This is It

The monitor in front of you, the temperature in the room, the fit of your clothes, the action you are currently taking, the thought in your mind...  This is your whole life.  There's nothing more to it.  The rest is just an idea you are having in this moment.  Here and Now, that is all there is.

In chapter 2, I discuss these ideas in detail.  The constants of your experiential reality.  And it's important to hold these ideas close if one wishes to maintain a solid relationship with what is, as opposed to what one believes reality to be.

Here's a great example from my own life, to illustrate what I mean:  I procrastinate, profligately.  I can put things off for months.  Important things, like filing my taxes or paying my bills.  And the thing of it is, it's not because the tasks are inherently difficult.  In fact, they're just actions to take, one after the other; no different than anything else in my life, fun or tedious.  It's the IDEAS that I have about the tasks ahead that encourage me to put them off.  For example, when I consider everything I've put off, I feel overwhelmed.  To avoid that uncomfortable feeling, I think about something else, and the task continues to go undone.  In other words, the task suddenly seems like a painful burden because it is saddled with the emotion of feeling overwhelmed.  However, when I stop and remind myself that "This is It", I realize that my whole life is very simple, and there is really only one thing to be done at a time, and each choice can be made in its turn.

Many things in life are like this, and I feel that the source of most of our fear and anger about things in our lives stems from forgetting what is really going on.  We get caught up in our thoughts and worries to the point that they become a part of the reality in which we live, when in fact, they are just mental abstractions, clouding the utter simplicity that is our true reality (as we are actually experiencing it)

I encourage you to stop from time to time, especially in moments of stress or worry, and remember what you are experiencing, and how.  What is thought, and what isn't, and what is the situation with which you are actually presented.  To do so will greatly simplify your ongoing task of living, and will make problems which appear large (maybe too large?) much easier to manage.

I know this has helped with my procrastination; I am writing this right now, after all.  LOL.

Jim