295. If you want painless dating in these mature years try this

Because dating, even in these mature years, is so personal and it so easily pin-pricks into our self-worth issues we can often have heart-wrenching pain and suffering as we go about meeting new people and attempting to find a new partner. In these articles I’m suggesting what is a radical idea to most people, and it’s this: All – and I stress the word all – of our emotional suffering comes only from our thoughts.

Nearly everyone thinks suffering comes from the outside. In dating we think it’s caused by what our date or partner says or does. But when we look closely we see that thoughts are the cause. We see what is, think it shouldn’t be that way, and suffer. In short, we make up our own stories, our own fairy tales and fantasies about how life should be. We believe our story, and since we can't get our way and change what is we hurt.

A simple example: You’re at a dance with Joe. Joe decides to dance with another woman and you’re hurt. It’s your thought, not Joe, that caused your pain because if you didn’t know Joe was dancing with another woman you wouldn’t hurt at all. So it’s not his act but your thought that makes you hurt.

“Yes,” you might say, “but when I find out he’s dancing with another woman it hurts because that obviously means he’s not very interested in me.” But if you didn’t believe your story that he’s not interested in you would you still be hurting? Maybe you find out that he felt sorry for a woman he’s seen sitting alone all evening. He cared and just wanted to give her a chance to dance. His dancing with her had nothing to do with you. You could still choose to hurt because you might feel he still shouldn’t have danced with her. You might still think if he really cared about you he wouldn’t do that. But that would be entirely your projection. Can you really be sure that Joe isn’t just caring about someone and that it has nothing to do with his lack of interest in you? If you turned it around you might even feel more love for Joe because you can see what a caring, thoughtful man he is.

To me, the simple proof that it’s always our own thoughts that cause us to suffer is this: When we go to sleep at night there’s no suffering, except possibly in a dream. We may be in the middle of horrendous heartache when we go to bed. But when we fall asleep where is the pain? The circumstance hasn’t changed but we’re not projecting our interpretations and judgments onto it during those sleep hours.

We think we know how life should be, and especially how our life should be. If someone we love leaves us we know they shouldn’t. We know we could be their perfect partner, and we feel the emptiness and craving for their love because we think we know how it should be. To relieve that pain ask yourself if you can be certain that your thoughts are true.

Can you absolutely know life should be your way? Is it possible that the Power behind your breathing and heartbeat, and that keeps the stars in place, knows what it’s doing? Are you 100% sure that this woman who left you would be your best life partner? How do you feel when you stop believing you know best and just see life as it really is? There is peace and simple happiness. Then dating is an interesting, fun adventure. And isn’t that what you really want? – happiness right now?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

290. There can’t be happy dating without hurtful dating -- until we stop judging and comparing

We live in a world of twos – duality. It couldn’t be any other way. There can’t be up without down, joy without sorrow, peace without stress. We couldn’t say anything about an object if there was nothing to compare it to because, in effect, it wouldn’t exist. If there was tree, for example, and there wasn’t something you could call “not tree” then everything would be tree and we wouldn’t know tree at all. In fact, without something separate from tree there couldn’t even be space or a human to live in it.

So duality is a given in the world. The emotional pain in dating life comes when we take sides in the duality. This is better than that. Taking sides and judging is what the mind does best. It’s always making a comparison and judging: This should be and that should not be.

But let’s look at the belief we have that causes us to suffer so much. Are we really so certain of what should be? We’ve learned from other people that certain things should happen but do we know for sure? I’ll bet you can think of times when you’ve been so very certain and then later changed your mind. Maybe a relationship ended and you were so certain this was absolutely the right person for you, and you were crushed. Months or years later you say, “I’m so glad that ended. If it hadn’t I wouldn’t have met my true love” or “…I see now that I’d have been miserable,” etc.

Yet even with the proof of personal experience, showing us without doubt that our “certainty” was a sham, we still seem so certain that things should be our way rather than the way they are. Mary was rude to you. Tim stood you up. Harry took advantage of you. Gerry lied. None of them should be that way, we say.

But when you don’t argue with reality you see that Mary, Tim, Harry, and Gerry were being who they were. There have to be some liars and rude people so there can be honest and well-mannered people. One couldn’t exist without the other and who is to say we shouldn’t connect with some of them? You shouldn’t get a flat tire or cancer either but it happens. That’s reality.

Life is and it shows up as everything, including people we think are right and wrong. With clarity – seeing life as it actually is – we don’t need to compare one thing with another, and then judge how things should be in our dating life. When we witness the happening of our dating with interest and curiosity, and without an opinion, dating is peaceful and fun. Remember what Jesus said? “The kingdom of heaven is within you!” In their own words every sage has said the same thing.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

285. You can’t let go of painful thoughts but question them and you can end the hurt

Let’s say Laurie is at a party with Dale and she sees him talking and laughing with another woman. Without a judgmental thought about it Laurie can be happy that Dale is having a good time. But often we don’t see things just as they are. We see them as we think they are and form judgments: “That’s not right; that’s rude, he shouldn’t be flirting like that,” and on and on our stories go. With those thoughts comes pain. Emotional suffering always comes only from thought, never from a situation, object or person. It’s always what we think about the situation or person that makes us hurt.

So it would appear that to get rid of our pain we have to get rid of thinking wouldn’t it? But no one has ever been able to control thoughts. You can’t get rid of them. They come and go on their own. If we could let go of thoughts we’d all have done it when they started instead of suffering for days, months or years about something.

We can’t let go of thoughts but we can question them to see what’s true. And when we understand life as it is instead of getting locked into our stories of how it should be, thoughts let go of us. They were never real in the first place. They only appear to be real because we believe them. Is it true Dale shouldn’t be having a nice time with a woman? It may look like flirting but do we know he’s not just being friendly? Even if Dale is flirting is it true he shouldn’t be? Do we know for sure how he should be living his life? Is it true that Dale’s actions can threaten Laurie? If there’s no threat would there be any reason to judge him?

Once we see what is, without our interpretations, analyses, opinions, and judgments, suffering is gone. It’s that simple. All it takes is investigating our thoughts to see what’s true so we can live in joy and harmony with things as they are.

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

265. When you love yourself you can share with a partner, not need him

We hear all the time that we should love ourselves. Loving ourselves, we’re told, is our job and we can’t expect someone else to do it for us because they’re busy trying to love themselves. But what does it really mean to love ourselves? One of the ways we love ourselves is by realizing that we’re the ones deciding how life is (for us!). It isn’t about what life is dishing out but how we judge it – either good or bad for us. In article #264 I wrote about believing someone should want what they don’t want. In that belief and its naturally following expectation we’re hurting ourselves, not loving ourselves. We’re not seeing reality. We’re telling ourselves a lie, without realizing it.

Willingness to question thoughts and beliefs and see the truth takes us immediately to self-love. In this case we see specifically that who a person is and how they live is exclusively their business. When we don’t resist that by thinking they should be different we’re left with a feeling of ease and freedom – peace, or self-love.

We let the other person be who they are (as if we had a choice anyway) and we do whatever is apparent for us regarding them. In dating we may choose to be with the other person as she is or we may move on to someone else. But we don’t need to try to change them or fight them. If we move on it’s without judgment and anger toward them. After all, they’re being themselves, just as we’re doing.

That respect and love for the other person is also love for us: We’re no longer feeding ourselves a story that isn’t true and making ourselves miserable. Instead we’re just observing the way things are. Seeing the way life is rather than judging that it should be different is the primary way we love ourselves. “Seeing”, with no need to modify, alter or change anything, always feels peaceful, content and satisfying. We’re quietly and simply in love with life as it is.

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

239. Could it be that your mature dating pain is self-created?

Someone told me the other day about a bumper sticker she'd seen. It read:

REALITY IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK!

How true that is. Most of us look at reality through our filters of good/bad, right/wrong, should/shouldn’t and other opposites. Reality is just what is, as it is. It’s neither good nor bad until we put that label on it.

In mature dating the moment you think, “He shouldn’t be so friendly with her,” “She shouldn’t be dancing so close with him,” “If he cared he’d call,” or make any other judgment your experience is not based on reality. You’re viewing life through your “belief” filters and you suffer. Your experience, then, is a self-created myth.

Loving life as it is, full of mysteries and surprises, is living in harmony and peace. Before judgmental beliefs can even appear you’re the beingness that allows the appearances to show up, like space permits objects to show up.

That beingness or presence has no opinions or judgments. It’s simply love and uncaused joy. Questioning your painful beliefs reveals that unborn love and joy at any moment because it’s who you naturally are before you lay on your judgmental thought-filters and start looking through them at the skewed world you’ve created.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

231. Dating is painful when we believe our stories instead of seeing the truth

When dating or relationships cause us pain – and they often do – we usually feel sure that the source of that pain is the other person. “If he hadn’t…” “If she would only…” We can nearly always point at our date or partner as the reason why we’re hurting. After all, “He’s the one who lied to me,” or “She’s the one who secretly dated other guys.” So it goes against everything we know to hear that the only source of our emotional suffering – ever – is that we argue with reality. We think “what is” should be different. And the problem is, it isn’t different.

But let’s investigate life a bit and see what’s real. We say, “Jane shouldn’t have cheated on me.” But reality is that Jane did what she did and we label it cheating. Trying to argue with that or make Jane wrong is just asking for a lot of pain. The way life actually is, people sometimes cheat. Have you ever cheated in your life? That’s the way it is. That’s reality.

When we try to play God and say it shouldn’t be that way we’re going to hurt. Yes, I know, it’s easy to say that any good person would agree that Jane shouldn’t have cheated on you. That’s the way most of us have been taught to believe. But belief in a lie doesn’t make it the truth. The truth is that people cheat and in this case Jane cheated. “Cheating” is the story or label we’ve attached to her actions. And that story may not even be true.

Can you say she shouldn’t have dated someone else? What’s the reality? She did, right? Can you say it shouldn’t have rained today. What’s the reality? It did. Without adding our story that’s just what happened, and since the power that shows up as this world seems a lot more intelligent than we are maybe we could just trust that it knows what it’s doing. Seeing reality without adding our story isn’t painful. It’s just seeing reality, like seeing the sun.

It’s when we argue with reality that we suffer psychologically. Put another way, it’s our judgments that life should be our way that cause us pain. Yet, if you notice, no amount of judging you’ve ever done has ever changed what is. Any judgment that makes reality wrong and wants it to be different causes us stress because it’s a lie that opposes the way things are. Seeing without judgment goes along with the way things are, and we’re content and peaceful.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

225. Pain-free mature dating is about seeing life clearly, without our stories

When you see life as it is, dating in these senior and mature years is a lot more pleasant and pain-free. It’s when we want life to be our way that we have problems and hurt. Wanting life to be our way means telling ourselves stories, such as:

1. She should have called.
2. He could do better than that.
3. A thoughtful woman wouldn’t say that.

Seeing reality, or life as it is, however, turns those statements into:

1. She shouldn’t call until she does.
2. He did the best he could do. (In the moment don’t we all do the best we can to make ourselves happy? Isn’t happiness the result all actions are aimed at?)
3. This woman said that.

In the first three statements there are judgments we can’t prove. Those judgments are always stressful and painful because we’re fighting the way life actually is.

The second set of three are just statements of the way things are. How do you know they should be that way? They are. Isness is the built-in proof and when we live in harmony with isness we’re happy and peaceful.

When we see life clearly, without our judgmental stories, we don’t have to be in a war with our partners. They are who they are, doing what they do, and they have every right to be just that. All we need to do is see them as they are, and then either naturally move toward them or away from them just as any animal naturally moves toward pleasant surroundings and away from unpleasant ones.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

222. The core thought that can make a hell out of senior dating is the I-thought

When you think about the times when you’re hurting in the mature dating world you’ll notice that it’s only when you believe something should be different – the way you’d like it to be instead of the way it is.

Thoughts come all the time. Have you noticed that even though we say “I’m thinking” we really have no control over the thoughts that show up? But thoughts aren’t the problem. They’re just part of the way this world functions, obviously. The problem is that we grab onto thoughts and believe them and think they’re right while believing the way things are, is wrong. But how could that be? The way things are is just the way things are. How can we argue with what already is? You can’t fight reality and ever expect to win.

Have you also noticed that the present never has any problems? The problem is always thoughts – thoughts about the past or the future. But do they take place in the past or future? No, they take place only in the present. There’s no such thing as past or future. If you couldn’t think you wouldn’t have a past or future and you wouldn’t have suffering.

The core thought that’s the basis for all suffering is the simple thought “I”. Every problem we have starts with “I” or “me” or “mine”. When we see that this I-thought is just a thought and really doesn’t have control then all the other thoughts associated with “I”, such as what I like or want or don’t want… all those thoughts just drop away because they’ve started with an “I” that’s not even real.

We’ve been taught how the world works and how we have control and must run our lives appropriately. But reality, when you look, shows you that everything appears out of nothing and goes back to that. That void or nothingness has to be the basis for everything that shows up. We can call it Source or God or the Absolute. Knowing it’s the basis for everything we can just relax and trust that that God-Power can take care of things just as it always has. We don’t have to pay attention to the painful I-thought and all that goes with it.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

221. “Out there” is never a problem in mature dating, it’s always “in here”

A friend of mine told me the other day about a bumper sticker she saw. It applies perfectly to the source of suffering in mature dating. It read, “Reality is not what you think!”

In just a few words that line sums up what we’ve been talking about here. Reality, or what actually is, has nothing to do with thought. What our senses register about the world just as it is, is reality. There’s no emotional pain in that at all.

What causes us to hurt in senior dating is the thinking that gets added to reality. Many times we don’t simply see reality, or “what is” just as it is. Instead we add judgments to what is: “He should call me.” “She should have told me the truth.” “They shouldn’t do that.” “I’m getting older and I should find someone soon.” But in all those cases reality is just the way things are. It’s always our opinions, interpretations and judgments that cause us to suffer. Without that, there is no suffering. There’s just reality and our awareness of it.

And if this seems confusing, reading further in this blog may help. I invite you to remember one thing, however, and that’s this. We’re ALWAYS the source of our own pain. The problem is never “out there;” it’s always “in here” – in our thoughts.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

220. Without your thoughts mature dating can’t have any problems

You have a dating problem. Really? Who decided that?

Let’s say the woman you’ve been dating doesn’t want to see you any more. You’re disappointed and feeling hurt. You want it to be different. Now let’s imagine you have a friend who happens to be in the same situation. The woman he’s been seeing doesn’t want to see him any more either. But he’s not hurting. He figures it’s just the way life is, and moves on. So where did your problem come from? Obviously from your own thoughts. It’s not real. It’s self-created.

Every single problem we have results from our thinking that life should be different. We’re the ones who decide what should and shouldn’t be. We’re the ones who decide what’s good and bad, right and wrong, painful and pain-free. Yet the strange thing is that when we look at our own life, our own experience, we can see that we don’t really know how things should be. We just think we do. We’ve all had plenty of experiences to prove that if life had gone the way we were so sure would be best it may not have turned out so well. At the very least all we can say is that we don’t know.

My neighbor lost her son to a freak accident when he was 20. With an experience like that it would be easy to discount what I just said. You could say that nothing good came out of that at all. But do we know? Do we know what his life would have been like had he lived? Can we really question the Power that created him in the first place and then decided when the life in him should stop? In truth, without an opinion, he lived exactly as long as he should have lived. Not a second too long or too short. You know that because that’s the way it was.

The simple seeing or presence that we are witnesses and registers all kinds of events, thoughts, and feelings that pass through our awareness. Our only problem comes when we latch onto them, put our own interpretation on them, and then suffer as a result. It’s that Little Me idea, with its judgments, that’s the center of all emotional hurt and pain. It all starts when we believe our thoughts. Thoughts are just energy passing through. Nothing more. We don’t ask for them, we don’t control them, we don’t choose how long they’ll stay. Why not just see life as it is, without our self-centered opinions, and be happy? After all, that’s our true nature, just the pure being-awareness in which everything shows up, just like space makes it possible for objects to show up.

See that and you can’t help but be content and problem-free. This is what all the spiritual traditions have been sharing throughout the centuries. It’ll make your dating pain-free, guaranteed.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

209. Do you really want to tie your happiness to what he does?

Happiness is that elusive feeling that, try as we might, we can’t seem to pin down and keep around all the time. For most of us it comes and goes, depending on what we’re experiencing in the world. At least it seems that way. So if we get that phone call from the guy we met for coffee last week, we’re happy. If not, we may feel disappointed and gloomy. When we look, though, it’s pretty easy to see why happiness isn’t consistent in our lives. When we tie our happiness to outside events and other people we’ll always be a victim. We’re saying, “You’re the one who gets to decide if I’m happy or not.” Of course they don’t always consistently do what we want, so we’re jerked up and down. Not a fun way to live.

There’s another way to live in this mature dating world, however. It starts with seeing the truth of life. The truth is if another person could make us happy then whenever we’re with that person we’d be happy wouldn’t we? If we marry them we’re happy for life, with that kind of thinking. Well, we all know that just ain’t true. Divorce courts are filled with people who once thought their partners would make them happy for life and now can’t stand to be in the same room with them.

Happiness just doesn’t come from “out there”. The same event can make one person happy and not another. I could go to a heavy metal band performance where lots of people are thrilled and even stand in line and pay big bucks to get admitted. Me?... I’d be trying to find the exit door. So it’s pretty clear that happiness doesn’t come from out there. That’s an illusion. It comes from in here; it’s our projection. It’s like the light from the moon. It doesn’t come from the moon even though it looks that way. That too is an illusion. The truth or reality is that the light of the moon is a reflection.

Our happiness is always a reflection of our own feelings projected onto an event or another person. Every moment of happiness we’ve ever felt in our lives emanated from inside us. It flows from us, not to us. The reason we’re not happy all the time is that we manufacture opinions and judgments about how things should be. These judgments flow from inside us also. They have nothing to do with the reality of life as it shows up. We think we know how life should be and that’s another illusion. What’s true is that our natural state has nothing to do with judgments. It’s simply the state of being or presence, and that presence observes life without thinking it needs to change. Peace, happiness, and love are natural feeling that are always there when we stop trying to force our will on life.

So in practical terms how do we apply this to our example of the guy not calling after you’ve met for coffee? Like this: Without believing our thoughts we just see that life happens. If you don’t think you know what’s best – that he should have called or you want him to call – you just see reality as it is. If you wonder about this ask yourself: Do I really, absolutely, know what should happen?

You’ll probably immediately notice the calm peacefulness of your real nature when you just see what is. The space that exists because he didn’t call is now available for whatever else the universe will provide. What could it be? The mystery of life continues to unfold its own way with or without our opinion. Does it make more sense to take this false, self-centered “me” opinion out of the picture and just enjoy reality as it is? Without our judgments we might be clear to see that life’s natural beauty and perfect unfolding IS the happiness we’ve been seeking. What can be wrong about life without our thoughts about it?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

207. Want a partner, or got a partner and don’t want him – it's all about viewpoint

We think we know what happiness is, and it always looks different from what we have right now. That’s why all our lives we’re striving for something else, something more, different or better from what we have. Dating in our senior years is usually another way that striving and seeking happens. We think if we had a partner life would definitely be nicer. Even people who have left marriages because they weren’t happy usually feel that their partner was the cause of their unhappiness and if they had a different partner they definitely would be happier this time.

Pam is a friend of mine who lives in a mature community; all the residents must be 55 or over. She moved into this community about 8 months ago and is still getting acquainted with other residents through the many activities that are available there. The other day she met with a group of women and was surprised when a couple of them told her that a lot of the residents who were beginning to get to know her were envious of her. These were married women who looked at Pam’s free and single lifestyle and wished they had that freedom. Freedom to date whoever they wanted, to come and go when they wanted, to be accountable to no one. They were thinking, “How lucky she is!” Meantime, Pam tells me she’d rather be in a partnership, to have someone she can talk to and do things with, someone to confide in and trust.

This is another example that while most folks are nearly always thinking life could be better if… they’re not seeing the reality that life actually gives us everything we need at the moment we need it, even though we don’t think so. If we’re totally honest – and I mean deep-down honest – can we say we know life would be better if we had that mate we want?

Without making that kind of judgment about a future that hasn’t yet arrived does life in this very moment – as you read this – have anything wrong with it? When you believe you know for sure you need a partner to be happy how do you live? Isn’t living that way – arguing with reality – stressful and painful? What if, instead, you trusted the universe (or God or any term you want to use) to provide your life just the way it is providing it right now, just as it provides your next breath and your next heartbeat. Some power has been providing for your needs since you were conceived.

Maybe we could just relax and know everything is perfectly the way it should be because that’s the way it is. Dating, then, would still go on but now it could be just a fun adventure, not something done to achieve an end result. If you just picture that for a moment and let it settle in, does it seem that living without an agenda for your dating would be easier and more relaxing?

The real heart of the problem is that we think we are a separate “me” that needs to make “my” life work. But we’re not separated from that One Source. We just haven’t been taught to question that “me” thought. Where is this me? Does it really exist? Can you find any direct evidence of it or even pinpoint where it is? When we see that we’re being lived, that we don’t need to try to control things, life gets infinitely easier. I invite you to investigate and see for yourself.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

202. Your “thoughts” about reality can make mature dating miserable

When your mind is clear and you’re seeing reality as it is, not believing your thoughts about reality, mature dating becomes as simple as a leaf floating down a stream, serene and happy. As we notice that life always does what it does, with or without our approval, we can see clearly that anyone can come and go in our lives as Life wishes.

The stress of dating is gone when we give up our ideas of how things should go. We don’t even have to give up our ideas, actually. All we have to do is see that we’re not in control and never have been, and our control ideas evaporate by themselves. We see that Life has its own way and we’re being lived as part of that way. We never know what’s best, we just think we do.

As we stick to our judgmental thoughts we hurt. As we question those thoughts and see what really is, we just notice that all things come and go, including people in our lives. If we find people to date, good. If we don’t find someone to date, good. It only means that’s not supposed to be happening for us right now. If someone comes into our lives, good. If that someone – even someone we think is very special – leaves that too is good because we know it’s simply the way of it.

So if someone ends a relationship with you it doesn’t have to be heartbreaking. It’s only heartbreaking when we think it shouldn’t have ended. Seeing the reality that all things end can take the pain out of it. We see that we enjoyed the experience as it was and now it’s obviously time for us to enjoy new experiences. How do we know that? Look, here it comes! Every moment, after all, dies as a new moment is born. That’s simply the way life is.

We can live in harmony with the way things are because they’re going to be that way whether we like it or not. We can go along peacefully and happily or we can go screaming and fighting. Either way we’re going to go. When we stop arguing with reality we’re automatically happy. Some people might call that surrendering to God’s will.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer