesn't mean that life is all peaches and cream. Friends die, relatives get sick, all kinds of problems have to be dealt with, and it still rains. Yes, there are good days, but some days suck. I came back to my office last night from two days in another town and discovered that some young boys had ripped a bunch of shingles off the roof and dropped them on one of our cars, scratching the paint and causing other damage. I had chased them off the roof last week, where they were playing, and I guess they decided to get even. Today I'll be calling the police and the insurance company, having the roof repaired, and calling a security company to install a hidden camera, and that's not how I would have preferred to spend my time today. Ha ha! Life's a totally unpredictable trip.
Last week some renters moved out of an apartment I manage, and I discovered that they had kept a large dog there in violation of the lease agreement. The dog had shredded the carpet that had been newly-installed nine months ago. There were multiple holes in the sheetrock, and the apartment was a wreck. The couple didn't pay the last two months of rent, they're getting a divorce, and they have no money, so even I sued them and got a judgment, it wouldn't do any good. That's pretty sucky, but that, too, is life. You deal with whatever comes up, and then you go deal with the next thing that comes up. If you don't waste time thinking that life and reality should be different than it is, then you avoid a lot of unnecessary unhappiness.
Living in the moment and going with the flow doesn't get rid of suckiness, but at least resistance doesn't become an additional burden.
Even if someone sees through the illusion of selfhood and gets free of the mind it doesn't mean that life is all peaches and cream. Friends die, relatives get sick, all kinds of problems have to be dealt with, and it still rains. Yes, there are good days, but some days suck. I came back to my office last night from two days in another town and discovered that some young boys had ripped a bunch of shingles off the roof and dropped them on one of our cars, scratching the paint and causing other damage. I had chased them off the roof last week, where they were playing, and I guess they decided to get even. Today I'll be calling the police and the insurance company, having the roof repaired, and calling a security company to install a hidden camera, and that's not how I would have preferred to spend my time today. Ha ha! Life's a totally unpredictable trip.
Last week some renters moved out of an apartment I manage, and I discovered that they had kept a large dog there in violation of the lease agreement. The dog had shredded the carpet that had been newly-installed nine months ago. There were multiple holes in the sheetrock, and the apartment was a wreck. The couple didn't pay the last two months of rent, they're getting a divorce, and they have no money, so even I sued them and got a judgment, it wouldn't do any good. That's pretty sucky, but that, too, is life. You deal with whatever comes up, and then you go deal with the next thing that comes up. If you don't waste time thinking that life and reality should be different than it is, then you avoid a lot of unnecessary unhappiness.
Living in the moment and going with the flow doesn't get rid of suckiness, but at least resistance doesn't become an additional burden.
