Believe it or not...
where we live has great
impact on us and our program.
Recently I received an
email where the lady expressed a hatred for the house she lived in. She did not
go into detail as to why she hated it, but her letter reminded me of this old
post and how where we live can affect our recovery work. But by the same token,
irrespective of where we live, we will have no contentment or peace unless we
find it from within and not base our happiness on our house. I have also
received numerous emails from persons that find it hard to make basic living
expenses each month. Some of these persons might correct this budget problem
with a 'geographic' to an affordable city; others that are low functioning will
have the same problem no matter where they live. This post contrasts my old
lifestyle in terms of financial affordability as well as quality of life
between my old home in
"Finding
contentment in our present surroundings"
A fellow once asked on a list for advice on
how to become happy and content while he lived in a small apartment located in
the center of congested, stressful and unhealthy city. He wanted to divorce
himself from the notion that happiness should coincide with his living
conditions. I agreed with him that we can work on being happy and content
wherever we live irrespective of our surroundings. But I also had to say that
our surroundings can and do have an impact on us and we are not machines that
can turn off stress and problems that stem from our unhealthy living conditions
and be immune to it all. Yes, we can work on being at peace even if someone is
constantly stabbing a knife in our side, but such a practice takes all our
energy. This is why many a contemplative becomes a "renunciate"
and lives like a monk or a nun. They 'try' to remove much of life's worldly
irritants and distractions to focus on the spiritual path, so yes our
surroundings and lifestyle can matter to living a serene life. Although some renunciates find that this life is not all it is cracked up
to be and they still must deal with 'personalities'' unless they become a
hermit.
If
the person that sent in this question of "finding contentment where we are
at" was living in a healthier and less stressful part of town and had
basic living conditions, then if their lack of happiness was based on living in
a mansion or driving a Bentley, they haven't a leg to stand on as for not being
content. For when our basic needs are met - what is our excuse for not being
content? Are we stuck in a confused state of mixing up or wants with our
necessities to live? If so, there is no ending to our desires unless we put an
end to them ourselves - no one else can do this for us. Living on basis of such
unsatisfied desires is crippling to the addict. Here is what AA's 12 & 12
page 76 says about this topic -"The chief activator of our defects has
been a self-centered fear-primarily that we would lose something we already
possessed or would fail to get something we demanded. Living upon a basis of
unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and
frustrations. Therefore, no peace was to be had unless we could find a means of
reducing these demands."
Happiness
is such an illusive state of being in life because; "it is usually
dependent upon our outer circumstances of our life being in accord with the
fulfillment of our inner desires" as written by a famous Buddhist
practitioner who failed to heed his own advice and was found dead from drugs.
The basic necessities of living to Thoreau were food, shelter, fuel and clothes
and this presupposes we have the money to pay for such things. In these days I
might add transportation is a necessity for some. But if these basics are met
there is usually little else standing in our way to happiness and contentment.
Some with much less than these basics are content - so what is our excuse?
Greed is never satisfied by attainment. Once attained, the desire for more is
just raised to a higher level. This is how it worked with me. I always attained
my material goals and never came to a place of contentment but always raised
the bar for my supposed level of happiness. I was the only person that one day
could realize and say, "Yes, I have enough and can be content and happy
right now." If we base our happiness on what others have we will never run
out of "wants" as long as our inner self worth is based on the
externals of other people. I don't think this fellow that posed this question
was asking for anything outrageous, so sometimes we have justification in our
lack on contentment especially when it is a lack of contentment due to our
surroundings that are destroying our health and our peace.
The
answer to finding peace in the present moment is through change or acceptance.
Within this practice, 'generally' work to change first and accept later. As I
said above, "we can work on being at peace even if someone is constantly
stabbing a knife in our side, but such a practice takes all our energy."
So, if the solution to our problem would be to move away from the reach of it,
we can affect a change on our dilemma by our actions. Either way, the problem
can be solved by changing what needs to be changed or gratefully accepting that
no change can come about. From 1990 to 2001 I lived in a welfare area. During
most of that decade I had no peace. I was full of resentments, greed and envy.
One year prior to my moving to this welfare neighborhood my financial situation
was altogether different. Between my families finances and my own personal
finances I had access to almost a half million dollars in cash. But, through my
eight addictions I ended up squandering most of this money. After doing 9 years
of working meditation on the life I had created for myself and my family, one
day it all came together for me as to what had gone wrong and what needed to be
done to rectify my life. As I was up a ladder putting some ceiling molding in
place suddenly it hit me like the proverbial light bulb going off in my head. I
had finally learned to practice grateful acceptance and be content where I was
at and I set out to repair and restructure my life and make amends to my family
the best I could. I came down from the ladder, immediately quit that job and
never went back to it. The day of enlightenment had come for me, but not
without much pain on my part. As the
saying goes, "You cannot polish a diamond without friction."
I
had finally found peace right now and in my present state of being irrespective
of the fact that I was living in an area offering little peace and had little
hopes for moving to better surroundings since I had squandered so much money.
But, I accepted this was the path I had chosen and I would go on from here and
be content wherever I lived. I didn't put a hold on my peace, postponing it to
sometime in the future, but started to enjoy contentment right then. Little did I know that in a few short years I
would be where I live now, a very peace promoting environment and living in a
very nice house. (I don't know if it is too peace promoting for the neighbors
when I run my motocross bike around the house a few times when I get the urge!)
Such dramatic change in ones living conditions doesn't happen like this for everyone.
All we can do is to be Honest, Open and Willing to
change but practice grateful acceptance for living the best we can where we are
at by being mindful of our gratitude for our present state of being. Yes,
gratitude is very important for being content.
As Thoreau wrote: "I am grateful for what I am
and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how content one
can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence." When we can
wake up each morning in this state of gratitude - just for being alive - and
not have to put any conditions on our gratitude we have arrived.
If you are stuck with living in an expensive,
stressful and unhealthy city and all you an afford is basic and low level,
cramped accommodations, then this is something that cannot be changed and must
be worked on being "accepted" as the serenity prayer states. But,
such a person should also be on guard and do the footwork to reduce stress and
problems at every turn since their living conditions dishes out so much stress
to them for free. They would be well advised not to create more stress and
problems for themselves to heap onto the pile.
But, isn't this how the average addict is? They seem to work overtime to
develop more drama on a seemingly endless basis instead of restructuring their
life in a direction of peaceful and serene living and less drama. (If you
missed my 6 page post called Putting Peace First and want a copy write me.) We
can always get a quick snapshot of how our addiction work is going by asking
the question: "Is our addiction increasing, decreasing or frozen?"
The first step for many an addict is to freeze their addiction -for at least if
it stays frozen it wont get any worse. Then they can work on reducing it once
it is frozen and know that they never have to go back to the lows they once hit
- if they work a good recovery program. The first thing I had to learn was the
benefits of decreasing problems in my life. Once I realized this I got a taste
for the new life and changed direction completely from how I used to live. This
is enlightenment for the addict...when they see the new path clearly. But for
many a person they do not get to see the path until they cover the entire
distance of the road they must travel. It seems "normal" people do
not need to test boundaries of excess to find the truth. They must have a
natural ability to live balanced and know such things without developing great
pain to learn the lesson. For others including myself, they must take the
"road of excess and pain" to discover truth as William Blake wrote;
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
I'd
suggest a person stuck in a stressful environment get into Voluntary Simplicity
in addition to their recovery and spiritual programs as a further help with
avoiding new stress and problems. No, a geographic wont fix someone that has
not fixed themselves from the inside out, as Thoreau wrote in Walden, "I
say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new
wearer of clothes." But the wrong living conditions can end up undermining
the best recovery program if the person is not careful. If a person realizes
that their surroundings whether it be work, living conditions, a relationship
or things are not conducive to living a healthy and peaceful life, then they
can work in the direction of change. But, acceptance and releasing our work of
change to a God or Higher Power as to the outcome must be paramount or no peace
is to be had. Personally, I had to learn
to balance this question of being content where I was at. I came to realize
that I could not put my happiness and contentment in persons, places or things
but also had to understand that persons, places or things can destroy my peace
and undermine my recovery efforts as well. Over the last year I was offered
appearances on a couple of TV shows as a discussion guest on the subject of
addictions. One show was in NYC and both required flying to another city for
two days which the TV shows would have paid for as well as my accommodations. I
told both of them the same thing, if you want to interview me come to my house
and interview me here. The reason I refused them was not out of arrogance or
bloated self importance or even due to a busy schedule. I refused because it
just wasn't worth disrupting my peace to do what they asked - I put my peace
first. They declined to come to me and I declined to go to them and that was
how it ended up.
I
lived in
Without
good recovery our visions become hallucinations and many of my visions turned
into real nightmares. This is the main determining factor as to the outcome of
the famous "geographic" that stand in the way of the supposed
happiness of many an addict. Does the addict have the clarity and quality of
good recovery in ALL areas of addiction to see the move clearly enough to judge
chances of a good outcome correctly? Horace saw this same folly in men back in
ancient
Before
accepting my new way of life I had to hit bottom and though it took 9 years of
hell, the bottom eventually arrived. Without hitting bottom I did not have the
willingness to change directions to restructure my life. When a person hits
bottom it is easier to use the momentum of the "bounce" off the
bottom to help one in seeing a new way in another direction. The addict can
then see the benefits this new direction in life can yield, and this can be
helpful as a source of continued energy to help one to keep going down the
right path. This source of energy gave me the stamina to keep working for 8
long years that it took to get 98% decluttered from my starting point when
entering Clutterers Anonymous in 1996. Developing a good "Vipassana" practice of seeing things clearly was also
very important to me. This insight meditation practice that
stems from Buddhism deals with seeing things clearly in terms of impermanence,
suffering and non-self. Seeing things for what they are helps prevent
further uprising of new passions from ignorance. If you have trouble seeing
things for what they are, make use of your sponsor, spiritual advisor, the
list, the meeting or specialized groups such as PRG's to help you. We cannot be
experts at everything.
The
area we live in is very nice and bordered by OH, WV, PA and KY. Nothing flashy like
If
I took the proceeds from the sale of our house and decided to buy a house in
If
I moved back to
Whatever
it is - we must balance our comfortable earning abilities with our programs
needs otherwise our addictions will have the final say. Some addicts may have
luck with staying clean in one area, but due to living wrong they substitute
another addictive area to replace the first one. For some addicts this change
in living might mean scaling back from a large house to small one. Others go
from a 2 bedroom apartment to single apartment and others to a rooming house.
Some addicts may have to scale back little and just needed the tool of clarity
to straighten them out. Personally, I was in the scale back category and moved
cities and also had to go from 2 houses to 1 house to balance my comfortable
earning potential with my living conditions. I also had to scale back in many
other areas as well. There is no shame
in living within your abilities, only shame in destroying your life and others
lives by living outside your means. For misers and paupers (paupers that can
afford it) this direction may be opposite to the debtor and they might have to
expand their living conditions. We should not seek the highest or lowest life
but the most right life for each of us. Within this quest for
"rightness" also comes the affordability question. There are many
areas to balance when we seek the best solution to our needs. We would be
living a "forced" life otherwise if we paid no attention to our
abilities in life. As addicts we have to put special attention to not living
beyond our comfortable recovery program's means. Underearning is not the issue
as mistakenly thought of by some debtors. What is your UN-drugged and
UN-addicted earning potential? That is the real question. Not what does our ego
demand? That should be the last question on our list. What our program demands
for the UN-addicted life must be on top of this list. Once we determine our
UN-addicted earning potential then decisions can be made rationally. We can see
where we put our priorities from evaluating this question. Are we ego based in
our living decisions each day or are we recovery based?
Take
Care,
V (Male)
For free access to my earlier posts on voluntary simplicity, compulsive spending, debting, compulsive overeating and clutter write: vfr44@aol.com
Any opinion expressed here is that of my own and is not the opinion, recommendation or belief of any group or organization.
Tue, 27 Dec 2005