0 Reality and expectation

_23.7.2021_ People are always busy doing what they don't plan to do, keeping what they don't plan to keep. It's because they do not have peace of mind to do whatever they plan and just do it. There is always something else to do and to have. The mind is never quiet and contented. Buddhist calls this a monkey mind. The mind is always attracted to something new and different. It's wired to learn new things. I do not know a kid who is not curious about everything. It's very hard to focus and do what is important, because it wants to know everything. I want a clean and tidy room, the reality is far from it. I want to have rich life, the reality is often the opposite. All my wishes and desires come from the monkey mind. It's not satisfied with all it has. There is no limit to wishes and desires. This becomes serious problem for me. But lately I notice that my desires switched from physical pleasures to mental pleasures. It's not a total sudden switch, but a gradual and slow. I do not want to join rat race, I want to have slow-pace of life. Life is not a competition to collect toys. Those who die with more toys are the winners. Without the competition, life would be boring. The competition gives people energy and excitement for life. Both sides are okay. Some people want to be kings and some others want to be sages. It makes life complete and interesting. Nothing to worry about life. Life itself is suffering mostly, if you are willing to suffer, you can do anything. Things become tricky when people want to live freely without suffering. Life is simply choosing the consequences by choosing what to do. This is called karma, the action and the consequences are inseparable. Because people do not understand this concept they think it's cruel to live in poverty or sickness. Our condition is the consequences of our own actions and others and everything is interrelated inseparable. If you do not sweep the floor it will be dusty and then you say, "It’s not fair, who makes the floor dirty, it's not me, why should I clean it?" Everyone is the part of the universe. No one can live without bacteria or oxygen or water. Life is interdependence relationship with the universe. It's natural to live and die. But when the focus turns into the competition to collect toys or stuffs, it not natural anymore. Do we have real power to control everything? It's easier to destroy than to build. When people can destroy things, they think they have real power. Nature can build everything necessary to exist. People can create and build as well. The process of creating is often a cruel process, it also involves the process of destroying. No one can create something from nothing. We have to break an egg to create an omelet. To build a house we cut down trees. Every creation is the act of violence. Even just to keep living, we must eat another living being. It's the transfer of energy from one form to another. Reality as it is, we'll never be able to comprehend it. People can only see very little part of a reality, it's far from complete and comprehension. We do not have sufficient tools and processor to see the whole things. We hear small range of frequency, we see small range of colors spectrum, and there is no way to see the reality as it is. But that's enough. That's not the problem. When we know that we are ignorance to almost everything, we become wise. We won't have unrealistic expectation anymore. It's not easy to realize that we are ignorance and even harder to accept it. The gap between reality and expectation is knowledge. To know is to expect thing as it is, to expect the reality. It actually doesn't matter whether you are famous or not, whether you are successful or fail, whether you live long or short. It's just facticity. Happiness has no direct causal relationship with facticity. You can be happy even if you were born by or as devil. This reasoning is not the excuse to stay inactive and accept fate. One can always live the life he wants. This is the argument to live free life. Happiness is a decision you make no matter the facticity. Nature can cut you into pieces but it can't take your happiness from you if you decide to keep it no matter what. All kinds of evil things can happen to you but you still the one who can decide whether you will be happy or unhappy about what happened. There is no reason to stay in the job or in the relationship you hate. You are always free to make the decision, especially the decision to be happy or unhappy. Finally I believe that everything happens outside of your control. It has interrelation to each other in the universe and yet you can control one thing, your choice, your decision. If you decide to be happy person, no one can stop you. Maybe you friends deceived you, your spouse is unfaithful, you are ugly and poor, and so on. All those facticity has no direct causal to your decision whether to be happy or unhappy. Buddha said that life is suffering, it's true. It's the fact of natural law. To live we need to consume another living things, what a cruel law. Yet Buddha also said that there is no way to happiness, happiness is the way itself. You are there when you realize it that you are already there.