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We tend to think of ourselves as having only so much time and energy each day. How we spend that time and energy, we believe, will help determine our future.

If this is so, what do you spend your life energy on?

This can be an interesting exercise if we consciously pay attention to a given day’s energy expenditure. Let’s look at Annie’s average day.

Annie’s Life Energy Expenditure

From the time she wakes up to the time she falls asleep, she applies her life energy to three things. Past, Future, and Distraction.

Much of her life energy is spent going to work, where she spends eight hours each day. She does this so that her future will be secure (ie. she’ll have money to pay the bills). During her day, she’ll have many moments of thinking about the past (how the meeting went yesterday) and the future (will she get the new client?).

During the trip to and from work, she will probably spend her energies in distraction (listening to the news or music on the radio), in a fruitless attempt to escape all the thoughts of future and past that bombard her all day long.

When she gets home, she’ll complain to her husband about how stressful work was (Past), and talk about her ‘present’ problems, such as how to deal with her boss or that difficult new co-worker. But her problems aren’t ‘present’. They are past. She’s sitting at the table talking to her husband, spending all her energy on these problems.

In the evening, she’ll likely watch her favorite show or a movie, again spending her energy in distraction.

Tomorrow she’ll repeat the cycle over again. The only respite from this endlessly useless expenditure of energy is the weekend or vacation, but it’s not really respite because the whole time is spent in distraction, at least when she’s not bemoaning the fact that Monday is soon approaching. After all, time flies when you’re having fun (dwelling in distraction)!

What About My Present Problems?

What most of us consider to be ‘Present’ is actually Past and Future. I might say that my present problems are that I don’t have enough money to pay the bills, and I’m stressed out by work, and that I think I might be getting sick. But those aren’t present problems! As I think of them, I’m sitting on my couch drinking a glass of chocolate milk. In other words, my present situation is that I’m sitting and sipping chocolate milk!

We can encounter problems when we encounter them. When they are right there in front of us. When we do that, we can focus our full attention on them, and most problems are found to be quite a bit smaller than we think. We deal with them in the moment we encounter them, and then we’re done. But we often make problems big by dwelling on them and imagining their past and future implications.

Creating Your Life

Past, Future, and Distraction. What sort of life do you think we’re creating for ourselves if we’re spending all our energy on these three things? What would happen if we devoted 100% of our energy to what’s actually going on right at this moment?

We’d be amazed. We’d find that everything is incredibly relaxed. We’d find that there’s really no rush, and no place for worry, stress, or frustration.

Have you felt any worry, stress, or frustration today? If so, what thoughts were those feelings connected to? You’ll find that in every instance, they are connected to Past and Future. And your only escape? Yup. Distraction. Which is why television, drugs, radio, news, and video games are so very enticing for the majority of people. With these things we can escape the endless harassment of our minds, which are usually running amok.

If you’re spending all your life energies on Past, Future, and Distraction, maybe it’s time to see where it’s gotten you. Consider how intelligent you are. What if you took three days, and devoted them entirely to figuring out how you could create an amazing, fulfilling life for yourself? Just sat down with a pad of paper and a pen, and started brainstorming how you could make your dreams come true. Do you honestly think that you’d come up with nothing? Of course not! You’re immensely creative and quite smart, and you’d be able to figure out some surprising and creative ways to make your dreams come true.

But instead of devoting three days to brainstorming ways to make our dreams come true, we’re spending years – decades even! – of life energy supporting the same thing we’ve been doing all along. Supporting our stress-producing, frustration-producing, never-having-enough lifestyle.

Why? Why would anyone do this?

We’ll receive from life exactly what we request. So why would anyone request anything but perfect happiness?

And how do we get that perfect happiness? The answer is deceptively simple. Just attend to what is right Now – pay attention to what your mind is doing, and notice how it is creating entire worlds of frustration out of your imaginary ideas about Past and Future. Start applying yourself to discovering what the heck is meant by ‘Being in the Now’, because in the Now, there is no place left for stress and frustration.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 26th, 2006 at 11:18 pm and is filed under Stress, Time. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be queued for moderation and posted as quickly as possible.