As I was getting deep into personal development, and becoming more and more conscious about little things in my daily life, I was often a little confounded by the spectrum of my beliefs. On one end, there was “how you feel inside shapes your experiences” and “you should enjoy good social connections”, “you should sleep well”, and on the other end was “be open to your present experience”.
Lets take the simple example of sleeping well. It seemed pretty straightforward. Do all the right things to help sleep better. Try to go to bed at a predetermined time everyday, so that your body develops a habit of sleeping at a certain time. Try to figure how to minimize noise in your sleep environment. Exercise early in the day. Eat light dinner, and at least 2 hours before your bed time. Avoid drinking too much water close to bed time. Make sure your sleep environment is cool. The list kept going on, and you can see it is not trivial to ensure all the requirements. While building a habit of going to bed at a predetermined time is doable over a stretch of time, minimizing noise and maintaining a cool environment is not that easy to control. While it is possible to eat smaller portions for dinner and preferably 2 hours before bed time, but depending on how the rest of the day went, this can be easily missed.
I struggled to keep this simple goal of sleeping well. In fact, sleeping became harder the more conscious I became of my struggle with sleep, and how I would miss the requirements. I was only able to regain my sleep composure by realizing that being open to the present experience was the best thing I could do. If I don’t sleep well, be open to it. It is life. Everyday is different. At least this way, I was not adding undue stress.
This made me look back at every little thing I would call a success in my life. Did I anticipate it? Usually not. Sometimes yes, but a lot of times no. Did I work for it? Yes. Was I lucky? Yes. What was the biggest hurdle to success? Was it not working for it? Sometimes. Was it thinking about the result? Sometimes. Was it just bad fortune? May be a few times. When did I have most success? When I worked hard, but also tempered expectations. When did I work hard and also tempered expectations? When I was open to the present experience.
Being open to the present experience is actually a pretty smart way to live life. In fact what other option do we have. What is here is here. If we don’t accept it, we will spend a lot of time in our head ruminating, complaining about the present experience over and above our original worries. If we accept it, we are lighter. We keep moving, and we actually become more in sync with life as a journey, enjoying the subtle flavors and getting aha moments every now and then and less obsessed with imaginary goals. And yes, with the load unloaded, it is easier to be happy. Are we being a negligent by accepting the present moment? The opposite. We are accepting what is already here, how is that negligent? What about goals? What about them? Well if we value them enough and they mean enough, we would have values that steer us in the direction of the goals, given our present reality. It doesn’t have to come by ignoring or running away from our present experience. Definitely not by adding whole layers of undue stress.
And in hindsight, things usually just work out this way, whether we want it to or not. Look back at your life. You were never 100% in control. Not for long periods of time at least, or not without a lot of undue stress that ruined your health later on.
