A young woman gives birth to a baby girl. At 6 months, the baby gets ill and is taken to a hospital. The young mother waits nervously while her baby is being ministered to by a physician. After awhile, the physician emerges from the examination room and tells her that her baby has died. The young woman is distraught. The physician asks if she would like to see her daughter, to touch her for the last time. She nods yes and goes into the examination room. Tears filling her eyes, she holds her daughter's hand. Fifteen minutes pass. Suddenly, a cough. Her daughter has coughed. And again. She screams, the physician rushes into the room, disbelievingly checks the baby's heart and cries, "Alive, she is alive." Can you imagine the mother's euphoric joy? The totally ecstatic consuming joy. Her precious daughter is alive.
Did you feel euphoric when you woke up this morning? Likely not. Why not? Like the baby, you are alive, are you not? Well, you may think, the situations are different: when you went to sleep last night, you expected to be alive in the morning, and so finding yourself alive was not euphoric the way it was for the young mother to learn her daughter was alive. True.
And what does that tell us? The expected is not as bliss generating as the unexpected. Finding a $5 bill on the street produces more excitement, more pleasure, than getting a regular $1,000 weekly paycheck. We buy lottery tickets knowing that should the unexpected happen and we win despite the unbelievably horrendous odds against us, it will be the most euphoric moment of our life.
In every aspect of our life, the unexpected has more impact on us than does the expected. Positively or negatively. Is that not why we feel more dismay when the car unexpectedly won't start in the morning than the pleasure we feel (if any) when it does start for the 500th consecutive time?
The irony is that as humans, we have the wonderful capacity to think ahead, to anticipate what might go wrong, and to microplan our endeavors, our lives. All of which increases the likelihood of our succeeding and our expectations coming true...and, as is crystal clear, decreases our pleasure and bliss, and may even produce a bit of ho-hum, when they do.
The lesson? Don't think it all out in advance, don't dot all the i's and cross all the t's. Throw a bit of forethought, a bit of preparation, a bit of caution to the wind. Wing it some. It might just set your spirits soaring!
Did you feel euphoric when you woke up this morning? Likely not. Why not? Like the baby, you are alive, are you not? Well, you may think, the situations are different: when you went to sleep last night, you expected to be alive in the morning, and so finding yourself alive was not euphoric the way it was for the young mother to learn her daughter was alive. True.
And what does that tell us? The expected is not as bliss generating as the unexpected. Finding a $5 bill on the street produces more excitement, more pleasure, than getting a regular $1,000 weekly paycheck. We buy lottery tickets knowing that should the unexpected happen and we win despite the unbelievably horrendous odds against us, it will be the most euphoric moment of our life.
In every aspect of our life, the unexpected has more impact on us than does the expected. Positively or negatively. Is that not why we feel more dismay when the car unexpectedly won't start in the morning than the pleasure we feel (if any) when it does start for the 500th consecutive time?
The irony is that as humans, we have the wonderful capacity to think ahead, to anticipate what might go wrong, and to microplan our endeavors, our lives. All of which increases the likelihood of our succeeding and our expectations coming true...and, as is crystal clear, decreases our pleasure and bliss, and may even produce a bit of ho-hum, when they do.
The lesson? Don't think it all out in advance, don't dot all the i's and cross all the t's. Throw a bit of forethought, a bit of preparation, a bit of caution to the wind. Wing it some. It might just set your spirits soaring!
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