“Your Last Day on Earth” Lens

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Volume 3, Issue 30

Whether we realize it or not, we are always managing our Selves. I’m capitalizing the word “Self” (and variants) for emphasis — to draw attention to the concept of Self, which may be of greater significance than any other concept in any language. To meditate on the Self and to penetrate to a deep understanding of our own Self confers the highest level of consciousness, the greatest happiness, the Zone/Flow state, creativity and peak effectiveness.

Our skill at Self-management varies. Sometimes we are in the Zone, though mostly not. Sometimes we are in a living hell. Whichever way it is, we are always doing it to ourselves. As the ancient Greek Stoic philosophers and Buddhists knew, whatever happens to us is not what makes us unhappy, it is our attitude toward it that makes us unhappy, and the latter can be controlled. Managed. It is a skill, one that can be learned.

As one studies and trains oneself and grows up to become a mensch (“stand-up guy”, “grownup”), it becomes apparent that:

  1. The most important thing to the Self is to know one’s purpose in life, and this gives meaning to life. One’s purpose is closely tied to one’s true work, which one must love or it is not one’s true work, one’s calling. One will not experience much Flow state if one is working at something else. However, I knew a truck driver who experienced Flow by his enjoyment of the travel adventure and camaraderie of the job, so as always in life there are no hard and fast rules.

     

  2. Distraction is the main barrier to Self-realization. Distraction is exacerbated by the Acceleritis-ridden culture we live in, and by attachment to outcomes driven into our psyches by conditioning, fear, and other-directedness. In a distracted state, little things having no bearing on our purpose in life become a big dramatic deal and we cannot think clearly because we keep obsessing over this peripheral stuff. It brings us down, making us weak, dependent, and fearful. We project failure, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We attract to us all the things we are fearful of.

In one of the methods described in our book Mind Magic, one does not “believe” anything, but instead takes an empirical approach to testing different strategies and carefully observing results to prove to oneself what works and what doesn’t. Lenses are used as trial strategies, that is, one temporarily adopts a lens or way of looking at things to see if this way gets one into the Zone more often, or not.

Here’s a lens for today: look at your life as if right now, today, it is your last day on Earth. This lens keeps you focused on what you are here to accomplish in this life — on meaning and purpose, and not on the little dramas that usually take all our attention.

In one’s last day on Earth, how you do things becomes the most important thing. Every little thing you do is done with quality. You are in the moment, present, with every person you interact with. You let out the hero inside. You exemplify grace under pressure, Hemingway’s and Churchill’s definition of courage. Churchill said that courage is the key virtue because all the others stem from it.

You find that the usual distracting dramas melt down in perspective to what they are, no big tzimmis.

By this lens one stays focused on the true priorities.

Best to all, 

Bill

Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network: In Terms of ROI. It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com. 

Shifting the Focus of Emotional Intensity

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Volume 3, Issue 29

We are emotional beings. We are hardwired to have some emotional drama going on in the background at all times. Getting into the Zone aka Flow state requires awareness and management of that background emotional mood. If we are not proactively programming it, it will program itself.

After a long series of successes, the background state is often one of confidence, a can-do, can-win attitude. However, this can also set one up to crash in the case of a setback. “What is happening?” we will wonder. “This can’t be happening to me. I never fail.”

To prepare oneself for a challenging game ahead, one uses mental rehearsal including all the things that the other players might do, and the contingency plans of one’s own best actions in each scenario. At the end of such rehearsals, one pre-envisions as vividly as possible, with all emotions engaged, winning the game. At the very end of the preparation one gives up all care about winning or losing. Attachment to outcome blocks the Zone. You have to be playing the game for the sheer enjoyment of it, for its own sake, to shift into the Zone.

With the emotions as a wrapper around our whole psychic experience, the thoughts flit along the surface of the mind. Emotions program thoughts and vice versa. Everything affects everything else in there.

In the complex accelerated culture in which we live, self-mastery of our inner space, or even awareness of what is going on in there, is extremely complicated. Neuroses arise of certain types, like biocomputer viruses, and the viral infection spreads through society by intercommunication of memes and moods upon which neuroses depend.

Two recurring neurotic themes involve money and frustration. The culture is set up to cause most human inhabitants of Earth not living in a tribal setting to need to think like slaves or indentured servants, always worrying about money. Some conspiracy theory was involved but mostly it was natural forces. At first money was just a marker to help memory remember trades and symbolize real “property” such as animals and grain. Then it became what it is today, the leading indicator of our feelings of self-worth, belonging, achievement, status, freedom, security, wellness and potency. I’m probably leaving some things out.

Frustration is a natural effect when society does not encourage (or recognize) one’s inborn skills in certain directions that would channel one into a career he/she loves. Instead one takes a job one can tolerate but that may do little to bring out those inborn skills. Frustration mounts when co-workers and bosses don’t go along with the inspiring ideas one has about how to do one’s job better. The mix of money fear and frustration turns to rage, often bottled up inside where it is one of the causes of illnesses of the mind and body. One is blocked from getting into the Zone, which if achieved would provide ideas for action solutions that in turn would bring more money, security, and clever ways to break through the frustrating resistance to one’s best ideas.

The start of a new cycle can be effected by seizing the control point where the avalanche starts — the surrounding emotional mood. Control of the emotive space around the psyche is the key. Detachment from outcome is the core of heroism. A sense of humor gives perspective. Willingness to face the worst with confidence in oneself (and for some, confidence in God/the Universe) confers a courageous fatalism that has been rediscovered by all of the heroes in history.

In order to program the emotional wrapper, detachment is not enough. Our psychospheres thrive on emotion. Replace negative emotion, the doom of the Zone, with positive emotion — which means remembering what you have to be grateful for and what you have to look forward to and to be excited about. There may be challenging (even heartbreaking) trials but you need to be able to see them as opportunities to show what you’re really made of.

Best to all, 

Bill

Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network: In Terms of ROI. It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com. 

Not Problems, Think of Them as Challenges

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Volume 3, Issue 28

The way the Game works is that the One Self living through each of us assigns optimal challenges to evolve each mini-self based on the Mission chosen to be embodied in that mini-self. At least that’s how I see the Game.

The One Self I am sure has heard this old joke before, even though I thought I made it up: He (She) calls the Game Cosmopoly. Other mini-selves who have played Monopoly must have also thought of it, and everything to the One Self is something that has been seen before.

This is why the Game involves mini-selves who have to relearn everything, in the first place. The One Self quickly realizes that a delicious drama factor is added to existence as soon as He (She) immerses in a new role, purposely forgetting true identity. Not so very different than watching a movie or TV show and losing oneself in the protagonist, just a lot more intense.

Leading the protagonist in Life back to his (her) true identity is how the Game works. The universe is always giving clues to the protagonist and handing out assignments — challenges — optimized to get the mini-self back into true identity. This is The Guru Principle.

My term “noia” is defined as the suspicion that someone’s out to do something good for you. Noiacally, one is sensitive to decoding messages contained in events occurring around us. Knowing how the Game works. Not getting ensnarled into the dreaded feeling of problems when, really, they are creative opportunities. Thinking of them as challenges and always remembering the Game is either a useful fiction, or the absolute truth. One way or the other, noia is a performance enhancer.

Thinking of it this way, there is nothing unscientific about God. What we have learned about information processing from building and using computers leads directly to the rationality of imagining a consciousness that is not dependent upon a physical body. We know that in computer science there is a principle called partitioning, which allows certain computational spaces to be separated from one another. Nothing in my theory requires anything that computers cannot do. So if there happened to exist a consciousness like us but immeasurably greater, why could it not be living through each of us, and if it were, why not give it an affectionate and respectful name like God? We would treat our father/mother affectionately and respectfully, and the One Self is closer to home than even our father/mother is — the One Self is the same self you consider to be yourself. You’re lookin’ in the mirror baby. All the time.

That’s my theory. Try it and see if you don’t experience increased performance. And if you do, ask why.

Best to all,

Bill

Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network: In Terms of ROI. It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com. 

Positive Thinking and Mindfulness Merged Method

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Volume 3, Issue 27

In my theory of everything, we are all one Self. The consciousness of the universe is a single processor so intelligent it can pay attention while looking out through all our eyes at once.

Whether or not my theory is right, it has certain benefits as a working hypothesis, or lens. Maybe it’s a useful fiction.

I say this because when you look at things this way, it’s much easier to turn off negative feelings and turn on positive thinking. Most negative feelings involve other people in some way. Whether you experience the negative feelings toward yourself or toward them, it is not a solution-oriented use of your energy. The situation just sits there, with you feeling bad.

Let’s take a case where the negative feelings are directed at someone else. Someone frustrates you, let’s say. Makes you mad because you have a great idea and they are blocking it. For most of my life this evoked some inner dialog along the lines of mental name-calling, becoming very colorful during teenage years and increasingly inventive over time. I must say I enjoyed such inner venting but it wasn’t very useful in the consensus reality.

If your mindset is that we are all one Being, as soon as you have a negative feeling about someone else, it sort of turns itself off. Or at least that’s what happens after years of going through a process of slowly realizing, each time such a negative feeling arises, that if we are all one Being there is hardly an iota of utility in being mad at another part of your Self.

So nowadays for me the mad happens then fades. I go on to the next logical step which is figuring out what actions to take to move closer to the goal. Creativity flows effortlessly once there are no blocks such as negativity.

This approach to conflict resolution tends to see all parties as having energies to contribute, and finds solutions where all instruments harmonize in the orchestra. It would be interesting to see what would happen to a company or any team that employs this lens.

Now the other case is where you experience negative feelings but they are directed at yourself. You are beating yourself up over something. Again this doesn’t really get you anywhere. Except negativity has utility to the lower self, the ego, which likes negativity because it helps to rationalize behaviors you’d otherwise block with your self-discipline. Such as letting yourself have another drink, smoke, fattening food, or whatever else you do when you rationalize indulging yourself. Negativity as a context is effective in lowering your own internal self-discipline so as to allow self-indulgence, which is a powerful self-defeating factor.

If you’ve got this One-Being lens, you can’t sustain anger at yourself, since that means you’re mad at the ruler of the universe, which seems unwise. He/She living through you is the one that goofed up. Although omniscient in composite, the shard coming through you is still learning and while doing its best, goofed up. What to do to win now is the point to be focused on, not wasting time with unsophisticated self-flagellation about the past even if it is the immediate past.

So, while I can’t currently offer proof that my theory depicts the true nature of reality, wearing the lens as an experiment appears to have tangible and verifiable benefits.

Best to all,

Bill  

Follow my regular blog contribution at Jack Myers Media Network:In Terms of ROI. It is in the free section of the website at  Bill Harvey at MediaBizBloggers.com.