“There is yet another illusion, that it is important to be respectable, to be loved and appreciated, to be important. Many say we have a natural urge to be loved and appreciated, to belong. That’s false. Drop this illusion and you will find happiness. We have a natural urge to be free, a natural urge to love, but not to be loved…” ~ Anthony de Mello
May our recent Sunday afternoon/evening moment of calm and tranquility find furtherance in this post. Here are more words from Anthony de Mello and his book/talk on awareness, and these are pretty important ones. They shift a fundamental dynamic that has driven the way I viewed and interacted with the world, and especially with the people around me. Had I realized and understood this a bit better when I was younger, many years of heartbreak, heartache, and general heart wariness could have been avoided. Luckily, it’s never too late to learn, and it’s never to late to find freedom. Sometimes, finding it at this late stage of the game is even sweeter. There is an extra aspect of joy in unexpected delight.
When I think back to previous relationships I’ve had – not only romantic ones but friendships and family connections as well, not to mention long-ago iterations of marriage too – I marvel at how so much of what felt or seemed wrong was in my own perception of various situations. We want to attribute our own failings and strengths to those around us, perpetuating a cycle of reflection and warped refraction that doesn’t truly aid in connecting to anyone. And it certainly never helped to find and discover an un-obscured view of oneself. But that was then. I did the best I could do. Embracing illusions and delusions, I didn’t set out to hurt anyone, though the weirdly indulgent masochistic part of me may have welcomed some degree of hurt to myself. I thought suffering in some way made people better. Stronger. More vulnerable and therefore more appealing. I lived inside my head to kill it dead.
These days I can look at that mindset and its subsequent behavior with a bit of a chuckle. It’s best to laugh at one’s mistakes, after you have learned from them. It’s another part in breaking down a perfectionist’s need to be perfect. A laugh or a chuckle doesn’t always indicate judgment or derision – in fact, I can genuinely report that my laughter is usually not derisive, even though everyone gleans it as such. I laugh for joy – the enjoyment of all our imperfections, the enjoyment of the ridiculousness that I might not like your outfit or hair, the enjoyment of the insanity and inanity of me thinking I have any right to impress my taste on anyone else – I was, I am, and I shall remain an ass for my time on this earth! (And really, when are you going to do something about that hideous blouse?)
“When you finally awake, you don’t try to make good things happen; they just happen. You understand suddenly that everything that happens to you is good. Think of some people you’re living with whom you want to change. You find them moody, inconsiderate, unreliable, treacherous, or whatever. But when you are different, they’ll be different. That’s an infallible and miraculous cure. The day you are different, they will become different. And you will see them differently, too. Someone who seemed terrifying will now seem frightened. Someone who seemed rude will seem frightened. All of a sudden, no one has the power to hurt you anymore.” ~ Anthony de Mello
{See also Awakening to Awareness: Part One and Part Two.}
