If I could just… Everything would be better

Beware when you start seeing this phrase pop up in your thinking. “If I could just get my blood sugar under control, everything would be better.” “If I could just get this next promotion at work, everything would be better.” “If I could just start dating that cute girl in my peripheral friends group, everything would be better.” “If I just added 10 more pounds of lean muscle everything would get better.” You get the idea. 

When your brain tells you these things, flag it as a distorted thinking. Why? Because there is no silver bullet for making things all better in any pervasive and permanent way. It’s setting you up for failure via unrealistic expectations and simply dangling the carrot of a phantom future feeling. Once you achieve your goal, it is human nature to quickly move on and seek the next "If I could just" problem. Our brains are problem solving machines and never linger on already solved problems for long, there are just too many other perceived problems to address.

What is the solution? The great minds from multiple millennia, separated from each other in time and space, forming philosophies independent of one another, seem to mostly converge on a theme. That the antidote to the "If I could just" problem is 1) being present in the current moment as much as possible and 2) to focus with gratitude on what you have as opposed to always seeking what you don't have. 

Is this the answer? I'm not sure. To be honest I am still figuring out what 'being in the present moment' actually means. 

How is this for a way to approach 'present momentness': I have a dear friend who lives almost constantly in the present moment. He does what he wants when he wants to do it. He plans very little for the future and almost never reflects or worries about the past. His life is a disaster and he doesn't seem particularly happy. Alternatively, I have a friend that is constantly dwelling on the past and forever worried about perceived future obstacles. Similarly, they are not super pumped about how their life is going and are not particularly happy either. So what to do.

The answer is probably somewhere in between. Being more in the present moment that we naturally tend to be seems to be important, but so is having intentional moments of self reflection and diligent planning, both of which happen in past and future mindsets respectively. Great Mike, you just gave me Aristotle's fucking golden mean... how helpful. In the end the root of these questions stem from paradoxes to be managed as opposed to problems to be solved (greatest quote ever from Esther Perel). If you are ok with simply doing your best on this seemingly un-win-able game of past, present, future, then I bet you're ahead of most people.

Back to the initial theme of this blog post. What I have found helpful for myself, is that I turn the phrase from "If I could just… everything would be better” into the phrase “I have everything I need to be happy right now." Is it a panacea for the human condition... definitely not. Do I believe it every-time I say it... nope. Does it help get over the acute sting of wanting... yeah a bit. And does it help me get back on a path of appreciation, abundance, and positivity... it at least pushes me more that direction.

I'll end with one of my new favorite quotes from Joco Beck an American Zen teacher: 

"What makes it unbearable is the mistaken belief that you can be cured."

Or, as I like to amend it:

"What makes [the experience of living] so unbearable is the mistaken belief that you can be cured [of the human experience]."