Been fishing? How's your catch?

There are a lot of birthdays coming up at this time of the year in my family. My son, nieces, nephew, sisters, friends…it’s a lovely time. Lots of cake, lots of celebrations and lots of presents. It's fun, love-filled, generous, (expensive) and celebratory. It makes me think about birthdays in general though, especially kids birthdays and how we traditionally stack up the presents and get them to open them at once. We teach our children through our own expressions that the true meaning of happiness is in the gifts they get. We show them by truly enjoying the anticipation on their sweet little faces as they rip the wrapping up. We show them our happiness at the surprise in their big eyes as they see what it is! Then we say things like “wow! You’re so lucky you got that gift! You have wanted it all year!” Although the novelty of the gift wears off for most kids within the first few hours after they have received it, us parents will soon forget our disappointment at this fact and do it all over again next year! What are we really teaching our kids?

We are teaching our kids that once a year on our birthdays (and sometimes at Christmas too), it’s time to cash-in on our collective catch for that year. Because all year, we have been fishing, and then we pause on our birthdays to see how we did. We work hard, study hard, behave well and so on, to earn (fishing) happiness. Then check in on our catch from the year on our birthdays and then when it’s over, we bait our hooks and re-cast our lines again, for the new year. That’s apparently how life works.

So, what are we really fishing for?

Happiness, fulfilment, satisfaction, peace.

What's the catch?

Stuff - material (presents, money, promotions) and immaterial (compliments, acknowledgements, attention)

What's the bait?

Desire.

The ‘Desire Hook’ is thought to be the most effective bait to ensure we get exactly what we are fishing for. When we want something SO bad, we perceive our level of happiness, fulfilment, satisfaction will be incredibly high when we get it. This isn’t really true.

When you think back to moments in your life when you wanted for something - can you recall how satisfied you were after you got it? You probably couldn't wait for it and probably got excited every time that you thought about having it.  But when you got what it is that you wanted, how long did that satisfied feeling last? Can you recall how long before you were taken by something else you wanted? When you hook this Desire onto the end of your fishing line and cast it to catch things in the hopes of drawing in some satisfaction, how successful was it? How many times did it miss?  

Want to know the real truth about desires? It has been written that the sense of happiness that you think you get from getting that thing, doesn't actually come from that thing at all! That feeling of happiness or satisfaction is separate to the fruition of your material or emotional desires. These feelings are actually a result of you letting go of the wanting for these things. It is really, you letting yourself off the Desire Hook for a moment. 

Let's just pause and zoom in on this process for a minute. Although we think that it is that extra slice of birthday cake that makes us happy and although it is probably delicious, the happiness doesn't come from the piece of cake. The happiness comes from not wanting the cake any more. When you get the slice of cake on your plate and you are about to dig into it, or even after that first bite, in a split second, you have let go of the wanting for it. This letting go brings you the happiness. So the cake doesn't make you happy, you letting go of desiring it makes you happy.  

If we take this concept and apply it to our entire life, we can separate our 'being' from our 'having'. Regardless of what we have, it does not effect our state of being. Our happiness does not depend on what we get throughout or at the end of the year. That satisfaction comes from letting go of the desire. This also applies to not having. Our being does not depend on what we do not have - not having that house by the water or not having that certain lifestyle does not make us less of a human being. If we are not driven by our desires and driven by our sense of being, then we will have everything we work towards through this authenticity. 

“True happiness does not come from getting what you desire. It comes in the split second just before you get it, the small moment when you have released yourself from the desire.”

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