Perfect World Syndrome
A long time ago, I had a client who was constantly angry. She was quite wealthy, lived in a big house, drove a Porsche and had a family who loved her – but was constantly bitching about practically everything.
Each session would begin with a litany of complaints – her job, the way she was being treated by her family, the long wait times on the phone to the bank, the clothes she bought that didn’t quite fit, the traffic, the pollution, the floury apples in the green-grocer, the idiot government, the draconian local council … you get the idea. Everything made her angry.
‘It’s just unacceptable!’ was her catchcry.
And her problems with meditation were endless – she couldn’t sit still, her attention wouldn’t settle, her body was wracked with aches and pains, and so on – all listed in detail after each meditation. And, of course, she was also very forthright with her problems with me and my approach to teaching her. One day, she even took exception to the way I was dressed. Yet she kept coming back, (though I hoped she wouldn’t).
Until one day, after half the two-hour session had been wasted with her complaints, I’d finally had enough. I held up my hand for her to stop.
‘Can I ask a question?’ I said.
Sitting back, she prepared herself to listen, muttering, ‘of course,’ as if she’d been waiting for me to finally speak up.
I paused, then said, ‘You live in an imperfect world, so what do you expect?’
She frowned.
‘What do I expect?’
‘Yes … it’s an imperfect world, with imperfect people, and everything is changing and unpredictable because the entire universe is in a continuous process of entropy and degradation … and it’s been that way since the big bang … so what do you expect, other than for things to be wonky and imperfect and go wrong?’
‘That’s stupid,’ she retorted imperiously.
‘No … actually, it’s not,’ I said. ‘Everything you’ve been complaining about for the last month or so, has been predicated on an assumption that the world should be perfect … that everything should happen exactly as you want it to … when you want it to … but that’s not the world we live in. We don’t live in a perfect world.’
‘So you’re saying I should just accept that you’re a terrible meditation teacher?’ she said in a barbed tone.
‘Yes … if that’s the effect my work is having on you.’
‘… and you’re saying I should accept whatever is wrong, and just let it everything collapse around me!’
‘No, not at all … for sure, if you can change something for the better, then definitely take action. Do something about it. But most of what you are complaining about are things beyond your control. So your complaints just tie you up in knots and make you sick with anger. So I’m saying, change what you can, but whatever can’t change, let it go. What’s the point of being angry about everything?’
She went quiet – sat blinking and picking at her dress with her fingers. Then she picked up her handbag and walked out and I never saw her again.
‘Perfect world syndrome’ I call it – I suppose we all have it in varying degrees – the ridiculous expectation that things should always obey our expectations.
And after all, how could we not be this way?
Everything around us taunts us with how life could be if only … if only what? If only we were rich. If only we had that car, that smartphone, if only we were more beautiful, a better body, larger muscles, bigger breasts. If only we were famous – a celebrity. If only, if only, if only.
Our culture pushes us to constantly be looking to a distant horizon of impossible possibilities, while being blind to what we actually are, and where we actually are – the mind, body and place we’re actually in.
Advertisements capture our desires. News media feeds our outrage and anger. Social media makes us envious. Our entire zeitgeist is designed to keep us running for a perfect world which, if we can only get there, we’ll finally be relaxed, happy and healthy. Because in a perfect world we won’t be angry, envious, outraged or fearful anymore, because everything that’s wrong will be fixed and gone.
So what, you may ask, does this have to do with meditation?
Well, perfect world syndrome also exists with meditation practice.
As I’ve said many times in my posts, when we meditate, the central foundation we’re building our practice on is acceptance.
Profound and absolute acceptance is the key to everything we’re doing in our journey to stillness. Acceptance of whatever we’ve got in each moment – whatever is happening, whether it’s pain, restlessness or boredom, or the most sublime bliss we’ve ever known.
And just as we accept what is happening now, we also accept that in the very next moment it may disappear. Or get worse. Or change. The pain may disappear. The bliss may evaporate. The depression may turn to peace.
Anything can happen in life. So too, in meditation, anything can happen. The weather patterns of each are identical – unpredictable and largely uncontrollable. So all you can do is glide with the wind of constant change, clinging to the breath as life flows around you and within you.
And accept it all.
After all, until anything is accepted, it cannot be properly known.
And until something is properly known it cannot be changed, if that’s within our ability.
So if the breath is tight, then accept the tightness. Know it and it will change.
If the mind is drifting uncontrollably, accept that it’s happening. Know it, and you might find that in accepting it and knowing it fully, it might change. Or it might not.
If there’s aching, or pain in the body – accept it. It’s not permanent, and one thing is for sure – it will not change until it’s accepted.
But if you sit in the bubble of perfect world syndrome, wishing things were different and being frustrated and angry that they’re not – this will only cause a paralysis of the spirit that’s essentially anti-life. And stillness will, like a small bird avoiding a burning person, always evade you.
We’ve been born into a chaotic river of being that will never stop flowing. So all we can do is learn to flow with it.
And the irony is, in learning to flow with the chaos of life, though everything will always be unpredictable and wonky, we will be still.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
Roger’s book, ‘BEING STILL – MEDITATION THAT MAKES SENSE’ is available now. Just click on the links below:
AUDIOBOOK (including ebook & MP3 exercises) – AUD $25.00
…………………………………………………………………………………
