What happens when you get what you want.

And the lesson it brings.

A question

Have you waited desperately for something and got it? How did that feel?

My story

If you’ve been reading my articles, you would have sensed that I was waiting for something :) Believe me, through this wait and the writing I’ve done to help and heal myself, I’ve learnt important lessons on trust, patience and surrender. So the wait was worth it. Read till the end to find out what it was!

I just got what I wanted. I got something that I was trying for more than a year. There were times when I was disappointed, times when I was frustrated, times when I was super sad and a couple times, when I even shed loads of tears.

A week back, I got it. It’s real!

I’m feeling happy, grateful and more abundant! I’m feeling a sense of relief and freedom.

But,

I’ve felt these feelings before. In fact, I usually feel these feelings.

And there was my epiphany, a wonderful realization.

Epiphany

Human mind is extremely fascinating. It plays tricks on us. It says, if only you get this, then you’ll be super happy, if you get that, then oh! it would be so perfect, if you get to go there, then wow! you’ll enjoy it so much, so on! And we get busy acting on the command of our minds and believing everything it says. If only I get this job, if only I get that house, if only I get to go to Hawaii for vacation, if only my body feels this way, if only my physical health is like that, if only I get this promotion, if only I get that title, if only I get this much amount of bank balance, and we go on and on and on. We start believing that we’ll be elated, we’ll be blissed out, we’ll be content, we’ll be happy, only if these circumstances become true.

But guess what! That's absolutely false! This is so not true.

Right now, as I write this, I’m feeling exactly how I was feeling a week before and the week before that, when I was simply appreciating the beauty of life and was present in the moment.

My circumstances have indeed changed but it has now become crystal clear that my state of being is independent of what goes on outside.

I’ve actually read this countless times and you might have as well. For the past several years, I’ve been reading a variety of spiritual texts, listening to the best spiritual teachers of our times and following their teachings, but I tell you, it’s one thing to be reading and listening and totally another experience to actually feel it in your bones. Maybe those years of working on my inner self are helping now.

Now the question becomes, if I can choose to be happy, grateful, content and appreciative, will I stop having desires and wanting other things and experiences?

Actually, it’s exactly the opposite. I still have a crazy list of things I want, experiences I want to have, things I want to do, with respect to my relationships, my career, my writing, my coaching and even my bank balance.

It’s simply becoming clearer and clearer that those things and desires are ways for me to express myself in this world and experience this world. And it’s so much fun to have beautiful relationships, a house that serves your needs, a job that gives you an opportunity to grow professionally, an ability to travel to different places, a fit body and even have loads of money! But their purpose is never to make me feel good, never to make me feel happy, never to make me feel content.

To feel happy, to feel content, and to feel really really good is always always my choice.

The invitation

I invite you to bring to your mind a recent accomplishment or something that you recently got that you really wanted. Notice how you felt after getting that. Bring to your mind the time when you were feeling exactly the same before this thing came to your life. And ask yourself, can this particular thing really sustain the level of joy, happiness and bliss you felt just after getting it?

I hope this sparks some questions within you and you question your mind in turn.

And here’s my news. I got a new job and also the visa approvals to be able to start working in a different organization. This was something I was desiring for quite some time now to advance my professional growth. Some days I was totally under the control of my mind that was telling me that I really need to have a new job to be happy and I was miserable. But the majority of the days thankfully I was my usual self. I was able to focus on what’s good in my life and things that I could do.

Our minds trick us. Our senses trick us. The purpose of life is maybe to start realizing when our minds are in control and start taking that control back.