March 2 2018 No. 548
Stop the Nonsense
Are you undisciplined to the point that you don't do what you need to do to get to where you want to go? Aer you really undisciplined or are you just lazy? The truth is that you're neither... we're built a certain way and, until you take steps to get over the nonsense in your own head, you're always going to keep on tripping yourself up...
Use the gaps in your day today - I mean gaps like walking from your desk to the toilet, walking to your lunch or to your car or the bus or train - to notice your own thoughts.
You might say to yourself "surely this runs counter to being clear and focused" (something that I'm always on about!) but awareness includess being aware of the nonsense in our own heads.
Being aware of that nonsense is not the same as being swept away or "mugged" by it... it is simply awareness and, in this case, the most important awareness of all: self-awareness.
I've just got off the phone from a farmer, snowbound in England - the same farmer that I refer to in this morning's Normal Crazy People story... at least he has had the wit to stay indoors though! We were talking about what we really, really want out of life and he explained that he has a picture but, he was afraid, it was "fuzzy around the edges".
I explained that "fuzzy around the edges" is good for, when we are too prescriptive about what we want out of life, we blinker ourselves to all other possibilities - many of which may be more exciting or, more importantly, better for us. This idea of what's best for us is very important and worth exploring in depth because what is best for us is something that our normal way of thinking is unlikely to comprehend.
Normal thought patterns and our propensity to hang around with the herd of normal (crazy) people means that we set goals and objectives for ourselves that make sense to the normal mind but, as today's video explores, our normal minds are actually full of nonsense. And, not only are they full of nonsense, that nonsense makes a nonsense of our experience of the here and now... we trip ourselves twice over.
"Fuzzy around the edges" is good because, deep down subconsciously, there's a part of us that knows - it just knows! - what is best for us... that this the part of us that will, if left free from nonsense thinking, fill in the colour and detail of the picture and sharpen up the edges... trust in yourself to do that.
As I write this, hundreds of people - in Ireland and the UK - are stuck, stranded in their cars, in heavy snow... some for over 24hrs.
For the last three days, there have been dire weather warnings - warning people to, quite simply, stay indoors... if I've seen the warning "Stay Indoors" once, I've seen it fifty times this week. Undoubtedly, some ventured out out of necessity... but not hundreds of them! So what are all these people doing stranded in their cars, why did they venture out and why do others have to risk life and limb to rescue them?
I put this question to a snowed-in farmer to whom I've just spoken... his answer: "Sure, we know best - you almost have to have a go and do what you were told not to do!"