Most people wake up and have a constant stream of negative thoughts until they go to bed.
And the majority of those thoughts will never actually happen.
And the things that will, don't even really matter or are simply going to be challenges
that they're going to overcome.
It's funny that most people might not even realize this.
It has become the norm.
Unless you've tried to become aware of your thinking or tried meditating, you might not
even realize what your mind is doing to you.
Now the mind is probably one of the most powerful tools that we have, but the more powerful
something is, the more dangerous it is if a person doesn't know how to be in control
of it.
It's literally like taking a chainsaw and giving to the guy who has no control over
his limbs.
So why is that you want to become aware of this or as Eckhart Tolle says, "watch the
thinker?"
Because it's killing you.
The more we study this, the more we realize that it's physically killing us.
If you go outside and look at people, you will see cortisol producing machines.
That's literally what everyone has become.
And it'a apparent in how they walk and how they interact with each other.
It is literally killing you.
Not only is it ruining your life, it's literally physically killing you.
So a lot of people have come to understand this, and most people have started to see
the value in becoming present.
But really, there are two obstacles to becoming present.
And it is the past and the future.
And people have an easier time reconciling the past with the present, even though I'll
still get questions like, "Oh, so uh, what are your biggest regrets in life?"
And I'm like, "Uh, I don't know."
They're like, "Come on!
You gotta have some."
But I really don't know, because I don't think about that.
It just doesn't make sense to take something that isn't and let it negatively affect something
that is.
And I think most people understand that, maybe not in practice but at least in theory they
understand that.
But the really big problem has come with the future and the present moment.
How do you reconcile those two?
I want to set those powerful goals, I want to have a powerful vision, but how do you
reconcile that with being present to the moment?
And there are really two kinds of people.
The first one is the classic rat racer.
In two years, he's going to get a $2 raise, and that's all he's anxious and stressed out
about for the next 2 years.
After he gets that $2 raise, he'll be quasi-happy for 2 minutes, and he'll be back to another
2 years of stress and anxiety for another $2 raise.
And that's most people.
And then some of those people will pick up the Bhagavad Gita or Eckhart Tolle's The Power
of Now and completely misunderstand it and say, "Well, no more goals!
That's just ego gratification!
From now on I'm staying fully present to the moment!"
And honestly, anything's probably better than being a rat racer, but ultimately you don't
want to get stuck in either one of those paradigms.
So let's look at an analogy from Tal Ben-Shahar that should allow us to never ever have a
problem understanding how you can have a vision and goals and stay present to the moment at
the same time.
Tal Ben-Shahar says, imagine you're a mountain climber.
Okay, we all get it.
Happiness isn't in the peak.
If a helicopter picked you up and dropped you off at the tip of the mountain, you wouldn't
say, "Oh, look!
I'm a happy mountain climber!
Look at how proud I am of myself!"
But he says, neither is it in aimlessly wandering at the base of the mountain.
Happiness is the experience of climbing towards the peak.
And that's literally how you want to look at it.
You set up that powerful vision, that worthy goal of yourself which is the peak, and then
you follow that path that leads you there while you stay present to the moment on the
journey.
And again there's going to be some guy that says, "Well, you're taking out all the spirituality
from Eckhart Tolle," or whatever.
But look, you're obviously misunderstanding it.
Eckhart Tolle does not say don't plan.
If that was the case, the guy would still be sitting on a park bench instead of going
on Operah and producing multiple best-selling books.