Monday, August 17, 2015

Day 65 Sometimes what you want, is not really what you are seeking.

Punchy,
Todays post is tied to yesterdays. In truth they are all related but this one is close to yesterdays.
Sometimes what you want is not the thing you need, sometimes the universe has bigger plans for you.
A parable: Once there was a little boy who wanted nothing more than to have a bright yellow rubber ball to play with. He asked his parents day and night to get him one, and was convinced that that thing alone would bring him joy and without it he was sure that he would never be happy. He believed it so much that even when the other kids in his school asked him to sing and play games with them he refused because the only way he thought he could be happy and have a good time was if he had a bright yellow rubber ball to play with. Finally after weeks and weeks of this his parents bought him the ball he had been asking for. He was ecstatic and took it outside to play with it. After throwing it across the yard, then running to catch it and throwing it to the other end, he decided that it was not all that he had made it out to be. He continued to play with it though as it was the only thing that he had wanted before now. One day as he was throwing it he threw it too far and it bounced into the street, where it rolled into the gutter and down the storm drain. He was crushed. He had lost the only thing that he had wanted and he began to cry. About that time some of the neighborhood kids were walking by and saw him sitting on the curb crying and asked him why he was crying. He told them the story of the yellow ball and how it was lost down the storm drain. None of them knew how to fix it but they did invite him to play other games with them and after a bit he started to have fun again.

There is a point when you will want things, desperately want things. in fact you know that only that thing will bring you the happiness you want. Maybe it is a bright yellow rubber ball, maybe it is to date the cute girl in class, maybe it is any number of specific things, the acquisition of which you are sure will bring you all the joy and happiness in the world. When this happens you become the boy who is obsessed with a bright yellow rubber ball. What you miss in it is that it is not that thing alone that you are truly seeking. For the boy in the story, it was not the ball that made him happy in the end it was playing games with the other kids that did it. Often we get so focused on the thing, our bright yellow rubber ball, that we don't see the opportunities around us to have fun and enjoy ourselves. If the little boy had been open to more than the ball, it may not have mattered if he got the ball, or more to the point, once he did, he would have had friends to play with it with.

We seek things in life because we seek an experience. We want to have fun, or to feel loved, or to feel that sense of accomplishment for reaching that goal. We desire it so much that nothing short of it will do. There is the error though. We think that through only that thing can we find the experience we desire. There is a funny truth to that though. If instead of seeking the thing, we seek the experience, we do things that feed that, the thing does not matter anymore, and funnily enough, the thing sometimes follows anyway. If the little boy had decided that he was going to have fun, when the kids asked him to play he may have gotten what he wanted long before his parents bought him the yellow ball.

That is not to say do not have goals. By all means have them, they are good things to set a course to, but realize that there is no one way to the top of the mountain, and you may find that what you thought was the only one is one, is one of many, and if you find the experience you seek, even the destination becomes less important. Seek the bigger experience, the bigger desire and then when it shows up, whether a bright yellow ball, or a friend asking if you want to play, you can see it for what it is, a chance to have the experience you desire. It may not look the way you thought it would, but it may give you more joy in the end than the thing you thought you wanted ever did. Create it in yourself and you will attract those things from life.
-Dad