Enjoy Not Knowing

When the end of the year rolls around, our minds may hover around the fact that we don't know exactly what we'll be up to this time next year. Uh oh, that feeling creeps in of not knowing everything! The ability to plan for what comes next can only take us so far in life, and the uncertainty of the future can make us feel hesitant to initiate new changes. Some of those are needed changes!

The truth is, you've never known it all. Your decisions haven't all been based on planning each event in advance. There is a natural flow to life that offers us challenges that we can handle at each point in life. Staying open to uncertainty--of not knowing--can actually be rewarding and doesn't have to feel dreadful. Just remember that planning, and anticipating, and trying to know, and writing on a calendar, and trying to predict can't and doesn't always apply when the moment arrives. Each moment is unique, and like wild horses these moments can't be tamed so easily.

So enjoy what you don't know! You're not the only one who doesn't know, everyone experiences this feeling at different times in life. Give yourself a break and let yourself off the hook when your mind starts to demand, "But I have to know now!" Tell yourself, no---life is richer than having to know everything all the time.

Is Happiness Your Truth?

In today's world, happiness has moved beyond an emotion and is almost more like a discipline. There is now peer pressure to be happy all the time and this message gets reaffirmed by commercials we see and songs we hear on the radio. A recent song on the radio repeats words such as "Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth" for four minutes straight. The question is:  what's the crime in experiencing other emotions too during life? It's worth it to explore whether happiness is your ultimate truth or whether going through life honestly through a spectrum of different emotions feels more truthful.

It's a lot of pressure to feel happy all the time. When there are moments in life that don't feel so happy, you have to act counter to your true feelings in order to enforce happiness. Ultimately, the high that comes from uninterrupted happiness can lead to crashes of mood afterward. Extremes can form between alternating feelings of happiness and those of depression. These extreme and unnatural fluctuations in emotion can also disrupt the balance in other areas of health, both physical and mental-emotional.

More than a crystallized ideal to strive for, happiness is a natural part of life that comes alongside other diverse experiences and emotions. We don't need to force it in order to experience it, and forcing it actually works against being able to feel it naturally. Next time you feel like you should be happy, ask yourself whether it's a natural urge to feel this way or whether there's an external expectation for you to be happy. When there's a natural spark to happy moments, you'll know it.

There's nothing wrong with happiness, but it doesn't have to become a rule that overrides everything else in life. Life is more flavorful when you can go through the good times and the bad times, and not always with an unconditional smile pasted on. Is happiness your ultimate truth, or is there more to it than that?

The Feeling: "I don't care..."

Ever had a feeling pop up that sounds and feels like "I don't care"? These moments can feel disconcerting when they do come up, but they're also a part of life and can be valuable to go through. The thought "I don't care" may not be saying you don't care at all, but more so that you're sick of caring about expectations and pressures that don't suit who you are as a person.

Sometimes we can get wrapped up in caring about things that aren't really important to us. Expectations that we place on ourselves can tell us that we should care about A, B, or C. Where did A, B, and C come from? Wherever they came from, if they don't mean something real to your life they can make you feel like you don't care. It's probably because you really don't care about those expectations.

Expectations and requirements that we impose on our lives can also eclipse things that we actually do care about. A, B, and C can send messages that the things we do care about are meaningless in the face of what should be. When "I don't care" comes up, the true wants are bubbling up under the surface waiting to be noticed again. "I don't care" can mean "I do care". . . about parts of life that are being neglected or dismissed in the face of artificially imposed values. It can also be scary to care about real things, because we feel like it will hurt less in case they don't work out.

Next time you have a feeling of "I don't care," try and think of whether you're paying attention to things you don't care about over those things that you naturally do value.

The Blank Page

Imagine pulling your resume up on the computer---and deleting it. Did your brain say "ouch" at the very thought of electronically crumpling up the piece of paper that claims to know everything you're good at and that you should be striving for?

The resume is a handy tool to get a job, and it's also a confining piece of paper that can spark feelings of anxiety, inadequacy, and dissatisfaction. Even without the paper itself, you can see "resumes" metaphorically in how they affect life.

Each of us has roles that we can pressure ourselves to perform perfectly, and sometimes unrealistically. The roles and tasks performed can become larger than the person. The person can drown in the resume. It can feel like nothing's ever enough.

Again, imagine deleting all the lines on the resume page. The lines that talk about being the perfect business person, parent, daughter or son, teacher, worker, student, athlete, human being, and so on. What's left?

A blank page. It may seem like just an empty page, but it stands for a lot more than that. It's potential, free and ready for you to use. How would you fill it if you didn't have to stick with 12-point font, employment history, years worked, qualifications, education, and skills?

There are probably things that you imagine doing from time to time, fleeting thoughts in your mind. Maybe after you imagine them, you're habitually used to scrapping them because there are more important things to do on your resume. Of course the resume is bible...or is it? Maybe you do have space to do the things you've imagined doing. As long as you do them your way. The blank page may not come with directions, but it frees you to go where you've never been.

Just because we use resumes, doesn't mean we have to become them. Try pulling out a blank page, and see what happens.