283. What happens in mature dating is never painful except for our thoughts about it

All the heartache, disappointment, despair, loneliness and pain of mature dating comes and goes, have you noticed? Even in the midst of deep hurt there are moments of no hurt at all, such as when you stub your toe and your thoughts instantly go to that physical pain. Meanwhile your heartache just disappears – poof!

Where does it go? Was it real? Or was all that hurt just a thought? Since it can disappear in an instant what could the pain be except a fleeting thought? That’s why it makes sense to question thoughts and beliefs. While we hold a thought it feels physically real. Let’s say Ron’s thought is, “I want Adele to love me.” The more that thought is nurtured and fed the more Ron hurts.

But is it true that Adele should love Ron? Can he positively know that would be best for him? With that thought he’s in a world of hurt. Without it he’s just living life and watching things happen. When he doesn’t know for sure what should happen he’s open to what is. And with his focus off the thought what happens to the pain? It disappears in the simple awareness that Ron’s strongly held belief may not be true.

Thoughts seem to have great power to create pain for us. But in actuality they have no power at all because there’s nothing real about them. Thoughts are as fleeting as a lightning flash and as real as a shadow. Meanwhile, every moment a painful thought-illusion occupies us we’re not only hurting but we’re missing the only living there ever is, the life that happens in the present. And that present-moment life is not suffering at all.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

279. Living in our make-believe world makes for a lot of suffering in dating

Most of the time we live in an unreal, make-believe, invisible world – a lie of our own creation. We wake in the morning and create our world out of our thoughts and beliefs. Here’s what I mean. Louise has been dating a guy and suddenly, without warning, he says he wants to date someone else. She’s crushed, and agonizes for months over what went wrong and why he isn’t with her any longer.

Marie has the same experience. She’s been dating a guy and without warning he tells her he’s ending the relationship. Marie, however, sees the reality of life and knows to just witness it as it is. If she has doubts or sadness she questions herself to see if it’s true that the relationship should have turned out the way she expected or hoped, instead of the way it did. With some clarity she sees that she doesn’t know the big picture and she can’t be positive that this relationship should have continued.

In fact, she can be positive that it should not have continued… because it didn’t. Living life without emotional suffering is seeing that life is just the way it is. Suffering would only occur for Marie if she thought it should be her way rather than the way it is. She would have to think that she has a voice in the matter, when in fact she’s simply being lived, as is everything else.

Once she realizes life happens the way it happens she can easily take it in stride and simply enjoy the next experience, the one that always replaces whatever disappears. This is clarity, peace and happiness. And it all comes from questioning our beliefs and seeing reality as it actually is. All our stories then end and all the suffering is gone without a story.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

277. If you stop judging you stop hurting and mature dating is then a fun adventure

All the pain in mature dating comes from one thing and one thing only – what we think about what’s happening. A happening itself doesn’t cause pain. It’s only when we think it shouldn’t be happening or it should be happening differently that we suffer. Whenever you find yourself thinking or saying words like “should”, “ought”, “right”, “wrong”, “good”, “bad”, etc. you know you’re judging. It’s all about thinking we’re right and the situation or other person is wrong.

The job of the mind is to prove it’s right. So it judges and compares and pits this thing against another thing. The Tao Te Ching, that ancient Chinese spiritual text, says, “When people see some things as good, other things become bad.” When you think someone’s words or behavior is bad you’re not open to see the good that can come from it. We seem to think that from our limited human perspective we can assess and judge what that Infinite wisdom is showing us.

Once we question our thoughts, however, we may see that what we think is wrong and bad is just something we’re not clear about. For example, let’s make up a story about Mary. Mary’s relationship ends and her friends and family are happy because they could see this wasn’t the right guy for her. But Mary didn’t choose to end the relationship and she’s heart-broken, only to realize months later that her friends and family had more clarity than she did. Now she’s glad things didn’t go her way after all. If she hadn't believed her thoughts that the relationship shouldn't have ended she wouldn't have suffered in the first place. Instead, she'd have been able to acknowledge the change in her life and simply watch the next thing show up, whatever it might be.

Believing our thoughts without question is a recipe for pain. Questioning shows us that reality is the way of life and maybe we really don’t have the “right” answers after all. Without our right/wrong thoughts and beliefs we’re left with seeing life as it is. And “as it is” is just life spreading itself out before us moment by moment, full of interesting surprises and miracles if we’re willing to see them.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

276. Was it true that sex too soon ended her relationship?

For many of us there’s a lot of stress in dating. In many cases it’s a new experience after being married or with a partner for years. Something has happened – death, divorce – and you’re single again. And now you’re in your 50s, 60s, 70s or more. You want to find a partner. You don’t want to live life without companionship, love and warmth. That’s a strong desire for you, especially now that you’re older.

Sad to say, that very desire is the beginning of a lot of trouble because we can easily think we have to be something special to be wanted or loved again. So, almost without realizing it, we begin to play the game of “make-believe”. We become inauthentic, trying to be someone we think is more acceptable. When we’re with a date we agree with things that in our hearts we don’t believe. We do things we don’t really feel is true to ourselves because we want love and approval. We’re trying to impress.

Reality, however, is that we are who we are. Each of us is given different personalities, different talents, different interests. We don’t have to try to be something we’re not. Acting is so stressful compared to “being”. “Being” is simply moving through life without effort, spontaneously, naturally, authentically – and happily.

Some years ago I met a woman who told me her story about a past relationship that ended. It was painful to her for a long time and she naturally questioned why it may have happened. What she concluded was that she got into a sexual relationship with this man too soon. “If only I had waited then probably this relationship wouldn’t have ended,” she said.

But since she was willing to explore the reality of those painful thoughts she realized, with some questioning, that she couldn’t know that her beliefs were true. In fact, she realized that the relationship ended not a moment too soon or too late. How did she know? She looked at reality and saw what happened. It’s like seeing that it’s raining outside. You know it should be raining because it is. You know anything should have happened because it did. Thoughts about it won’t change a thing. What is, is.

When we think we have to control how a relationship goes by being phony and false we’re living in a dream world. If a relationship ends it was supposed to end. If it continues that was meant to be. We can stop trying to be the “right person” for that wonderful man or woman we think we need in our lives. With some questioning we can even see that we obviously don’t need a relationship when we don’t have one. We think the right relationship would make us happy but can we know? Doesn’t that infinite, intelligence-energy that expresses as the universe seem to know what it’s doing? We could just trust life, live honestly and authentically, and be happy and relaxed in our dating. The ease of that is what I call dating fun.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

275. You can end stomach-churning suffering that often comes with mature dating

Thinking of writing a book some day, I started taking notes about mature dating some years ago when I realized how much unnecessary pain and confusion I saw in people my age when it came to dating. The disappointment and heartache, in both men and women, is so obvious in dating because those feelings are so emotionally acute and penetrating. The feelings are often knifelike as they stab deep into our guts.

What I had realized by then was that these feelings are always self-created, though we do that innocently. We don’t realize that we create our own world each minute. In dreamless sleep there is no world and no stress or suffering. It’s only when we wake up and say “I” that we suffer. The mind is endless in its capacity to create huge dramas out of passing thoughts. All based on that little one-letter word, “I”.

But when we question our untrue thoughts the stress and suffering they’ve created disappears because there was no reality behind those thoughts. It’s like the turmoil we create for ourselves by worrying about something that never happens. You’ve done it. You know what I’m talking about. Your worry was all a mind game, but what a drama! And what pain that false drama created.

The movies we create are endless when we don’t stop to question thoughts. Are these thoughts true? In dating can we really know what someone thinks or what they mean by their words or why they do or don’t do something? Can you really know your date or partner should do or not do what you think? Are you sure you know what’s best for you in the long run? Can you be positively sure? Does your own history show you’ve been right in the past?

Thoughts are nothing more than a game the mind plays to keep itself alive and entertained. Meanwhile, life – reality, what is – goes on as it does, with or without our opinions or approval. We don’t need to figure it out. We don’t need to know the future, or why something happened in the past. We can live in not-knowing and be contentedly happy, watching life blossom and unfold in new surprises every moment. This is peace. This is the end of stomach-churning suffering.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

263. Loneliness doesn’t exist except as a thought we believe in

Single seniors and mature men and women often feel lonely. It feels like we’re lonely because we have no partner in our lives. We think if the external world would change and give us a partner we wouldn’t need to feel lonely any more. But the external world is all our own projection. It’s like a mirror. You can’t look into a mirror without seeing your own reflection. It’s impossible.

In exactly the same way you can’t look into the world without seeing your own reflection because you project onto the world what your thoughts are about it. Two people can listen to the same music and one likes it, the other dislikes it. Obviously the music was just a fact. Our perception and projection is what makes it good or bad for us.

Back to loneliness, if we think we should be with someone we’re lonely. If we don’t think that’s necessary we’re not lonely. It’s all about believing our thoughts, and that’s where inquiry comes in. When you look at reality you see that you don’t have a partner. Should you? Do you know more than God? Obviously right now you don’t need a partner or you’d have one. Are you absolutely sure you should have a partner and that you wouldn’t be lonely if you did? In my first marriage I was lonely, and I’m not the only one who has experienced loneliness while having a partner.

There are more than six billion people on this planet. Is loneliness really a problem or is it just thinking that’s the problem? You can argue with “what is” but you can’t win. You can’t even be sure you’d be better off if you did win!

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

262. This one, primary desire is the heart of all suffering – in dating and in life

When you’re seeking a mate, and dating, you know before you start that there’s a risk involved. The risk is that you could wind up with a broken heart. We want not to be hurt. But the primary desire everyone has – the desire that causes all the psychological suffering there ever was or could be – is the desire to have the world be the way we want it to be rather than simply seeing it the way it is.

You don’t need to ponder this idea and wonder if you could believe it or not. All you have to do is look at your own direct experience. Isn’t it true that every time you hurt emotionally it’s because you think something or someone should be different? Judgment is another word for it. We judge – this is wrong, this is bad, this shouldn’t be. Without judging where can suffering exist? It can’t.

So the question is how you get rid of that primary desire to have the world be the way you want it rather than the way it is. If we narrow our focus down to mature dating we’ve all been around long enough to see that what was a broken heart often turned out to be a blessing in disguise. What we knew with certainty at that time, we later realized we didn’t know at all. Wiping out emotional suffering is always a matter of questioning: Do we really know it shouldn’t be the way it is? Could we just allow ourselves to watch life rather than think we should run it?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

256. There’s one thing in your life that will make dating peaceful and happy always

Everything in the life we know is transitory, changing. We search for new experiences, new sensations, new objects, new loves – anything we think will make our lives happy. Yet every single time they fall short because every experience of happiness leaves us sooner or later, and it’s usually sooner. When it goes we’re back to the search again.

Psychologists tell us there are people who are addicted to romance, or to sex. They find a new romantic partner and in that first blush of romance they’re thrilled. But then the rose fades and they’re disappointed. So they’re off for a new romance. It’s a constant circle of win and lose for them. Relationships with any object, whether it’s a new plasma TV, a new car or a new partner, will always leave us wanting. The thrill is short-lived and transient. Nearly everyone on earth lives their whole lives on this wheel of win/lose, then win and lose again. We strive for something, get it, and then lose the joy it temporarily brought.

There’s good news, however, and it applies directly to dating. The good news is that there’s one thing in your life that has never changed and is always peaceful and happy because it doesn’t take us out on a search again. That one thing is awareness or what we could call presence. You have a sense of being present. You know you exist. That knowing you exist isn’t a thought or belief. You don’t have to think if someone says, “Do you know you are?” Through all the changes in your life – the physical, emotional, mental, and experiential changes – that sense of being, that knowing that we’re present, has never changed. It’s never been affected by any circumstance or experience.

That sense of being or simple awareness is who we all are. No one could say “I’m not” because even to say the words you’d have to “be”. But when we learned the idea that we’re a separate person who has control in life, that’s when our troubles began. “Being” just watches life without judgment, desire, opinion or interpretation. It’s what you feel when you’re immersed in gazing, without thought, at a sunset or mesmerized by a project you’re deeply engrossed in. Small babies live in this empty beingness all the time, never discontent unless they're physically uncomfortable.

The times when we’re in emotional pain over dating are the times when we think we’re in control and believe our thoughts – thoughts that something should be different. That’s why questioning and investigation is so useful. It helps us realize that we don’t really know the answers to life, even our life, which we thought we knew. Eventually we begin to see that anything we add to that awareness of “I am” is trouble. Because that’s when we start dividing things into two – man/woman, good/bad, lucky/unlucky, right/wrong, should/shouldn’t, good/evil, pretty/ugly, etc. Immediately we’re judging that life one way – our way of course – is good and the other way is bad. Even at the moment it looks good to us we only have to wait awhile and it’ll be bad. We all know this. This is nothing new to anyone. The moment we’ve created right we’ve also created wrong. With “good” we’ve created “bad”. But there’s no such thing, except in our thoughts. We put the labels on and then suffer because of them.

To be at peace, content, and happy is as simple as just noticing that every thought, experience, or object appears somehow. What does it appear in? It appears in the clear space of presence or being. The being/awareness is the silent, still background that allows for everything without judging or rejecting anything. We live in that natural state of being or presence when we just witness life as it is. The alternative is to follow thoughts and beliefs out into the world of wants and needs and that never-ending win/lose wheel.

Whenever you have a disturbing thought you already know, from direct experience, that it will change. The mind jumps from one thought to another like a monkey in a tree. But the empty, space-like awareness that allows for thought is never affected and is always content and happy. That’s your true nature and it can watch thoughts without sticking to them or believing them. How could they be real when they’re changing all the time? Their fickleness is proof of their falseness.

When you live in presence/awareness and bring that to a relationship you’ll always be happy, no matter what’s going on with the relationship. Because whatever is going on is just another changing object that appears in the never-changing, always-content beingness of life. That's called living happily and harmoniously with what is.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

255. Dating heartaches are about what we THINK not about what happens

Every item I’ve posted in this blog is trying to show you how seeing reality lifts you immediately out of any suffering associated with mature dating. This isn’t theory. It’s not something I’m asking you to believe. This is about the way the world really works. And if you’d like you can check it out for yourself. In fact, that’s the only way you can prove it to yourself and experience the peace you get from investigating.

For some years I tried to believe a concept that’s quite popular: We create our own reality. The way it’s most often used, it means that you get what you think. So if you focus on positive thoughts about what you want in life you’ll get it. Seminar leaders and authors tell you it’s so easy: just don’t ever think of what you don’t want and always focus on what you do want. If you apply that to dating in these later years of life you’d have the partner you want if you just hold your tongue right, make sure your socks are straight, and focus on already having that special person in your life as though it had already happened. That’s the way, the experts say.

The problem is, it doesn’t work. Some people’s lives are destined to be successful in society’s terms – wealth, possessions, status, power, etc. They’re the ones who tell us how they did it and how we can all do it too. But try as I might – and I worked hard at it – those ideas never paid off. Nor do they pay off for most of the folks who read the books and pay handsome fees for the seminars. Why? Because, as I’ve now realized, Life is living us, not the other way around. Thoughts or no thoughts, visualization or no visualization, there is no “little me” who could be in control. It’s a myth.

Not one person on earth has any independent power to take a single breath or create a single thought. The Life Force or God, if you want, obviously came into form and sustains itself as form every moment. Humans are one of the forms. We’re the instruments as life is lived through us. We don’t see that though. We want so badly to be in control that we keep trying, failure after failure, to make life work our way because we’ve been told all our lives that God gave us free will. Even if we had free will would we know what to seek, what's really best for us?

Happiness is the bottom line we’re all seeking. To be happy by concentrating on what we want we’d have to have the power to control our thinking wouldn’t we? Yet who can do that? Who can stop thinking? Do you know where the “off” switch is? When your thoughts are so painful why not just stop them for awhile? No one can do it. That’s why we like sleep so much. Thought stops and therefore emotional pain stops because it all stems from believing our thoughts.

Investigating life as it really is, however, helps us see that when we just love life the way it is we have no psychological suffering. Resisting life by judging, interpreting, comparing, setting one thing against another is always painful. When we see that life is the way it is, and we stop trying to tell God what to do we’re happy. God, by the way, is another term for “what is”. How can we know God? Just notice everything you take in with your senses. That’s God. What else could it be?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

252. A giraffe doesn’t seem to make much sense either!

Dating in this mature stage of life can be effortless and fun when we just relax into living out the urgings of the voice within. If the voice says, “Take some dancing lessons,” you sign up for some lessons. If the voice says, “Just relax and don’t go to that party tonight,” you just do it, even if it might seem crazy. The ego-mind doesn’t like it this way, though, and it’ll probably pop up with statements like, “No, you can’t sit back right now. You’ve got to get out there if you’re ever going to find a partner. Remember, you’re not getting any younger!”

The ego-mind thinks it’s in control so it wants to make your life work. It wants to know and control the outcome of life. But the promptings from within often don’t seem to make much sense. For example, the ego-mind couldn’t begin to see that not forcing yourself to attend a party that feels unsuitable to you could lead to anything but utter loneliness in old age. But do we realistically know that worry and search will be better than just relaxing into life as it naturally unfolds and as we’re naturally prompted to live? Maybe you’ll literally bump into your lifetime partner in a parking lot fender-bender! That’s not something the ego-mind could ever plan for.

Or with those dancing lessons you took. No one in the class looks at all like a potential partner and you might find yourself wondering, “Why am I doing this?” Then the last night of the class you meet a man who comes to pick up his sister at the end of that lesson… and voila!... there’s the man you were supposed to meet. That apparent “chance meeting” makes no sense to the ego-mind but the Source doesn’t care what the ego-mind thinks. It just lives as you, playing out the life called Jeannie, Sue or Tom in the mysterious, playful way it wants to. After all, this is the same Source that put a giraffe and a bare-butted monkey on earth, remember!

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

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

249. Mature dating is a fun adventure when we live in harmony with the way of it

Dating in your senior or mature years is really not much different from any other aspect of life. It’s one slice of life. However, the struggle, strife and suffering that most people experience in everyday life is often magnified and brought to the fore when we’re dating because romantic relationships are so dramatic and intensely personal. The pain of a lost love can be like no other pain.

That’s why it’s so helpful to see that we can back off from life and not take it personally when we realize that we’re being lived and we really have no control. Then it’s a matter of just flowing with life as it happens rather than trying to fight or control what happens.

If these are new ideas to you I understand; they can sound crazy. They did to me too, at first. However, nothing I had ever done relieved the emotional hurt I often felt when life didn’t go my way. And when I read about what the sages have been teaching throughout the centuries it seemed to me that they might just have something. Those who saw the light (enlightened?) were from all parts of the world, all cultures, all centuries, and they all had come to see the same thing, with no input from each other because there wasn’t the communication in those days that there is today.

What they all saw, simply put, is that some Life Force – call it God if you like – is energizing itself into form, and we humans, like every other form in existence, are among the objects brought into existence.

We’re being lived. If you don’t think so try to make yourself do nothing, for example. You can’t do it. Try not breathing. You can’t. Try not thinking. You can’t. Try not blinking your eyes or sneezing or hiccupping. It just can’t be done. What moves your hands when you express yourself as you talk? What just made you swallow? Obviously we’re not in control of this “me” we think we are. Even the very idea of “I” or “me” is no more than a thought. No one has ever located a Me anywhere. This so-called Me has no individual power. It can’t exist for a split second without the power that enlivens it and animates it. So how could it be in charge of how life should go?

Seeing that, what the sages taught is to just relax, see life as it really is, and flow with it. Realize that what happens is obviously supposed to happen, for no other reason than that it does. You’re stood up for a date? Obviously you were supposed to spend that time doing something else. How do you know? Because the time is available and you’re going to fill it some way, whether you like it or not. Your honey decides to leave you? It must be that you’re supposed to be alone for awhile, or be available to meet someone else. Again, how can I know that? Simple. Because that’s what is and you can’t argue with it. You can think it should be different. You can wish it would be different. But in the end, it just is the way it is. So why spend all that energy and misery resisting the way it is? That's insanity, and a lot of suffering.

Flowing with life the way it is may sound like caving in and giving up but it’s not. It’s a vital, snappy, full-of-life, active way to live. It’s a not-doing that begins to recognize the intelligence-energy of the universe as it is. You begin to see the fullness of life that’s always been present and is available for us to realize when we stop trying to control life. And though we're not the doers everything gets done.

In this realization you’re not succumbing and folding up with your tail between your legs. And you’re not crawling into bed to bawl your eyes out and be depressed because life let you down. Instead, you’re watching with amazement as life unfolds in the way it does, which might be much different than you had expected. What a mystery! What a delight! Life sparkles amazingly when we just see it as it is, and realize we're being lived right along with everything else. We're actually that living power showing up now as a human. What a miracle as it changes every second! Dating can be exciting, adventuresome and fun when we simply live harmoniously with the way it is. What the heck! Might as well since life is going to be the way it is whether we like it or not. We don’t get a vote, have you noticed? In fact, there is no independent "we" to ever have had a vote in the first place. How can a drop of ocean spray vote against the ocean?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

242. Marriage or partnership may not make you happier at all

A lot of us might take the stress and seriousness out of dating – and have a lot more fun – if we saw mature dating as part of living rather than loading it down with the goal of marriage or permanent partnership. If that goal isn’t met dating isn’t enjoyable to us. In short, it's no fun because it didn't work.

Yesterday I was talking to a 70-year-old woman whose husband died in 1990. She’s been single since then and desperately wants a partner. “I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without a romantic partner,” she said, implying there could be no more horrible fate. It’s not surprising that she’d think she’ll be happier with a partner. Most of us have seen studies showing that married people are happier and healthier than single people. That condition is widely borne out in nearly every country studied.

But further studies are showing that it isn’t marriage, at all, that’s behind the greater happiness of married people. It appears that happier people tend to marry and that’s why married people are happier than singles. In fact one large study, compiled from the records of 24,000 Germans over 15 years, shows that after the first blush of marriage people revert to the level of happiness they had before marriage. On a scale of 0 to 10 that figure turns out to be 7.28 for the married couples on average.

Other studies show that happier couples are those who don’t see their partners as perfect. High goals for happiness, if they’re not bucked up by solid communication skills, lead to disappointment in relationships, studies show.

What all this tells me, once again, is that there’s never been any proof that something outside of us will make us happy. Happiness is an inside job. The nice thing is that it doesn’t even take any effort. When you look deeply you see that happiness, joy, and love are our true nature and appear by themselves once we uncover them by realizing that Life is living itself just perfectly without our opinions and self-centered needs and wants. When we flow with life as it is there’s just happiness. Funny how that works isn’t it?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

241. If your mature dating includes expectations you’ll suffer unnecessarily

The search for more happiness is why people want to date and find a partner. We expect that we’ll be happier with someone than without someone, especially as we get older. I saw an article recently reporting that the first world map of happiness was produced recently. Denmark came out on top. The Danes have ranked first in European satisfaction surveys for more than 30 years. One of the main reasons, according to researchers, is that as a nation Danish people have low expectations of life. While there were other reasons, the study authors said one thing was clear – the higher the expectations the deeper the disappointment when they’re not met.

The Ancients have been trying to tell us for eons, it seems, that we’re happy when we simply see that what we have is what we need, without expectations. They say, question your thoughts and beliefs about what would make you happy and see if you know they’re true. Can you definitely know you’d be happier with a date or partner right now? Do you know this person you’re now with is the right one, and you should never part?

The sages advise us to look at reality, without our unexamined beliefs and stories. For example, one ancient Chinese text, the Hsin Hsin Ming says,

Gain and loss, right and wrong: such thoughts must finally be abolished at once. If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease. If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence. To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from all entanglements.

The idea, of course, is to trust the One-essence intelligence of the universe as it is, to realize that we’re being lived as one expression of that One-essence. That essence that breathes us, beats our hearts, and keeps the planets in place is harmony and perfection in action even when we don’t recognize that.

The Tao Te Ching, another ancient Chinese spiritual text, has this to say:

When people see some things as beautiful other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good other things become bad.

… Things arise and [the Master] lets them come; things disappear and [the Master] lets them go. [The Master] has, but doesn’t possess, acts but doesn’t expect.

And the Ashtavakra Gita, a revered East Indian spiritual text shares this:

As the air is everywhere, flowing around a pot and filling it, so God is everywhere, filling all things and flowing through them forever. (The One-essence.)

When will men ever stop setting one thing against another?
Let go of all contraries. Whatever comes, be happy and so fulfill yourself.

…With resolute dispassion free yourself from desire and find happiness.

Clearly, spiritually wise men and women through the ages are saying it’s our beliefs or stories about what should be that cause our suffering, not the reality of life as it is. Hopes and expectations are another way we look to a future we think we want, without really knowing what’s best for us. Can we really tell That which created us what we need?

Dating can be based on expectations, which will surely be dashed at some point, or dating can be just another interesting aspect of living, just as going to a park or enjoying a sunset. Dating is a way to be with a friend, which may develop into permanence.

The future will take care of itself, no matter what we think. One way to live is to want the future to be your way, and be miserable when it’s not. Another way is to simply see that life shows up one moment at a time, and to relish the mystery and surprise of it as it is. Life will always be as it is, just as it’s always been. Happiness is to live in harmony with that reality and date playfully – content, peaceful, and relaxed. When you don’t expect anything you can’t lose anything. Life without seeking is joy.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

230. “Futurizing” isn’t a word but it creates lots of stress in mature dating

There’s no word in our dictionaries yet called “futurize” but there should be, I think. Futurizing would describe the habit of fixating on the future, usually with a great deal of concern and stress.In the past I did a lot of futurizing so I know what it feels like from experience. I’d focus on thoughts such as: “When I meet this woman will there be a spark?” “She’s a city person and I’d prefer the country so would we ever be able to live together?” “What if I don’t find a partner and I’m alone for the rest of my life?” There were hundreds of these thoughts I’d snowball into worry and concern.

Then I came upon the teachings of spiritual masters who pointed the way to a clear understanding of life. When I saw that the nature of life is just to be as it is, and that humans are part of that nature, I realized I have nothing to do with “my” future. Ah, all of a sudden I could just relax, knowing the future will be what it is and I don’t have to make anything happen or even wish for anything in particular.

I realized that I’m not breathing myself and that thoughts aren’t mine, they just come. Seeing that I’m being lived simply meant I could be fully in this moment, enjoying the only time there is (this moment), and watching the future roll out before me, including everything about meeting, dating and mating.

Next time you find yourself spending a lot of stressful energy on thoughts and beliefs about your future you might just notice that futurizing is nothing but a bad habit that’s usually not fun. Happiness and peace is letting thoughts about the future float right on by because they won’t make a whit of difference to what will actually happen anyway.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

219. Answers to a reader’s questions: What does make happiness in mature dating?

An anonymous reader wrote yesterday asking for clarification of statements I’ve made in this blog about mature dating. The questions were good so I’m quoting them and hopefully providing some clarity here. Behind these questions is the assumption that we’re in charge of our lives. So let’s examine that assumption as we go through the reader’s questions.

Q. Why are we called sentient beings and insects are not? Don't we all digest food, our wounds heal, the natural functioning goes on? Sometimes I think you are describing a vegetative state here, insofar as humans are concerned. These things often happen in a vegetative state, so is that called happiness?

A. Yes, bodily functions often do go on naturally in a vegetative state but I’m referring to a conscious state, to normal, everyday living. If you were vegetative, meaning unconscious in my understanding of the word, you couldn’t be happy or unhappy because you would be unaware of feelings.

Happiness is the absence of resistant thoughts. When we’re not thinking something should be different we don’t have any problems and we don’t suffer emotionally. Without problems in life most people would think of themselves as happy, or content, or peaceful – whatever word you choose. That’s the happiness I’m talking about. It’s only when we step in to judge life that we feel so miserable. And judging means thinking that anything should be different.

Q. What happened to "effort"? Is it "effort" that makes one unhappy, therefore it is to be avoided?

A. Here’s an example of where the idea of a person who can make an effort shows up. Without that assumption of a person who has an opinion there is no effort to make life be a certain way. Rather than effort, which is designed to get a result we want, what I’m referring to is simply seeing life as it is, without an opinion about how it should be. When we see life as it is we make no effort and have no struggle and no pain. When we think something should be different, whether we think, “My date should have called” or “She shouldn’t be so friendly with that other guy” we set up our own suffering. What we haven’t noticed is that people do what they do and life is what it is. How do we know they shouldn’t be doing life “our” way? They’re not, that’s all. Reality is reality and to argue with it is mad. It’s already a done deal.

Q. I almost get the impression from your blog that any relationship will just move along all by itself. Is that true? What does that look like?

A. Yes, what I’m speaking of refers to relationships and to all of life. Life and relationships do move along by themselves. What it looks like is this: You’re sitting in a group having a conversation and without realizing it you cross your legs. If someone asks if you crossed your legs you’d probably say, “Well, I obviously did that but I sure don’t remember it.”

Or take seeing, for example. We say, “I see.” But do you have to do anything to make seeing start? Do you have to think: I want to see? Do your eyes have to decide to see? No, seeing happens by itself doesn’t it? So is it true that “I” see, any more than it’s true that “I” cross my legs, blink my eyes, digest my food, beat my heart or breathe my lungs? Even thoughts aren’t yours. Thinking happens. We have no idea what our next thought will be. And if we controlled thoughts would we choose to have sad or painful thoughts, sometimes continuing for days or months or years? “You” did none of those actions or thinking, yet it appears.

It’s the same with relationships, and we all know it from our own direct experience – things happen and we’re not in control. You have a huge fight with your date and you’re sure it’s over for both of you. Three days later you’re speaking again and you’re totally surprised. Or you’ve given up on dating or ever finding the right man. A week later you start talking to the guy in the supermarket checkout line and a year later you’re married to him. (This actually happened to a woman I know.)

Q. If nobody makes any effort, then the life force didn't want it to happen? I'm confused here. Perhaps you can clarify for me.

A. Yes, whatever effort or lack of effort that happens IS the Life Force doing what we call effort. It doesn’t involve anybody, any “me”. Action (that we call effort) happens or it doesn’t, just like rain happens or not. If movement (effort) is supposed to happen through somebody it will. You can make all the effort you want and not get what you’ve been striving for. So it isn’t effort or no-effort that produces results. Results simply show up as they are, just as effort shows up as it is.

The most important thing to realize is this: This is about seeing that we’re not independent individuals who have any independent control over anything. Who we are is not separate from the one, single power or life force that appears as everything, including you and me. Everything appears out of that silent stillness, that void, and returns to it. We exist and we know we exist. We can’t deny it for the simple reason that it would take presence to make a denial. So we’re present and we’re not the power behind our presence or our awareness of it.

Then thought appears on the scene and the little me gets in the picture, thinking it’s in control. We think we’re the doers when in fact life, including our life, is being done. We’ve simply shown up out of the silent stillness that’s the background of everything. That emptiness from which everything shows up is like space. Space can’t be seen, smelled, touched, tasted or objectified in any way. It has no boundaries, no center point, nothing you can describe. Yet you can’t argue that it’s there. Without space nothing could exist.

In the same way, without that silent, space-like emptiness or void, nothing could be. For you to even know you have a thought or have suffering there has to be something separate from suffering that knows it. That knowing is presence, your pure essence or what’s often called your natural state. We’re not separate from that emptiness, which I sometimes call the life force, or source or the absolute. (I seldom use “God” because the word has so many mixed connotations.).

In other words, we’re being lived. It’s only that thought of a “me” we think is separate from the source that’s behind all our suffering. When there is no “me” that assesses and judges everything, life can simply be seen as it is, without judgment, opinion, or interpretation. Of course, without judgment – thinking something needs to be modified or changed – we’re content, happy, at peace. We’re simply watching life unfold, including the life that unfolds AS “me”.

This way of seeing the reality of life applies to every aspect of every relationship and every moment of life – the life we’ve mistakenly thought was ours. Animals and very small babies already live in that natural functioning. They make no judgments. That’s why they’re content, happy, without problems. What else could you want in life but to be happy with everything just the way it is? Seeing life that way could there be any struggle and suffering?

See life as it is and you also see that peace and happiness is there, waiting, as it’s always been. We’ve never been anything but that Presence-Awareness thinking we were separate and had to struggle to make “our” life go. When the separation ends and there is no me-thought that wants life to be “my way” all suffering dies too. What’s left is happiness. Ahh, what a relief!

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

218. Mature dating is a pleasant stroll when you don’t have to make it go your way

All the worry, stress and discomfort of mature dating can evaporate if we’re willing to give up what we think we know about life and see what our direct experience tells us. I’m talking not about beliefs, which are always learned from someone else, but knowing. When you know, belief is no longer necessary. If you know how to swim you don’t say, “I believe I can swim.” Belief is wiped out with the knowing.

What I’ve come to know by studying the teachings from a number of wise ones with a clear understanding of life is that Life is living us. Functioning of a body we call “me” is happening by itself. When you look deeply you can’t find anything with an independent nature you can call “me”. Your very life isn’t under your control at all. “Me” is only an idea, a thought. You can check that out if you’re interested.

The problem is that “me” seems so real. We say I walk, I talk, I am the doer of my life. But when you take a look you’ll see from your own experience that you can’t locate a “me”. But then you’ll say, “Well then, who’s walking, for instance, if it’s not me?” Good question. I suggest you look and see. Are you walking? When you’re walking along and having a conversation with someone are you consciously moving each leg and setting your foot down with each step? Do you even know how to move your leg? Isn’t walking just happening?

Are you actually responsible for blinking your eyes? Do you wave your hands and arms around consciously as you talk, to help express yourself? Or do they move without your even realizing it until someone points it out? Do you grow yourself from childhood to adulthood? Have you made your hair turn gray and added wrinkles to your face in these mature dating years?

A chameleon changes color as a camouflage to protect itself. An octopus not only changes colors but can also change its “skin” from smooth to rough or variegated to match its surroundings so it can’t be seen. Do you think these animals consciously make that happen? Or is it just the way nature functions? Would the Life Force function in what we call the animal world but not for you in your human world?

When we realize that we’re also part of nature, just as an octopus, and that we’re being lived in the same way a natural relaxing into life happens. We no longer have that self-centered reference point – that filter that everything passes through – as we ask ourselves: How do I like this? How does this affect me? The me-idea that’s been the center of our universe can just drop away and the natural functioning, that’s been going on all the time, will be at the forefront instead of in the background.

Thinking we have to make life go our way to be happy is a mental habit that causes us a lot of pain. Realizing that Life knows what it’s doing and just relaxing into that knowing is freedom, peace, and happiness. All the emotional turmoil of mature dating can just evaporate in that knowing. What’s left? Just the joy of “being” as we move spontaneously and effortlessly in the dating world and in all other areas of life.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

217. It’s freedom not marriage that makes us happy and healthy

When I talk about good relationships I think of freedom. To me that’s what a happy romantic relationship is about, the freedom both people feel to be themselves without sensing that their partner is judging them or trying to change them. Now comes a recent essay in Time magazine about marriage, saying: "There's good evidence that it is freedom that makes us healthy and happy, not the bonds of marriage."

The article, by John Cloud in the February 8, 2007 issue, cites some interesting facts from a recent book titled, Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, by Bella DePaulo. One study, she says, cites the fact that married people are only 0.115 points happier in life on a 0 to 10 scale than singles. But the researchers couldn’t tell which came first, the marriage or the happiness. Maybe, Cloud points out, happy people are more apt to marry because they’re more social.

DePaulo cites another study that concludes, "It is better to have no relationship than to be in a bad relationship." That’s probably not much of a surprise to anyone.

In general, what all the studies show, Cloud says, is that we tend to feel better when we can mate up and then end it when things go bad. And we feel worse when we can't find a partner or when we feel trapped by a bad partner. Thus the conclusion that it’s freedom that makes us happy, not marriage.

As we’ve been pointing out in these articles, we make assumptions about how finding a mate would make us happy in these mature years of our lives. But do we really know? Wouldn’t senior or mature dating be more pleasant and easier if we didn’t hold onto the idea that we’re absolutely sure we need a mate? The stress could end.

When we expect experiences to bring us happiness we haven’t noticed that all experiences repeat themselves endlessly and never bring lasting joy. We’re always on to the next experience, looking again for satisfaction. Yet the Source that makes all those experiences possible is never striving, searching, or stressed at all.

That non-judgmental Source, or awareness, is the changeless background that all experiences show up in. It’s that knowing that lets us say, “I had an experience.” When we live from that awareness, where we simply witness life, we’re like the movie screen, unaffected by the drama showing on it. We see life as it is rather than suffering the pain of want and need, trying to get what we don’t have.

Maybe, as the article points out, what we don’t have isn’t better and we’re just stuck with our own idea that it is. Trusting that Source can end the entire struggle. Whether you have a relationship or not will happen or it won’t. Why not go with the flow of life as nature does and just be happy now rather than living for that day “when”?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

216. If you let mature dating happen as you let dinner digest it's fun

Dating, when we’re considered by society to be mature, or seniors, is a slice of life that seems to amplify the basic struggles most of us feel in life generally. Dating sort of holds our emotional life up where we can examine it pretty easily. A lot of feelings that would normally appear for us over a long period of time are squeezed into a short space and have a lot of energy.

One of the first things we see is that life, reflected up close and personally in our dating, is often a real struggle. We suffer and we’re in pain, and it’s not easy to escape that when things don’t go well with our dating. We struggle with desires and fears. We worry and fret about whether we said or did the right thing. What is our date thinking about us? we wonder. We scramble and sputter as we work at trying to impress our date or partner, and we feel stressed. No wonder senior dating is no fun for so many.

But is it normal to be so obsessed over doing life right? When you think about it, your body calls for very little attention when you’re healthy, except for the normal requirements for food, drink and elimination. It’s only when something is wrong with our bodies that we’re concerned and pay attention.

Yet with our personalities we seem to be always paying attention, as though something is wrong. We worry and stew over all kinds of things that show up dramatically when we’re dating. But does a personality really need to have any designs of its own? Does a person need to be concerned about doing it right in the dating world?

The Life Force that we are expressions of is guiding us effortlessly, even as we’re scheming and negotiating to make our life work. That Life Force takes care of the body’s actions effortlessly and without your attention. Cut your finger and it heals. Eat your food and it digests itself; the energy goes where it’s needed in the body.

The personality, too, has no need to worry about itself. After all, it has no life force of its own; it’s not a separate entity with any separate power at all. It’s every movement and every breath and yes, every thought, is an expression of the Life Force, that intelligent energy that keeps the planets in place and brings us humans into life and takes us out again.

Normal life and normal dating doesn’t need to include stress and strife, when instead we could relax and be guided from within. When that happens life becomes a journey into the unknown, a mystery and a fascinating trip we can watch with interest, and in peace, contentment and joy. That’s our natural state. We’ve all experienced it in those times when we’re so totally engrossed in something that we later notice that life at those moments was totally peaceful and without a problem.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer