We often hear about the importance of dreaming big, getting clear about our goals, and making lists of what we want to get done.  I think these are wonderful ideas, and I use them all myself.  I also think we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of believing that achieving any goal we set for ourselves will bring us permanent happiness, and forever free us of anger, anxiety or despair.

One of our biggest sources of disappointment is the way we tend to assume that, if we reach a certain place in our lives, we’ll live happily ever after.  It’s as if our lives are a kind of race, and once we finish the race we can spend the rest of our lives celebrating our victory, free of conflict and stress.  The expression “finish rich,” which is used in a lot of financial self-help literature, is a good example of this mindset—the implication being that suffering right now is okay as long as we retire wealthy.

Different events represent this mythical “finish line” to different people.  To some, getting married or meeting the ideal partner will end their search for lifelong fulfillment.  To others, it’s earning enough money to spend the rest of one’s days in a beachfront house.  To still others, it’s getting a graduate degree that allows them to enter a lucrative profession like law or medicine.

Why This Mindset Has Us Suffer

Unfortunately, as many of us have learned firsthand, there simply is no finish line.  No event in our lives seems capable of making us permanently happy.  No matter how much money we earn, how wonderful our relationship seems, and so on, anxiety and despair creep back into our awareness sooner or later.  The dream job starts to feel boring and repetitive, the dream relationship goes stale, we start taking that expensive house or car for granted, and so on.

When a key event happens in our lives but leaves us disappointed, we tend to assume we just need to cross another, different “finish line” to be happy.  The wealthy people I know whose homes are in a constant state of disrepair due to landscaping and remodeling come to mind.  When one extra wing on their houses doesn’t satisfy them, they assume they just need another, and when that doesn’t work they decide they need a kidney-shaped pool instead of an oval one.  And then they get annoyed that their yards are constantly full of trucks and bulldozers.

This mentality represents the perspective most of us have on our lives, if on a less luxurious scale.  But if we really want lasting satisfaction, I think, we have to start considering other possibilities.

I don’t know of a way to prevent ourselves from ever feeling scared, angry, or sad.  But I do think we can experience more peace and focus in our lives with a simple shift in perspective.  When we’re able to let go of the sense that some future event can make us satisfied or whole―that enough money, fame, sex or whatever we crave can complete us―suddenly happiness becomes more accessible.

We could also see this new perspective as a recognition that our sense that we’re empty or incomplete is an illusion.  Because we are already whole, we don’t need some future person, thing or event to complete us or make us happy.  Simply releasing the false belief that we aren’t whole, rather than doing or acquiring anything in the world, can help us achieve the peace we’re seeking.  As Dr. Joan Borysenko writes in Minding The Body, Mending The Mind, “the message that underlies healing is simple yet radical:  We are already whole . . . . Underneath our fears and worries, unaffected by the many layers of our conditioning and actions, is a peaceful core.”

Interestingly enough, when we release the idea that there’s a void in us that needs to be filled, we become more able to attract what we want into our lives.  As I discuss in my book, for example, when we rely on our careers to give us a sense of wholeness, we’re constantly anxious about something going wrong at work.  This mentality has us do things like endlessly pore over documents we create, even though rationally we know they’re okay, and wake up at 3:00 in the morning terrified that the bonus won’t be big enough this year.  But when we release this anxiety, we can give each project no more than the amount of time it’s actually due, and become more productive and well-rested.

Bringing Our Attention Into The Present

How do we stop relying on the future to bring us happiness, and gain more appreciation for where we are now?  There are many ways to do this, but I’d generally recommend cultivating awareness of what’s going on within and around us in each moment.  This means becoming more aware, both of what we’re experiencing on the inside—the emotions and sensations we’re feeling in our bodies—and what’s happening in our surroundings—the sounds we may hear outside the window, how our keyboards feel when we touch them, or how warm or cool the temperature in the room is.

One particularly effective method for developing this kind of awareness is to bring our attention to our breathing.  Our awareness of our breathing often falls away when we become absorbed in fretting over or yearning for the future.  Simply noticing how each breath feels can help us return our attention to this moment and reconnect with our ability to enjoy living.  As Dr. Richard Moss writes in The Mandala Of Being, “to return to our breathing is to bring our attention back to the present.”

When our minds are on the future, and the events that will supposedly bring us satisfaction, we lose awareness of what we’re experiencing now.  And when we aren’t experiencing what’s going on around us, we can’t appreciate or enjoy it.  Bringing our attention to this moment, by focusing on what we’re feeling and perceiving, helps restore our access to our passion for what we do.  As psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes in Flow: The Psychology Of Optimal Experience, “only direct control of experience, the ability to derive moment-by-moment enjoyment from everything we do, can overcome the obstacles to fulfillment.”

It’s sometimes said this is one reason why “extreme sports” like rock climbing and skydiving are so exciting.  Climbing a mountain, for instance, forces you to hold your attention on what’s going on around you in the present.  If you start daydreaming about what the top of the mountain will look like, you may make a dangerous mistake.  And because your awareness must stay in this moment while you’re climbing, you have access to your natural joy and aliveness in a way you may not in daily life.

When we’re able to keep our attention focused in the present, and let go of our tendency to look to the future to satisfy us, life takes on an exciting and fulfilling quality we may not have experienced before.  Even our normal routines, and mundane activities like cleaning and organizing our offices, can become interesting and pleasurable.  Dropping the idea of a “finish line,” and seeing each step in the “race” we run in life as meaningful, is a great way to reconnect with the joy of living.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: What Color Is Your Parachute?, by Richard Nelson Bolles (Part One)
2. How To Escape The “Chicken Or Egg” Mentality
3. Do You Have The “Personality” For The Career You Want?
4. Book Review: What Color Is Your Parachute?, by Richard Nelson Bolles (Part Two)
5. Letting Go Of Seeking The Peak