Mercedes GT. What a beautiful car! Costs about CAD$120K. I often see it fly around town, and think to myself – it won’t make you happy…

I am an extremely adaptive creature. Like a cockroach – will survive even after the nuclear war. I went through some good and bad times, always arriving in one piece. There is a pattern. Whenever something happens, at first it is a shock. Good or bad – it’s a stress. If fact there are no good or bad things in life, it’s all just a perception. However, that’s a whole another story. So the shock… Something that we perceive as good can be even more shocking than that bad thing. Few days later, you open your eyes and you tell yourself: Actually, it is not that bad. After few more weeks, you might even look back at your initial reaction and laugh. What a big of deal you made out of it! Your circumstances didn’t change, but your perception did. What happened? You adapted.

This makes me feel invincible!
If you are in a great distress. If you go through some really rough times. If you feel that you can not endure anymore… At some point, your mind will take over and it will start adapting. You underestimate your body. It’s main purpose in life is to keep you alive. It is your angel guardian. Your brain is so creative at keeping you functional that if it’s essential to survival, it could even create an alter ego. Your mind will make you believe in bizarre things, to smooth the emotional ups and downs. Everything in the World strives for equilibrium and your body is not an exception. 

So why did I start with the car?

You can not be overly excited all the time as well as you can not experience the opposite feelings forever. Your body will strive to bring your emotional state back to balance. That Mercedes will make you excited only for so long… then it will become just another car. The large house on the lake will make you very very happy… only for so long. A new relationship will be exciting and lovely for a period of time… After a short period of time, things will go back to the basis. The Universe will equalize everything and everyone. Your mind will stabilize your emotional state and bring you to your basis. Don’t be naive and hope that once you acquire or achieve something – the life will get rosy. It might, but only for so long, until you get used to it.

What to strive for? I don’t know… Of course, having a better car or a boat, or a house … will make me happy. But for how long? That’s not permanent, so I don’t feed the illusions about that. Regardless of my circumstances – I will always come back to myself. I can pretend to be the biggest baboon on the tree, driving the best cars, dating the prettiest girls, but it’s a circle that will always bring me back to base – myself. 

What if I sacrificed twenty or thirty years chasing something, just to get it and immediately realize that I am not much happier than I was before? That is an ultimate failure. What if I worked five years for that Mercedes, just to buy it and understand that I missed something. Another story if I got it for free, or with a minimum amount of work. Then, I would treat it the way it should be treated – just as another car and nothing more. Want to take it for a ride? Sure! Here is the key.