WATTS THE CAUSE?
The British philosopher Alan Watts had an extraordinary view of our relationship with the past. He said, “In our ordinary common sense we think of time as a one-way motion from the past, through the present, and on into the future. And that carries along with it another impression, which is to say that life moves from the past to the future in such a way that what happens now and what will happen is always the result of what has happened in the past. In other words, we seem to be driven along.”
Don’t just read what he is saying like a one-and-done deal. Go back. Read it again until it makes sense to you. Sit there for a moment and let the profundity of what this man is saying permeate your brain.
What does all of that mean in the context of this book? It means you have lived your life, all of it, every minute, every hour, every day, as if everything you are doing or have done is caused by—is a result of—something that has already happened.
It means we have become accustomed, even addicted, to the notion that all we are and all we ever will be comes from who we have already been, and the absolute best we can hope for is to make who we have been, better! WHOA!
At the same time, that requires us to keep who we have been in existence! If who we have been no longer exists, there is nothing to improve, nothing to change, no day in the future when it will all work out. The ego eats itself. Over and over.
The cause of your existence is coming from the past into the present day and on into your future like a straight line.
Now, of course this is true! That’s EXACTLY how you’ve lived your life up until this point! The past can be five seconds ago or five years ago, it’s irrelevant, but you constantly use the past to explain why you are the way you are right now, whether you realize it or not. You justify by using the past. You excuse and explain by using the past. You plan for the future too by using the past as a template: what to do, what not to do.
Relationships are often built on not repeating the failures of past ones. Therefore, the limitations of those past experiences are brought into the next one as a measure or an ideal.
We raise our children in a way that we think will be better than our own childhoods. A future caused and shaped by the past. Sometimes a crappy past. Carried forward and caressed with all the tender care and attention of Gollum’s alluring ring.
All of it, everything you do, is based in this hocus-pocus, this commonly accepted notion that we can only ever be a product of what has been.
For you, cause and effect travels in one direction only. A direct line of thoughts, emotions, experiences, and actions, started in the past and carried right through to today.
You stopped talking to your brother because of what he said six years ago, or you don’t lift the phone to call your friend because of that thing she did last week, or you resist hanging out in large groups because of that thing that happened when you were twelve.
There are literally huge swathes of your life that you won’t take on because of what has been.
What just happened is the cause of what’s happening right now. What happened last year is the cause of this year. What happened when we were kids is the cause of our lives as adults. At least, that’s how we’ve been trained to see it. It’s fucking madness, and you’ve been suckered, brainwashed, compadre.
Watts continued, “So the whole idea of our being driven [in life] is connected with the idea of causality, of life moving under the power of the past. And that is so ingrained in our common sense that it’s very difficult to get rid of it.”
Wow!
So, what is the alternative? How do we make this life of sabotage obsolete? Well, there’s clearly no way to go back and change the past. What happened back there is still what happened back there. The sponge is hard, stained, unchangeable. That goes for the conclusions you made. The past is in the past, that’s it, done deal, and we cannot change it. So, let’s leave that where it lies. Let’s not touch it or engage with it. We can recognize it, we can accept it, and we can redirect in favor of something far more satisfying and filled with possibility.
Don’t poke the fucking bear. Build a better model. A completely new design.
Which begs the question: If we really could build a new design, a new way of living, one that bankrupts our compulsion to self-sabotage, surely that would mean an end to looking to the past for guidance or insight? Abso-freaking-lutely it would!
Now, before you trot out one of the most abused phrases out there, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” I think we’ve proved without doubt we’re on a one-way track of the same thing over and over and over. As a species, we must be one helluva slow burn when it comes to learning!
Of course, there are many things we can learn from our failures and tragedies. Obviously, we should be aware of danger or potential mishap when it presents itself, but at the same time, our past just doesn’t apply to everything we are doing in our lives!
Then where should we look for guidance in the present moment?
The future, of course!
YOUR FUTURE SELF
Buckminster Fuller, the twentieth-century inventor and visionary, said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Now, those are some powerful words, my friend.
And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Build something new. An entirely new approach to living your life.
We’re going to make the past obsolete.
Instead of trying to fix the broken system, you have to create an entirely new one. One that will authentically pivot you in an entirely new direction. A bold and invigorating way for you to live your new life. This is the point in the book where you confront your way of living and the complete bankruptcy of your current method for “doing” life. That old way of life needs no more energy from you; in fact, it needs to be starved of attention and therefore life.
You need to be redirected. We’re out to do something here that actually works. Something that pulls you toward your goals rather than conspiring against them. There’s an energy, like a force of nature, between what you desire and where you are. But this force hasn’t been helping you along. No, it has been pushing against you, pressing you back to where you came from, and that’s why life changes can be so exhausting!
Your future has been anchored to the past. Period. Why? Because your entire life is modeled around either getting over the past or repeating it.
No wonder you give up or become resigned or succumb to the watery allure of being a victim.
THE FUTURE . . . IT’S NOT JUST STAR TREK
Before you start rolling your eyeballs so far back they never return, I’ll lay this out for you.
I read somewhere recently that the TV series Star Trek predicted fifty advances in technology before they were invented, including tablet computers, GPS, automatic doors, cell phones, and teleconferencing. The list is quite impressive!
I’m certainly not out to just let this fact slip away and down into a potential topic for the next series of Mysteries of the Universe either! Nostradamus was NOT a scriptwriter for Star Trek!
Star Trek didn’t predict anything. What planet are you on? Star Trek created something. The series was a product of the imagination, of the ability to think and conceptualize and visualize. Its creators didn’t predict the future; they visualized one, a future that included some of those far-out technologies.
Okay, so what?
Well, those dreamt-up ideas inspired some people to see if they could actually work, people apparently energized by the possibility to such a degree that they started knocking those gadgets out like a cascade of Peanut M&Ms from the gaping mouth of a twenty-five-cent gumball machine!
Many of our modern-day advances are a product of people using their boldest, bravest imagination, sticking a flag in the ground, and then dealing with everything that comes up between here and that imagination being realized. They mak
e their present about the future.
Dreams can easily become reality. Why can’t someone use this approach to live a life to its fullest?
This isn’t a new idea either. Major corporations design what’s next all the time. They look to the future and make bold, unparalleled plans for investment or expansion or reinvention. They even set the date they intend to complete those unimaginable projects and brazen ideas. They then do something you and I don’t do.
They work backward. Everything they do is guided from the future. They start with the ending! They begin to be shaped and informed by what’s to come. Each new day is influenced by what hasn’t happened yet! In a complete reversal of what Alan Watts said, rather than being driven from the past, corporations are being pulled by the future.
They start to have their vision for the future impact and influence their present. They are guided from the future, caused by the fucking future!
Holy shnikeys, a whole new design for living a life! A life that starts with the end.
Now, when I say “the end,” I don’t mean THE end! I mean, it’s advisable to have a solid will and make some preparations for when your life ends, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.
Let’s pick something, something fairly innocuous and random. Your income. Are you happy with where you are financially? Do you feel as if you could accomplish more in this area of your life? Perhaps this is an area where you have been self-sabotaging!
Okay, let’s Star Trek the shit outta this thing! Start with the end.
Look ahead from this very moment. Let your imagination run a little to a year ahead, maybe two. What will your financial future look like then? Doubled your income? $10,000 in savings?
This isn’t the same as making goals or visualizing or manifesting, by the way. This is about creating your future and powerfully dealing with everything that comes up either as an obstacle or constraint or your typical self-sabotaging bullshittery. You’re being pulled toward that future. Not struggling to get there.
You chip away at and deal with anything that isn’t that future. And you love it. Why? Because for once in your life, you are the architect and the artist. You don’t need to be a warrior or a fighter. You become a creator, someone who thinks from the future, a visionary of your own making.
This is about designing the life you want. The kind of life that inspires you and lifts you up. A complete redirection from your self-sabotaging ways.
Michelangelo, the Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance, had an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art and is considered by some to be one of the greatest artists of all time.
One of his greatest works was the seventeen-foot-high, six-ton statue David, hewn from a solid block of pristine Italian Carrara marble. It has been said that Michelangelo did not make the statue in the way you or I might think he did. Rather, he removed everything from that block that was not David. It seems, in Michelangelo’s mind, David was already complete, only waiting to be revealed, piece by piece by piece. He used two years of his life, fully invested in that passion, uncovering the future from the present.
He sculpted from the future to the present until that future was realized. Then he filled his life with the next future and the next future and the next future. Every day he was a sculptor. He wasn’t trying to become one someday. He filled his life with the problems a sculptor would have and gave himself fully to them. And the work? Lit. Him. Up.
Try on the idea that until now, you have been hacking at that giant rock called your life with no real creativity or genius, no future to inspire the present, nothing to call you to be a greater self. Instead, you’ve been making a series of random swings at the mass in front of you to live in the hope that you’ll make something worthwhile out of it. Eventually.
This book has never been about goals or success in the typical way you have thought about it. That way of living has you sacrifice your hours, days, and weeks on this earth for a fleeting moment of satisfaction or accomplishment “someday,” trying to get somewhere but never really being “here.” The flashes of success that do come your way are quickly forgotten or shelved because you have nothing in your life to call you to greatness!
For once, this is about populating your current life with the kind of purpose and activity that invigorates you. A life of your design, one that compels you to act in new ways on the things that matter to you most! A life that each and every day you are working on, chipping away at that giant block of stone, constantly revealing and uncovering the kind of future you once thought beyond your reach. Every day you are either going to work to make a living or you are revealing a future you never thought possible!
I couldn’t care less about what you think you can do! What about a life blossoming daily in a constant season under the gratifying labor of what you think you cannot do? A life where you enliven yourself by reaching for the stars every single day. Whatever your version of that might be. Listen, you’ll never get rid of problems in your life, but you could start engaging with the kind of problems Michelangelo did, the problems that make a life worthwhile and satisfying. Not eventually either. The kind of life that inspires you today.
“. . . A thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.”
—Charles Dickens
Why did I become a writer? Because I wanted to live that life. All of it. I didn’t have an aim of becoming a writer. It wasn’t a goal or something I was out to get better at or improve until I could wear the badge with honor. I started with being a writer and built a life that could make that work. I filled my life with the problems that a writer would have. I became invigorated and enlivened by the challenge of what that demanded of me and how to solve the issues that presented themselves when I took on the notion that who I am is a writer. FUCK!! SUDDENLY I WAS A WRITER!
The same philosophy applies in every area of your life. Is your marriage about just getting along or could it be about authentic, passionate love in new and expanding ways? One will challenge you to discover new ways to express yourself, reveal your limitations, and fill your life with the challenges of a special kind of life, and the other won’t. Both will give rise to obstacles and issues. One will enliven; the other will slowly kill your relationship.
Are you saving money to improve your credit, or are you revealing a new future of complete financial freedom? One will inspire new actions and creativity; the other will dull your senses.
What about your body? Are you eating to lose weight, or are you revealing an entirely new approach to living an unrecognizable, healthy life of your own creation?
In each of these cases, you would be confronted with the kinds of actions that would require you to stretch and reach for something greater. It wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable, but it would be a discomfort of your own creation, and each moment of pain or unease would be another chip away at revealing the future that you designed.
In each and every moment of your life, you will be faced with a choice. The choice either to be guided by the past you had no say in or to be called out by the future you created. Uncovering your self-sabotage mechanism here has now put your hands on the levers and dials of that choice. It’s yours to make.
What actions are you taking today that align you with a new future? What are you chipping away at that reveals your work, your dreams, your passions, or your purpose? What lights you up? What masterpieces could you reveal?
In short, what are you actually up to that would make this life of yours a truly great one?
13
You Can Finally Stop Doing That Shit—No, Really!
You’re not broken, there’s nothing to fix. You’re not a fucking chair, you’re an expression, so get out there and express your future. Make it something great, something worth giving your life to. Everything else is just complaining and shit coffee.
The beautiful thing about this future-oriented approach is that the future
is truly unlimited. I mean, there’s nothing formed out there, so you can do what you want with it. It’s expansive and can include anything. When you leave the past where it sleeps, when you’re no longer framing what’s in front of you in terms of what’s behind you, you really have limitless potential.
As long as you stay aware.
Your future might look like having a better and more prestigious career. Or maybe starting your own business. Or founding a charity. Or being financially viable or in the relationship you always wanted. Perhaps you’ll find the freedom to work from where you want, whether it’s a home office or a café in a foreign country. Or you’ll make your creative idea finally go viral.
In your future you might run marathons, write a novel, or be conversational in a new language. Your body might look a certain way, or your friendships might be rich and vibrant. It’s all about your vision. Everything else is just old brain patterns and behaviors.
Remember, this is not about stopping self-sabotaging behaviors on their own but instead designing a future that compels you to fill your life with new actions, new outcomes—in short, a new life. And you can have it now. Right now.
“But, but, but, GARY!!!!! I don’t know what to do with my life!”
Bullshit! That’s yet another excuse to keep you tied to the past. It might not seem like an excuse to you, but it is. It doesn’t matter what you do; it only matters that you do. You can’t find the pathway there by standing still. Life is nothing but a grand experiment, an opening in a moment in history to shout, scream, love, live, and die, but you won’t do that by sitting on your ass worrying about the right thing to do with your life. A tremendous amount of amazing discoveries were made by accident, not by plan. Try something, and if it doesn’t work, try something else! That’s the beauty of this. It’s an exploration of what it is to be alive.
Every day, several times a day, sometimes hundreds of times a day and for countless days to come, you have to ask yourself, “What is my future telling me to do right now?”
Stop Doing That Sh*t Page 12