I like watching Grey's Anatomy. It's a weekly drama, quite like ER. In the previous week's episode Callie and Arizona (two doctors who are also dating each other) were patting themselves on their backs for being the stable couple in the hospital. Within minutes of this Callie realised that Arizona doesn't share her dreams of having a large family. Yesterday I was looking ahead at what's next and realised that the two of them will continue to have their differences.
While it made me laugh it also made me realise that for the story to continue there has to be some drama. Don't you find in any sope opera or TV drama no one ever is happy....the moment they think they are happy, a twist of fate happens and all their dreams are shattered giving the viewers some excitement, hopefulness, despair, happiness, sadness or a mixture of all and the producers more juice to build up more story.
More than the realisation of what happens on TV, was what I realised about our lives. Frankly our lives are no more dissimilar to those dramas that are shown on TV. Maybe a little less or more drama in some lives, but drama nevertheless! Why? For just like in TV shows drama is needed for the story to continue, so do we need the dramas of life for our own lives to continue. Our life simply unfolds in a series of events unlike each new episode of a drama.
We have drama in life because we cannot be content. In fact I believe we are scared of contentment! When you are content, there is almost nothing you need to do. Because you are happy with the way things are. But rarely do we find such moment, and unfortunately some people don't even know how to find such moments and those other find such moment only think that things need to change or improve. When one is discontent it brings with it the need to do something to get out of discontentment but no matter you do you are left feeling dissatisfied.
Look at yourself openly and honestly these are some ways we create drama in our lives...
Let's say you get the dream job you want....next minute you will wondering about the long hours you have to put in or the amount of responsibility you have to shoulder or the lack of money to compensate for the amount of work you do....then you have something new to worry and plan about. Let's say your relationship is going along smoothly then you find what is missing in it....it becomes "if we had this we can improve our relationship".....more work, more planning, more things to do....let's say you have a house....well the issue would be it's not as big as your friends or you have to worry about cleaning it regularly....let's you have a child...well it's a boy and not a girl (or vice versa) or you can't save anymore because child care is expensive or it's "Oh my god, I don't have the freedom I used to have anymore"...let's say you go on a vacation...well the room was not big enough, the meals did not have much variety...so the list can go on and on.....
Basically we need some issue, some drama for the next thing to unfold. If in all the above situations we were perfectly content...let's say you got your dream job and you are perfectly, one hundred percent content...what drama is there in it? So you are asked to work long hours and you are happy to put that in because it's your dream job what issues? Let's say your relationship is going smoothly, let it flow smoothly for heaven's sake...why want to add, chop or whatever? Let's say you got the house and if you are content with it, would it make a difference as to what your friends say?
This is the way our mind works. It is the way our ego gets the chance to be asserted. For if our ego is not asserted, we cease to exists. If we are content with whatever that goes on in life, there is very little the ego needs to do or can do. Basically it is in the doing that our ego is asserted. It's our ego (the sense of self) that points out..."hey the friends don't think my house is big enough so I need to have a bigger house". It's the ego that cries "hey I don't want to put long hours because I don't have time for this and that"...it's the ego that thinks "well it's not possible for my relationship to go so smoothly something is missing or something is going on or we can do better"....
So through all that we do in life we try to satisfy our own egos. But the fact that there is no permanent ego. We believe there is one because it feels real...but so do mirages!!! Like everything there is our ego too is subject to change because its impermanent...so if we live our lives trying to satisfy our egos we will live life always moving from one episode to another never having a moments rest...but all the while there is that promise that if you do the next thing you will finally find happiness........it's like the mirage. You run towards the water only to find that the water has once more moved beyond your reach...so you continue to run hoping that with the next few metres you will for sure get the water...but you run until you drop dead.
Why do we do this or most importantly why the hell can't we see what we do? Some people do see it but are unable to resits the thirst....they just cannot help but move through the episodes and dramas of life while knowing that it doesn't make sense. Some people are totally unaware...they are like the deer chasing the mirage with total conviction that if I run the next mile I will get water...and they run until they die (literally).
So the question is who are you and what do you want to be?
