A Bearable Lightness of Being

Written by Adam Khan

Future chapter by Adam Khan, author of Self-Help Stuff That Works

A FRIEND OF MINE just got back from Lesotho, a small country in Africa, where he spent two years in the Peace Corps. He told me the people there thought all Americans were rich. As far as he was concerned, he was a poor college student. He'd never thought of himself as rich. We Americans don't usually think that way because we're used to our level of wealth. But compared with the people in Lesotho and with most places on Earth, we are rich.

A king of an empire only a thousand years ago was poor compared to a modern American. You and I have services and possessions completely incomparable to the kings: microwave ovens, TVs, phones, medical technology, paved roads and cars to drive on them, hot showers, running water, flushing toilets, CD players, and it goes on and on. We're rich, but we hardly ever think so because human beings have a natural tendency to feel unsatisfied, discontented, to always want more no matter how much we have. It's true for

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the people in Lesotho and it's true for you and me.

U.S. citizens have become progressively wealthier through the years. The average citizen in 1953 had access to 153 electronic appliances. In twenty years, it increased to about 400. The median size of a new home built in 1949 was 1100 square feet. By 1993 it had grown to 2060 square feet. A person in the U.S. on average, owns twice as many cars now as people did in 1950. We're wealthy! But not very many of us feel wealthy.

The truth is: No matter how far you come, it is never enough. No matter where you arrive, it soon becomes the status quo and loses the thrill, and pretty soon your sights go out to something better. It's human nature.

We're all in the same boat. We're all naturally greedy. We all continually escalate our desires above what we have. It's as natural as breathing.

But just because something is natural, doesn't mean it's good or that you're helpless against it. This is an important point. It's natural to have sexual desires. But that doesn't mean you can jump on everybody you feel attracted to and just apologize later: "Sorry, I couldn't help it. Sex drive, you know. Biological." No. We control our natural sexual desires.

In the same way, we can control our natural greed. And I don't mean merely controlling greedy behavior, but actually controlling the feeling of dissatisfaction.

Before this chapter is out, I'll tell you what you can do about it, but first I want you to grasp the full scope of the problem. Your greed has an impact on every area of your life. You're greedy about your relationships. You want your lover to be perfect. You're greedy about your money. No matter how much you make right now, a little more would be better. You're greedy about your food, your time, your possessions, your pleasures. You would prefer to feel good all the time. You want everybody to treat you with respect. You always want more than you have, and sometimes you feel unhappy about it.

To make matters worse, you also feel pushed and pressured by your own greed. It feels like you must do this and you should do that, but all you're doing is trying to satisfy your own desires - you want to get a promotion or earn more money or whatever. Your desires feel like needs, but most of them aren't. They are what you might call "false needs."

Let's say you want to be the next CEO of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, and you're excited about your goal. You feel good about it. But a few weeks later, you feel stressed by it. What happened?

Your perfectly innocent desire has turned into a false need. As long as it's simply a desire, the goal - or any goal you want - can be stimulating and fun and inspiring and motivating and a whole bunch of other pleasant feelings. But when you have to put together a resume, and you think you should get it in the mail as soon as possible, and you need to make it perfect, the goal is a drag: it brings you down, lowers your mood and it's not good for your health.

When you're fully aware you don't need to accomplish your goals but only want to, you have energy, good health, and your enthusiasm influences people who can help you.

Desire brings you up and drives you forward with pleasure. Greed brings you down and stresses you out.

When I was a kid, I had to pull weeds in our lawn. There was some kind of "devil" weed (at least, that's what my dad called it) that kept growing in the grass, and Dad was determined to prevent this evil from taking over the neighborhood. So, come summertime, my brother and sister and I were sent forth to conquer. Our mission: To seek out and pull up the weed with the red leaves. Summers were hot in Nevada. I hated that chore.

Next door to us lived the O'Rourks. They also had the evil weed growing on their lawn, and my best friend, Tommy, had to pull weeds too. Sometimes we had a scheduling conflict: I was ready to play, but he was pulling weeds. I helped him so he could finish sooner. I noticed that pulling the weeds from the lawn next door was much more fun than pulling them in my own yard, and I even knew why: because I didn't have to do it. When it was his lawn, it was an option for me, and I did it because I wanted to. The physical task was identical. But mentally, the task was quite different.

Of course you can't really do this with your job: "I don't have to go to work. I want to go to work." You wouldn't fool anyone with that one, especially yourself. But there are some elements you can influence that may improve your attitude toward any source of stress. We'll give you a technique here and then look at how it works using some examples.