Spirituality, time, money and TRUE POWER

What do I give my time to? What message do I send to myself and others through it?

Have you ever heard the saying: “Time is money?” Everyone that is more than five hears old has probably heard it. We all know what it means: Time can be converted into money. And vice versa. But there are other connections as well. For example that if we don’t pay attention to them, they tend to slip through our fingers. And we always seem to have too little of them. While a few have way too much. But when it comes to time, those that have too much are usually those that are unemployed, while those that have too much money are leaders of multinational corporations, banks etcetera. Not that I’m against people being rich, but when they are so rich that they start wanting to use their money to influence politics or even take over the world, then someone should probably take their money away from them, since their money are more dangerous than an atom bomb. Because if someone had a really dangerous weapon and was using it in really dangerous ways, you would, if you could, want to take the weapon out of that person’s hands, right?

But I’m getting a bit off topic here.

As I said, people either seem to have too much or too little time. I belong to the former category. There never seems to be any balance.

Something that I feel that I have to add before I move on, is that what I've noticed lately, is that this should absolutely not be confused with getting as many things as possible done. What matters most is what that which we spend our time on does with us. And this is important. If I do certain things, this does something to me. If I for example allow distractions to constantly get a hold on my attention, I will become more and more unfocused. But if I get into the habit of bringing back my attention to what I'm doing here and now, I will strengthen my focus. And attention and focus are some of the most important skills we must develop. Especially since we live in a world that, by design, constantly tries to rob us of our attention and focus.

What I’ve come to understand, is that an advantage, because I’m not addicted to my phone. But I do have other distractions. My distractions are mainly movies and TV-series. And I also waste a lot of time being unfocused and sloppy with what I do. And the more I am unfocused and sloppy with what I do, the more I turn into an unfocused and sloppy person. One that has to work under a lot of stress to fix the consequences of being unfocused and sloppy, I might add. 

This is one side of the coin. The other is that how I treat my time will have an effect on how others treat my time. If I don’t value it and respect it, why would others? If others see me waste time on trivialities for no good reason, they may, consciously or unconsciously, believe that they may have something more important to fill my time with. There is an equivalent when it comes to money. If I engage in unwise spending it will have an effect on those around me. Others may want to join me and together we will be even more unwise, than if we were just being foolish on our own. 

The reverse is true as well. If you decide to take control of your time and money, it will have a positive effect on those around you. And when it does, their actions will reinforce your positive behavior. 

Think about this and you can probably see that it’s true in your own life. Think about what this means. This means, as with so many other things, that you have quite a lot of power over your life and those that you share it with. But you don’t exercise that power through forcing your will on others or the world. You exercise that power by taking charge of yourself. Then others and the world will follow. This is the old cliché: “Be the change that you want to see.” But it’s not just a catchy slogan. It’s actually how reality works.

Maybe what we spend our time on might not matter that much in the grander scheme of things. Maybe it does. I start to lean more towards that it actually does. But no matter what, we are here and now and I at least don’t want to reach the end of my life feeling like I spent most of my time on things that don’t matter. 

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Observe and allow. Part 2

The more I am in the now and the more awareness I can direct at the present moment, the more smoothly everything flows. And as soon as I’m back in my head, thinking about the past or the future, I feel resistance and I mess things up. The funny thing is that when I lose focus, I notice how my brain tries to convince me that I’ve been present the whole time.

Observe and allow part 1

I am more and more starting to find this state within myself, where I can just be present and observe what happens. When I’m in a flow state, where I can just observe my body as it moves and breathes. This attentive state lets me respond in an appropriate manner to what is going on at the moment. I just need to allow what is going on and my body somehow knows how to act. 

Is energy only needed to set things in motion?

I do a bit of dancing in the morning as part of my morning workout. In this dancing I’ve discovered sort of a flow state, where I intend to do certain moves and then just relax into the rhythm, using my whole body and as little muscular tension as possible. This has the effect of me more or less letting go of my body, and I can be very present in the moment and reach what I would describe as an altered state. I don’t do anything that my body isn’t normally capable of, but I definitely transcend my mental limitations that normally restrain my body. 

What I noticed the other day, is that when I set the intention of doing a certain move, I have to use a little bit of force to change direction. How much or little force I have to use, depends on how fast I can get back into the flow. Sometimes I lose myself in thoughts, which is something that more easily happens when a change in direction occurs. When this happens, I soon find that I’ve exhausted myself. And if I observe what my body is doing, I discover that unnecessary strain and tension has crept into the moves as well. 

I then tried this with the rather simple tasks at my work, when I remembered doing so. And the results were similar to those that I experienced dancing. 

I don’t know if this was related, but when I lost the flow and presence, more I got more clumsy and careless than usual. I tipped things over and was not thinking at all about what I was doing. It was almost as if life wanted to show me that I was no longer in this higher state.

It feels as if using as little energy as possible is key here. And that this can be applied to all areas of life. Right now, I can’t see how this could be applied to more complex tasks. But somehow I believe that it could. Maybe I actually get into contact with something higher (dare I say God?) when in this state? And maybe there is no end to what this higher (God?) can do through us, if we just let go and allow?

Thinking of different scenarios

I caught myself thinking of different scenarios where things could go wrong, most of them quite implausible. That sounds like a waste of mental energy.

Energy management

Quite a few people that I listen to talk about that money problems essentially comes down to a problem in energy management. I figured that there might be something to it but haven’t given it much thought beyond that. But if I suspect that this might be at the core of one of my biggest stumbling blocks, I should probably give it some thought. 

Another idea that comes up frequently, is that how you do one thing, is how you do everything. And what I’ve realized is that I often don’t work smart. If I’m in the gym, I lift as heavy as possible and till fail in every set. When I need to get something done fast, I simply push through without thinking of what I’m doing. This usually result in a couple of things. What I’m doing ends up taking longer time because I didn’t think of the most efficient way of doing it. I get stuck because I run into some difficult problem and have already wasted my mental energy. And afterwards, I have to deal with a bunch of problems because I’ve done a sloppy work. 

When it comes to eating, I’m usually rather strict. But now and then I binge out on junk food and candy. 

So, I’m thinking that if I balance out my energy a little bit, I will be able to both have a more consistent energy level, enjoy life more and resist urges. I can enjoy some chocolate now and then, without adding significantly to my weight, feeling lethargic because of over-eating or feel guilty because I know I’m doing something to my body that I shouldn’t.

So, therefore I believe that energy management comes down to treating both the energy that goes into the body and the one that goes out of it in a smarter way. I need to work smarter and adjust the type of work that I do to where I currently am. When I fore example get home from work, I should probably focus on easier tasks and leave the more difficult ones to when I’m not worn-out. 

When it comes to what is going in to the body, I need a good balance between treating food as fuel and pleasure. I maybe shouldn’t eat the most unhealthy stuff. But some chocolate and nuts in moredate amounts once or twice per week might not be that bad. It was a long time ago that I believed in asketism, but sometimes I think that I have some residue from that period of my life left in me.

What it all comes down to, I guess, is to be conscious of what I’m doing, not rush things and do things in a thought-through manner. I also need to negotiate a bit with my ego and throw it a bone now and then, preferably according to a fixed schedule and in fixed amounts. In this context, it means to eat candy moderately and on fixed days. But it can of course be applied to alcohol, movies, TV-series etc. There should probably also be some room for completely letting go if I truly and honestly feel like it some time. But NOT ON A REGULAR BASIS. 

If I take the stance just described towards pleasure, I will also probably be able to enjoy my pleasures more, without feeling guilty about it. Let’s see how all of this works.