She asked me, rhetorically.
She knew the answer but it was still elusive for her.
“There is no when, is there?” she said shyly.
Full Of Whens
When I get that house.
When I get paid.
When I get the big job.
When I’ve built my business.
When I’m in shape.
When I find someone to marry.
When things with my spouse are better.
When. When. When. When. When. When. When.
Us humans are full of whens yet…
There Is Only Now
It’s not our fault.
That brain of ours is set up to keep us living any time but now.
Our society too.
Looking for a future bailout.
Our brains think when we get that thing we’ll feel how we want.
Yet of course time is our friend and enemy too, right?
The more time that goes by, the more we can hope for, and the less time we have left.
It’s not some cheesy Eastern philosophy to say the only time is now.
It’s Neuroscience
Inside that head of ours are two machines.
Generally speaking the left hemisphere is a thinking machine.
A computer processing instructions.
Operating on cause and effect.
When you do this, then you get that.
When you get that, then you feel this.
A problem is, that computer that thinks it’s in charge can never feel anything more than my keyboard is feeling me punching the keys.
It only knows to think this causes that.
Whereas the right hemisphere and the body only know how to experience now.
Feel Your Foot
Now.
You can’t plan on feeling your foot 20 minutes from now.
Even if that computer puts in its calendar to “Feel Foot” then, you will still be experiencing it now, then.
The body only experiences now.
It doesn’t tell you to schedule a trip to the bathroom 33 minutes from now.
When it’s time to go, it will signal you, now.
In the same way it’s doesn’t feel having that dream house, car, lover, whatever in the future.
It only knows the feeling that computer mostly gives it of lacking it now.
And, then, if it gets it, how it feels to experience it for a fleeting moment…
Before that computer starts thinking about what it now needs when.
The Human Disease
That thinking computer GUARANTEES many humans will NEVER be fulfilled.
And I’m not just talking about those who are clearly living in lack.
The bigger struggle is for us ambitious types addicted to more, more, more, when, when, when.
For all eternity, infected with the human condition, we live for more, dying feeling less.
The preachers and shrinks tell us be grateful.
Have perspective.
That’s like telling your computer to feel love.
It’s not about what we know.
Or think we know.
It’s ONLY Training How We Feel
Every time I write on this topic people say no way, it can’t be that easy.
It’s true, we’ve been conditioned to think we can’t just feel amazing at will.
Yet, we pop a pill.
Drink a bud.
Vape our lungs out.
And think, whoa, I feel different.
Without that computer connecting the dots that nothing in your life changed.
Things didn’t suddenly get better with your spouse or kids or at work.
You didn’t suddenly get that new house or car or money in the bank.
You feel different purely by changing your neurology.
Connecting these dots, one might ask, OK, so how do you feel amazing now?
It Is More Complicated
We have emotional set points.
A brain built with a negativity bias.
A lifetime of negative conditioning.
A society that thrives on keeping us in lack.
We receive more training driving a car than on driving this vehicle for our lives.
So few of us even believe we can feel amazing at will.
And some aren’t even willing to spend a few minutes proving it to themselves by using this type of performance tool.
From the Focus Tools Masterclass, it’s called The Cure, short for The Cure for The Human Condition:
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