The Desert of Arizona
Partly Clear 60 Degrees
They say action takers rule the world. Unfortunately for my sake, I missed some of the fine print under that statement. What I discovered over the years is that not all actions are created equal.
Some actions lead to progress… other actions just keep you busy.
As Henry David Thoreau said (I’m paraphrasing):
“It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. What are you busy about?”
We’re all doing a lot of stuff. That’s the sickness of the monkey mind system we live in for the time being. Do, do, do… that’s got to be the answer, right?
Not so.
Do the right things. There aren’t many of them. But what are the right things? THAT’S the real work to be done. Making that choice.
If you have no idea what that answer is for you, start meditating. Clear the mind and breathe. That’s all you have to do. Just a few minutes a day. That’ll bring the answers up from deep within you where they already are.
I can tell you it’s far easier to just keep yourself busy. Then you really never have to come to terms with whether or not you’re doing the right things.
You can keep giving yourself that “high” by staying busy. That’s the addiction. And it’s hard to break, I’ll give you that.
That’s how we were trained. You were trained to develop the habit of doing menial work for long periods of time. Then the bell rang at school and you were trained to move on to the next activity. Busy, busy, busy. Didn’t matter if you were doing something important, the system said MOVE ON.
When you do find the right things to be doing, your brain is still going to want that “high” that comes from being busy. It takes a little while to starve that part of your mind until it quiets down.
We were not designed to be ants. We were designed to be creative beings who can take that creativity and make 2 + 2 = 5.
But it’s hard to do that when you’re running around like an ant.
So what are you busy about?
I’m busy about the platform. That’s what I do. That’s what I teach. That’s one of the “right” things that moves me forward.
If you want to be busy about that too, today’s the last day to register for the Platform Lab. It starts tomorrow.