I was balancing my checkbook and it was making me unhappy.
The balance was off by $15.98. “Ah ha,” I thought, “I see a check for $15.98, so if I take that out it will balance correctly.”
I did, and it did.
However, the problem remained because that check had to be in since it was a cashed check. Therefore, in spite of the fact that taking it out would balance the checkbook, that was not the answer.
Next, I was tempted to think the bank was wrong, because even when I added up all the numbers myself with my calculator I was still right and they were still wrong.
Still, I knew it was more likely that I was the one who was missing something, so I looked again, and again, and again, until I saw that I was missing two numbers, and when I corrected that error my statement balanced.
I was happy again, amazed by how my assumptions had me going down a path that I wanted to be true, but wasn’t!
What threw me off, and kept me from seeing the mistake immediately, was the coincident that I had a check for that exact amount and I wanted that to be the answer.
Our unhappiness or happiness is only an outcome of our assumptions.
Whether we experience unhappiness or happiness is always a result of the way we have scanned the day, our work, and our lives, with preconceived ideas of how things are as we do so.
All of which reminds me of what Tweedledee said in the book, Alice Through The Looking Glass,
“… if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be: but as it isn’t, it ain’t.”
This is true about all things we view that make us unhappy, “they ain’t.”
The view is determined by the viewer, not the other way around.