How big are your thrusters?
Imagine your mind is a spaceship. (If you don't like science fiction, you can skip to the next article, which will discuss chocolate).
Your spaceship has the power to emit vast amounts of thrust, all the time. And it does! Zooming this way and that, burning off liquid hydrogen like there was no tomorrow. Thoughts constantly bubble out of your engines, churning along lines barely describable as sanity. Out of control the minute your alarm clock goes in the morning, you can find yourself zipping out past Planet X before you have even finished your Wheaties.
A little bit of research and introspection will reveal that about 98% of your thoughts are completely useless: a waste of perfectly good fuel. Nearly 70% are redundant. You've thought them before (and probably only a few minutes earlier). Another 15% are somewhat new but are an elabouration on themes you've already been playing with - another way of imagining how that conversation is going to go with your mother, or how pleased you are with your new digital camera, or what you are going to do about that late project. The remaining 15% are actually new, but of those, 13% are random garbage, often about the environment that surrounds you. "Boy that lady has a funny hat." "What does it take to get some service around here?" "I wish I had a chocolate cookie dough Blizzard right now."
Finally, 2% - 2%!!! - are not only new, but also useful. These are the thoughts that actually spur you to compassionate action, useful action. A brilliant idea for your thesis, an intense focussing on your work, a genuinely deep moment with your lover. All that other nonsense is really just a backdrop for that 2%.
Do you think NASA could survive if it wasted 98% of its fuel?? NO!! Congress would pull its budget immediately. We'd never get to send any spacecraft to explore our solar system and beyond; and even if we did, they would be propelled at random into the black emptiness of intersteller space before they could accomplish anything useful, there to float for eons as empty, lifeless shells.
The same goes for spaceship YOU. Use your fuel wisely. Approach all situations from the stillness of the moment, and use the thrusters of your thoughts in short bursts, to navigate with delicate skillfullness the challenges of this moment, and this moment alone.
Your spaceship has the power to emit vast amounts of thrust, all the time. And it does! Zooming this way and that, burning off liquid hydrogen like there was no tomorrow. Thoughts constantly bubble out of your engines, churning along lines barely describable as sanity. Out of control the minute your alarm clock goes in the morning, you can find yourself zipping out past Planet X before you have even finished your Wheaties.
A little bit of research and introspection will reveal that about 98% of your thoughts are completely useless: a waste of perfectly good fuel. Nearly 70% are redundant. You've thought them before (and probably only a few minutes earlier). Another 15% are somewhat new but are an elabouration on themes you've already been playing with - another way of imagining how that conversation is going to go with your mother, or how pleased you are with your new digital camera, or what you are going to do about that late project. The remaining 15% are actually new, but of those, 13% are random garbage, often about the environment that surrounds you. "Boy that lady has a funny hat." "What does it take to get some service around here?" "I wish I had a chocolate cookie dough Blizzard right now."
Finally, 2% - 2%!!! - are not only new, but also useful. These are the thoughts that actually spur you to compassionate action, useful action. A brilliant idea for your thesis, an intense focussing on your work, a genuinely deep moment with your lover. All that other nonsense is really just a backdrop for that 2%.
Do you think NASA could survive if it wasted 98% of its fuel?? NO!! Congress would pull its budget immediately. We'd never get to send any spacecraft to explore our solar system and beyond; and even if we did, they would be propelled at random into the black emptiness of intersteller space before they could accomplish anything useful, there to float for eons as empty, lifeless shells.
The same goes for spaceship YOU. Use your fuel wisely. Approach all situations from the stillness of the moment, and use the thrusters of your thoughts in short bursts, to navigate with delicate skillfullness the challenges of this moment, and this moment alone.
posted by Dr. J at 18:33
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