#304 – How will wanting make you suffer?

The feeling of want is energizing, motivating, inspiring at first––"I want to build a house in Portugal, with an edible garden, and power everything with solar energy."

It makes me joyful, excited with the potential happiness that the object of my desire will bring me once I get it.

Yes, but.

But then, happiness is suspended until further notice. I feel a hole in that part of me that wants but still doesn't have. The lack.

My son yesterday came to that conclusion. He wanted to get out of jail under certain circumstances he'd carefully picked, and was attached to those circumstances: no conviction, no probation, no record, etcetera.

I thought his desire was understandable––I would want those same things.

But last night, on the phone, he said, "although..." There was a shift in his voice, a softening in his attitude. And he questioned: "what if I stopped wanting?"

Then he reminded me when back in December, I advised him not to make plans for when he'd be released, since we'd already had a couple of setbacks. And he committed to not want.

To surrender to truly watch things unfold and consider what he's offered in the moment he's offered it.

He felt the comfort this "not wanting" brought him and relaxed into it.

That's what living in the present means.

What "want" will you drop to regain your present happiness?

Love,

Carolina