Settling for less, longing for more

Sometimes relationships keep existing because people have chosen to trade true happiness for comfortable numbness. I wonder how many folks get to ask themselves this: When in our lives do we reach the point of killing our dreams and settling for safety?

Call me a maximalist, but after years of trial and error I have come to believe what I held true when I was a crazy, unstable teenager. First, in matters of the heart there is no space for compromise; you either love or you don’t — screw the middle ground. Second, never trade your soul for what “they” say is right. Even if their advice is sensible, they aren’t the ones walking in your shoes, so they simply can’t know. Third, some chances come only once in a lifetime, so be ready to decide right there and then if you take it or leave it. Yes, we may regret the things we have done, but regretting the ones we couldn’t dare doing can be even more unbearable... And there is nothing more regrettable in life than not listening to your heart.

As the time goes by and I get older, I notice having less and less tolerance for doing things out of habit. This relates to relationships as well. Actually, relationships take the first place on my list.

Once in a while I stop in the midst of whatever is happening and ask myself:

“Do I really need this in my life? Does this teach me anything, help me grow, bring me happiness? Is this where my heart is? Can I afford investing my time and energy into this person, this relationship, this feeling?”

And if the answer is NO...

Then what is the point?

I’ve known couples who lived together and were happy for decades because they shared common interests. The loss of romantic attraction was just a minor detail to them since they matched in everything else. I’ve known couples who still had sex well into their sixties. I’ve also known those who stayed together for financial reasons, kids, businesses, and were just fine co-existing as relatives or roommates... But then there were those who psychologically tortured one another or felt dead on the inside YET couldn’t dare making drastic changes for the fear of... changes? — or maybe loneliness, the idea of which seemed scarier than that of sharing your personal space with someone totally alien to you.

I’m wondering if choosing something real always has to feel like we are balancing on the edge of the abyss. It might well depend on the level of recklessness of a person. One can throw his life into the fire, but the next moment he’ll rise even stronger... But the other may take years to get back on his feet. That’s why I can never give advice in blog posts like this one; I can only slightly touch upon different subjects and voice my own opinion or describe an experience that I have lived through.

I despise comfortable numbness. I don’t like existing in the authomated, programmed mode of a normal life where one has to settle for the familiar and the safe while the heart is dying for something truly alive, magnificent, and daring.

Every moment becomes a choice where things have to be put on the scale, and then I look (not with my eyes) and try to figure it out — by going silent and listening to my heart.

This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere, but one has a heart, and the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey — as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.

~ Carlos Castaneda

This works for everything, including us dealing with our fellow human beings. It happens so that relationships, friendships, team projects, and other spheres of reality where we exist in close contact with others normally comprise a huge part of our lives. Time, attention, energy — the three most valuable resources — are often spent amply when we are with people. And most of us are very careless about spending our own resources AND draining those of others. It becomes especially clear in habitual relationships that exist “just because” or for reasons other than true closeness and true love.

A path without a heart is a waste of one’s life-force, a resource way too valuable to just flush down the drain. A path without a heart is a dead one, that’s why so many end up simply existing and not living.

We live in the social world that conditions us to be scared of uncomfortable decisions and choices. Everything that is more ALIVE usually feels that way — uncomfortable, risky, even insane. That’s where our conditioning and our mind start screaming “Don’t do it, you are delusional, stay safe, stay sane.” That’s where most people are stopped and choose to stay put in whatever seems appropriate and normal (where the normal is dictated by a long list of what affects our Self and social persona, from religious upbringing to the books we’ve read and people we have been exposed to since birth).

A path without a heart is always LESS. Then why do we settle for it so often, and do so especially in the most crucial sphere of life — relationships, family, love?

To walk a path without a heart one must be either half-asleep or half-dead, or maybe deep into self-hatred and covert masochism.

There is always another way. The one that we are scared of, the one that seems too impossible, too wild. The one that makes you feel the butterflies and wake up in the morning LONGING for more — or even be unable to fall asleep! It’s the way opposed by the rational mind, by conservative beliefs, but a multitude of robust, stone-cold principles... And it will always seem scary because our mind gets scared of everything even slightly unfamiliar or “abnormal.”

The path with a heart isn’t stupid or careless either. Every time I make a choice I notice that it is NOT the synonym for mindlessness. On the contrary, mindfulness and clarity become keys to opening the door into this exiting and scary Unknown, to risk the safety of the settled habits, settled feelings, settled relationships, settled life... and the routine agony of slow, unnoticeable, settled dying.

Close your eyes. Breathe out. Feel what burdens you at the moment and what feels alien and dead in your life. Breathe in. Take a leap toward what feels more alive.

It might seem like it’s happening only in the mind, but it should also manifest in action: a very physical thing we do, like breaking from a draining relationship, moving to another city, starting a long desired hobby or a business, quitting a job, dropping fast-food, climbing a mountain, cleaning the cupboard, or saying “hi” to that girl you’ve been thinking about for months...

IT HAS TO HAPPEN — not tomorrow, not next Monday, not as a New Year resolution, but right here, right now.

Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path. A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.

~ Carlos Castaneda