"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure mind like a shadow"
It almost never happens, that you reach for something you really want and it’s there, for the taking. Happy to be taken. It’s much more common to reach and find out it’s not there, or that it isn’t what you thought it was, or that it’s there but doesn’t want you to reach for it or…any other possibility that means you can’t have it. And people live with this, they have to. And they become afraid of getting their hopes up because they have been disappointed so often or not but just know that statistically speaking it’s so much more likely that they will be unhappy than happy. That they will reach and not get.
And they deal with this in different ways, most people just focus their desire in realistic achievable goals.
Other people insist on holding on to their ideals and they keep trying, head-on, they keep getting their hopes up and often are disappointed but they insist there’s something worthy of their hopes out there. For some it’s just one thing, for others a different one every week. Some run out; of hope, of things, but they can’t take it like the people who have been rationing hope all their lives, they can’t just switch it off. When they run out they actually run out, they break. Sometimes it’s just a tiny crack and they can cover it up, wake up the next morning or the next month and keep going with hopefulness, a little less full, but still bright. Sometimes when they break there’s only pieces to pick up and if they manage to make something new out of them it’s someone very different, someone very cautious of hope.
And then there’s people like you, that for some reason, fate or their looks or their parents or their intelligence; But fate, really, a random thing, are allowed to have what they reach for, most of the time if not always. And when it’s you who life disappoints you feel this much more intensely, naturally, because it’s new and unexpected and you feel as if someone’s changed the rules you have been living by. And you react in ways, in desperate, passionate, uncontrolled ways in which normal people don’t react past the age of five. Not because you’re a worse person than they are but because you have not been trained for this, you weren’t taught how to bear not getting what you wanted.
No. There are not people who go through life without ever being disappointed. The ones who think they never have been and are past the age of ten are lying to themselves. Wilfully blind to what wasn’t what they wished or making themselves want what they got instead of what they really wanted.
That’s why you are here. If I don’t want it to break you to smithereens then I have to break you a little bit, to make you realise hope must be balanced out. That wanting something doesn’t make it yours. That pain doesn’t excuse injustice. I'm not going to break you because I want you to be unhappy, although you will be, but because I want you to learn how to survive being unhappy. To understand the difference within discomfort and dispair. Within pleasure and happiness. You can't live without the opposites, you can't live without balance. You really can't, you will fall over if you try. I don't want you to fall over, not ever, not outside this room. Not where I can't break your fall.
And they deal with this in different ways, most people just focus their desire in realistic achievable goals.
Other people insist on holding on to their ideals and they keep trying, head-on, they keep getting their hopes up and often are disappointed but they insist there’s something worthy of their hopes out there. For some it’s just one thing, for others a different one every week. Some run out; of hope, of things, but they can’t take it like the people who have been rationing hope all their lives, they can’t just switch it off. When they run out they actually run out, they break. Sometimes it’s just a tiny crack and they can cover it up, wake up the next morning or the next month and keep going with hopefulness, a little less full, but still bright. Sometimes when they break there’s only pieces to pick up and if they manage to make something new out of them it’s someone very different, someone very cautious of hope.
And then there’s people like you, that for some reason, fate or their looks or their parents or their intelligence; But fate, really, a random thing, are allowed to have what they reach for, most of the time if not always. And when it’s you who life disappoints you feel this much more intensely, naturally, because it’s new and unexpected and you feel as if someone’s changed the rules you have been living by. And you react in ways, in desperate, passionate, uncontrolled ways in which normal people don’t react past the age of five. Not because you’re a worse person than they are but because you have not been trained for this, you weren’t taught how to bear not getting what you wanted.
No. There are not people who go through life without ever being disappointed. The ones who think they never have been and are past the age of ten are lying to themselves. Wilfully blind to what wasn’t what they wished or making themselves want what they got instead of what they really wanted.
That’s why you are here. If I don’t want it to break you to smithereens then I have to break you a little bit, to make you realise hope must be balanced out. That wanting something doesn’t make it yours. That pain doesn’t excuse injustice. I'm not going to break you because I want you to be unhappy, although you will be, but because I want you to learn how to survive being unhappy. To understand the difference within discomfort and dispair. Within pleasure and happiness. You can't live without the opposites, you can't live without balance. You really can't, you will fall over if you try. I don't want you to fall over, not ever, not outside this room. Not where I can't break your fall.