Day 61: the real us, in there somewhere

What we want vs. Who we Are

It’s a big and sweet and amazing world out there. People want us to smile at them or laugh at their jokes or pay attention to them, or listen while they complain on and on.

And guess what? We want other people to call back, to listen when we talk and/ or complain, to “take our side,” to give us “support,” to “be friendly.” All sorts of things.

Sometimes, people give us what we want.

Sometimes they don’t.

Make a study today of what we want from the various people we either interact with or have “thoughts” about.

See what life would be like if we wanted what we want a little less, or were more curious about whether we’d get it than concerned/ convinced that we “should” get it.

Play a little with the almost always false concept of what we “need.” (Although I do “need” a pair of Channel Locks to change my shower head just now.)

Needing this or that from others is often code for wanting this or that, and today’s game: see if the wanting can be seen as a puff of an ephemeral cloud passing through us.

We want a happy day. Good. That can be within our doing. If we keep the responsibility (how we respond) inside us.

But when we want so and so to call back, or this one to agree, or that one to change more to our liking, our life seems to slip away into waiting around for other people to be different than they are, something people often have no interest in doing.

So, this is today’s game: find our wants. See how we imagine them to be “needs.”

And make an exploration: What happens when these wants / needs soften and we don’t take them so seriously?