Happy New Year?
I have always found winter a good time for self-reflection, making January first the perfect time to promise we will be better in the coming year. Most goals revolve around breaking addictions to food, laziness, overspending, mindlessly scrolling, or being negative. I have been reflecting lately on my addiction to the feeling of sadness. Ever since I was very young, I have looked at life ‘through a glass, darkly.’ I notice sad things: Poverty, unfairness, heartbreak, loss, loneliness, misery. There seems to be a universal law that ‘you get more of what you focus on’ and I can attest to its effectiveness. After a while, it becomes part of who you are. "If you spend enough time with anything, you start liking it, even sadness."- Amish Tripathi My goal for 2025 is to remove my focus from sadness and replace it with acceptance and hope for a better future. First, though, I need to explore why I gravitate towards sadness.
Out of every feeling I could get addicted to why sadness? Was it a personality flaw, an environmental side effect, a parenting mistake, or an overwhelming interest in the subject? Bertrand Russell wrote, “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.” Of those, whether you are loved or not is out of your control, the quest for knowledge is never-ending, and one person cannot touch the enormity of the world’s suffering. All might be considered losing battles. While it could be good to be empathetic, it can also drive out happiness, joy, gratitude, and peace.
I recently watched the movie Wicked. There is a scene between Elphaba and Prince Fiyero where she tells him that if he was as shallow and self-absorbed as he claims to be, why was he so unhappy? "Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart." -Fyodor Dostoyevsky Sadness happens to people who notice injustice, who feel that something is not quite right with the way things are. Once the thought of injustice takes hold, will all future experiences be tinged with the color of sadness? I think they are, but the reality we see is based on our perspectives, and perspectives can be changed. The following is my plan for changing mine.
Goals For the coming year-
Ways to keep sadness from overwhelming my life:
1. Detach. I struggle to comprehend this concept fully, but here is my current understanding. “Detachment is not the absence of love but the ability to take care of yourself in the midst of someone else’s choices.” – unknown. Humans are not robots so 100% detachment is impossible. To detach is not a detachment from yourself, it is a detachment of things outside of your control, your desires, and your emotions. It is stepping back and observing things but removing your attachment to outcomes. I have always thought it strange that people would get so fanatical about the losses of their favorite sports team and that it would ruin their day. There was nothing they could have done to change the outcome. My general sadness over the plight of certain people, animals, and the environment is the same. I did not cause the problem, and I have very little control to change it and yet I let it depress me. My goal for using detachment will be to use a short meditation when I notice that I am feeling sad, asking why and if I can do anything about it, help if I can, and let go if I can’t, knowing that I cannot foresee the outcome, but I can accept that it will work out.
2. Feel it. I will be honest about finding life unfair and not liking it. Denying our true feelings will never allow us to understand them. "Sit with it. Instead of drinking it away, smoking it away, sleeping it away, eating it away, or running from it. Just sit with it. Healing happens by feeling.” – unknown Only through examination can we see where our thinking may be flawed, and our perspective skewed by upbringing and biases. Feel it but don’t let it take over your mind. An online therapist offered some good advice for dealing with obsessive thinking. She suggested you set aside an hour during the week to let yourself think, talk, write, and feel about the issue. Whenever your mind starts to fixate on something (in my world, sadness), tell it “Thanks for noticing, we will deal with it Saturday morning.” I have tried this method and found it effective for taking the urgency out of obsessive thinking.
3. Turn it over to a higher power. I was listening to the radio and heard Jelly Roll singing “It’s not OK, but it’s all gonna be alright.” And it made me mad. How do we know if any of this will ever ‘be alright’? The truth is we can’t, and it is hard to trust when it seems that evil is winning in the world and our own lives. This is a perspective though, and not fact. There is a purpose for this life and we are not in charge of how it will turn out, despite what we think. "The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is control." - Richard Rohr It is hard to admit to ourselves that we think we know better than God, but each time we start trying to control outcomes for others, we are doing precisely that. We do it with the best of intentions, “I know that you don’t want to do this (college, mission, piano lessons, spending time with grandma, etc.), but it will be good for you in the long run.” Do we know if it will be? I believe God wants all of us to be sovereign beings. The characteristics of sovereign individuals is that they are:
A) Autonomous- making choices without undue influence from others.
B) Responsible- taking responsibility for their actions and the consequences of those actions.
C) Self-aware- knowing their purpose, likes and dislikes, needs, and desires.
D) And act with integrity- their actions align with their values and beliefs.
We can find peace in letting Him work His plan, despite our pain caused by evil characters and poor personal choices. (Jelly Roll, your song is acceptable .)
4. Act. "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it." – Rabbi Tarfon To be able to be a force for good in the world, we have to be good. This requires us to change since we can’t force change upon others. Jordan Peterson gave some advice for making changes in your life (link here). Start with the smallest possible steps, anything that you can do consistently. Lay out the problem, ask what could make it better (potential solution), make a strategy, break it down to the smallest possible steps you agree with, implement it, evaluate, and go smaller if necessary. This exercise shows that not everything is out of your control and that what you do matters for you and the rest of humanity. “You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” – John C. Maxwell
People have strong opinions on the effectiveness of setting goals for the new year. I have had years when I’ve sworn off the practice and years where I have written a detailed list with timelines. The results of both have been about equal 😊. After some reflection, I realized that I did not want to do them in the first place. I think that the reason that our goals don’t work out is that they weren’t really “our” goals to begin with. They were societal pressures that we bow to but can’t accept deep in our hearts. "We subconsciously base our goals and achievements on the way they're viewed by other people. And it doesn't matter whether or not you achieve those things, because it's for the satisfaction of someone else. It never feels as good as you pictured it in your head." - Maisie Williams, Game of Thrones Star, interviewed by David Artavia 4/12/2022
Self-examination is a good practice. It is a necessary part of being a sovereign individual and taking responsibility for your actions. If you are inclined this new year to reflect on your life and where it might be taking you, I hope you can see where your habitual thinking might need an upgrade. This goal is deeply personal so improvement might not get publicly noticed. Yet since it is truly just for you, it might be the one goal you can stick to that changes your future. “You can’t change your future, but you can change your habits, and surely your habits will change your future.” – Dr. A.P.G. Abdul Kalam Happy New Year! Quotes are a great way to understand life and make sense of our feelings. If you liked the quotes I used in this post, I have put them all on one sheet of paper that you can copy off and use for inspiration during the week. Click the link and enjoy! (link here)
Love and Hope,
Big Sky Baby