A few years back, I took a course on how to day trade on the stock market. It seemed so cool at the time – learning to understand numbers and patterns so you could make money off of it.
In the end, I decided it wasn’t for me – it felt too much like I was basically stealing from others without offering value – but the experience eventually grew into the metaphor I present today.
Whether we are aware of it or not, our choices, particularly the ones affecting what and how much we value things, have incredible power.
When we give something value in our eyes, we attach a certain percentage of our happiness to it. We become anywhere from slightly to completely dependent on that thing – or person, cause, organization, whatever – behaving in a way we expect, in order for us to feel good about ourselves and our lives.
In the above example, this (slightly obsessive) individual has invested about 20% of their happiness in Deadmau5. More specifically, they feel a proportional amount of happiness if he does something they like – release a new album, for example.
If on the other hand, Deadmau5 does something they don’t like (for example, getting banned on Twitter for not watching his language), they will feel the same proportion of UNhappiness.
Of course, it’s more complicated than this – it depends partly on HOW much that value increases or decrease in our eyes for one thing – but you get the idea.
I think a lot of people don’t consider the downside of the things they invest their happiness into. They think it’s a guaranteed win, and don’t stop to consider that NOTHING in the world of form is guaranteed.
If nothing is guaranteed, then our choices aren’t just choices; they are gambles.
So why does any of this matter?
When we place our happiness – which can also be considered trust – in something without considering that we are gambling, we become over-attached.
We buy a fancy car, then become too scared of potential crashes to let anyone else drive. We get so invested in a sports team we threaten the opposition with violence. We develop narcissistic views about our body, then feel like a shriveled-up shrew when the first wrinkles appear.
Like the stock market, we become so invested in something going UP, we make ourselves miserable for fear it may come DOWN.
In other words, we invest too much in things that don’t really matter. Or they matter, but not nearly enough for it to become life-or-death for us.
Pets die. Computers crash (usually just before you save your work). And even the strongest-seeming marriages fail. And how desperately attached you are to the outcome means the difference between a period of suffering and a darkness from which you may never emerge.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t become attached – attachments are how we feel connected to the world. I’m saying we need to see the gamble for what it is.
Ultimately, the only attachments truly worth hanging the full weight of our happiness on, are values that are universal and unchanging. Values like the inherent goodness of our fellow man, if you believe in that sort of thing.
Credits:
‘207306389080880657’ by https://zen12.com/ on Pinterest
‘Animal Eye’ by Flickr from Pexels
“Numbers on Monitor” by Pixabay from Pexels
‘Space Grey Ipad Air With Graph on Brown Wooden Table’ by Burak K from Pexels
‘Woman Holding Red and Black Cards’ by Matheus Bertelli from Pexels