Every moment of our lives, except the ones we spend sleeping, we devote to only one thing feeling good or feeling better. Whatever we think, say or do, or don't think, don't say or don't do everything is geared to only one goal to feel better, to feel good, to feel happy, to feel peace, to feel secure, safe, harmonious, and comfortable. This is true, with respect to our identity, our self-worth, self-opinion, self-esteem, our education, our profession or job, our health, our likes and dislikes, our food, our choices and preferences, our hobbies and pursuits and our relationships. Whatever we say or do, whether we know and acknowledge it or don't, we always do, in order to feel good. You will not find anyone in this world who is seeking unhappiness, seeking sorrow, seeking anger, seeking guilt, seeking worry, seeking stress these things happen, even as our seeking is only for one thing feeling good.
Since pre-historic times, since the time man appeared on earth and started to evolve, when we lived in caves and were hunter-gatherers, we have always been geared to perceive threat and to protect ourselves, from these threats. We have been given survival instincts, and we are constantly in a protective, survival mode. We are always on the lookout for the next threat, the next problem, the next thing to worry about. Once we are finished managing one particular problem, our mind quickly moves on, to the next important problem. Earlier, our ancestors had to worry about famine, or natural calamities, or wild animals or hostile tribes attacking them. Today, those threats are no more, but we do perceive threat and react in the same way, with our nervous system, our hormonal systems, our immune systems, and our bodies. Our threats today are more about money, or loss of job, or health worries, or worries about our children, spouse or parents. Or they have to do with close relationships--siblings, parents, spouse, partner, children, friends, boss or co-workers. And if you see, unlike famine or wild animals, these threats are more in our minds than in real life.
Being continuously in the mind, perceiving and combating our threats, leaves us feeling negative, tired, exhausted and often, hopeless. The gap between the worries and fears in our minds, versus what is there in our reality, is huge. We worry that we will fall sick or die, or become poor, or lose our job or spouse, or that our kids would go astray, but in a majority of cases, it has been seen that most of these fears never materialise. Nevertheless, we spend so much time and energy worrying and fearing them, that we have no time or space left, to feel good. Since we are always fearful, worried and stressed, we are automatically looking for the opposite feeling that of feeling good or peaceful or happy. We don't like the miserable feeling of being in fear or worry. But since we are perceiving threats to us, one after the other, we might have very brief periods of happiness, but quickly we are back to our negative state.
In order to feel good for longer periods of time, we need to know and accept that most of our worries and fears are fictitious, and might never happen. The future is full of infinite possibilities and probabilities, and anything can happen tomorrow or next week or next year, but, with our threat perceiving, survival based brains, we seldom see the good or feel good.
We try and feel good in our chronic stressed and fearful state, by indulging ourselves, in food, in drink, in gossip, in watching television, in travelling, in hobbies etc. But while these do make us feel good and can distract us for short periods of time, eventually, the sheer amount of threats that we perceive in our internal and external environments on a daily basis takes over, and we are back to square one.
The only way out of this vicious cycle, is to be present, to be aware, and to focus our energies and attention on the present moment, which is usually free of conflict. Most of our worries, if you realise, are not in the NOW. They arise in the past, or are likely to threaten us in the future. As of NOW, we usually have no problems, if you come to think of it. Focussing on the NOW, and holding our thoughts in a narrow range, without straying into the past or present, is one way of feeling good, because in the NOW, there is no perceived threat and we feel relaxed. We also tend to anticipate and over estimate future worries, and tend to magnify them out of proportion. It is a rare individual who will actually reduce or under estimate a future problem. We need to know that when the future arrives it can arrive in multiple shapes, while our brain usually imagines it arriving only in the worst possible way. Even in a severe epidemic, a very small percentage of cases actually turn complicated. Most people recover. But in our minds, when we think of an epidemic, we always imagine the worst. Like wise, we need to see things in the long shot, and accept that there are many possibilities, many ways a situation could resolve, and not be stuck with the doomsday theory that our minds feed us, almost all the time.
Its time we loosened our grip on fear, and let some trust, love, faith and acceptance, into our lives, if we are to feel better and better. Also, if you were to consider the observer effect that quantum physics talks of, or if you consider the law of attraction, by imaging the worst case scenario every time, we might actually be bringing about its very manifestation. We need to be really careful, about our thoughts and feelings.