Travis Eneix

There is a good article over at LifeHack.org today - 10 virtually instant ways to improve your life

I won’t repeat the article here, but here are the ten points:

1. Stop jumping to conclusions.
2. Don’t dramatize.
3. Don’t invent rules.
4. Avoid stereotyping or labeling people or situations.
5. Quit being a perfectionist.
6. Don’t over-generalize.
7. Don’t take things so personally.
8. Don’t assume your emotions are trustworthy.
9. Don’t let life get you down.
10. Don’t hang on to the past.

All of these are excellent suggestions, and Adrian Savage does a great job of expounding on them.  I can’t help but note that there is one central running theme in them all:

Stop making more Story.

Life is what it is before we begin the mental process of categorization, labeling, prioritization, judgment and comparison.  Life is, as it is, before we create the Story.   One of the distinctions I learned a few years back is that Human beings are, first and foremost, meaning making machines.  Whatever comes into our sphere of experience is nearly instantaneously run through the meaning making machine of our minds in order to squash the fear of the unknown.  We do this so automatically that we hardly ever notice what we are doing, how we deaden the glow of what is.  When there is a break in this process we experience states of awe and being struck by beauty.  Quickly enough though, we get right back to the daily order of business and assign meaning.

The sages through the ages have pointed at this mechanism, and the mistaking of those assigned meanings for reality, as the source of all human suffering.

The path of Self-Inquiry asks us to examine what is, before that process takes place.  And, by so doing come face to face with the reality that we are.

The mechanism of meaning making is vitally important to our survival, as individuals and as a species.  It is not to be shunned.  Rather, it is to be recognized, and kept in perspective for what it is: a useful tool.  When it become more than that, when it become a replacement, and substitute, for reality the tool becomes a poison.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Random, Distinctions, Self Inquiry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There is a good article over at LifeHack.org today - 10 virtually instant ways to improve your life

I won’t repeat the article here, but here are the ten points:

1. Stop jumping to conclusions.
2. Don’t dramatize.
3. Don’t invent rules.
4. Avoid stereotyping or labeling people or situations.
5. Quit being a perfectionist.
6. Don’t over-generalize.
7. Don’t take things so personally.
8. Don’t assume your emotions are trustworthy.
9. Don’t let life get you down.
10. Don’t hang on to the past.

All of these are excellent suggestions, and Adrian Savage does a great job of expounding on them.  I can’t help but note that there is one central running theme in them all:

Stop making more Story.

Life is what it is before we begin the mental process of categorization, labeling, prioritization, judgment and comparison.  Life is, as it is, before we create the Story.   One of the distinctions I learned a few years back is that Human beings are, first and foremost, meaning making machines.  Whatever comes into our sphere of experience is nearly instantaneously run through the meaning making machine of our minds in order to squash the fear of the unknown.  We do this so automatically that we hardly ever notice what we are doing, how we deaden the glow of what is.  When there is a break in this process we experience states of awe and being struck by beauty.  Quickly enough though, we get right back to the daily order of business and assign meaning.

The sages through the ages have pointed at this mechanism, and the mistaking of those assigned meanings for reality, as the source of all human suffering.

The path of Self-Inquiry asks us to examine what is, before that process takes place.  And, by so doing come face to face with the reality that we are.

The mechanism of meaning making is vitally important to our survival, as individuals and as a species.  It is not to be shunned.  Rather, it is to be recognized, and kept in perspective for what it is: a useful tool.  When it become more than that, when it become a replacement, and substitute, for reality the tool becomes a poison.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Random, Distinctions, Self Inquiry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.