Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.
I'm Dr.
Robert Puff.
Are you waiting for something amazing to come your way?
Perhaps a vacation?
Perhaps finding your soulmate and having a beautiful wedding?
Perhaps having your first child and beginning your life as a parent?
Perhaps graduating from high school or university,
Waiting for your life now to finally begin?
Or maybe it's a little bit more simpler for you.
You just can't wait till the weekend comes,
Cause work is work and you live for the weekends.
Given these aspirations,
These desires,
These goals,
Many of us treat today,
Right now,
As a mere stepping stone,
Something to be tolerated rather than experienced.
Imagine this,
A demon,
Yes,
A demon,
Enters your life and holds out an hourglass,
But this is a very unique hourglass.
It runs longer than normal,
24 hours exactly,
And something strange is going to happen.
And then the demon tells you this,
It's a demon's going to go back to your very recent past,
The last 24 hours that you lived.
And when the demon turns that hourglass over,
You get to relive that 24 hours for eternity.
Would you scream out in horror?
Not the last 24 hours.
Please.
Or would you look back and say,
Not a bad day,
I say yes.
This thought experiment comes from Nietzsche,
A philosopher who talked about the eternal recurrence.
And this eternal recurrence has been debated by philosophers for years.
But why is it so important and why does it matter?
After all,
It's just a silly thought experiment,
Right?
Why this thought experiment is so important,
It really weighs in on the importance of this present moment.
If this exact moment is going to echo for eternity,
It suddenly becomes incredibly important.
And we really can no longer afford to live a mindless life,
Waiting for that someday that may never come.
So how did Nietzsche resolve this eternal recurrence?
He talked about the concept of the Übermensch,
Or in English,
The Overman.
The Übermensch describes the ultimate spiritually mature human being,
Someone who isn't looking for an escape hatch from reality,
But says a radical yes to life exactly as it is.
This keeps us from living for the weekend.
This keeps us from someday I'll retire and live my life fully.
Instead,
It radically encourages us to say yes to life now,
To live life as it is and embrace it with our full heart.
Nietzsche also talks about how the Übermensch embraces amour fati,
Which means love of fate.
The Übermensch doesn't just tolerate their lives,
They love their fate.
They embrace the beautiful,
The tragic,
And even the mundane with equal reverence.
Could you imagine how each day would go if we lived this way?
It would be beautiful,
It would be astonishing.
But come on,
Dr.
Puff,
Does anyone live this way?
Let me give you two beautiful examples.
Have you ever heard of Gero Ono?
Gero is the subject of a famous documentary called Gero's Dreams of Sushi.
He's an elderly master chef who runs a tiny 10-seat sushi restaurant located inside a Tokyo subway station.
For over 70 years,
Gero has done the exact same thing every single day.
He takes the same train,
Prepares the same seafood the exact same way,
And stands in the exact same spot.
To an outsider with a modern restless mind,
Doing the same repetitive task for seven decades in a windowless subway station looks like a prison.
But Gero has passed the eternity test.
He doesn't want to retire.
He doesn't want a vacation.
He has found infinite depth,
Art,
And joy in a single repetitive routine.
If Nietzsche's demon came to Gero and said,
You must make sushi in this subway station for all of eternity,
Gero would simply bow and say,
Thank you.
He really is the living embodiment of the Ubermensch,
Proving that heaven isn't a different location,
It's a mindful approach to the present moment.
For me,
Perhaps one of the most poignant examples of the Ubermensch is Ramana Maharshi from India.
He became so well-renowned that Time magazine had him on the cover,
Which I was very delighted to find at an antique store a few years ago.
Did he travel all over southern Asia?
Did he build a huge spiritual empire around him?
No,
But he was one of the most revered sages of the 20th century.
At the age of 16,
He underwent a profound spiritual awakening and traveled to the sacred hill of Arunachala in Tiruvannamalai,
India.
For the next 54 years,
He never left.
He lived an incredibly simple,
Repetitive life,
Sitting in the same ashram,
Eating simple food and guiding people who came to him at any hour of the day.
Prior to moving to the ashram,
He actually lived in two caves for years,
And finally settled actually next to his mother's grave and they built the ashram around him.
I've been there,
And the caves,
They're very simple,
But very beautiful.
The first 20 years he was there,
He didn't even speak.
If someone asked him a question,
He would just write down the answer.
He basically just sat,
Remained mostly silent,
And people would come visit him because they'd hear about him,
And they felt so moved by his presence.
He was incredibly kind and conscientious to everyone,
And if someone brought him some special food,
He would make sure everyone there would get their serving first before he took a bite.
As I said,
Anyone could approach him at any time,
And towards the end of his life,
He started having health problems,
So the people in charge of the ashram wanted to put time limits on how people could visit him,
But when they did this,
He sat outside the ashram until they changed those rules.
His life was incredibly simple.
He went for walks around the mountain,
He sat,
And people from around the world came to visit him.
Even Carl Jung,
The renowned psychologist,
Was going to visit him,
But his plans got interrupted.
Near the end of his life,
He developed a painful cancer on his arm.
For the people that loved him,
His suffering was obvious,
And his devotees were frantic,
Begging him to cure himself or seek aggressive intervention to change his fate.
But Vramana viewed the body's decay with complete,
Joyful acceptance.
When his followers wept because he was dying,
He famously smiled and said,
Where could I go?
I am here.
He passed the eternity test flawlessly.
He didn't need a change of scenery,
A new experience,
Or even a healthy body to experience ultimate peace.
If a demon told him he had to repeat those 54 years on that exact same hill,
Including the painful cancer at the end,
For all of eternity,
His heart would not have fluttered.
He had already said a profound unconditional yes to exactly what was.
So how do we apply the eternity test to our lives?
What's the antidote to boredom?
There's no such thing as a boring commute or a tedious chore.
If we must wash the dishes for eternity,
We suddenly feel the warmth of the water.
We notice the lampet reflection in the soap bubbles and appreciate the act of serving our family.
How would we treat relationships differently?
If we're having a petty argument with our partner,
We might ask ourselves,
Do I want to spend eternity having this exact argument?
This immediately shatters our ego and forces us back into kindness and connection.
So what are actionable steps that we can do to apply this eternity filter?
The first thing we can do is apply the daily eternity filter.
Choose one mundane task today,
Like driving to work,
Folding laundry,
Eating breakfast,
And do it as if we had to do it exactly that way for a million years.
Notice then,
Do our postures change?
Has our breathing slowed?
And how much more vibrant the movement becomes?
I do this actually all the time when I'm driving.
I really try to look around,
Driving safely.
But when I pause,
When I stop,
Or when the traffic is flowing,
I look around.
I see what's around me.
Things that I may have not seen before and take in the beauty.
When we do this,
We realize how many beautiful things there are in our lives that we just stop seeing.
I like this one when I eat too.
Really enjoying the meal.
Eating slowly,
Not quickly,
Chewing it,
Feeling it in my mouth.
It's a wonderful way to eat and enjoy food so much more.
The next thing we can do is do the radical yes.
When something minor goes wrong today,
A spilled coffee,
A delayed flight,
Practice amor fati.
Instead of groaning,
Say a literal yes,
Out loud even,
To the moment,
Accept it immediately so we don't waste energy wishing for a different past.
And then thirdly,
We can be the architect of our day.
The Ubermint creates their own values.
Ask yourself,
If I'm going to live today forever,
What is one beautiful thing I must build into it before the sun goes down?
Isn't that beautiful?
So in summary,
The universe has given us this specific,
Unrepeatable life.
The ultimate act of gratitude is to live it so fully,
So deeply,
And so mindfully,
That if we were asked to do it all over again,
Our only answer would be yes.
If this is hard for us,
Here's a good affirmation we can use when we struggle with this.
We can say,
I embrace this exact moment without wishing it were different.
I am the architect of my joy,
And I choose to live a life I would gladly repeat for eternity.
Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.
Until next time,
Accept what is,
Love what is.
