Life is not fair. Period.
We are never in a position when we see the entire picture of what we are doing. Yes, we think we can see the whole picture, we think we've got it all under control, we think we are error-proof. Life, though, does not work in black and white. There is a whole big area which we do not even know that interplays between the black and the white. That is why, since we only have the moment we are in just now, we need to concentrate on this and on this only. The rest unfolds on how we play out each moment.
Life is perfectly imperfect, so wanting everything to be just so or just perfect is setting ourselves up for definite hurt. And once this sets in, then the whole of us crumbles.
There is no situation or place that is called Happiness. How we feel in all those imperfect moments is what we need to see - Do we accept the setback, knowing it is only temporary, and work around it? Do we hang on to the good when it happens convincing ourselves that life is going to be 'happily ever after' from now on? Are we forgetting that 'happily ever after' is just a delusion, and we are once again opening ourselves to hurt? OR, do we look at the imperfection that has happened and move on...change direction...change course...look at another point of view...open our mind to other possibilities...just accept that what we had planned got hijacked by life and we need to make alterations...there's really no point getting into a tizzy and making things worse...
Instead of taking each moment as it happens, have we put ourselves on a treadmill? And, incidentally, who does the treadmill tire out? Just us! No one else.
By all means make to-do lists, but don't bind your life by the list. Know that anything can change in an instant. Accepting this, makes it easier when something on the to-do list doesn't happen.
Question: Am I on a mission to be the best I can be? Have I planned that my life is going to be happy, and I will have the perfect house, family, partner, and job?
Question: Have I placed high expectations on myself?
Question: Am I looking at others around me and measuring myself against them? Thinking I've fallen short? Remember when we look at a person, we are only seeing one part of the person - we are not seeing what makes that person tick...or the failures, the sorrows, the high points or low points, nothing....we are just seeing the side that is presented to us.
Question: Am I clinging on to the painful moments? Or, am I clinging on to happy moments thinking that this is how it was, how I was, and why have things changed? Or, am I clinging on to happy moments hoping they will not pass? If I don't let go of these, where is the place for other moments that are happening and which I need to embrace and deal with?
Question: Do I get into blame games with my colleagues, life, job, environment.....everything that I feel is getting in the way of my bucket list, or to-do list, or happiness profile?
Question: Am I measuring my life and all that I do-say-think-feel by some standards that I imagine are THE standards of life? Because there are no THE standard of life..... Life itself is constantly in a state of change and flux....so how can there be one standard? If there were just one standard, then we would have seen it in Nature, of which we are a part....and Nature is constantly changing from breath to breath.....
Question: Am I always on the 'I have to prove myself' trip? I have to prove myself or I won't be accepted here or there....I have to prove myself or I will be unloved....I have to prove myself or my boss will pass over me.... In all this proving myself, I am sure to forget who I am.
Life is a process...and we are all, as Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert asserts, 'works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.'