Circumstantial Well-Being Versus Permanent Well-Being
Escaping the Great Alternation and Discovering a New Rhythm
The study of well-being is fascinating and vast. This writing is going to introduce more for you to consider on this topic in the hopes of opening a new way for you to better approach this important territory.
Most of us think well-being comes from our circumstances. There may be another kind of well-being you have sensed without knowing how to describe it.
Circumstantial Well-Being, The Unending Alternation
Circumstantial well-being is easy to see and experience. We search for it after a hard day’s work or when the taxing duties of life are done. It occurs when we bring ourselves to situations that release energy into us that cause well-being of one kind or another. Vacationing in a new country, buying something, or sitting in the comfort of our home streaming a movie are a few of many thousands of examples that could be listed. The sense of well-being comes with the experience but gradually goes when it is over. We are then left searching for another well-being experience and the process repeats itself. Over time, this can make people feel like they are living in an endless loop they don't know how to escape from.
To peer deeper into what is going on we see there are two broad classes of circumstantial well-being. Those that are anchored in comfort and experiences that are already known to us. These have a magnetic nature that pulls us back towards them. The second are those anchored in the excitement of new experience. These have an electric nature and a sense of propelling us into the unknown. As humans we mostly find ourselves forever alternating between the two as we live our lives.
The best way to explain this is by an example. You and your friends are feeling restless and are looking for the excitement of something new. You go on a vacation for a week, flying to a new country. You have a stream of new experiences of the “Exciting” kind and life is good. But, after 5–6 days all this newness can become a bit much and now you begin to crave being in the comfort of your homes where everything is known and familiar. Upon arriving home, you each spend the next few days relaxing from your vacation and experiencing the “Comfort” side of circumstantial well-being.
Here are a few examples of each:
Comfort
· Daily trip to coffee shop
· Spending time with your pet
· Chilling with friends at home
· Relaxing on a sunny beach
· Eating your favorite foods
· Recalling fond memories
Excitement
· Partying/Going to a concert
· Gaming/thrill-seeking
· Shopping/buying something new
· Taking a selfie and posting it on social media
· Visiting a new city
· Learning something completely new
There are thousands of flavors of these two categories to experience, making it easy to alternate back and forth your whole life. Unfortunately, this never-ending cycle can lead people to have painful feelings such as disappointment, boredom, self-doubt or cynicism about their life.
The core problem is subtle. It is fundamentally the same “you” moving between these two aspects of circumstantial well-being. It is the same “you” going on your daily trip to the coffee shop in the morning, and the same “you” attending a music concert that evening.
On the surface, these experiences appear very different. One is familiar and comforting. The other is exciting and new. While the experiences vary greatly, the self experiencing them is essentially the same, carrying the same pre-existing filters of interpretation into each.
This is easy to miss because our attention is mostly drawn outward. We tend to focus on what’s facing us rather than what is happening inside us. If we were more aware of our inner world, we would notice different parts of the same self are meeting these two types of experiences. In other words, you are continually operating from the same underlying circuitry of self as you alternate between comfort and excitement. Over time this creates feelings of “same old, same old” or “what’s next” that we know so well.
Introducing Permanent Well-Being — New Alternations and Possibilities
If alternating between comfort and excitement isn’t fully satisfying, could we be searching for something else and not know it?
Permanent well-being works a different way. Rather than depending on changing our circumstances, it grows through the development of our inner self. This growth occurs through the development work that allows qualities such as curiosity, natural warmth, humility, confidence, wisdom, and joy to become a living part of who we are, while reducing the hold of our ego identity, the need for validation, and other limiting patterns. As we learn to genuinely embody these qualities, their energies activate and develop inner circuitries within us, changing the character of our inner self and expanding our possibilities. We will explore this process more deeply in further writings.
As our new inner self forms, our experience of both comforting and exciting circumstances is now different because something in us is changing.
By questing for permanent well-being a person is introducing a profound new alternation into their life—a new rhythm that unfolds alongside the alternation between comfort and excitement as illustrated below.
As you can see from the above diagram, as a person grows their inner self, they begin creating new possibilities for themselves. They can now alternate vertically (between permanent and circumstantial) and horizontally (between the two types of circumstantial) with their life, according to how they decide to invest their time. Life is no longer confined to the old alternation. A new rhythm becomes possible.
Effectively, they are opening a new dimension in their life. As new inner circuitry forms, your possibilities begin to expand. New feelings, perceptions, and capabilities begin to emerge. You are now growing something genuinely new within yourself, even if only in small ways to begin with.
As this new vertical rhythm becomes established, life begins to change. You’re no longer meeting your circumstantial life (horizontal) as the same person you were before. As your inner self grows, you begin to discover new feelings, possibilities, and ways of being as you move through your circumstantial life. You are no longer confined to the endless search for circumstantial well-being, where one experience eventually leads to the search for the next.
As your inner self grows and you begin to anchor permanent well-being, you may notice some of the following:
· There is a growing inner settlement as you develop more permanent connections to qualities such as peace and strength. These qualities replenish you from within, leaving less hunger for circumstantial well-being to provide validation, recognition, relief, or excitement.
· Both faces of circumstantial well-being begin to renew because there is now an ever-changing inner you meeting life. We begin to discover possibilities within the same life that were previously beyond our reach because we ourselves are no longer the same.
· One starts to feel the greater possibilities of what it means to be human.
This is only an introductory writing to scope out the territory, so it is time to land. I am sure you may have dozens of questions going on. Much deeper know-how will be shared in the future, including some starters on the inner development that grows the inner self and leads to permanent well-being.
In the spirit of new possibilities,
Ron Patterson
P.S. Curious question: Is a person's interest in a spiritual journey proportional to how clearly they see they are living inside the great alternation of circumstantial well-being?
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