New Year, New You?

So here we are, nearly a month into 2014: raise your hand if you’re still enthusiastically pursuing your New Year’s resolutions? Raise your hand if you still remember what they were?

The calendar switchover naturally gives us an excuse to revamp our lives, and the frustrations in the Christmas aftermath fuel our determinations.

Generally the resolutions we make are based on our health, physical or mental, especially in light of holiday excesses and emotions.

It’s the underlying goal of every human to maximise happiness and minimise distress, so naturally any changes we aim to sustain are made with those motives in mind.

If we can project forward to the moment when we achieve the fruit of our labour, and we are honest, we can see that we will remain unsatisfied. Our standards for x thing keep moving up beyond our reach, and if somehow we accomplish x we then look to y and then to z for the contentment we crave.

The ultimate resolution we could make is one that would lead us to ultimate happiness, which is ultimately what we really want. We may not believe in or expect it, but ask anyone if they actively want suffering and few will volunteer.

Due to the imperfect world we inhabit, and the disappointments we have experienced within it, we have collectively lowered our expectations in life. We thus align our whole philosophy to suit: suffering is just a part of life, we have to be realistic, there must be the bad to appreciate the good.

Through this dropping of the bar (or “expectation management” as I’ve heard it proclaimed), we actually rob ourselves of the possibility of more.

Spirituality knowledge provides a framework that challenges our oft mindless acceptance of the status quo in this world. It provides Absolutes in a world of relatives and promises us everlasting pleasure in a world of ever-changing polarities.

It is egocentric of us to dismiss such perfection on the grounds that we have never experienced or witnessed it in our short time on this Earth. Does a country only exist when we go there?

The desire we all share, whatever or however we try to fulfill it, is in itself a hint that lasting happiness is possible. Especially in the light of spiritual knowledge, which explains this as our true self’s innate nature.

But to admit that our attempts to fulfill such desire are not working, the tiny sliver of doubt that maybe (just maybe) we don’t know the formula for how to achieve that happiness – through that humble crack in our everyday “yes-I’m-fine-thank-you” mask shines the ray of possibility to discover our deepest potential.

If we are so convinced that we know something how can we ever learn?

As Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”, we keep trying our luck with material reshuffles based on the temporary and expect permanent happiness.

The remedy to regain our sanity, in the form of pure spiritual knowledge, is transmitted by those who know to those who will listen.

So the real question is: though we may try so hard for change, do we want it enough to try something new? We may want different output, but are we ready to change the input?

 

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