Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Happiness is a function of accepting what is. Reality.
Love is accepting the other exactly the way they are and exactly the way they aren’t.
If you pay attention, deeply, both statements talk about what is and what isn’t.
Love mention what isn’t… Isn’t in reality, because it only exists in the mind, as an expectation.
Happiness doesn’t even mention what isn’t… unreality. Because the moment what isn’t is mentioned, happiness goes out the door.
The most important distinction of the science of happiness, the science of everything related to effectiveness, productivity, fulfillment, is to be in reality, interact with reality as it is… not as it isn’t.
And that is not how humanity lives.
If you pay attention, what makes you unhappy is not what is. Ever. What is only occurs as bad, wrong, shouldn’t be against the backdrop of unreality… Unreality lives in the mind.
It’s a painted picture. An idol you worship.
Judaism would say humanity engages in idol worshiping. Humanity worships at the altar of unreality, of painted idols.
And that makes humanity, the multitudes unhappy.
And the eight billion doesn’t even notice, doesn’t even realize that they are doing that.
But individuals, you, can learn to be MINDFUL, and learn that, manage that, and be happy.
But before you can manage it you need to learn to DISTINGUISH it.
You can’t catch what you don’t see. And you can’t see what you haven’t distinguished.
Meaning: for you everything is the same as everything else…
So if you wanted to EVER get anywhere with this work of going from wretched homo sapiens to human being, you need to take this science, this distinction ‘living in reality’ to unconscious competence.
You are at unconscious incompetence now.
It seems to you that you are always interacting with reality, even though some of the people who read this article are at zero percent right now.
So the first step that will take some time and a lot of presence of mind is to see that in fact you interact with life in the contrast of what you say should be, how they should be, etc.
The Dark Army of words
One of the words that clues you in is the word ‘wrong‘. And, surprisingly, the four killers, ‘having to, wanting to, needing to, and should’ are the visible signs of living in unreality too.
Joins that dark army are the words ‘more, better, different‘.
And then the obvious, not this and not that…
There is no no in reality… what isn’t there is not missing, because it shouldn’t be there. So when you groan: nobody loves me, I don’t matter to anyone, I am not important, I can’t have what I want, I am not special… you are in unreality.
If you really paid attention, if you knew what you are looking at, if the saying ‘for you everything is the same as everything else, you would know to what degree you live in unreality.
And you would know that EVERYTHING, every single distinction, invisible dynamic, is teaching you to recognize unreality… and you can’t see it for what it is, even after years of ‘studying’ with me.
To the degree that you learn to see all the unreality you consider important, meaning: you move from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence, there is some hope for you.
Because unless you can see what makes you unhappy, you have zero chance to be happy. Unless you can see what makes you unproductive, not worth a damn, unattractive, etc. you cannot change it… You’ll try to paint ugly to pretty… but it, of course, won’t work.
Because the ugly is below the paint…
I ask you to become a beginner again…
You thinking yourself advanced has been the mischief.
Just because you have a brain, just because you have a degree, just because you make a living doesn’t mean that you can skip classes and start on the PhD level of a science you know nothing about.
If you are willing to pick up the glove, pick up the gauntlet of challenge, and start opening yourself up to the idea that you don’t know. That you can’t tell. That there is something that you don’t know… and if you did, life would start working better for you.
Almost all human emotions, anger, frustration, victimhood, fear, depression, etc. etc., every single one of the 47 Bach Emotions are from unreality: unrecognized as such. Every single one.
So, if you take up the gauntlet, every time you’ll feel frustrated, you’ll stop for a moment, and see what unreality you are considering real.
One of my students wrote:
Hi! So I just realized something.
I’m getting frustrated with this embroidery machine and how to use it. It’s not working properly, tensions are off, I’m waisting time & T-shirts. I have to take it apart & put it back together, etc. All this frustration was coming from the place ‘I know this already’ and instantly should already know how to use it.
So I stopped, remembered that I’m just a beginner, and all the frustration went away.
Thanks to you!
We could call this arrogance, human arrogance, but then again: we call everything the same as everything else… so it is mandatory that you catch the specific thing that is unreality… in the student’s case the word ‘should’, or the feeling of frustration, or the other word ‘already’…
How long will it take? I don’t know. It depends how consistent you are. How willing you are. How fast you can tell the forest from the trees.
The goal is to be able to see every single tree as a tree in the forest… so to say.
You can start with just one visible component… for example my chronically dehydrated student could start with ‘should’.
That life, her cell hydration should be different. And she shouldn’t have to attend to it. And that she should be smart enough to whatever…
All signaling unreality to me… she hasn’t see it yet, so she can’t catch it.
The more effort you put into this phase the faster you’ll get to conscious incompetence… and become trainable.
If you are in any of my programs, I’ll give you feedback on how you are doing.
If you aren’t… why aren’t you?
It is a lot more effective to take on a challenge if someone watches you. If it matters to someone else that you do the work, that you become happier… Because that is what it’s about.
Becoming happier, more effective in life. Feel better about yourself and life. Start dealing with what matters, what is yours to do, and start having peace, grace, and ease. Trusting yourself and life.
I just looked up ‘mindfulness training’.
The problem with that training is that it makes you do things without distinguishing anything. Literally.
And unless you have the distinction you don’t see what is causing what, what it is that you are doing… So mindfulness training doesn’t go to the roots… it polishes the fruit.
Everything is easier to get into if you start with just one thing and attempt to master it.
Back more than half a century ago, when I was an architecture student, my one thing was being able to draw a line exactly where I intended to draw it. It is not as easy as it sounds, and it took me quite a while. But that was my first thing, and it made everything else easier.
What will your first thing be? Catching should? Catching that you are trying to seem what you are not? That you feel sad about what you aren’t, what you don’t have, what could be?
Be prepared for the long haul. Going from blind to seeing is a long process, but it’s worth it.
If you want email access to me, you can sign up. I won’t
Join the reality challenge.The first 10 days are free
PS:
The way the process works is the way the Anna Karenina Principle, or the strait and narrow works.
The happiest people on earth can remove all unreality from their view of life…
The more unreality you manage to remove from your view of life, the happier and more productive you can be, so you can have a life you love and you live it powerfully.
The more unreality your manage to remove, the more powerful you become… In the face of what there is to do, what you face in life.
You can remove one thing at a time… But unless it becomes permanent, it is not removed.
So insight won’t do anything… Seeing something once doesn’t make it conscious. Unless you can see it in every variation, every disguise, you still can’t catch it, because you can’t see it.
In mathematics this process is called successive approximation… and it is often a long process.
It goes from rough to precise, through many connected steps… that is what successive means.
There is no jumping… If you were jumping in the mind, now we know why you are not powerful, why you are not happy.
Jumping is the hallmark of someone living in unreality.
PPS: you can Ask me to measure how much of reality is in your ‘personal reality’… that number should change as you work in this challenge.
