Everyone has preferences. Even after spiritual awakening, people have preferences. They are part of our programming and part of what makes us unique. That programming gives the Oneness a unique experience through us, so preferences serve in that way. The ego causes us to suffer over our preferences, however, by making them more important than they are. It leads us to believe we won’t be happy if our preferences aren’t met, and that simply isn’t true, unless we choose to be unhappy. Interestingly, the belief that we won’t be happy if our preference isn’t met can be a self-fulfilling prophecy: We become unhappy because we believe we should be unhappy or because we believe we are justified in being unhappy. That is the ego’s thinking, which turns simple preferences into something to suffer over.

Most preferences are a matter of taste, which varies from person to person. So how important can they be to our happiness? If we prefer chocolate ice cream and are given vanilla instead, how bad is that? Many people would rather have vanilla, so it can’t be that bad. What makes it bad is comparing chocolate to vanilla or holding an idea of chocolate while we are tasting vanilla. The problem is not in the experience of vanilla, but in what the mind does with that experience. The mind interferes with experiencing vanilla ice cream with images and ideas of something else. If uncluttered by those images, eating vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate is just a different experience, not an inferior one.

That is a simple example of a taste preference, but the same applies to more weighty preferences. For instance, we may prefer that people aren’t late or that they answer our emails promptly or that they pick up after themselves. Those are also conditioned preferences. Every preference is a desire: We desire one thing over another thing. Desires tend to become emotionally charged, while preferences are less likely to. Preferences could be considered mini-desires, but preferences, like desires, can cause suffering if we take them too seriously.

So what happens when someone is late and we prefer that he or she be on time? Notice what the egoic mind does to cause us to suffer over this: “How can he be so inconsiderate? Doesn’t he know I have other things to do today? He’s so selfish. He never follows through on his promises. I can’t count on him. I’m never going to make a date with him again. Why does this always happen to me?” If we buy into these thoughts, the ego keeps piling them on. It goes on and on in an attempt to stir up an emotion. If one statement doesn’t work, the ego tries another.

The ego wants to stir up emotions because emotions justify its statements. Feelings make the ego’s story seem true and justified, and there is nothing the ego likes better than feeling right and self-righteous. All of the stories the ego tells when it doesn’t get what it wants are in service to feeling right and self-righteous. They aren’t about the truth. Once we see this, we don’t have to indulge in the ego’s stories. We don’t have to go down that road. We have gone that way so many times before, and what has it gotten us?

Instead, we can just acknowledge that we have a preference for something else. After acknowledging that, we just have the experience we are having, without a lot of thoughts about it. We eat that vanilla ice cream and see what it’s like, or we wait for that person and really notice everything that is part of being wherever we are and waiting rather than giving our attention to our thoughts about that or about something else. Just be there in the experience you are having. It’s always good!

From Living in the Now: Reflections from Another Dimension About Being Happy in This One by Gina Lake, available on Amazon.com.