A few things to consider before writing the list of “50 Things to do before I die”

The Unknown Journey

In the book “Navigating The Ship of You” I explore the unknown-ness of Life and how, through navigating well, we can step into the unknown and come back having made it known.

Every day contains a vast amount of “unknown” and in order to gain the most for ourselves from the day we need to journey well. And a crucial part of journeying well comes in attending the present moment, for every present moment IS the journey – unlike the past, or the future.

Of course, part of today’s journey might involve some preparation for tomorrow’s journey – and if we do not attend well to that preparation, when tomorrow finally arrives then that “today’s journey” will unfold for us in a different way than we might have thought – yesterday!

Planning for tomorrow is fine - provided we understand that when it arrives it becomes another unknown and unfolding today.

And therein lies the paradox – the mystery of Life if you like – and our preparation, however that might be, is all about how we might be navigating.  

Finite

One of the crucially finite things we need to remember about Life, of course, is that ALL of our roads lead not to Rome – but to our Final Resting Place.

As a result, we can realise that all the roads and all the journeys are and have been of THE most paramount importance to us – and that that importance has filtered out to those we love and those we influence. It is not difficult to conclude that the more roads travelled and the more journeys undertaken – the fuller and richer all our lives will be as a result.

We often hear of the rueful catalogues of regrets and missed opportunities from people at the end of their lives. All the “I wish I hads ...” and the things they would have done differently, are testament to the relevance of perhaps how they could’ve been more contenders in the game of Life and not mere spectators; how they could’ve been better at Navigating their Ship of You.

By the same token, the lists of “Fifty things to do before I die” that abound, also are a reminder that we forever dream to lift our noses from the Grindstone in order to put some self-directed perspective into our lives – Before it is too late!

We were never born with that Grindstone, but we looked at it and were told it was our salvation – and then in true Faustian manner we have sold our souls to it. The irony of our “50 Things” lists is that they are an attempt­ to buy back our souls by giving us an imaginary glimpse of some uplifting experiences we may (or may not) get to do.

Re-Confide

However, buying back our souls is very much a here and now thing, rather than compiling a lexicon of the best future climactic moments.

The first thing we need to realise is that we haven’t actually sold our souls – we have lost touch with them. We have ceased to confide in them to such a degree that we have trusted our confiding to more temporal and everyday things. When we are unsure about the “unknown” of days and our security as we journey, we go for the comforting option of travelling to the “known” instead.
And here’s the thing about the “known” – it is VERY ordinary!

When we go for re-opening our dialogue with our soul, in a spiritual sense, we start to notice how that confiding gives us the confidence to journey, daily, into the “unknown” – to enrich our lives in real time without having to compile a list of a mere 50 future climactic moments.

The opposite of the ordinary is the Extraordinary. And in terms of our souls, would it not be a better thing to dare, for –as we know - Who Dares Wins!

So, allow your soul to dare,
to sail out toward the unknown region.
To venture across where there is
neither ground for the feet nor any path to follow.

There is no map, nor guide, until the one that is yet to be fashioned
by the work of your own eyes and hands.

More than all of your undreamt dreams await fulfilment in that region,
that once inaccessible land.

So loosen your ties, weigh anchor,
and feel the wind filling your sails.
For once you dare to choose to become your own Navigator,
then every day you can set course for some amazing places.

You can be a contender, not just a mere spectator. 

Blocks

Perspectives

There are perspectives for literally everything we encounter in life – and the thing about perspectives and “easy” or “difficult” is this:

We often only have to shift our perspective slightly in order to find out that how we do something or how we feel about something has changed.

Now this will happen for us whether we previously found something easy or hard – there is a shift in our experience and a shift in our feelings about that experience.

If you’re not sure what I’m getting at then go and clean your teeth holding the brush in the other hand, and notice what you notice. It feels different, you feel different, you find the same level of dexterity is harder to accomplish at the same speed, you can’t do it very well, you feel imprisoned by being less capable, you’re not very good, and so on and so forth.

This is both amazing and bizarre - purely from doing some well-learned and simple everyday task from a different perspective you notice that a whole raft of perceptions come up that you hadn’t expected or that you hadn’t asked for either! Still – there’s a safety net for you, because you only have to put the brush back in the other hand and all is well and normal once more.

Taking this a stage further, you might imagine that a stroke or some other paralysis had taken out your use of that “strong” or favoured hand. Now you’d have to endure this “hard” way of brushing your teeth every day henceforth in your life. How difficult would this be, to live with, to endure? How will you ever cope even with such a simple task? How might your “confidence” deal with this?

This happened for my mother with her painting hand after her first stroke. She saw how she was coping with signing her name and something inside made her decide to not lift any type of paintbrush for over a year. Her confidence had gone and she couldn’t face attempting to paint or even draw.

When we lose an ability, or think we’ve lost an ability, or feel we can’t possibly master an ability, then our confidence takes a hit. And when the ability is actually our confidence itself then we the take the hit in many more (or sometimes all) areas of our life.

Frames

One of the easiest ways of shifting our perspectives is through the use of frames. By this I mean HOW we frame something, or HOW we set the context.

Take the illusory image below – now you can either see a black vase, or two white faces.

So if our context, our frame, is to look for faces in the image then we’ll ignore the vase and see 2 

faces.

I asked a group of people to count how many ways they could get out of the room. They all counted the number of possible exits because they assumed that as being the frame of the question. When I showed them they could go through every exit in a number of different body positions, or using a number of different ways of moving, they realised their assumption of the frame was restricting their perspective. Suddenly their answers went from “2 doors and 3 windows” into a much larger or potentially INFINITE number of ways.

I coached a young man who was something of a perfectionist. Even in practices he would make mistakes – and then “beat himself up” about making the mistakes. The frame of his perfectionism was bounded by zero tolerance. I pointed out all his successes and how good he was in the eyes of all of those around him, yet he still couldn’t free himself from the self criticism. Until, that is, the moment I changed the frame of the way he judged himself.
I didn’t try to curtail the judging, and when I asked him how he’d got from being less good at something last year to being as good as he is at it RIGHT NOW, his gaze seemed to focus on some very distant point. I expanded on this timeline of his “gaining mastery” by describing everything he did as being “work in progress.” From that moment his judgement perspective shifted from the “finite ideal” that he was comparing everything with, into an infinite point of mastery that he was progressing “towards”. That way, for him everything was now just a step along the way. It enabled him to work on the processes of his technique without constant criticism, which then enabled him to improve that technique with much more effect.

He’d stumbled across the building blocks of how he could get even better!

Blocks

So here we have some blocks - and the images can be seen to represent stumbling blocks or building blocks. Interesting isn’t it how the “stumbling” image is in dull greyscale whereas the “building” image is bright and colourful.

When we think of blocks to or for our progress then even our inner perspectives follow this positive/negative means of representation. They are still just blocks, of course, yet we are very good at constructing, of framing, what contexts they mean for us. Plus we will use specific language to reinforce the meanings and the boundaries of these two frames.

We need to remember that the stumbling blocks have been built by us, out of building blocks.

The “Frameless Frame”

There is a frame of the infinitely possible, a bottomless pool of endless outcomes, an unbounded ceiling of capabilities. 

This is what I call “The Frameless Frame.”

There is a Frameless Frame to what is possible in the world, and a Frameless Frame to our capabilities and potentiality. Fundamentally this is the same for all of us, and applies to all of us.

Within the Frameless Frame there are blocks – an infinite number of blocks that represent the power of thought. Now how we use these blocks is entirely up to us. We can either use them as Building Blocks to help our Understanding of how things work best, or we can use them to construct Stumbling Blocks to our progress towards our Understanding of how things work best.

So let’s say we might ask ourselves, “What am I capable of? Is there nothing I cannot do?” If we apply the context of the Frameless Frame to our questions then the answer is “Yes, I can do anything.” And for as long as we continue to apply the Frameless Frame then we will use those blocks in the way they were meant to be used. We might still construct the odd Stumbling Block and discover that something doesn’t work so well – yet provided we remain with the Frameless Frame, then we can deconstruct the Stumbling Block and assemble something else, something more useful with the blocks.

If we become unsure, however – if we question our security – then we have constructed the limitation, the stumbling block, of insecurity. We have stepped into the finite and shrinking area of possibilities. We are no longer capable of “anything”, but have now constructed a reduced number of our capabilities. We are stumbling along life’s path; our route is restricted by large boulder-like stumbling blocks.  

“So how easy is it to use the Frameless Frame – of viewing life from that perspective?
Can I try it out first or do I have to go ‘all-in’?”

Well, let’s go back to using our toothbrush in the other hand. What are we going to notice about how it feels and how we feel? What are we going to be saying to ourselves as we do this? HOW are we going to Notice and Listen?
Are we noticing or hearing limitations? Are we colliding with constructed Stumbling Blocks? If so we need to ask ourselves “How might I deconstruct these Stumbling Blocks and use them differently, perhaps as Building Blocks?”

IF we needed a reminder just consider the number of times Thomas Edison invented a light bulb that didn’t work until he eventually stumbled across a constructed light bulb that DID. He never bumped up against the walls of “this will never work” or “I just can’t do this”. He was working within the Frameless Frame, and as such he knew it would work it was just a matter of HOW and (since this was always and only ever Work in Progress) and WHEN.

Conclusion

The blocks are just blocks – blocks of thoughts if you like. How we use them and what we construct with them is entirely of our own making. Life is just full of blocks – in some people’s perspectives there are building blocks and in others’ there are stumbling blocks. How we experience the blocks is entirely up to us as well.

So, maybe if you encounter a stumbling block, you need to take a different perspective – perhaps take a trip around the block – and then you’ll see it for what it really is, as well as the easiest way to deconstruct it for Good!

Intuitive versus Impulsive

One of the particular features of Clear Thinking in the Moment is when we make decisions based on impulse rather than intuition.

Both intuitive action and impulsive action are fast – and it might seem that we never weigh things up or consider things carefully or think things through with either case. Yet intuitive action is taken when we are clear, grounded and uncluttered in the moment – like Equilibrium. Whilst on the other hand, impulsive action is a result of an attempt by our intellect to take a shortcut to bypass muddled and ponderous thinking.

It is as if we are saying to ourselves, “Look I know something needs to be done, AND done now - but I can’t think what that is. So I’ll latch on to the next thing that comes into my head.”
These are the instances where we might run heuristics.

Heuristics are experience based techniques that speedily bypass slow, clunky and ponderous conscious considerations, yet they can also divert us from intuitive action by driving us towards impulsive action. They are often referred to as cognitive biases.

When we are grounded and have clarity of thought, then there is never any need to act on impulse. Here we will act on our intuition. This is because intuition comes not from the cognitive intellect but from a place of deeper wisdom. We call it a “gut” feeling.

There is a wide variety of perspectives on Thought and how we might manage how we are consciously Attending. There are some key things to take from this particular exposition, to enable you or your team to become a more consistent Clear Thinker(s) in the Moment.

Any thought is mere energy until we personalise it by making it part of our thinking. Once in Mind it can either help or hinder us. The real power we have to control the direction our lives however, lies in how we manage our Attention.

The clearer our Thinking, the more our Attention occupies the foreground. The denser our Thinking, the more it dominates our Attention.

(Taken from The CACTUS Approach)

The Zen Hours Contract

Intro

Occasionally our poor eyesight, let’s say when reading something without our spectacles, can make us believe we have read some words that invite us to marvel at what that might just be.

Thus it was this morning when my blurred perception of “Zero hours contract” was consciously translated into Zen Hours Contract. I did a double-take, my mind jerked into contemplative mode and I began to wonder what such a contract might entail. Of course, all the while my mind was wandering down that contemplative pathway, I was also chuckling at the sensual ‘Doppler Shift’ caused by my eyes seeing some different words.

Shifts

Now, according to Wikipedia, the Doppler effect (or Doppler shift) is the change in frequency of a wave (or other periodic event) for an observer moving relative to its source (or the source moving relative to the observer). It is named after the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who proposed it in 1842.
In terms of our modern everyday experience, when the sound of a fire engine, police car or ambulance siren changes as it goes past us, there is a change in the frequency of the emitted sound waves – relative to us. If we are INSIDE the source - fire engine, police car or ambulance - the wavelength of sound of the siren or engine stays what it is, i.e. constant. Yet if we are OUTSIDE the source, what we hear differs before it arrives and after it goes past.

Now, consider for a moment, the idea that our minds can also be on certain “wavelengths”. We’ll use such a word in a metaphorical sense to describe particular “trains of thought”, certain “mindsets”, or some other such perspectives – if you get my drift!

Here again, and in the manner of the Doppler effect, if we are totally on the same wavelength as another person - in rapport so to speak – then the meaning of their communication is totally understood by us, and vice versa. We are in the same “source vehicle” and singing from the same “hymn sheet”. However, when we’re not in that state of mutual understanding, we’ll hear what they say but interpret it as something completely different RELATIVE to what OUR position is.

Opening and closing the Mind

Right now I am again chuckling, rather in the same way as I was when I was amused by believing I had read “Zen Hours Contract” earlier today – only to be fooled by my sensual Wavelength Shift.

Of course these shifts are happening to all of us all the time. Yet because we are so firmly bound up with our own interpretation of what we believe is Reality, we are constantly fooling ourselves.

Okay I spotted almost straight away that my eyes had deceived me with the “Zen Hours Contract”, yet there are far too many other instances when it takes much, much longer for us to spot the fooling effects of our mental wavelengths. The saving grace is that every time we DO spot that we are being fooled, or are fooling ourselves, we are re-opening our Mind.

Our Minds narrow and close through the reliance we place upon our perceptive filters and our beliefs to serve us with a sense of Reality. We use our thinking and our language to support this reliance – for they are the vehicles which convey meaning.

“What do you think this means?”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I think it means.”

The only truth about our thinking is that we all believe our thinking far too much. We place too much reliance on it, and bolster that reliance with the language we use to ourselves.

The phrase “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” contains a rather large piece of linguistic pre-supposition. It presupposes that a lot of knowledge is a thing of security, and it points us towards the phrase “safe in the knowledge of....“

Within these small and almost insignificant phrases, our language fools us, hoodwinks us, into believing something is there when it isn’t – in the manner of my “Zen Hours Contract.”

Practice Makes Perfect” is another one of those loaded phrases that allows us to infer that we will reach perfection through endless practice. Of course anyone who has gone down the route of that kind of “Endless Hours Contract,” arrives at a destination that informs them otherwise. Through practice they have certainly become better at what they have been repeatedly practicing. Sadly, however, they haven’t become perfect at it. They are still flawed.
They would have become better more quickly and more comprehensively had they chosen to engage in “Perfect Practice”. Mind you, “Perfect Practice” is a vague and nebulous model – a concept that might invite us to fulfil it through signing up to a “Zen Hours Contract”.

The Zen Hours Contract

So what is it – this metaphor fashioned from my involuntary piece of mental hoodwinking?

Is it just an amusing play on words, a linguistic artefact, or might it perhaps be something more actual, or more relevant? Maybe it is the means of spending some time in open-minded contemplation, following the power of intuitive thought to some possible conclusions?

Consider our mental wavelength when we pause to observe the world, or to meditate or contemplate – when we are a non-moving source. When we do this, we make it possible to notice the many wavelengths of thought in the rest of the world as it rushes past us. We open our minds to the infinite possibilities.

When we are caught up in the hurly-burly of that rushing world however, we notice or make sense of just our own wavelength and those others also “on our wavelength”. We struggle to notice or make sense of anything else. We conflict with those not on our wavelength. We close our minds around a finite number of possibilities.

A Zen Hours Contract, or signing our self up to opening our minds to noticing the infinite number of wavelengths around us, places us on a pathway towards understanding the answer to that most crucial of questions - What am I? We find ourselves on the unwinding pathway where the manner of the journey is far more important than the nature of the destination.

“The fish trap exists because of the fish.
Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap.
The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit.
Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare.
Words exist because of meaning.
Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.
Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?”

                                ~   Zhuangzi