A Hidden Problem

Two years ago I went for a walk in my favorite park. Bush Pasture is a beautiful place with winding paths through hundreds of gorgeous trees. What was unique about this particular walk is that my wife and kids were off doing something and I was completely free and on my own. I had five hours of freedom and absolutely no responsibilities. That never happens in my little world.

I had plans to get together with a friend later on but first, I wanted to have a nice long walk through the trees. I take my kids down to that park and I always enjoy it. But taking my girls to the park is a bit like taking an express train through the Alps.

It was a perfect afternoon. There was hardly anyone at the park and the wind was blowing through the trees, making the leaves shimmer and talk.

I walked
I looked around
I listened

But something wasn’t right.

I had five hours (well 4.5 to be exact) to do whatever I wanted. Perhaps there was a better way to spend my time. I mean wouldn’t a lot of other guys view my choice of activities as pathetic? Am I really going to take any meaningful memories away from this? Perhaps I should be trying to network, reach out to other people, make friends, exercise, or go kayaking. Maybe I should go find Mike and we could go mountain biking. Maybe that’s what I should do. Maybe that is the solution.

I had a good walk in the park on that day but it was not the walk I had meant to take. I walked and I listened to my mind. I wasn’t obsessing or caught up in neuroses. I just listened to it. How repetitive it was, how compulsive. It was kind of mindless and insane.

How my mind works:

• You wait for some thing specific to fall into place.


• If it does, it only take a moment to realize that you were waiting for the wrong thing.


• So you wait for something else.
  
• Rinse and repeat
  

I recognized this dissatisfaction. It has been a part of me for as long as I could remember but recently I had been increasingly aware of it.

I go to 12 step meetings and enjoy them a great deal but for some time I’ve been having a certain struggle. Between meetings I would become dissatisfied. I would feel adrift. I would try and remember that wonderful purpose and energy I found in the meetings. I would pray, call a recovery friend, call my sponsor or read some literature. Sometimes that would work and it was wonderful. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being pursued by a beast of dissatisfaction. No matter what I did, it was only a matter of time before it would show up again.

I didn’t want to live my life that way.

Could I ever work my recovery program well enough? Could I leave that dissatisfaction behind in any truly meaningful way? Would I always be searching and searching for a higher perspective?

Maybe I need more information?

Perhaps Buddhism.
Maybe lucid dreaming.
I could try serious exercising.
How about underwater basket weaving?
Or perhaps I should just become a workaholic. At least that way I would look like a success. Even if underneath I was endlessly haunted by the dissatisfaction. Unable to simply enjoy my life.
---UNABLE TO ENJOY MY LIFE---

I knew that the 12 step meetings I was attending were a positive influence but on some level they were not addressing a core issue. As Eckhart Tolle puts it, I was trying to add more content, when in fact the real issue was structural.

I thought my mind was me.

My mind is a problem solving machine. If it can not find a problem, then it has no purpose. If it is going to have a purpose, it must find a problem (dissatisfaction). Life was an endless problem and I was completely incapable of enjoying it.

When I was walking in the park, I became uncomfortable with the silence. My mind was uncomfortable without a problem to chew on. It was like I needed my security blanket and my security blanket was thinking. I believed I was my mind so I needed to stay thinking. Otherwise I was just a void. Without thought, what I believed was me, didn’t exist.

Fortunately I am not my mind.