3 Mistakes That Keep Smart People From Suffering Less.
Understanding them helps with leaving them behind
Knowledge is power. We all strive to learn and know more.
But there are some risks when it comes to being smart.
1. Finding the wrong story:
Intelligence is a gift. Yet it also allows you to excuse your suffering by finding elaborate stories. It’s trying to connect the dots with creative lines that justify the choices you’re making, the pain you’re holding on to, and the regrets and shame you can’t let go of.
Clinging to any story is a source of discontentment after it has proven to only create suffering and stress within you. The only way out is to investigate your stories:
Is it true? Do I absolutely know that?
How do I react when I believe the story?
What would I be like without the story?
What reasons are there to drop the story?
You don’t need to be smart to answer these questions. Honesty and willingness are enough. You’ll recognize when you drop a story, because it will feel like you took off a backpack too heavy.
“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance — it is the illusion of knowledge.” — Daniel J. Boorstin
2. Finding the imperfect detail:
Suffering arises when we argue with what is. A way to argue is by saying:
This or that shouldn’t happen.
But the simple reality is that it was, is or will happen.
Your resistance to that fact is one of the most persistent sources of suffering. This is only elevated if you find smart and elaborate reasons why it shouldn’t have happened. No amount of rich imagination changes what reality is in the end.
“The more you argue with reality, the more you will suffer.” — Byron Katie
No amount of fancy dream-making cushions the blow of finding that your dreams and reality don’t overlap. Even when you learn to fly, the earth will always pull you towards it. That is the way it is.
And this is good news: Our dreams and shoulds are only ever half as kind as what happens. When you let it drop because you find good reasons to, reality turns out to be infinitely good and kind.
It also means to be free to create. Create with mistakes. Find lessons and go on. Be happy with what you’ve produced.
3. Finding the wrong comparisons:
All comparisons are empty. Because reality is what it is. You’re not better or worse than anybody else. Neither looking down nor up at others is kind to yourself or them. We are all the same self-less reality. Always.
“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.” — Zen Shin
Even comparing yourself to what you have been or will be is fallacious. You might have gotten better or worse at certain skills, have overcome challenges, or made mistakes. But you have never overcome or lost your basic sense of being-ness. You are being the awareness of this very moment. Here-now ness.
“Comparison is an act of violence against the self” as Iyanla Vanzant writes. Because making a comparison and believing it assumes that your reality could be different. It’s arguing once more with what reality is. Being smart gives you the illusion that you can win the argument. But this is fruitless.
All comparisons are harmless once you recognize this basic fact. If you can rest as awake awareness, you can compare to learn. Compare to play. But you don’t compare to measure. Not to measure your worth. Not to measure your progress.
Simply here. Simply now.
This concludes the 3 reasons why smart people suffer more than they have to. I hope it helps in leaving them behind.
