Archive for the ‘The One Thing’ Category

Hiding in Plain Sight – The One Thing You’ve Been Looking For

Friday, August 15th, 2014

Hiding In Plain SightHave you ever lost something, only to later discover that it was hiding in plain sight? Perhaps, the note you just wrote—the one to remind yourself to remember—right along with your reading glasses?

What if I told you that there’s something you’ve been looking for—for the whole of your life—and that’s been under your nose the entire time you’ve been looking for it?

If you don’t already know what it is, let me give you a moment to ponder that before I tell you what it is. Let’s just say that it’s the single most important thing that any of us wants and will ever need, but we blindly look around it everyday. And, just like your elusive reading glasses, it’s been hiding in plain sight.

Here’s an illustration of what I mean. Imagine a woman—let’s call her Hope— is doggedly driving through an intense thunderstorm to meet a man she doesn’t even know yet. You see, Hope’s been looking for The One Thing in life that would make her happy—a relationship with the man of her dreams; and now, someone has kindly fixed her up on a blind date with a guy that seems to have everything she’s been looking for.

Earlier in the evening, as Hope is excitedly getting ready for her date, she makes sure that every hair is in place, rehearses her most charming smile, thinks of ten interesting things to bring up in conversation and frets that the outfit she’s wearing is maybe a little too tight in all the wrong places. After checking her imagine in the mirror a dozen times, she finally feels okay enough to venture out into the night to meet with Mr Right.

Then, just as she’s about to leave, the heavens open up in a crack of lightening, very quickly followed by what appears to be the Niagara River pouring out of the sky.

But our heroine is not to be deterred. With the reckless determination of a warrior going into battle, brandishing her umbrella, she sets out into the storm. Neither the flooded roads, nor the torrent of rain, lightening and—Oh, my god, that sounded like a bomb just went off—is going to keep her from her appointed hour.  She’s on a quest to find the One Thing she knows is missing in her life. This one might be The One.

Soon Hope arrives at the coffee shop, just early enough to stop into the rest room for a last minute smooth down and fluff up. None the worse for wear, sitting down now, she waits for her date to arrive.

And then . . .  she waits, and she waits, and then—she waits a little more. As the minutes tick off, her anxiety ratchets up. Forty-five minutes later, her thoughts begin to eddy and then whirlpool around a dreaded thought—Oh my god, the bas#@!d has stood me up!”

Poor Hope. She expected to be Cinderella meeting Prince Charming at the Ball only to end up with a ‘fine how do you do’ at Pity Party Central.

Utterly deflated, Hope feels like she’s somehow lost what she’s been looking for; which not so ironically, she never had in the first place. And in that, she wouldn’t be alone. In fact, she’d have tons of company.

How many times have you set your sights on the One Thing you thought would make you happy, only to find disappointment at the end, either because it didn’t arrive or, when it did, wasn’t all that you hoped it would be?

It might have been a new career or job, a new home, a new car, or—like Hope—a shiny new relationship. And how soon was it before the new car became the old car with balding tires, or the new lover became the idiot who never remembers to refill the gas tank in the aforesaid car? Hmm, makes you think, right?

For many of us, The One Thing we’re looking for quickly turns into a case of frustration in disguise. And if you’re counting yourself as one of the many, chances are you’ve found a ton of disappointment along the way. The fact is, in looking for what you think The One Thing is, you end up missing what you’re really looking for. But here’s the good news: it’s hiding in plain sight and there’s a way to take the blinders off.

Research shows that what we’re really looking for is mistakenly attached to the things we strive to get or achieve in life. Because what we truly want is an essential state of being we think we’ll experience when we finally get them.

So whether you’re looking for your dream job, the perfect lover, or enough money to buy that new car, what you’re really looking for is The One Thing we all want. Although we may use different words to describe what it is to us—whether it’s contentment, joy, happiness or peace—we’re all looking to find a way to feel completely okay in ourselves and our world.

But as long as you’re looking for conditions and things to satisfy your deepest longing for your One Thing, you’ll continue to look around it. On the other hand, the moment you let go of the conditions and things that you’ve attached to The One Thing—things that are completely outside your control—you’ll immediately discover being okay with yourself and your world has been hiding in plain sight.

We all want to find our The One Thing but, in looking for people, circumstances and things to be okay first, we put it outside our ability to find it. But that’s backward thinking—because if we discover and claim our essential okay-ness first, we’re suddenly able to be okay in a ‘not okay’ world. In other words, what’s happening in the world may not be entirely okay with you, but you can choose to be okay within it. Being okay doesn’t mean that you have to suffer the world as it is. You can work toward making changes and finding satisfaction in achieving your ambitions and desires and do it with an ‘essential okayness.’

You don’t need to wait around for it. Because a core state of okay-ness is not being sold at your local car dealership, something a new job will provide, a loved one can give you, or underneath the scratch off on a lottery ticket. If you look in the mirror, you only need look straight at it to see that it’s been there all along—hiding in plain sight.