A very interesting article, and one that got me thinking. Which is always a good thing. So, thank you.
I’m coming in late on this one, with most of the comments being 1–2 months old already, but I thought I would add one more anyway. I am having a problem with the word, miserable, in your title. Primarily because of the image it conjures up for me. Miserable is a powerful word. It’s an old word I think, one that has most of its roots in the past. By way of explanation, one of its closest synonyms is another powerful adjective — wretched. I don’t think I’ve heard this word uttered or seen it written, since I last opened a Dicken’s book or perhaps saw it in an article on the earthquake in Haiti a few years back. In other words, miserable is a destination that takes a long while to get to. You probably will pass near sadness, depression and dejection on the way there. All milestones on an emotional journey that probably has some pretty powerful root causes of its own. Miserable is not what we feel when Netflix goes down on a Sunday night. Nor is it the first thing we probably think of when we lose a job. It’s something that builds, like a series of waves, until it washes over us, tearing away our sense of safety and our hope and leaving us painfully alone, even for just a little while.
Do we often use miserable to describe how we feel? Yeah, all the time. “God, what a miserable day.” “Had one too many last night, feeling miserable. LOL” I’ve used it, too often I’m afraid, and this article made me see that I was wrong in doing so. Not that it can’t be used, there’s no prohibition regarding it and I doubt the grammar police will take offense, but because it shouldn’t be used. Because it elevates normal emotional swings into something we all need to worry about or avoid. And I don’t think that’s right. We have enough to worry about in our lives and in the world around us that we should save this word for when it really counts. When the vagaries of life pummel us into submission and it takes almost everything we have left to even think about getting up.
But overall I agree with the concept of subjective expectations and its inherent conflict with the reality that surrounds us. How constant desire and constant want, warps our sense of perspective and material gain becomes the go to drug of choice, assuaging our fears and making us believe that an iPhone upgrade or the newest Samsung curved TV screen will take away the hurt and makes things better.
I believe we have expectations because we are in a sense, hardwired to do something with our lives. And when we don’t achieve this something or when we don’t even know that this something exists, but feel its absence inside anyway, we become estranged from reality. Like it’s a never ending variant of As the World Turns, and we watch it faithfully, believing it will reveal something to us, but never certain of exactly what that might be. We are purpose driven creatures, all of us, and we need to be connected to that purpose. Some of us are lucky enough to spot what it is early on and dedicate at least a portion of their lives to it. Others, feel certain it exists and spend most of their lives seeking it. Finding it is a big plus, but being driven by something good and meaningful deep inside, even if we never get there, is a damn good second best.
“We have to learn to let go of the incompatible subjective expectations that we rigidly anchor to reality so that we can recast new ones in a more suitable direction, slowly getting away from the seeking to the finding.”
I think the subjective expectations that we feel and build our lives upon are anchored more to our innate purpose than to the reality that surrounds us. Reality is a composite. Not unlike perhaps, a collage of photographs of Prom Night that someone used to form the image of Brad Pitt or the Dali Lama. The pieces can be arranged and rearranged at will into whatever image is most relevant to us at any given moment.
But I agree, we need to let go. We need to stop seeking and begin finding as you put it. And I have this strong and somewhat annoying feeling that what we spent so much time looking for, was right there with us all along.
