LifeHack.org has a great post today – 10 simple ways to save yourself from messing up your life.
The ten basic “ways” mentioned are:
- Stop taking so much notice of how you feel.
Let go of worrying. - Ease up on the internal life commentary.
- Take no notice of your inner critic.
- Give up on feeling guilty.
- Stop being concerned what the rest of the world says about you.
- Stop keeping score.
- Don’t be concerned that your life and career aren’t working out the way you planned.
- Don’t let others use you to avoid being responsible for their own decisions.
- Don’t worry about about your personality.
One commenter asked, “Ok, but how?”
Eckhart Tolle, in his book The Power of Now
You can accomplish the above suggestions by being in the Here-Now of this real moment rather than the There-Then of your fantasies, memories and worries. There-Then thinking is useful for planning and action setting, but not for living. The simple mistake is making Then-There elements into reality by identifying ourselves with them. By taking the thought, “In order to be happy I need X” we create a reality view for ourselves which has nothing to do with actual reality. We are then living apart from the truth, and cause ourselves no end of pain. The There-Then elements are very useful for planning and taking action concerning whatever situation we find ourselves in, but when we take them for truths, or really existing things, we get hopelessly confused.
Living the Here-Now perspective requires the opposite of what we have been given to understand. We must give up thinking as anything other than a useful tool, and simply allow the Here-Now to be. That is a tall order for the compulsive/habitual thinkers we have become as a species. The remedy is practice. Daily bouts of meditation are one excellent method for getting more skilled at holding the Here-Now perspective.
