Ambivalence
Thinking that there’s enough space
Seven.
Seven. Seven. Seven. Seven. Seven…
Seven. ✋✌️
I read somewhere that there was this certain study of people’s happiness levels wherein they asked people how happy they are from 1-10 at a certain time interval. If I clearly remember what I read, with life’s ups and downs, people had varying answers as time goes. Some are 5 then 8 the next day; some are 9 then 3 the following week. What the researchers noticed was on average, regardless if you’re an optimist, pessimist, realist, or an opportunist who drinks the glass of water while the rest are arguing whether or not the glass if half full, half empty, or both, people just keep coming back to 7.
I mean, it makes sense that we didn’t really evolve to be always satisfied; otherwise, that’ll stop us from thriving and flourishing since most of the time it’s the pain that causes us to act and the wounds in our consciousness that cause us to think.
Life is full of suffering. Uncertainty is always present. Shit always hit the fan. But I guess it doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy it along the way, celebrate the small wins, and cherish the climax before the movie is over.
As Buddha’s time in and away from the kingdom pointed out, problems never cease to exist no matter where we’re at in life and we ought to not wait for a problem to be over in order to be happy. When I get x, then I’ll be happy. When y happens, then I’ll be happy. Let’s be happy now as there’s always gonna be another x and y. There’s always gonna bigger house. There’s always gonna be another desire.
It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t grieve over losses, worry over sickness, and feel sad over not seeing our good friends in person for over a year and a half. It’s pretty healthy to allow our negative emotions to be heard - but I just do wanna point out that ambivalence ought to be possible, satisfaction and pain can occur at the same time, and there’s enough space for us to be grateful for what we have, while in pursuit of our asymptotic relationship with self-actualization.
It’s okay to be sad. Let’s take it easy on ourselves.
