Confront the Void Within to Discover True Contentment
While adversity waits around the corner, fulfillment resides inside of us.
--
Life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but you don’t need me to tell you that. We’re told that life is tough pretty much from the get-go. And yet, despite ourselves, we get so caught up in the pleasant moments and stability of it all that sometimes we forget that adversity might be lurking around the corner.
Sounds bleak, doesn’t it? The truth is, it’s quite the opposite. Within the knowledge that we will indeed face bad times again in the future can be found a deeper sense of peace. Removing the element of surprise from a situation is almost like removing the sting from a scorpion’s tail before it strikes our skin. When we move through life with the serene awareness that all good things will someday come to an end, the anxiety we so often endure begins to loosen its hold on us.
Expectation is, as Zachary Phillips put it, the thief of all happiness. Why is that? Well, simply because we don’t have the power of foresight. We don’t know what awaits on the road ahead. As much as we try to plan and prepare and anticipate, we have no idea what’s coming, and often the reality of our future pales in comparison to our fantasies and dreams.
So what can we do? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the following quote from Paulo Coelho:
“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.”
The courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. To free ourselves from expectation and to proceed with bravery. Maybe that’s the key.
A Rough Road
The last few years have been a whirlwind for me. If you’ve read my articles before, you’ll know that already. I was in a relationship from the age of thirteen right through to twenty. Everything was perfect, really, until Charlotte sadly lost her life to a malignant brain tumor.
It came out of nowhere. One week things were going well, the next, she was hospitalized and rushed into chemotherapy. And that’s usually how life goes. Of course, it isn’t always as extreme as that, but sometimes, just as things seem to be running smoothly, we’re hit on the side of the head with a curveball and forced to regain our balance.
As Baz Luhrmann put it in Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen,
“The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.”
It’s often when we least expect it, too.
We wander through life expecting everything to stay the same, forgetting that the trajectory of our existence is filled with change and impermanence. Nothing stays the same. No matter how much we might try and wrestle the future into submission and coerce it to sit right where it is, it will escape our grasp and run its own course. And that’s okay. That’s the piece of the puzzle that we often miss — that’s it’s okay for things to change. Change isn’t inherently bad, it just is.
“There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.” — Ryan Holiday
I don’t know where our deep-seated aversion to change comes from. There’s probably an evolutionary link there somewhere, but I don’t think it’s relevant to delve too much into that right now. The point is that, for some strange reason, most of us hate change. We fear it, deeply. And that’s probably where expectation comes from.
In our efforts to mitigate the effects of change, we try to predict how the future will pan out. We expect this and that, confusing our problematic and erroneous minds with a wizard’s crystal ball. But what makes us think that we have the power to expect anything from the future?
It’s a completely irrational tendency, to expect. A black hole could swallow the planet whole in a second for all we know. The sun could implode. We could have a heart attack and die. We have literally no idea what might happen even a second from now, let alone years into the future. There are billions of possibilities.
I was having this same discussion with a friend recently, reflecting on how wild and eventful the past eighteen months of my life have been.
‘My life is so all over the place right now,’ I said. ‘I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow, never mind in five years’ time’.
And then, two days later, I found myself in Barcelona with Brian Pennie, Michael Thompson, Niklas Göke, and others — a spontaneous trip sharing an Airbnb with people I’d never even met before. A month later, I was living there with Matt Sandrini, basically a stranger at the time, deep in the throes of a global lockdown. I hadn’t expected any of those things to happen, yet there I was.
Rewinding a little further, only weeks after Charlotte passed, a giant media company approached me and offered to partner with my business. Right around the corner from adversity lay something enormous and life-changing.
Week on week I’m baffled by the events that unfold before me. Instead of expecting, I just let things happen as they wish. Good or bad, life will do as it pleases, regardless of what I think. And that’s a freeing thought — that we can’t really control anything external. Life will run its course, and it’s not up to us to change that.
Moreover, no matter how negative our current situation might feel, it will change. Everything changes. Next week could hold the most wonderful series of events, and right now, we have no idea. We might be lost in the darkest storm, contemplating ending it all here, unaware of the beautiful summer’s day awaiting us tomorrow.
We simply don’t know. We never will. We just have to wait and see.
Freedom From Expectation
How, then, do we go about freeing ourselves from the grip of expectation? It’s easier said than done. I appreciate that me telling you to just go with the flow doesn’t make it any easier to do so, so let’s start somewhere.
To borrow a quote from a short Buddhist story,
“For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table, and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, “Of course.” When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”
Such is the nature of life. We can drink out of a beautiful glass, knowing that it may indeed smash, but that doesn’t negate its beauty. Put differently, we can enjoy each moment and all it has to offer, not expecting more, not expecting it to last forever, but simply as it is and when it happens.
I guess that’s the essence of mindfulness, really. To be at one with each moment. To recognize that fulfillment is found in the journey, always the journey, and never the destination.
Time and time again I’ve found myself feeling hungry, eagerly anticipating the arrival of my food in a restaurant. When it arrives, I gulp it down at lightning speed. Then, empty plate before me, I’m left feeling just as unfulfilled as before. Fuller, yes, but not fulfilled. Why? Because I was living for the future, not for the present.
This is how most of us live our lives. We rush through each and every moment just to get to the next, convinced that happiness lies at the next destination, not in this one. This is what people mean when they say that happiness is found in the journey, not in the destination. It’s not about where we are, it’s about where we are mentally. Nothing external will fulfill us if there’s a void within.
That’s something I’m learning more and more as I navigate through life. Recently I found myself sat in a beautiful hotel, with more money than I know what to do with, in a gorgeous city awaiting a romantic dinner date with a friend. All of the boxes my former self would have wanted to have ticked were ticked. And yet there I was, wondering why I felt so empty.
And now I know. It’s simple, really. Happiness is never found in the external. It can’t be. That isn’t the nature of fulfillment, and it never will be.
Indeed, we may try to ignore this fact in our endless pursuit of wealth and material gain. I certainly did. But no matter where we find ourselves in life, we cannot escape that void. At some point or another, we’ll be forced to confront it.
The truth is, if you can’t sit in a room alone for more than five minutes without feeling content, you’re probably not that happy. And that’s something we should all invest time into working on. Why is it that we have to be drowning in distractions at every waking moment? What are we hiding from amidst all of the notifications and dinners and drinks and dates?
I think we both know the answer. We’re hiding from ourselves.
Confronting the Void
Maybe the void I mentioned is more pronounced in some than others. It pops its head up every now and then. Sunbathing on a Greek island with a pina colada at hand, the void isn’t usually something we’re thinking about. In fact, for many of us, we might not recognize that it’s there until later in life. When things are going well, we don’t consider that, on a deeper level, we aren’t as content as we might think.
It’s when adversity comes crashing onto the shores of our lives that we start to notice that void. Breakups, redundancies, and losses all bring us back to the same question. Why aren’t I happy right now? Why is it that the absence of these things that I wasn’t born with and won’t die with is causing me so much mental unrest?
Well, that’s the void. Perhaps there’s a more appropriate word for it than void. We can call it discontentment, a lack of internal fulfillment, we can call it whatever we please. Jim Carrey’s quote encapsulates what I’m talking about pretty well:
“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
We can swap out the prospect of being rich and famous with just about anything external that we strive to possess: status, love, freedom, knowledge, health. The great trap that ensnares us all is that none of these things will provide the fulfillment we long for.
Does that mean we should forego all of our goals and sit stationary? Of course not. I still have goals. I plan to be a millionaire within the next three years. Do I think doing so will make me happier? No. I just know that it’ll provide me with more options with regards to how I choose to live my life.
Recognizing that nothing external will provide us with happiness gives us the power to find peace of mind in the present moment. As much as we look forward to holidays and expensive dinners, most days will take the shape of ordinary, uneventful weekdays during which we’re simply running errands and staying alive. And if we can’t find peace in those moments, we won’t find it drinking cocktails in Santorini.
Happiness is, and always will be, found right here, right now. Without thought, this moment is all that really exists. When our minds pull our focus from the task that lies before us, it is our task to pull it back; to let our chaotic thoughts fade into the background.
Doing so takes time. It takes practice. But, as we move through this life, confronted with soaring highs and crushing lows, the only thing that will remain is ourselves. And the only thing that will keep us sane and stable is a rooted, unwavering focus on this moment.
We have no choice but to step into the void. To explore it, to understand it, and to find peace within it. Only then can we push on, free from expectation, and prepared for whatever events come our way.
Mind Cafe’s Reset Your Mind: A Free 10-Day Email Course
We’re offering a free course to all of our new subscribers as a thank you for your continued support. When you sign up using this link, we’ll send you tips on how to boost mental clarity and focus every two days.
