Vigilance, Hope and Aspiration

I realized last night that I have become much less flexible and I am very rigid about not wanting to miss a work out or anything that disrupts my plans.  I am fearful that one day I will wake up and realize that I have lost the drive to meet my goals.  I have seen it happen so many times and I want this commitment to not wain or waiver.  I do not want an excuse to lead me down a path where I let go.  It has created an edge and harshness that I am not totally comfortable with but understand that I feel until I have confidence that I will be true to my goals.  

When I first started writing this post I had a misunderstanding of Pema's writing of abandon hope and felt that hope was merely an excuse for avoiding your situation and relying on something that you had no control over.  Although, I still agree that is the point I took it a step further because I believe I used hope as a way to avoid the lack of action on my goals.   I hoped that I would change and exercise but really I never worked on how I would achieve it given that I never changed my behavior.   However since I have been reading more and contemplating more I realize that was just a lack of commitment to my goals and not a "hope issue".  Although I am going to still post some of what I had because I find it interesting.  What does hope mean?  What does the desire of control and aspirations have to do with Pema's view?



Hope: to have a wish to get or do something or for something to happen or be true.  Hope is a basic human emotion that we all cling to at different times of our lives.  Hope is easy and does not require much effort and still provides the promise of better things.  I cannot help but think that our world is more reliant on hope than ever before. Think about it -  President Obama was elected on a slogan of hope for the future, hope for change. Some of the problems in the world and our lives that it seems that hope is the only real strategy to deal with all the issues.  I have spent a lot of my life hoping I would changing my habits, parts of myself, or my situation but really though what does hope get us?   

"The way I understand it is that we rob ourselves of being in the present by always thinking that the payoff will happen in the future. The only place ever to work is right now. We work with the present situation rather than a hypothetical possibility of what could be. I like any teaching that encourages us to be with ourselves and our situation as it is without looking for alternatives. The source of all wakefulness, the source of all kindness and compassion, the source of all wisdom, is in each second of time. Anything that has us looking ahead is missing the point."  Pema Chodron on Abandon Hope of Fruition

Aspiration: a desire or ambition to achieve something.  A wish for something to be true has no meat, no action - who are we wishing to?  Who makes wishes come true?  Aspiration requires desire and ambition which is necessary to make change and get things done.  Ironically this is me taking Pema's teaching to a place I want to take it because her point is that we use hope to hide from fear and to try to deny suffering.  She says:        

"Giving up hope is encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, to not run away from yourself, to return to the bare bones, no matter what ís going on.  Fear of death is the background of the whole thing.  It ís why we feel restless, why we panic, why there ís anxiety.  But if we totally experience hopelessness, giving up all hop of alternatives to the present moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest, direct relationship, one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence and death."

 

In the end I am not sure where this leaves me because it still feels like this aspiration, drive and vigilance is still leading me away from making friends with myself.  This harshness and control that I am trying to maintain is a fear and anxiety that does not feel peaceful or living in the now.   I have come full circle to realize there is still something to learn here. I am just not sure what.   I need to relax and have faith in myself.  I need to breath and take each day each moment as an opportunity and not fear the change.  However, I still need to stay strong in my mind and not let the old habits and addictions derail me.  Geez - no wonder I am confused.