There is nowhere to reach
The thing about the rat race is that even if you win you are still a rat.
Photo by @dylan_nolte
We are discussing now the 3 truths. These 3 are required for the peaceful base on which further creation is a true expression of the self. Instead of a forced march to a destination we don’t really care for. The last chapter we covered “I have enough”. This article deals with “There is nowhere to reach” or the presence belief.
All that exists is in the present.
From a very young age we are told that there are things we need to achieve, things we should learn, and behaviour we need to address. We are taught to have ambition, compete and win. We are told to sacrifice our present for a brighter future.
Is happiness, then, always in the future ? Is our sacrifice of the present worth it ?
The Illusion of time
“Get a life” is a common derogatory phrase. It requests the protagonist to create a life worth living. There is no debate, though, that everyone has a life. The shape and size may differ but everyone has one.
Life is an event. It happens. It’s happening all around us. It’s happening right now. Strictly speaking It’s happening ONLY right now. It’s not happening in your past or in your future. It’s happening right now in the present and happens ONLY right now in the present.
Every future you have ever lived was built in this slice called Right Now. All our training, learning and experiences happened inside Right Now. All your successes and your failures, every memory you have happened in a slice of Right Now.
Your actions right now are what shape your future. You cannot take action in any other time slice. Only inside Right Now.
The Temporal Chess Game
Life is an infinite chess game. The rules are that you must make a move every moment. Not doing anything at all is also a move. Moments tick by almost continuously giving you the opportunity to take action.
What is the aim of this game ? There really isn’t one, you can choose anything you want, but instinct tells us that creating joy and avoiding pain is the first order of business.
In order to do this you take on voluntary distress for a few moments so that you can enjoy a number of moments of joy later. For example, you pull an all-nighter to study, so that you can pass the exam and hence enjoy a steady income and steady stream of happy moments in the future. You sacrifice in some moments so that you can have joyous moments in the future.
The trick in this game is to optimize for lots of happy moments. When do these moments happen? RIGHT NOW. This is the confusing part. This joy may happen in the future but you can only enjoy it when the future becomes RIGHT NOW. If a moment of joy doesn’t happen right now then you will never feel it.
If you sacrifice your happiness moments for too long, there is a chance that you will be too miserable to do good action in the next moment. For example, if you do not spend adequate moments in sleep, you won’t be able to utilise a future moment for working.
The Wrong Life
Due to the way we are educated, our up-bringing and how everyone else in our circles behaves, we are constantly looking forward to life in the future. Sometimes we feel that what’s going on right now is not our real life and our real life is in the future somewhere.
The problem with this way of thinking is that problems start to pile up. At some point you will decide that certain aspects will never be fixed. You will start to resist looking into those aspects. In time, though, the dysfunction will spread to other aspects.
If your relationships are broken at home, it will affect your productivity in the office. If your relationship with your parents is broken, it will affect your relationship with every authority figure in your life and so on and so on.
Your real life is always RIGHT NOW. Deal with it.
The Golden Measuring Stick
The Standard meter is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second.
When you think of your future life it is usually better than our life right now. It meets some “standard” criteria, which our current life doesn’t. By these “standards” your current life is BAD and your future life is GOOD.
Who decided these “standards” ? How did they come about ? How are these affecting your life ?
The short answer is YOU did. You unconsciously created these standards while living your life. Then you began to believe them.
The truth, though, is that there is no gold standard for life out there. There may be things that you want, but that doesn’t make your current life bad in any way.
Life just is. Anything else you have to say about your life is YOUR story.
There is nowhere to reach. There is nothing you “SHOULD” do. There is no goal you HAVE to achieve. There is no finish line. You don’t HAVE to beat the Joneses. You don’t HAVE to anything.
So ?
If we resist our present because it doesn’t maintain a standard, then we will be disempowered to change it. If we escape to thoughts of the future or thoughts of the past, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to take action in the present.
We will only be able to choose a proper direction for our life if we embrace all aspects of our life RIGHT NOW, especially the ugly parts.
A Papery Embrace
Take out your journal and write down your description of the more ugly parts of your life. Look at the parts you are resisting. Write down what is happening there (what physical things are moving there) and then what your experience of that part is.
Is there a standard there that you are not hitting ? Whose standard is it ? Is it your parents ? or your friend circles ? Is it something you made up. Given a choice, can you be OK with that part of your life the way it is ? You don’t need to like it, but can you be OK about it ?
Remember there is no gold standard out there.
Repeat this with all aspects of your life.
So should we not make plans
Again, this truth does not condone sticking to a present that you don’t like. You should definitely make plans for your future and learn from your past but you should also factor in your present. Have ease and joy in the present while working towards a future that inspires you.
As Usual, Balance, is hard.
The Three Truths
With this article we end the description of the 3 truths.
I am enough
I have enough
There is nowhere to reach
These 3 truths, when properly applied, should give you peace in the moment. They will allow you to look at all parts of your life without resistance and choose the direction you want to take.