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Happy New Year.
While it would be nice to think that because our calendar has ticked over to a new number we can expect something new from the world, I think we learnt last year that pandemics don’t really know about calendars.
Lately things haven’t gotten easier ‘out there’, but, luckily most of what makes us happy or sad isn’t ‘out there’ anyway, it’s ‘inside here’ – in our head-heart/mind-body being.
As humans we are ‘meaning making machines’ – when we see something we have to create a story that explains it, without even thinking about it. As a result, we can see the same thing in the external world as the person standing next to us, but create a completely different understanding of it.
The meanings we make are generated by the beliefs we carry, some unique to us, and some coming from our culture. From beliefs we make meaning of our surroundings, and from these meanings come our feelings.
I mention all of this because the sheerlevel of feelings right now is a bit tiring, isn’t it?
In between normal stuff online we wander into people (strangers) trying to convince each other of opposite meanings about the same things with a life-or-death energy.
So, in the name of ‘being OK’ (not advancing to a new level of consciousness, or being your best self, just ‘OK’), I would like to share something that has helped me create meanings that are a bit calmer.
It is this interesting theory from a guy called Albert Ellis, one of the grandfathers of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. He said that there were some common ‘unuseful’ beliefs in the western culture that were at the root of much misery and they are:
“I must do well. You must treat me well. The world must be easy”.
Ellis called these ‘Mustabation’. (I know it is a bit naughty, but it will help you remember them).
They are not ‘conscious beliefs’, they are common in the culture, so no one really notices them.
Here is an alternative view from physics:
“We live in an entropic universe, where there is more disorder than order.”
What does this mean?
You can’t easily put the toothpaste back into the tube. You can’t expect molecules of steam to spontaneously come back together into a ball of water. If you release a bunch of cats into a field, good luck getting them back in the box.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics basically says there are actually more ways to mess up than not, so the world is not always easy and people will not always treat you well.
It is quite possible their own lives are going through mess and that they are not perfect.
And, you can’t always do well, because you are also not perfect! Gasp!
Within this disordering is what Buddha called ‘suffering’.
So you are not perfect, and trying to be perfect is exhausting.
Life and other humans are also not perfect. But we can be ‘good enough’ and ‘OK’.
For Buddhists, the response to ‘suffering’ is to have compassion. Something that they say you should apply to yourself as much as to others.
When you are feeling messy, forgive yourself. When you are not striving, it is OK to just BE. You are already good enough.
I hope that 2022 is a year in which you can be easy on yourself and those around you and notice where and how you are doing OK in this entropic universe on this beautiful blue-green planet.
