What are your thoughts? Do you know? What is it that’s making us a little crazy a lot of times? How much of our time are we wasting and how much time is spent actually living your life?
If you can imagine the perfect morning, you’re well rested and you have 100% energy. You wake up with 100%. Then you look at what percent of that 100% is spent in the past – on grief, on your memories, your judgments, your bitterness, your resentment, guilt. What percent is here? What percent is in the future thinking about worry, fear, desires, your wants? You might find you spend a lot of time on what you want to have happen in the future or your ‘what if’ questions. Your imagination of what may be. Learn to watch your thoughts. How many are past? How many are future?
So then the question is, what percentage is left for now? Out of that 100%, how much yesterday, how much tomorrow, and how much of your life force are you actually living your life with? You see, this moment is what never ends – THIS NOW. If you have 40% in the past, and 30% or 40% in the future. Ask yourself, how much of this moment am I actually paying attention? Which constantly makes the past essentially invalid because you miss most of it, because every moment that passes is now in the past, and if you aren’t paying attention, how can you judge? How valid, how accurate are your memories?
We need to increase what we have for this moment. Meditation and awareness, very much go hand in hand because ultimately we want to become more aware through focus of what is, not what we think is, but what really is and accepting it as it is. Not necessarily how we want it to be. Sure, we can make efforts for how we want it to be but how much can we change? How much can we change and can you recognize that?
“How much energy is wasted trying to change something that is unchangeable? By accepting what really is, we can live in this moment and do more because we’re not wasting it there. Fully present is fully alive. Partially present, partially alive. How partial? How little? How little are you alive? “
An effective way to judge ourselves, what we value, how we can really weight it, measure it is through awareness and how we spend our time and how we spend our money. If you’re good enough to keep a journal of what you do with your time, that journal will speak volumes about you. Most people have a bank statement you can look at. Take a real good look, what you buy, what you spend your money on. And what’s interesting is they very much are intertwined. When we trade our time for, our money, so much per hour. You know, you spend – you trade your hours for paycheck. Now, how much do your desires, do your wants, make you spend money beyond the time you’ve already traded for it? In other words, how many future hours have you traded for today’s dollars so you can have something now? Then that’s a commitment, right?
How many of those future commitments are taking up your time? There’s a saying in Buddhism,“Be happy with what you have knowing what you don’t”. If you spend so much energy on what you don’t have, you can’t enjoy what you do have. But in today’s society, with so many conveniences and so much available, we spend so much more above and beyond. It’s what got us into such an economic mess because it goes all the way up to the highest levels, and then we have to make it up. Anyone ever looked at the figures of how much you owe? But we have personal desires, personal wants, and we want more, and we want more, and sometimes we feel we’ve got to keep with so and so down the street. We want to look good to our friends, we wear certain shoes, so that they look at us and they see us dressed a certain way, and we impress them. But then we wonder why we have no time, why we can’t keep up when those bills come. Why there’s usually more month than money for so many people.
So what you spend your money on will speak volumes. You can really weigh where your mind is, what’s going on in your head. What about your time? How much television? How many movies? How much entertainment? All of these various ways we spend our time. I don’t know any way to get it back. Compare it to quality time with family, if you have children, actually looking them in the eye and seeing what they enjoy, and talking about their day, and really cherishing those moments we have together, rather than, “You go play your video games, I want to do this.” So much time spent being separate. Sometimes…sure. you need some time like that. But how much time is spent on community effort, working with others, helping others, being a good friend, a really, truly good friend, where you listen?
We need to take a look at real life, meaning, what’s going on in the world, in your world. Watch your thoughts and want they reveal about you just may surprise you.
Based on excerpt from a 7 Keys Talk on Awareness given by Shifu Ahles. Join our email list to find out when the 7 Keys Talk – 28 Days to Change will be available.
