I often help clients who are sorting through the pros and cons of a difficult decision. Should they take the job or not? File for divorce or not? Change careers or not? Pay for private school or not? While it’s good to be thoughtful about such choices, a problem arises when finding peace hinges on them getting it right.
What about you? Do you put that kind of pressure on yourself? If so, there’s a better way.
Instead of looking at the decision you’re trying to make, ask yourself “why am I wrestling with this?” “ What am I trying to get from this decision?” “ What’s my motive? “
What you’ll find if you look deep enough is that every single time it’s either, “I’m trying to make a decision that will make me feel better.” OR “I’m trying to make a decision that will save me from something I don’t want to happen.” So really, you’re searching for the path of least resistance.
Consider “What am I trying to achieve”? If your goal is to pursue a desire, then you want to know which choice will make you happier. That puts you under a lot of pressure.
You’re trying to make your mind a psychic to figure that out.
If it’s a fear, you want to avoid a situation that would be unpleasant (which, by the way, is probably more influenced by your past, than your present opportunity) but again pressures your mind to predict the future.
It’s much better to admit: “What I’m really trying to decide is what will make me happy.” But the way to be happy is to be at a better state inside yourself. It’s not really about which way you go with this decision. Happiness is about “how can I find a more beautiful, peaceful, fulfilled state inside myself?”
Which leads to spirituality. If the state you’re looking for is inside yourself, what does it have to do with this decision? Whether you choose this or that isn’t really what’s going to make you happy. So work more on the inside, instead of trying to put the burden of happiness on your mind which thinks that some decision will decide the quality of your life. Because the truth of the matter is that the state of your being determines the quality of your life.
The state of your being determines the quality of your life.
Once you step back from being lost in the either/or dilemma, you realize you’ve put an unfair burden on your mind to determine the quality of your life. That causes you a lot of anxiety because your mind can’t predict the future. It’s only by coming back to that deep center of spiritual fulfillment, that you take the pressure off your mind to get it “right”.
Rather than asking: How can I make myself happy with this decision? Or How can I avoid my fears with this decision? Begin to ask: What is life inviting me to do? How do I cooperate with what seems to be unfolding in my life right now? How do I live out of that true center in me that resonates with what’s happening outside me? How can I tune in to a bigger plan?
Those questions require you to step away from the mindset that has you at the center, as if life (i.e. circumstances and people) should revolve around your way, your desires and your fears. Because the truth is, you’re not the center and life never seems to “get that.” Trying to make life adapt to your desires is trying to fight reality. That creates a lot of suffering.
Sanity is based on embracing reality as it is, not as you’d like it to be. Peace doesn’t come from making the right decision, but from accepting life on its terms, adapting to a plan you didn’t create. There is a purpose that transcends your life; a plan that includes your life in a much bigger reality. You were meant for this. You were created by a Transcendent Being who designed you perfectly to live your part and who set you down in this time and this place in order to live it. Your happiness depends on living in agreement with that reality and resonating with that truth.
You can’t do that so long as your perspective has you at the center. That is a fearful place to be. That mindset demands to know the unknowable, predict the unpredictable, and control the uncontrollable. Things only God can do. It takes the pressure off of you when you realize you can’t do that. You can’t be that. You’re free to be a mere mortal who listens every day for God’s transcendent invitation to live your part.
As Richard Rohr has written, “God comes to us disguised as our life”. * God shows up in your circumstances inviting you to connect with him, to lean into him and to trust his loving purposes. The One who made you and who designed your life plan invites you to know him and by knowing him to know your purpose. That connection gives your life joy and meaning that transcends your circumstances. It creates the perspective where your happiness depends not on making the “right” decision, but on saying yes to doing what you were put here for: Knowing God and enjoying him forever.
*Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs.
