Chronic Dissatisfaction
Suffering from Chronic Dissatisfaction?
There's a movie out right now by Woody Allen called, Vicky, Christine, Barcelona. I watched it last night at the movies. There were so many parodies (as there are in Allen's movies) but one in particular really got me. I think you'll have seen this time and time again. It was the person looking for something, looking for themselves, looking for nirvana, looking for their own personal path but willing to do, try almost anything to have another 'experience' on the way. She thinks (again) she has found it in this very unconventional lifestyle with a crazy bohemian artist and falls head over heels in love with every aspect of that lifestyle. The artist's wife (complex relationship) is suspicious of her. She thinks she is just using them to 'try' something new. Here gut tells her that. The artist himself, he is a true eccentric artist only interested in love and art. He doesn't really care. So the day comes when the young American that had fallen in love with everything within this crazy lifestyle realises that..."this isn't what I want" and she tells them both one morning in the kitchen. The artist accepts it and says "let's be thankful for the time we shared together" but his wife, played by the drop-dead-gorgeous Penelope Cruz goes totally nuts at her and screams three times ... Chronic Dissatisfaction - Chronic Dissatisfaction - Chronic Dissatisfaction ... you have that illness.Interesting. Because I love Woody Allen's stuff. I like how he thinks. I love the fact he can really see life and write about it and put it on a screen. And for him to add this 'illness' called Chronic Dissatisfaction says a lot. It tells me he has seen it on the streets, in life, in people daily, weekly, monthly, endlessly. Let me ask you... "do you know anyone that appears to suffer from Chronic Dissatisfaction?" I have, to be honest I have met hundreds upon hundreds of people like this on my global travels and I think it's getting worse as time moves on. People with everything want nothing. People with everything want more. People with nothing want everything. And so on. Generally, total, absolute Chronic Dissatisfaction appears to be a very 21st-century illness. So what's going on here?The more we control people the more they lose themselves. They lose themselves to their real inner self. They lose themselves to rules and other system applied rubbish. And they get so tied up in that junk it overtakes them and removes any meaning to life. Do people want others to take control of their life and run it for them? If not ... why do they allow that to take place? For example, on the way to the cinema, I was driving down a long dual carriageway. As I drove a speed camera went off. I was doing just over 30 MPH so yes I got zapped... serves me right. As I stopped at the lights an older guy pulls up at the side of me and signals for me to wind down my window. I did and so did he. He said to me with a stern frowned grey face ... "do you realise you have been zapped by the speeding camera?" I replied with a large smile "yes". He then came back at me with ... "you do realise it'll be a huge fine?" I replied with a huge smile... "I am used to it, I am an international criminal" He was dumbstruck, baffled and amazed at my reply and then said... "are you from this country?" I smiled, closed my window with no reply and drove on to watch the movie never to mention this small moment in my life until now. But really my point being was this... the guy was a rule player and I am guessing he drove all the way home thinking about this incident. He'll have told his wife and friends about it. He'll be talking about it non-stop.Yet at the same time, this reflects that he is sufferings from the same illness as the character in the movie ... Chronic Dissatisfaction ... of life and everything about life. But it isn't life, it's the oppression of their life by meaningless rules and restrictions put in place to control them. The reality is unless you can peel back the layers of the external you and discover what is really going on inside you can never have a meaningful life. If you spend day after day talking about, discussing and chit-chattering about others peoples life, misfortune and bad choices (in your opinion) you can never be happy. Only when you really stand naked in front of a mirror and look at every aspect of YOU and really discover who you really are can you avoid or recover from this illness of Chronic Dissatisfaction.Let's not pretend ... Chronic Dissatisfaction is rampant at almost every level. You might want change. You might be waiting for change. You might want someone to do the change for you. But the reality is ... The change has to be YOU. I'd love your comment on this post.PeaceAlan Forrest Smith
