I can't Imagine anyone in the world who hasn't gone through some sort of pain or suffering in their life. We can take a look at someone who is homeless, sleeping on the sidewalk and judge that the homeless person has endured more suffering than a millionaire driving a rolce royce.
But we can never know what is going on in that millionaire's head. If this was the universal truth of judging suffering, based on perception, than the homeless suicide rates would be through the roof and we would never hear of famous celebrity suicides such as Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, Robin Williams or Chester Bennington.
These are just the few that make the news because they are extremely famous people who are relevant. We like to think that money solves all problems, that no matter where we are in life, more money would makes us happier, but in reality happiness is just the story we tell ourselves in our head. Take this quote from William Shakespeare, "Expectation is the root of all heartache". Even Tony Robins speaks to this point that unhappiness is caused when your expectation doesn't meet reality. No one has any control over the reality, we all share this reality together but the good news is that each one of us has one hundred percent control over the expectation. Expectation is simply the story we tell ourselves in our head.
Picture I took one morning that really
made me stop and appreciate the Now
Think about something in the past that has made you miserable. Maybe it was not getting into the school you wanted. Not having the type of relationship you wanted. Buying bitcoin at a peak thinking it will keep going higher but then watching it plummet. No matter what your individual case may be, do you see a pattern that whatever made you miserable was caused by an expectation of a future event that you have no control over?
This also ties into something that Elon Musk has talked about in recent interviews. He has said that wishful thinking in anything, whether it's business or relationships, will lead to misery. Which also beautifully ties into something Eckhart Tolle talks about in his book "The Power of Now", where his whole point is that the only thing that matters is the Now.
Putting this all together, we can see a pattern of misery form in response to living in the future. After all, isn't that what expectation and wishful thinking is? In both cases we are literally telling our brain to release dopamine and makes us feel happy and satisfied only when a future event meets our current idea of what it should be. Even as you read this article you have two choices: to live in the now and enjoy each word without expectation of where it is headed, or only be content if this article confirms whatever idea you have in your head of the message you are trying to get from reading this.
Take something that we can all related to, something as silly as ordering food at a restaurant and being happy and content when the idea of how good the food will be meets our expectation and being unhappy/angry/sad (insert any negative emotion) when the food doesn't turn out as good as we expected. In this scenario, why do we put so much weight and emotional gratification on a future event that we absolutely have no control over?
I think the most enjoyable way to live life is to plan for the future but actively dissociate any emotional tie we may seek from that future event.