A year ago my husband, two small dogs and I lived in a small rental house while our home was renovated. I spent a good part of my days dealing with the things that didn’t work (there were a lot), submitting work orders, dealing with contractors…you know the drill. A part of me said, “It’ll all be okay, it’ll all be better when we move back.” Basically, “This is not really my life. One day, everything will be right, everything will be as it should be.”
This is known as the Arrival Fallacy. Thinking things are not okay now. Happiness will be in the future and will be determined by external factors.
For me, this wasn’t new, it didn’t just pop up when we started renovating. I’d been doing it forever. I finally realized, they were right—it is a fallacy. And I realized it’s time to stop waiting for the day I have good posture and am not afraid of death. For the magical time when I’m free of MS and prediabetes, heart disease and GERD, when I’m wise and calm and sleep through the night.
Because even if these things happened, there would always be something else beckoning from the horizon, “Hey you! When you do this your life will finally be right!”
No! No more! It’s time to accept and embrace my life, to be who I am within my body, my reality.
It helps me to remember something my friend taught me. When she worked as a therapist in a women’s prison, surprisingly, the happiest people were the “lifers.” They had to accept most everything about their lives because there would be no change of address, no return of agency. She said their happiness came because they, “Stayed inside the fence and made their lives inside the fence.”
These women did not have the option of believing things would be better when they were released. They had no reason to spend time imagining superior lives on the outside, in the future. Everything was right there. And they were happier.
I’m learning to do the same with my thinking, noticing my thoughts when they veer outside of the fence of today to the fallacy of arriving tomorrow. I practice bringing my thoughts back to the wonder of the moment in front of me. This is where joy lives.
I invite you to try it too. Pull a Ram Dass and Be Here Now. Stay inside the fence of today. Accept and love your beautiful life, with all its flaws. There’s only one of you and you are amazing.
Dee