This thinking mistake destroys your life
Do you feel like time is going too fast? Read this.
A quick note: my new book, The World in Front of You, is free on Kindle until Thursday. You can download it here for free. Please be aware that you do not need Kindle Unlimited. Click “Buy now with 1-click.”
We are obsessed with “the next.”
The next promotion. The next vacation. The next weekend. The next notification.
We live our lives as if we’re in a waiting room for this big event that never actually starts.
Because we are always looking ahead, we are never actually here.
This is the ultimate thinking mistake: The belief that life is something that happens later.
When you live this way, time evaporates.
You wake up on a Monday, blink, and it’s Friday. You celebrate New Year’s, blink, and it’s October.
If you feel like life is moving too fast, it’s because you aren’t living it.
You’re just ruminating on it.
Most people don’t want a cure, they want relief
Anthony de Mello was a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist known for blending Eastern and Western spirituality.
In his book, Rediscovering Life: Awaken to Reality, he argues that most people’s lives are a mess.
When people protest, claiming they have good jobs and families, he offers a simple acid test:
“Ever feel lonely? Any heartache? Ever get upset by anything?”
If the answer is yes, you’re in a mess.
But here is the hard truth he shared: You don’t actually want to get out of the mess. You just want relief.
We want the anxiety to go away, but we don’t want to give up the things that cause the anxiety.
We want happiness, but we’re addicted to the “thrill” of getting what we want.
De Mello’s point was that nothing in reality has the power to upset you. You upset yourself because of your attachments.
You believe that “if I don’t have X, I can’t be happy.”
That is a false belief.
You are blocking your natural state of happiness by clinging to reputations, money, and expectations.
The trap of “becoming”
Jiddu Krishnamurti was a famous thinker and speaker who spent his life encouraging people to free themselves from psychological conditioning.
In his book, Think on These Things, he explains that our entire education system is built on imitation rather than discovery.
We are told to be like our successful uncle, or a saint, or a billionaire. But the moment you want to “be” something, you are no longer free.
Krishnamurti:
“When you are doing something with your whole being, not because you want to get somewhere… but simply because you love to do it—in that there is no ambition, is there?”
Think about it… Ambition is a form of cruelty toward yourself.
It creates a conflict between where you are and where you think you should be.
“Oh, I should be WAY more successful than I am,” you think in a random moment.
This inner war is why you’re never present. You’re too busy trying to fulfill an image of yourself that society handed to you.
An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind.
It’s a mind that watches, learns, and stays “unoccupied.”
A mind occupied with worry or “becoming” is a dull mind. It cannot solve problems because it’s too busy protecting its ego.
Stop playing a safe game
We are terrified of being alone. We fear not having a “resting place” for our minds.
So we build walls of tradition, habit, and social status.
It’s all a form of escape.
But the sad thing is that we THINK we are playing a safe game. That’s because this is the game that others are playing. And as Krishnamurti says:
“Those who play a safe game die very safely.”
But they don’t live. To truly live, you have to be like a river; endlessly moving, overflowing its banks, and penetrating every crevice.
A mind that seeks validation and security soon stagnates and decays.
The solution isn’t to “try” to be present or “try” to be intelligent. The moment you try to become something, you’ve already lost.
The solution is to understand that…
your disturbance comes from within, not from the world.
wanting to be famous is just a sign that you feel like “nobody” inside.
you don’t need people to be happy; you need contact with reality.
It’s important to realize that you don’t have to be like others. You can just stop playing the game that society is playing.
You can prioritize your happiness first.
Your last day
Musonius Rufus was one of the four great Roman Stoic philosophers and the teacher of Epictetus.
He was known for his practical approach to ethics and living. In his Lectures and Sayings, he put it bluntly:
“It is not possible to live well today unless you treat it as your last day.”
If today were your last, would you spend it ruminating about next month?
Would you spend it trying to “become” someone important in the eyes of people you don’t even like?
Of course not. You would simply be.
So stop always thinking about the perpetual next.
Look at things around you… truly. Stop labeling things or trying to explain everything.
Just observe! Learn from everything.
When you stop trying to get somewhere, you finally arrive.
DeMello is good. I just forgot how good.
I’ve just started reading and I’m genuinely impressed.
What makes The World in Front of You particularly special is that it’s written as a series of letters to your child for the future. As you read, you naturally start to place yourself in that perspective, thinking about how these words might one day be read and understood.
It’s rare to come across writing that feels both personal and insightful at the same time, but this book manages to do exactly that. A very promising start and looking forward to reading the rest.
I can’t think of anything I’ve read before that’s quite like this. Respect. Thank you Darius!