6. "Better-when" is guaranteed suffering, no exceptions

A major source of stress for a lot of single people, especially older singles, is the gnawing longing for a partner. The fear is that time is running out for that hoped-for partner. You’re living in the “better when” syndrome. Of course that automatically says you’re not happy now.

Most of us have lived the “better when” belief all our lives. As a kid it was, When Christmas comes I’ll be happy. Later it was, when I have a girlfriend I’ll be happy. Or When I can drive, When I graduate, When I get married, When I get that raise and… well, you know the story. Happiness is never now. But I’ll be happy later. Somehow we haven’t noticed that “later” never comes, or comes for only very brief periods.

And now that we’re a little older we start to face the reality that there isn’t always going to be a better future as we knew it. We may not have a lot of time or energy to conquer the world as we always thought was possible. Worse, we begin to agonize over the thought that we may not have another partner either. And with that, real desperation sets in. We begin to feel the stress of trying frantically to win the love and approval of someone who will become our partner.

With all that fear and stress, however, where is happiness in life? It’s gone isn’t it? The focus is on the future, so the present is missed. And yet the present is the only moment we can ever live. There is no past or future, really. Past and future are only thoughts that occur right now. This is it – the only moment of livingness there can ever be.

But, you might be saying to yourself, I don’t want to live here in the present when my “present” isn’t very happy because I don’t have a partner. I need to use this present time to work toward finding a partner so I’ll have a better future. Let’s examine that a bit to see if it’s true. You can verify the truth for yourself with a few questions.

Can you know for certain that you’re supposed to have a partner now? What’s the reality, do you? And are you sure your effort to bring a partner into your life will bring results? Have they worked in the past? Finally, are you even really sure that having a partner would, in fact, make you happier?

If you’re honest you may answer no to those questions. You may realize you can’t really know for sure. When you look at your own life your efforts in the past often haven’t brought what you’d hoped for. Maybe you see that your dreams of happiness when you got what you wanted didn’t really bring the lasting happiness you thought it would.

Yet, how do you live when you hold onto your “happiness” beliefs and you don’t even know they’re true? Isn’t it usually painful when we live every day longing for a future that never comes? How would you live if you didn’t have that story running: “I need a partner.” If, instead, you simply saw that life at every moment is giving us exactly what we need, how might that feel? More peaceful? In fact, is there any good reason to hold onto your assumed ideas? Might there be a reason to let that idea, “I need a partner” just drop? The only cause of suffering is our thoughts. Maybe it’s worth examining them. Consider how peaceful you are in dreamless sleep. No thoughts, no suffering. In sleep you’ve surrendered your thoughts and ideas and just let the Universe run itself for eight hours. Maybe you want to consider that while you’re awake also, with the knowledge that the Universe is running your love life just like it's breathing you and beating your heart. It might even know better what you need than you do!