1.2 A large percentage of human suffering is anticipatory tension, or dreading a future experience such that you actualize its potential suffering in the now. Anticipatory tension is using the illusion of knowledge to generate the illusion of control. Much of what people call planning is this. (View Highlight)

Note: It’s no coincidence that I wrote a whole poem and post about how I had maybe too much anticipation for my Dutch dream to actualize. It doesn’t feel natural to will paths into the world. The timing of this piece is so resonant to my own breakthrough meeting the author of the Surrender Experiment (Michael Singer) a week before I moved across the world, again. Highly recommend this read if you’re looking for permission to focus on the present moment and accept things as they are :)

My best outfits are all selected by someone else. When I’m at a clothing store, and I meet an employee who seems engaged, I tell them to dress me for maximum attractiveness. They do a much better job than I do. Of course: I can’t see myself as well as someone else can. This is why I try to listen to what the world apparently wants to do with me,rather than who I imagine I am. (View Highlight)

Note: I want to be asked for peak attractiveness

You know that person who had important ripple effects in your life, based on a brief meeting or a kind gesture they extended to you, which meant nothing to them, but everything to you? Or that interesting stranger whose manner cast a brief spell on you, lingering in your memory disproportionately? That’s you also, you’re that person. Most of your impact on others, you will never fully apprehend or appreciate. Thus, it’s not important to know what you’re doing. (View Highlight)

Note: Ben Bradbury come to mind. And Emily wag. And Eric koester. And Jesse itzler

People feel most themselves when they are unselfconscious, which is to say, their actions emerge without apparent control. Think of the phrase “singing with abandon.” In our most profound moments of intimacy, we have abandoned the wheel. Who is driving, at that moment? What if we simply let that driver have the wheel more often? It takes practice to notice when that’s the person taking over the wheel—as opposed to our reactive, fear-based conditioning, which is also eager to take the job. Surrender is a skill. (View Highlight)

Note: When I was dancing on Friday night at to gather to the different elements in my underwear I felt fully unselfconscious. I let go of control and allowed energy to flow through me

When people talk about “being authentic,” they are often referring to executing some program, some persona, that they’ve devised privately. Of course, our impression of such people is that they’re unnatural and unoriginal. They assign us the job of reinforcing a character we never agreed on. (View Highlight)

Note: So maybe I don’t want to be authentic then? I want alignment between my thoughts words and action. Body speech and thought.

Another property of things that work out for me: they don’t make sense to my rationalizing mind. There is the thought, “this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing,” even as greater forces pull me forward. This is known as the refusal of the call to adventure. It’s a routine part of adventure. (View Highlight)

Note: Interesting. What do I do with my call to adventure?!

Strangely, happiness isn’t produced by getting what you want. Unhappiness is the product of the number of times per minute that you believe circumstances should be otherwise. “Enough” and “not enough” are mental stances that, very often, are uncorrelated with exterior facts. Perhaps this is one reason Jesus says it is “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”—the more you focus on expanding your pile, the more ravenousness becomes a habit. By contrast, you can, right now, try believing that what’s happening is what’s supposed to be happening, in exactly the right order. (View Highlight)

Note: Yesss I want to believe in the divine ness that is taking place in my life like how I thank sander a year ago for opening his home to me.