If you’ve been reading along for any length of time, you know that I’m obsessed with living a good life. And with the idea that happiness isn’t something we get when we pursue happiness, but a byproduct of many other practices, like friendship, being in nature, solitude, healthy food, right-sized challenge, feeling afflictive emotions, and meaningful work. 

However we define happiness, the Dalai Lama would remind us that “We are all the same human beings. We all seek happiness and try to avoid suffering.” This is the great commonality and what unites us as humans. 

What I’ve been noticing lately is that, in our longing for happiness, we have a fantasy. We have a fantasy that we can download someone else’s program, someone else’s instructions, for living a good life. This comes in too many forms to list, but just a few of them might be: 

  • Religion. If I follow my church’s instructions for my life, I’ll get it right. [Note: NOT the same thing as tuning in to the Divine!] 
  • Supplements.  Collagen, magnesium, ashwagandha will really transform me. 
  • “Clean” eating. If I assign moral value to what I put into my mouth, that will turn everything around. 
  • Mental health. Anxiety and depression are a sign that something’s wrong with me, and I must eradicate them if they show up. 
  • Exercise. Tell me how to punish my body, and I’ll do it until I crash. 
  • Youthful skin. I deserve to see no signs of aging when I look in the mirror, and I’ll spend thousands of dollars on that project. 

And optimization in zillions of forms. Optimization of friendship, boundary-setting, sleep, home organization, pet breeds, protein intake, meditation, hydration, niceness, sex, organic underwear, mealtimes, body temperature. And we’re so desperate to feel good that we will spend an abundance of our money and attention on anyone promising a program. We want to outsource the decision-making, outsource the longing and restlessness, trade our own inner wisdom for a rule book.  

But we can’t download someone else’s program! I think this is why AA works so well. It forces its participants to finally come to terms with their own brokenness. It doesn’t promise any shortcuts. In fact, it’s predicated on doing it the hard way. The hardest way! The way of community, persistence, humility. Choosing the exquisite pain of being alive over the temptation to numb out. Choosing a fearless moral inventory over having a guru.  

No one can live our lives for us. No one is coming to save us. These are hard times to be alive. I’m feeling it, my clients are feeling it. I’m limiting my news, upping my meditation practice, being vigilant about who and what I let into my energetic field. I’m hypersensitive to anyone trying to sell me anything, and any promises that those wares will make me happy. Tuning into our own deepest wisdom requires a quiet mind, open heart, and being present in the body. That’s a full-time job! Time to turn our fierce attention toward our own messy development. Only then can we be present to a hurting world.