joy · you feel you may gain a thing · relationships · wife
what you just named
You came in joy, not pain: that you feel you may gain a thing, in your relationships — specifically with wife — and you reached for the Stoic voice first. That's what you've named. Listen now to what it answers.
- Stoic
Spirit
mind
The feeling of finding each other again is real. The grip on that finding — the urgency that the reunion must arrive in a particular shape, on a particular schedule — is the disturbance. Epictetus: do not seek for things to happen as you wish; but wish for things to happen as they do happen. The reunion that is arriving is not the one you have pictured; it is the one that is actually happening between two specific people in a specific season of life. Drop the picture. Be present to what is actually here. The finding does not need your help; it needs your attention.
heart
Drop the picture of how the finding should look. Be present to the actual one happening.
connection
You stand in the line of all who let the reunion arrive on its own terms — the couple who realized they were not finding the old marriage but a new one, every man who released the picture and let the present unfold.
Action
Today, when you notice yourself anticipating how the next moment with her should go, release the picture. Be present to the moment that arrives.
Reference
Do not seek for things to happen as you wish; but wish for things to happen as they do happen, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 8
practice
Releasing the picture of the reunion so the actual one can arrive
principle
The reunion is the one that is happening, not the one you have imagined
value
Attention over schedule