In a coaching conversation this morning, my client and I were discussing her general lethargy and lack of motivation at work. I’m always learning from my clients, and here’s an insight this morning’s conversation inspired. 

Rather than trying to find a way out of any current malaise and discomfort we might be experiencing in the moment, we might be better off embracing our discomfort as a natural consequence of where we are right now in our lives, rather than struggling to make things other than the way they are.

Byron Katie once observed, wisely, that “when we argue with reality, we lose – but only 100% of the time.” 

If we’re honest, we’ll acknowledge that our lives are 50% heaven and 50% hell, yet we’re constantly bombarded with messages that insist we should be happy all the time – and that if we’re not, something’s wrong. If we convince ourselves that life should be 100% heaven, as advertisers and our social media contacts would like us to believe, our lives quickly become 100% hell. 

It’s simple math. Contentment = reality – expectations. 

Much of our unhappiness is the result of the gap between the way things are and the way we believe things ought to be. If we can close that gap by recognizing that the way things are is exactly the way they should be, our discomfort will start to ease. 

Richard Rohr put it succinctly: “Every expectation is a resentment waiting to happen.” 

None of us has it all together. We’re each a mess, and each of us suffers some degree of psychological distress every day. Acknowledging this truth can help us sidestep the resentment that results when we insist that things be other than the way they are.