Maybe You're the Problem

This week is part 3 in a series on Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul.

Today, we unpack the hidden role many of us our playing in creating our own unhappiness…

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

🎯 The Idea In a Nutshell:

• We’re easily triggered when life doesn’t go our way.

• Often, this reflects a belief that the world should conform to our expectations.

• We treat these expectations like gospel.

• In reality, they’re nothing more than personal preferences.

• And one of the keys to a more contented life is to loosen our grip on them.

📝 Diving Deeper

When was the last time you got really pissed off? Maybe your partner left the sink full of dirty dishes. Or a colleague ran late for a meeting. Or your kid refused to listen.

Whatever the trigger, the moment it happens, the inner monologue starts: “How could they??” “The nerve!” “This is unacceptable!”

It feels so black and white to you. It’s as if some fundamental law of the universe has been violated.

But consider this: How many people do you know for whom the same event wouldn’t have even been a blip on the radar?

There are surely countless people in your social circle alone who wouldn’t give a shit if they came home to a sink full of dirty dishes. Who would welcome a breather in their day if someone ran ten minutes late for a meeting. Who wouldn’t have picked that battle with their kids to begin with.

It’s tempting to chalk this up to a trivial matter of differing preferences. But stopping your analysis there misses a critical point; Singer wants us to go deeper. To remember that our preferences are a reflection of a world model that is unique to us. An internal script of how we believe things should work. They are personal. Highly subjective. And certainly not above questioning.

Something profound happens when we see this clearly. We become less judgmental, learning to accept people as they are. To avoid the trap of unrealistic expectations. And above all, we begin to see that perhaps the source of our grumpiness was never ‘out there’ to begin with.

Maybe the world isn’t broken, but our model of it is.

👉 Why it matters:

• Speaking from personal experience, realizing that my preferences weren’t objective truth has been a catalyst for real improvements in both my marriage and my overall happiness.

• Some preferences are worth holding tightly — questions of core values and morality, for example.

• But the vast majority of the triggers we wrestle with are far more subjective.

• Learning to loosen up about those is a massive source of leverage when it comes to living a more contented life.

🤔 Prompts for Reflection

• In what parts of your life are you treating personal preferences as inviolable laws?

• What’s a triggering event that you could learn to relax about?

• What would this mean for your personal happiness? What about your relationships?

Make today impactful.
~Jason

PS - I’ll be taking next week off from the newsletter for some work travel. I’ll see you back here on Sunday, September 14th!