The Present Moment, Ego and Mental Freedom
“There is nothing the busy Man is less busied with than living. There is nothing harder to learn.
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It is a curse of modern life that we all have more to do than can reasonably be expected to be done. A multitude of tasks growing by the second with every email, every meeting, every extra commitment that eats up your time and cranks up the pressure.
If it all led to a clear outcome, then the psychology of the situation would be more bearable.
This is sadly not the case for most Men. Modern life is a cacophony of rush and anxiety wrapped in red tape, bureaucracy and officialdom.
Busy or not, you had better look busy, get stressed and have your days digitally mapped out ahead of you. Then repeat the pattern, ad infinitum, until your economic worth is finally sucked out of you.
Is it any wonder so many Men are anxious? Their hunted minds grasping at a future that is heaving with jobs, tasks, projects. Most of them boring and pointless in the grand scheme of life.
This is the bleak future that most Men stare at when they finally get a moment to their thoughts.
Men are increasingly in discordance with the environment they find themselves in. What is more, they are at a woeful disadvantage compared to their female counterparts. They are less able to multi task, less apt with incessant communication than Women...even Male vision is poor peripherally compared to Females. Literally, Men are more tunnel visioned.
Men are goal oriented creatures, designed to act, to complete objectives one by one with tenacity and boldness.
It doesn't take much to see how Men can drown in anxiety inducing modern life, while women embrace it.
Then there is the Past.
What you 'should' have done. The guilt of your wrong doings. The ache of good times that may never again come to pass.
Depressive states are easier if you can talk it through, work it out and make sense of it all. But Men rarely choose this option. They will usually stoically bottle it up and battle on. I have witnessed it many times. Depression, slowly gnawing away at their health in melancholic waves.
The Male propensity to act in this situation can become literally lethal. In an effort to fix the problem, staring into that future of anxiety and haunted by the ghosts of the past, they will go to drastic measures. Men will seek all manner of destructive behaviours to distract their mind from reality. The most lethal of all - self termination. An unnatural outcome to a few billion years of evolution and survival above all else.
Ironic, since we evolved the human brain to conjure up new and exciting ways to survive, that this can lead to it terminating itself to escape its own thoughts.
Because that is all the past and future are. Thoughts.
If a tingle of epiphany has just rushed through your being, as it did with me when I first became enlightened to this concept, then welcome.
You have just been awoken from slavery.
Yes, your brain has enslaved you for most of your life right up until this very moment.
The word 'moment' is crucial. Past moments are gone, they happened, yes. Likely not really as you remembered them. But they are gone non-the-less. Future moments have yet to happen. These are constructed by the six or so inches between your ears, and are also likely not to happen exactly as you envision them,
All that is real is the PRESENT MOMENT.
Most Men ignore the present moment to live in a fake world inside their minds. Minds that keep their consciousness tightly imprisoned in thoughts that when unrestrained create anxiety and depression.
But you have just been liberated.
The unique ability to construct the future and recall the past, to grasp abstract concept and become sentient has resulted in Men being dragged through life by a cortex that is rampantly running you on a never ending treadmill of thought.
Stop.
Feel the mental silence of a mind ready to do your bidding. Enjoy the breath filling your lungs and your senses coming back online. What can you smell? What can you see? What can you feel? Right now, in this moment. A moment of unlimited opportunity.
YOU decide when to employ the services of your own brain.
Interestingly, in doing this you have just uncovered your true self. Your true consciousness. What you previously thought was 'you' is not 'you'...
It is your EGO.
The Male Ego is a fascinating thing. Ego is a complex amalgamation of past experience and future concepts. It is a mixture of what you believe yourself to be and what others have told you you are. The name you were given by your parents, the grades you achieved at school, what the voices inside your head tell you you can do. It all gets melted down inside that huge human mind and the resulting image you hold of yourself, that which you believe to be true, is what you project on the world.
You are not your Ego!
Ego is an illusion created by your mind. It can be useful, powerful. An ally. Or it can be destructive and harmful. It changes, metamorphasises constantly with your mental state and your environment. But it is never the real you.
Once you know this, you have created a level of consciousness beyond that of your ego.
You control your Ego.
Now you realise this, you are in control. You have awoken to exist in reality, in the present moment. Grasp it firmly and exercise its power.
You can now reach into the future by choice, construct and plan and plot in it as is necessary.
But you won't create the future you want by trying to exist there. It is an illusion until you make it a reality. All that is real is the present moment, and you must come back to reality to start to action your plans. Understand, it is insanity to fret and worry over that which is not reality, no matter how bleak or tough it looks. Accept the present moment and act within it to change the future.
Learn from the past. Journey back there in your mind and analyse your experiences by all means. Many of them, good or bad, are invaluable lessons that will afford you opportunity to grow. In fact, the worst experiences often allow for the most growth. But dwell there without reason at your peril. The past can guide your present choice, or it can consume your present moment until you live like a shadow of your real self. Take what you need from your past, make peace with any demons there, and use what you require in the present moment.
The only thing that is real is now. The eternal present moment.
Accept it. Own it. Revel in it.
“If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”