Hello! Seiiti Arata. There are people who really want to improve their lives … but are afraid of looking greedy. How can you live well without being greedy? The desire to prosper and seek improvements is essential to avoid apathy and mediocrity. But we do not want the exaggeration of being seduced by endless greed, because this only brings suffering.
So, on the one hand, you must set goals for your life, living with purpose and making your dreams come true.
On the other hand, you must avoid greed and be able to show gratitude for what you already have. You must avoid becoming attached to the infinite desire to have more and more.
This causes confusion in the minds of many people. On the one hand, they tell you that you should be happy with what you have. On the other hand, they tell you to always look for more. So, what should you do? How do you reconcile all of this?
There is no contradiction between wanting more and being satisfied with what you have.
It’s true that you should not embrace apathy or become sloppy or stagnant. The lack of a desire to improve may indicate that you are not living up to your purpose. It is important to find meaning in your life. On the other hand, excess in the pursuit of infinite goals can be a great source of suffering.
But what causes suffering is not the desire to achieve a goal. It is the attachment to looking only at the final goal, without enjoying the entire path that leads to that goal. In exaggerated situations, this attachment can turn into greed. Greed arises when you are never satisfied and increasingly want more and more, just for you, at any cost, ignoring other people’s needs and your own personal values.
See if you recognize this pattern. You set a goal. Suffer to achieve that goal. After a lot of effort, you can achieve the goal.
In that short moment when you achieve the goal, the feeling of happiness is very good. But soon after, that feeling goes away and you set another goal. And the cycle begins again.
In doing so, your life will be composed of long periods of suffering with a few moments of happiness here and there. This doesn’t seem to be very smart, so we need to think about an alternative.
Improve your focus to find satisfaction in what you already have … while looking for improvements.
The key word to reconcile the desire to want more with the satisfaction of what you already have is FOCUS.
Learn to focus on the present moment, learn to enjoy every step of the journey towards your goals. In doing so, all the apparent contradiction between wanting more and thanking what you have will disappear.
We are usually unhappy in the face of disappointment. We can suffer unnecessarily when we think someone behaves in a way that we don’t approve of, or when we don’t like something that is happening, or when the things that we would like to happen just don’t happen.
A lot of people try to solve this problem by trying to avoid unwanted situations and hoping that everything will happen exactly as they want.
These are generally immature people, who still believe that a plan is enough and that everything will work out.
Over time, we mature and see that this is impossible. There is no one in the world who has their desires always satisfied. Unwanted events are inevitable.
If so, how can we stop reacting with suffering to things we don’t like?
For you not to be greedy, try to focus on the present moment.
When we are suffering because of some unfulfilled goal, we are almost always out of the present moment. It is positive to wish for something better. However, beware of exaggerated suffering when you still don’t have what you would like to.
You can take the test. When you suffer and complain about your body, your job or anything else, what are you doing? You are generally imagining that things should be different than they are today.
This can activate your desire for change, which is positive when you are motivated by a purpose, a dream for improvement.
Be careful, as many people who consider themselves detached are actually apathetic. Desiring nothing is a way of apathy, it is an attachment to detachment. It is believing that we need to anesthetize ourselves, and not feeling too much happiness or too much sadness and just accept things as they are.
Balance is necessary: I want neither the extreme of apathy nor the extreme of greed. For this, the desire to improve is fundamental. And so that this desire does not become a source of unhappiness, you need to keep your focus on the present moment.
To do this, there are many techniques. One that I really like is that you focus only on the next step of the journey.
For example, let’s imagine that you are not satisfied with your body . You set a goal and define the body you would like to have.
Instead of just thinking about that ultimate goal, complaining about your body still not being what you want it to be, you should focus only on the next practical step you can take to transform your body.
You focus only on the present day, only on the current meal, only on the next bite you are going to take.
In doing so, you are learning to be satisfied with only the path. You are learning to thank each step you take, while keeping yourself moving towards your greatest goals.
Focus is the keyword for you to realize your biggest dreams and at the same time to have satisfaction with every step you take on the journey.
Instead of being attached to the desire for different things, you set yourself in motion and focus on the present moment to move forward with satisfaction, day after day. Without focus, you run the risk of being one of those people who start several projects and never finish anything, because you are never satisfied.
For those of you who want to improve your focus with various techniques to focus better, I invite you to learn more about the FOCUS course by visiting https://arata.se/focuscourse