#158 – How your preferences make you unhappy

"The Great Way [Dao] is not difficult for those who have no preference." Seng Ts'an, the Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen

Women of my generation were brought up to believe that "conformism" was the worst of feminist sins. Maybe because I lived in Spain, where, during Franco's dictatorship, women were secondary to men. Women's desires were deemed anywhere from sinful to whimsical, whereas men's desires (considered needs) had to be granted at all costs – even if that meant a woman had to sin.

Enter Meg Ryan ordering her dinner* at Katz's Delicatessen in When Harry Met Sally.

Ha!, we all thought. There was a woman who knew what she wanted, and we all wanted to be like her.

It was the official elevation of a degree of pickiness borderline neuroticism. And the gateway to unhappiness.

The more defined our preferences, the narrower our opportunities to be happy. Because, what are the odds that everything in the universe will align to give me what I consider the perfect event [dinner, vacation, job, commute...]?

My father was picky like that. He wasn't mean spirited – he just chose to have a lot of chances to be profoundly unhappy.

How would his life have been if he'd chosen to prefer everything, even the moments that didn't meet his criteria for 'acceptable'?

What preferences can you drop to increase your opportunities to be happy?

Love,

Carolina

*Sally's dinner order: "I'd like the Chef salad, please, with the oil and vinegar on the side and the apple pie a la mode, but I'd like the pie heated and I don't want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side, and I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla, if you have it, if not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream, but only if it's real if it's out of a can, then nothing."