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2017 – your wish is your desire??
As we see one year out and welcome another one in, we may well be considering what’s going to help make it a happy one. Whether we’re lucky enough to be celebrating this weekend or not, it’s a whole 12 months we have ahead to wish for, not just the one night.
We all know that the society in which we live encourages consumerism – it feeds our desire through advertising and advocates a materialistic lifestyle that leads many into debt and suffering. Whilst there’s no harm in having beautiful possessions, if we don’t examine the true cause and effect of desire, we can never really find that all-elusive thing called inner peace or happiness.
Desire often functions to distract us from our underlying feelings of anxiety or even our existential fears. We may feel concerned about the meaning of life and what our purpose is, but because these thoughts are uncomfortable, we end up opting for retail therapy as a way of distracting ourselves.
Inner peace is the quiet, untroubled, spacious quality of mind that we all yearn for but rarely find in daily life. To some extent, this lack of peace and quiet reflects our modern culture where time has become an invaluably precious commodity. Do you find that you never seem to have enough time, and you generally spend your life rushing between work and home and then lurching from one social activity to the next? By the time, you fall into bed every night, you probably feel not only exhausted, but also in possession of a head full of racing or anxious thoughts.
For most people, more time is spent at work than in any other activity. If you’re lucky, you’ll love your job, but almost everyone finds work tiring and difficult at times. This then creates a desire to compensate yourself as much as possible when you’re not working or asleep. If you enjoy yourself by spending your hard-earned money in the endless pursuit of sensory gratification, this will simply create a karmic cycle of work and material consumption that is self-perpetuating, with one activity feeding the other. This leaves very little time to experience peace and quiet.
It’s so true what they say about happiness being found inside yourself – in your mind and within your feelings. Feeling calm and comfortable with yourself, and your situation in life, is the best foundation for happiness, however much or little it is you have in your life. External objects can only provide temporary gratification. The short-lived thrill of buying “stuff” is often confused with happiness, but no sooner have you bought the dress, had the holiday, downloaded the track, or drunk the champagne, then you start craving the next big thing of desire.
Whilst being driven in terms of showing ambition, setting goals and having aspirations have all been considered healthy qualities to possess, remaining endlessly caught up in desire itself does nothing to bring about a peace-filled, satisfied life.
So, perhaps this new year, as we see 2017 in, with all its uncertainties, it may be the very time for a whole new way of being – as well as doing and having – let’s earn, save, spend in equal measure and be very careful what we wish for!!
Live Long & Prosper – blessings to you all and here’s to love, peace and happiness throughout the entire universe!