86. Dating can hurt now as much as in your teen years … or you can see reality and date happily

Mature dating is really no different, when it comes to emotions, than dating at any other stage of life. You’ve probably noticed that if you’ve dated enough in these later years to have become emotionally involved with someone. It would seem strange to young people, but the joy and giddiness of your teen years doesn’t feel much different from similar feelings in these years.

Unfortunately, the same is true of pain. What squeezed your stomach into knots when you were in high school feels pretty much the same when you’re 52 or 67 or 84. (My dad remarried at 88 so I have first-hand knowledge that romantic feelings occur at any age. Talk to people who work in nursing homes and retirement centers.)

With a little maturity in life you’ve seen that all emotions come and go. The “…and go” part is the blessing of painful emotions. But often that gut-wrenching pain of disappointment or anguish doesn’t go fast enough. Minutes of empty loneliness feel like hours, and days seem like years. All there is, is pain it seems. Pain is everywhere you turn.

Fortunately, throughout history there have been Wise Ones who see life more clearly, and many in the past, and today, have been willing to pass on their wisdom. What they see and share is that living in the reality of life – seeing life as it is – takes most of the sting out of the suffering we feel. When there is pain it goes quite quickly.

These wise folks are like signposts, pointing the way to an ease of life we may never have known. They can’t take us there, just as no one can give you the taste of honey by talking about it. But they can show the way and tell us where to look so we can see life as it is. The way life is, is often different from the way we think it should be, and therein is the rub.

From the time we’re little we’ve picked up ideas of how life should be. Certain things are right and certain things are wrong. People should do some things and they shouldn’t do other things. Society, church, family and friends all reinforce these ideas. But they’re just ideas and beliefs. They don’t match reality. If we could have what we think is a perfect world we’d be happy, we think. But each of us has a different idea of perfection, and if everyone had the right to set up conditions the way they want can you imagine the chaos?

So it’s obvious that the way “we” think it should be isn’t realistic either. Then what is a view of life that can keep us happy and peaceful, and out of the pain? It turns out that seeing life just as it is, is the answer. You can’t really argue with what is can you? It already is, so apparently it’s supposed to be that way. I don’t mean “supposed to” in moral terms, but simply in terms of seeing things as they are.

That’s what awakened people and small babies do: They see life as it is, without thinking it should be different. They don’t try to change it or improve it or correct it in any way. “Well, so what?” you may be saying to yourself. “What’s this have to do with my dating?” It has everything to do with dating, and with all of life, actually.

Every single, tiny bit of our emotional suffering happens only when we think something should be different from the way it is. That’s kind of an alarming statement, I know. But wise teachings from every century and every part of the globe have all come down to the same thing. These people have all seen that life is just happening. It is the way it is. And it’s only when we think it should not be the way it is that we hurt.

Let’s cut to the quick, here, and look at this in a simple dating scene. It could go like this:
FACT: John stood me up.
THOUGHT: “He shouldn’t have done that.”
RESULT: Suffering.

This is the way most of the world sees life. We’ve been conditioned to just “know” that certain things shouldn’t happen and when they do it’s wrong.

From a clear, or enlightened perspective, however, the same scene would look like this:
FACT: John stood me up.
THOUGHT: “People do that sometimes in this life. John didn’t show up, so what interesting thing can I do now that I won’t be spending time with John?”
RESULT: Little or no suffering.

From those two hypothetical examples you can see that the only thing that changed was the thinking. When people see this they often say, “That’s too easy. You can’t eliminate suffering by just seeing life as it is.” But wait a minute. What caused the suffering in the first place? Wasn’t it the thought that “what is” shouldn’t be? The ego steps in, faces Infinite Wisdom, and says, “I know better.” Really?

Facts don’t hurt – ever! It’s only what we think about the facts that cause us to suffer. So doesn’t it make sense that seeing with some clear understanding of life as it is, can shift the feeling from suffering to peace?

What usually happens is that we feed energy to our mistaken beliefs (John shouldn’t have stood me up) and then we continue to expand on our own false ideas. We start adding stories and questions like “How could he when he seemed so nice?” “Maybe I’m just not a good judge of men.” “Did I say something that irritated him?” “I really liked him, and at my age I don’t expect to have many chances to meet men like him.” “This is probably the way my life is going to go; I may as well resign myself to just being alone the rest of my life.” We can add a million stories, every one of them prolonging our pain.

What’s true about all the stories, however, is that not one of them has anything to do with the fact that John stood you up. They’re just thoughts and they don’t affect the situation at all. Without all those thoughts you’re back to just the simple realization that John didn’t show up when he said he would. You have no idea why. Maybe you’ll check and find out he was sick, or in the hospital. Or maybe you’ll later learn he just doesn’t think you’re his type. Whether John is hospitalized or just doesn’t want to see you again, when you drop your stories and see reality as it is, you’re living in the natural state of just witnessing life rather than thinking you have the insight to know what’s best, or the ability to change things if you did.

Ask yourself, would accepting life as it is feel more peaceful and less stressful? Would dating be more fun and adventuresome if you didn’t take it personally and try to impose your ideas on “what is”?

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer