Things are only different in our mind, from the biggest decisions in life to the simplest ones, our inner voice allocates different weights to different things in life, especially under pressure. Say in a bad mood, even a decision as to what to have for dinner can be difficult and when in a good mood, complex decisions like how to plan your retirement finances can seem easy. (Notice how there is always soothing music in loan advertisements).
Our mind is a lot like Loki, the Trickster Norse God. It makes crazy scenarios, and scares us, makes us nervous, gives us fear and sends us on an endless trip of “What If?”
The beauty of “What If?” is that it can start with an innocuous headache and end up with us surfing WebMD and we start to think that it could be Brain Tumour.
So how does one stop being tricked (apart from an existential crises) ?
Go inward, ask yourself something as simple as “Who asks this?” or “Who is afraid”. Earlier I tried to explain why being childlike is a benefit. Most of what we believe we are is a belief. We have built layer upon layer of our identity.
Let all of these identities go! Most of them were taken from someplace anyway. Once you let enough of these beliefs or identities go, you realise at some level that you are not the body or beliefs, but something much more.
You realise that even your own name was given to you. You forget notions of cause and effect as well. So when things do not go as per plan, you do not hung up over it, thinking “but that should have happened!”.
Life becomes much more colorful and fun. Ups and downs seem like a rollercoaster ride. So you start enjoying life, and work with a passion, yet remain unfazed when things do not go as planned. And most importantly you can enjoy complete silence and being by yourself with no thoughts.
Try it! You may lose a lot of gunk in your head and find your self.
Fund Managing Monk 