I am indebted to Chris Lacey who inspired this conversation.
So.
THIS ... is ... it ...
Life's turned out. It's turned out this way. It didn't
turn out any other way. It didn't turn out the way you
wanted it to. It didn't turn out the way you
needed it to. It didn't turn out the way you
hoped it would. It didn't turn out the way you
wished it would. It didn't turn out the way you
prayed
it would. It simply turned out the way it turned out.
The train is in the
station.
It got here regardless of your want, regardless of your need,
regardless of your hope, regardless of your wish, regardless of your
prayer,
regardless of your good
intention,
regardless of you being a good person.
It's not what you expected. Who you gonna call?
At this juncture, disappointment's a good option. It seems valid,
doesn't it?, to be disappointed when your expectations aren't met. You
didn't expect this ... yet this is the way it
turned out, yes? There'd be a lot of agreement out there
if you asked "Is this all there is?" and were disappointed
when you got the answer "This is all there is.". There'd be even more
agreement if you then complained "But it's not fair!".
Anger's a possibility too. You could rail against
God
for setting it up this way. You could also rage against
the machine
for being this way.
Here's the thing: disappointment, unfairness, and anger live inside of
a kind of
cosmic gotcha.
They're interimly real - for
you. But they're not ultimately real for
Life itself.
That's Werner Erhard's take on it. Literally.
Werner's
take can be tested. You can come to your own conclusion. You don't have
to believe him. Here's how you can test it:
The next time you're disappointed, the next time you consider you've
been treated unfairly, the next time you're angry, go outside at night
and tell the stars and the universe how disappointed you are, tell the
stars and the universe how unfair things are, tell the stars and the
universe how angry you are.
That's the first part of the test. It's the second part of
the test which is the critical part. In the second part of the test,
after you've told the stars and the universe how disappointed you are,
how unfair things are, how angry you are,
watch
carefully for the stars' and the universe's reactions.
Watch
carefully.
Watch
very, very carefully.
Pretty soon you'll notice the stars and the universe are divinely
indifferent to disappointment, unfairness, and anger. They don't
care about disappointment, unfairness, and anger. They aren't
swayed one iota by disappointment, by unfairness, by
anger. They give no justice. They grant no compensation. They provide
no alleviation. Actually it's worse than that. It's that all the stars
and the universe say about disappointment, unfairness, and anger is
"So what?!"
No matter how many times, no matter how convincingly you
tell the stars and the universe about your disappointment, unfairness,
and anger, that's all they say, that's all they
ever say, over and over and over and over again:
"So what?!
You're disappointed. You've been treated unfairly. You're angry. It's
not what you expected.
So what?!
Who you gonna call?".
There's no way out. You're trapped. The
cosmic
gotcha's
got you.
Life itself
led you to this moment of disappointment, unfairness, and anger. But
then shouldn't
Life itself
heal disappointment? Shouldn't
Life itself
rebalance unfairness? Shouldn't
Life itself
quench anger? Shouldn't it? Especially if you're a
good person?
"OK!" you say, "Enough's enough Laurence. I got it. Where's the
relief?".
But there's none. Gotcha! You've been stood up.
You're left waiting for your date to arrive to escort you to the prom
...
and he ain't
comin'
...
This is a pivotal moment. This incident could be woven into a lifelong
story
of being ripped off, a feeling of being cheated, of misery, of
resentment. After all,
Life itself
led you here, but you got no justice, no
compensation, no alleviation ... which clearly proves
Life itself
is against you, is unfair, isn't to be trusted. It proves
this moment is the insurmountable wall of defeat, the
shot through the heart, the final nail in the coffin,
all of the above.
* * *
That's one possible outcome. Yet on closer examination, that particular
outcome doesn't have choice in it. That particular outcome
just
happens
... with a velocity, with an
irresistiblepull all of its own. I guess you could say (justifiably
so) the problem is
what happened.
I'd like to consider the possibility that the problem isn't
what happened.
I'd like to consider the possibility that the problem is not
exercising choice over
what happened.
So here's another possible outcome. This other possible outcome is
only available as a choice. It's choosing the
cosmic
gotcha
to be an opportunity for
recontextualization
(I
love
that
word),
to be a
catalyst for
transformation,
to be a clearing for a
breakthrough.
It's the choice to accept the situation, to accept what is.
In this inquiry, the choice to accept the situation, the choice to
accept what is comes perilously close to
resignation, to being resigned. But it's not that. It's not even
close. It's the opportunity to choose
Life itself,
to choose what is as the
context
for disappointment, unfairness, and anger. In the moment of making that
choice, disappointment, unfairness, and anger are no longer personal.
In the instant of getting off it, they cease being the
context
for living. They're
recontextualized.
Their causes become, instead, simply
what's so.
At worst, they're generated by you even though they appear to be
generated by the circumstances. At best, they're insignificant and
meaningless and, like other self-defeating addictions eg to nicotine
and alcohol, can be dropped.
That's what the stars and the universe were telling you all along, ever
since you were born, in fact - only you weren't
listening.
At the end of the day, the choice to accept what is is
arguably the most sacred action a human being can perform.
Unfailingly, with that choice comes
happiness
and
transformation.
But it's not a choice which, once made, needs never be made again. This
isn't a game show. There's no "lock in your answer" option here.
If there were, making this choice once thus ensuring
happiness
and
transformation forever
would annihilate any possibility of future onus and
creativity.
Instead, it's a choice to be made over and over and over again, once
for each and every occasion when things turn out to be not what you
expected. There's no short cut. There's no easy way
out. If
transformation
were easy,
the whole world
would be
transformed
by now.
Transformation,
generated this way as a
deliberate,
intentional
act ie as a choice, is the very stuff of
breakthroughs,
those sudden discontiguous exponential shifts in life which produce
results which heretofore simply weren't possible. When I
stand
not so much in
a world
of disappointment, unfairness, and anger but rather in
the world
of decisions I've made about disappointment, unfairness,
and anger, only so much is available, only so much is possible.
Bringing
transformation
to bear,
standing
in true
Self,
accepting what is so that disappointment, unfairness, and
anger are
recontextualized
literally opens
worlds,
worlds
which simply didn't exist before.
Stepping
into such
new worlds
made available by the simple act of accepting what is is
the firing pin of a
breakthrough.
What starts off as not what you expected is
transformed
through acceptance into a
clearing
for something new, for possibility. There's simply no possibility in
the world
given by decisions made about disappointment, unfairness,
and anger. I don't know why it's that way. Sometimes I wish it weren't
that way. I notice how heavily invested I am in the
decisions I've made about disappointment, unfairness, and anger. Yet
the more I look, the more I see it's that way. Who you gonna
call? The answer's obvious.
I assert you could infer that's really a measure of how much the stars
and the universe support us. They don't tell us that when we tell them
about our disappointment, unfairness, and anger. They know how big we
really are, even when we've forgotten. They trust us to figure that
part of it out for ourselves.