Set Yourself Up for Success

I hear the chainsaws buzzing...Looking out at the tree that sometimes blocks my city view and watching neighbors who are dealing with a different tree. We often think that as soon as we get this tree trimmed, a meal cooked or this health care bill passed...then we will then be happy. Sure these things need to be done, but we are setting ourselves up for dissatisfaction in the future laying so many definitions of what our happiness can be right now. If we can be happy while these things are not done or are in the process of being done we will double our ability to find happiness. Now, I know happiness may be a strong word so substitute contentment when it feels right.

Currently, I am sitting here while I write this with a torn bi-cep muscle, and lack of a really good sleep for a long time. A bit frustrated by all the Dr.’s I have seen in the past four years that never diagnosed this correctly. I even went to a hospital, and did tons of PT, and they never caught it. I have thought about writing one chiropractic Dr who treated me for 2 years charging me all that time. On his wall he a muscle chart. If he had a great knowledge of muscle physiology then at one point he would have figured out that his treatments were not working. The important thing is I did, popping another Ibuprofen. But that now..is in the past, and right now while I wait to see another shoulder orthopedic Dr. to find out how to proceed in surgery. Why they never sent me to him the first time around behooves me, but again, do I want to pin blame on being discontent at this moment on a past moment?…thinking that I will be happier. What done is done, money was spent.


Now, can I be happy at this moment? Certainly, if I put my wishes on the back burner, let go of the idea there is something or somebody keeping my happiness away. How to do this? Stop fixating on one single source of happiness, a ridiculous “one-brain-cell” view of life. I will go out and help others, send care packages to Thailand, maybe fix dinner for a friend and move on with a sense of ease about life. Yes, I can do that with pain. Why, you might ask? Because I know people are doing this all over this world right as we speak.

I often tell friends who first start out in yoga, “Set yourself up for success, get all the props you need to feel comfortable and when unable to do something…just rest in child’s pose and watch.” The most important thing you can learn is to be humble and turn off the comparing mind. Why pin your happiness to one thing, jumping to the next thing, once that is done? We are setting ourselves up for failure to be content at any given moment. It will start a chain reaction, if happy at this moment, and again happy at this next moment....we will be happy in the ever present moment. Creating our success.

A footnote, my partner who for years I had to hound him in getting his teeth cleaned, even taking him to the dentist and got him started on Dental care many years ago. He was the first in his family to have dental care, so it was out of his experience. This morning while talking he said he had them cleaned without me reminding him, to make me proud.