250. You can be happy, but it won’t come from finding a partner, strange as that seems

Nearly everyone dating in these mature years is dating with a goal. We want to find a partner. But that’s really a middle goal. The ultimate goal is the same as the goal for virtually any activity we pursue: We want to be happy, or at least happier. So if the final goal is to be happy why not just skip the middleman – getting a partner – and go for happiness? That sounds kind of nuts doesn’t it? But if we examine it a little closer it may not sound so crazy.

What is happiness? Is it really getting something we want, whether it’s a partner, a new car or that next cruise? No, we can see that that’s not true. If getting something made us happy we’d be happy forever once we had that thing – a partner or a new car, for instance. But are we? No. After awhile we’re on the search once more for some other thing to make us happy.

And while we’re searching we’re not happy. Oh sure, some people say they find a lot of joy while they’re working toward something. But we’d have to say, if we’re totally honest, that the nagging feeling of wanting and not feeling quite completely fulfilled isn’t what we’d call happiness.

Since we’ve temporarily eliminated a partner as our source of happiness where do we go to find the happiness we want? We thought finding something new would be it, but we’ve just looked and noticed that’s not true at all. So what is happiness? Well, ancient and current people who have really examined and investigated life have noticed something interesting. Happiness isn’t getting something, even though we do feel happy when we’ve gotten it and it feels like that thing or person is the source of our happiness.

Actually, a closer look reveals that it’s not the object we’ve gotten but the lack of that nagging, striving, seeking desire for a short time that is the real source of happiness. When there’s no desire for something to be different the mind is peaceful. It can be present with simply what is and that feels happy. In sleep, for instance, happiness and peace is always there because there’s no nagging thought of what should or ought to be, or what we want to be different from what we have.

Even during waking hours we all have those moments when we’re totally peaceful and happy. Those times usually occur when we’re so totally engaged with something, whether it’s a project we’re working on or watching a gorgeous sunrise over a lake, that we’re just “lost” as we sometimes call it.

Another point: We tend to think that happiness comes from the object of our desire. A car is a good example. Does that metal and glass and rubber really make happiness? For a person dying of cancer giving them a new car wouldn’t mean a thing. So it’s the subject, not the object, that provides the happiness.

As one well-known East Indian sage, the late H.W.L. Poonja put it, “To have true peace you have to be alone, separated from everything you enjoy and love as separate objects. This bliss, the bliss that does not depend on enjoying an object or an experience is imperishable, permanent. No matter what else is destroyed this will remain. Nobody knows where this happiness is because everyone is looking for it in the wrong place.”

So, how does this apply to mature dating? It simply means that if we live in our natural state of being, that state before thoughts and desires, we’re simply being in life. If your natural impulse is to date you’ll find yourself dating. But you won’t be dating with a goal, with that stress and pressure of making your life work in some way you don’t even know is best for you, really. Instead, you’ll just date for the fun of being with someone in the present, with no futurizing.

Having a partner may or may not happen. But why be miserable while you wait for something that may never be when you can be happy in the whole process of dating and living now? Then we just let the unfolding of the universe take us where it wants, which is what it’s going to do with or without our hopes and nagging, pressure-filled desires.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer