As A Rule - Picking Hotels and other Important Life Decisions

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Hi guys,

So I’m trying to pick a hotel for a holiday (with someone else which makes it even trickier!) and we’re discussing what’s important in a hotel room - location, price, as well as the things that make me cross off even the most promising places - stories of bugs on Tripadvisor and shared bathrooms.

But as I was reviewing my deal breakers I remembered two amazing hotels I stayed in which broke these rules. One was a gorgeous Edinburgh townhouse hotel with a massive shared bathroom on the top floor (so we basically had it to ourselves!) the other was the wonderful Yangshuo Mountain Retreat which had some unrecognisable wriggly things in the bathroom, although they did warn us before we arrived: “We are in the countryside, there will be bugs.”

Both of these places (especially Yangshuo Mountain Retreat) have a special place in my heart - even though I never actually had enough time in the Edinburgh hotel for a long soak in the roll top bath and I was desperate to get to the top floor of a high tech Shanghai hotel with no bugs.

It’s the same with dating. Whether you’re looking for hotels or dates online it’s easy to use the filters to knock out those rated low by others (hotels), smokers (dates), smoking rooms (hotels), distance (both), age (dates), price (hotels - although there are some dating sites...) in fact all the things we think are important.

I read a wonderful chapter in a new book I bought by Thich Nhat Hanh which sums this up beautifully. In finding true joy, “you realise that all the things you have considered to be conditions for your happiness are nothing. They may even be obstacles for your own happiness, and you can get rid of them without regret. We are all looking for the conditions for our own happiness, and we know what things have made us suffer. But we have not yet seen or touched the treasure of happiness. When we touch it, even once, we know that we have the capacity of letting go of everything else.”

Sometimes we can be seduced by the picture of a four poster bed and arrive to find that the mattress is painfully uncomfortable (hotel), or that our date is deeply uncomfortable that he is a foot shorter than us (date), but these are just analogies.

We are all pursuing things that we believe will make us happy, whether that is directly or perhaps through others; making our children or parents happy will make us happy, volunteering for the community will make us happy, but every so often we need to stop and look around and question the conditions we have set ourselves for happiness.

Do we really need everything we think we need to be happy? Do the things we believe will make us unhappy really ruin our day? Or is running around trying to fulfil all our conditions of happiness really creating more suffering in our lives?

Can we allow enough space in our lives to let in joy when we do find it? I find myself guilty of this most days; the sun is shining and I want the joy of sitting in a park in the sunshine, and yet I find so many “important” things to do that I am lucky if I get five minutes in the sun.

Or it takes me so long to pack a bag for the beach and it is so heavy that I barely make it onto the beach.

My conditions for happiness actually delay or negate my happiness. It’s like the phrase I hear from many people “I’ll come to Zumba class when I am fitter.” When, to be happier, all we need to do is to start now, not wait to be happier.

So next time I find myself thinking “conditionally” I will challenge that condition I have set for myself, open my mind, heart and spirit to joy and just... be happy. (Even if there are bugs.)

Much love, Pearl x