What If Not Measuring Our Goals Was The Answer To

On the one hand, we are taught mindfulness which is very important. But what if we also must take our eyes off of our lives at the same time? Let's explore what the quantum world tells us about the effect of the observer and the miracles that happen when we let life happen without us watching. This was originally a live talk on Insight Timer.

Transcript

So today we're talking about imagine living our life in a way that we actually aren't focused on what's happening.

It's kind of like there's an old saying that says,

You know,

Don't let the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

And that seems really counterintuitive based on the way we process the world,

Right?

We process the world and,

You know,

You make a plan,

You're responsible,

You,

You know,

We judge our character based on the willpower it takes to fulfill the plan,

You know,

And if we decide that,

Okay,

That's it,

Every day I'm going to get up and I'm going to start running or I'm going to,

You know,

Give up dairy,

Whatever it is I'm going to do.

Then we go and we are really hypercritical of ourselves and we don't do it.

So what if our life expands in amazing ways when we stop looking at what we're doing?

And I know this sort of runs counter to the whole idea of mindfulness,

Right?

And it's not,

It's this is an and statement,

Right?

Mindfulness is simply being present.

You know that we're not living in a fantasy while we're doing this,

Right?

That's very different.

Mindfulness is I'm actually in my body right now present,

Experiencing the world present in my thoughts.

I'm not reacting based on the past.

I'm not living in fear of the future.

I'm present.

What we're talking about today is actually kind of taking our eyes off of our life and allowing it to unfold as opposed to trying to plan it and hold it so tight,

Which mostly doesn't work anyway.

That's the reality.

We can make all the plans in the world.

But,

You know,

It kind of feels good in the moment that we're sort of taking charge.

But in the end,

It seldom works out the way we planned.

And again,

I'm not saying that never make a plan,

Never stick to a plan,

Never.

That's not it,

Right?

If that's the call,

If that's your inner call that says,

Okay,

We're going to do this and we're going to step through it.

Then follow the call.

That's awesome.

But we're sort of inundated with,

You know,

You need to do,

You need to get up at 530,

Then you need to do half an hour of yoga,

And then you need to do this and then you need to go for a run.

Then you need to study Russian,

Then you have to do this and then you have and then you will have a complete life or something.

Right?

So,

One of the reasons I love talking about this is,

Of course,

It brings in quantum physics.

And we don't have to know anything about quantum physics.

And quantum physics is actually much simpler than it sounds.

Right?

Sometimes that can be very,

You know,

It's like,

I couldn't handle regular physics,

Let alone quantum physics kind of idea.

But that's not what quantum physics is about.

Quantum physics is literally about,

You know,

So Sir Isaac Newton came along and said,

No,

The world is understandable.

Right?

It's almost like we have a Newtonian idea of our life when we make the list and the plan,

And we work the plan and we do the thing.

It's the same thing.

We say we think we assume that we know all the pieces.

This is Newtonian physics that says,

I have an apple,

I understand the rate of gravity,

I know when it's going to hit.

And that's true.

Right?

And I have to tell you guys a funny thing.

So yesterday,

My son was over.

And I don't know why we got talking about this,

But we got talking about non-Newtonian liquids and solids or something.

I think it was because he was talking about cutting steel with a plasma cutter and I didn't know what that was.

And anyway,

Did you know there's something called Oobleck.

Oobleck is spelt O-O-B.

This has nothing to do with what we're talking about today,

By the way.

Oobleck,

O-O-B-L-E-C-K.

Right?

If you take corn starch and you take two parts corn starch and one part water,

Mix it together,

It becomes sort of like a goopy liquid,

Almost like honey.

Right?

So you put it in a bowl and if you stick your hand in it,

It just sort of feels like honey.

But if you take a hammer and hit the surface,

It becomes a solid.

If you fill a tub full of this corn starch liquid and take a sledgehammer and hit it,

It's a solid.

But if you just touch it with the sledgehammer,

It just goes in like a liquid.

Like you can actually run,

If you fill the pool full of this Oobleck,

They call it,

You can run across it.

But if you slow down,

You'll slip into it because it'll become a liquid.

And you can pick it up.

If you pick it up quickly and start playing it with your hands,

It'll be like a,

Like Play-Doh.

But if you stop moving your hands,

It'll just ooze out your fingers like liquid.

That's what they call it.

A non-Newtonian liquid or a non-Newtonian solid or something like that.

It's so bizarre.

And anyway,

So there are these aspects of our life that are non-Newtonian,

Like mixing corn starch and water.

You know,

So of course I Googled it last night and I'm looking through YouTube trying to find why is this possible.

And I found an article,

A video done by these MIT scientists.

And they were supposed to be explaining why Oobleck does this.

They didn't explain anything.

I was so disappointed.

So now I'm just going to sit in the joy of not knowing,

But in the land of our talk today.

And yeah,

So Oobleck,

If you have small children and you want to do something cool or big children or anybody really at a party,

Just mix two parts cornstarch,

One part water.

It's absolutely hilarious.

Okay,

So there's not the world is not governed by Newtonian physics.

Life isn't that simple.

If you take a ball and you drop it,

That's a Newtonian solid.

If you take a ball and you throw it,

You can probably calculate its trajectory and where it's going to land.

But that's not actually reality.

So the beginning of quantum physics.

I've told some of you guys this story.

Years ago,

I don't know,

150 years ago,

Let's say,

They decided they did something called a double slit experiment.

So now imagine you take a wall.

I'm going to take this on a big screen,

Obviously did it on very they did it very,

In a very small way.

But imagine you take a wall and you create two holes in the wall and you stand back here with a flashlight and you shine the light at the wall.

The question was the question they were asking is,

How will light act?

Will it go through both?

Will it go through one?

What will it do?

So they shine the light and on the other side,

The light went out in this ripple pattern out of both holes.

Right,

Kind of like if you dropped a pebble in the water and it creates a ripple pattern out,

You know,

Like like that.

That's what it did out the other side,

Just sort of this ripple pattern of light out the other side.

And it was really interesting because the ripples,

Of course,

Interacted in the middle.

And that's how they actually realized it was a ripple because there were all these places of really bright light where they were doubled.

Right.

So anyway,

They looked at that hundreds of years ago and they said,

Ah,

OK,

So light is a wave.

Right.

Done.

Right.

That was as much as they could figure out at the time based on their technology.

A hundred years later,

They now had realized that the atom had had smaller particles,

Like there were much smaller particles of light right down to a photon.

Right.

A single I'm going to say particle of light,

But a single bit of light,

Let's call it.

Right.

So now they made it a very small experiment with these two slits and they had this cool little,

You know,

Particulate thrower,

Whatever you want to call it.

And they would shoot a single photon at the wall.

What would that single photon do?

Would it go through one light,

One hole or that hole?

What would it do?

I mean,

It's just one photon.

The weird thing is they shot a single photon at the wall.

It went through both holes in this ripple effect like a like a wave.

And they thought,

How can a single photon go through two holes at the exact same time?

That's weird.

So then they did it again.

And then sometimes it would only go through one.

And then they would like,

Well,

That doesn't make any sense.

Scientists like things to always they're looking for a theory,

Right?

They want to know a theory that always works,

Because that's that's how we do.

That's how we create theories.

So so they thought,

OK,

You know what?

We need to measure this.

We need to we need to figure this out,

Get some good data.

So they got a little measuring apparatus beside one of the holes and they decided,

OK,

We'll be able to measure how many times the photon goes through the single hole.

So they put the measuring apparatus there.

They send the photon.

It goes through the holes as a single particle.

It's no longer a wave.

And they're like,

What?

So they just like start throwing billions of particles at this wall.

And no matter what it did,

Those single photons would just go through the holes,

Just like you were throwing a ball through a hole.

Just balls going through,

Hitting the back wall kind of thing.

And they were like,

No,

Wait a minute.

I know this was a wave before.

That doesn't make any sense.

So they took away the measuring apparatus.

Shot the photon and it went back to a wave.

And this is perfectly replicable,

Replicable,

Repeatable.

Right.

That as soon as you measure it,

It will act as a particle.

Take away the measurement.

It'll act like a wave.

This was like the beginning,

Like quantum physicists at this point were like,

What?

How can our reality change based on whether we're watching or not?

That's not possible.

That's not what our Newtonian mind says.

Our mind says that if I'm watching closely,

Even better things will happen because I'm noticing more.

This is really important.

The idea that the very act of watching not only changes the outcome,

But it changes the nature of the outcome.

Right.

Like this is a huge deal.

Like you imagine your life.

Imagine a single event in your life.

And just I mean,

It is hard for our brain to imagine.

So you can almost have to imagine your whole being imagining this.

But think of a single event.

Now think of it as a particle.

Now think of it as a wave.

Think of that event,

But think of it as a wave.

It's a completely different thing.

But when we focus on our lives,

Everything becomes a particle.

Everything becomes the simplistic version of itself.

But what if when we take our eyes off of our life,

It becomes endless waves interacting with each other.

That this is where we actually access infinity.

This is where we actually access what's possible in life.

Right.

That's where we become our infinite being.

Like if you again,

Let me look at the chakras.

Right.

We look at our first chakra,

Our absolute connection to the earth,

Our three dimensional full duality.

And we move up through the chakras getting lighter and lighter and lighter and lighter and lighter until we come to the seventh,

Where we are the thousand pedaled Lotus.

We are the full connection to infinity.

How do we access that?

By stop stopping to by not watching.

Take away the measurement tool.

Imagine,

Just think of that.

Imagine if we simply took away the measurement tool.

Right.

What if you decided to go running?

What if you wanted to start running?

Right.

And instead of using a measuring tool,

You just focused on your experience.

Right.

It's,

It's a completely sorry,

I keep I keep looking over at the thing because I'm afraid that something's the sound goes or something,

But I can't actually read anything.

Imagine the difference like so for example,

I used to teach barefoot running.

Because I'm not,

I don't have a runner's body right so I actually have to run very carefully to actually allow for all my joints to flex and yeah,

Just so the zero impact on the body.

Right.

And I discovered this a long time ago.

But,

So when I go running.

I'm actually fully listening to my body.

I have to listen because if I become tired.

I'll start scraping the bottom of my feet.

But if I'm 100% focused.

I will just be one with my body one with my feet one with the ground,

And I'm just running.

Right.

This is very different than having an external measurement that says,

I ran this far today,

Or I have to run this far,

Or I ran this fast or something like that.

These are two completely different experiences.

Right.

And I'm not criticizing how anyone trains because everybody's different.

But just consider the difference between the particle experience and the wave experience.

Right.

Because when I,

When I'm running for example,

And I'm doing this thing and I'm listening and I'm listening to my feet.

I can almost experience where my feet start getting heavy,

And I'm not,

You know,

I'm not my hit my body's not hinging like it should be.

And then my mind will go,

Okay,

Lift up,

Up,

Up,

Up,

Up,

And all of a sudden my body starts to shift,

And everything starts to change.

I'm not measuring anything.

I'm just running.

Right.

Do I know what the result of that run was?

No.

Do I care?

No.

Right.

And this is the difference.

Like one of the amazing things about releasing the measuring,

Releasing the focus,

Releasing our brain onto something is it takes away the ego in our life.

Right.

It takes away that idea that says to me,

I am a disciplined person and I run 5k every day,

No matter what.

Like,

I've talked to people like running is a funny,

Funny thing like,

And they're like,

I run 5k every day whether I want to or not.

I think,

What?

Why would you do that to your body?

Why wouldn't why don't you listen?

What if your body actually wants to stretch that day or it wants to do cartwheels on the lawn or it wants to go swimming or it wants to sleep?

Like,

Why would you actually do that?

And then imagine the end result of that.

Imagine the damage and the injury.

Right.

But the amazing thing is like we have this thing that's like a program,

This Newtonian program that's come into our head that says,

You can calculate every single thing in your life.

And you can optimize it.

And if you're good at this,

You are an amazing human.

Right.

You are disciplined,

You have great willpower,

You are in control of your life,

Like all these things.

But it's like,

But we're not controllable beings.

We are human beings aren't cars.

We're not a ball that we're just throwing as a trajectory.

We are made of those same photons that act differently going through the wall.

We change.

Our experience changes.

The other thing that's really important.

So this this double slit experiment and this realization of the effect of the observer had huge impact into the scientific community.

This was the beginning of understanding that no matter what experiment you do,

The person doing the experiment,

Their very intention would skew the results of the experiment.

Right.

I mean,

If you can do it simply with light going through a wall,

This effect of the observer would affect every single scientific experiment,

No matter what it was.

So this is why eventually this became the idea you had to do double blind studies,

That the people doing the experiment could not know who got the placebo and who got whatever the medicine was.

Because the effect of the observer would affect the outcome.

This is how powerful it is.

That's why we have double blind studies.

Right.

So this is what I'm saying.

What if we become our own double blind study?

Because we are affecting the outcome of our experiments,

Whether it's a new meditation regime or a new fitness or a new diet or a new job or a new project,

Whatever it is.

We are affecting the outcome based on our observation.

Where does our observation come from?

Our brain.

And what's stored in our brain?

Every experience we've ever had,

Every training we've ever had,

All the opinions of everyone in our life.

We know how limited that is.

We know how limiting that is.

That's all of our fears,

All of our concerns,

All of our own limitations that we have picked up from our life.

So now you want to go and do something new.

If you watch,

If you think you can control this with your brain,

You will skew the outcome based on your past.

So how can we ever change?

How can we ever transform?

We take away the observer.

We just stop.

Right?

Don't look.

Make a choice.

Do something and then get on to the next thing.

You know,

Be the dog.

Run after the ball.

Ooh,

Squirrel.

Oh,

Ball.

Like,

Live.

Right?

It's a whole other thing and it sounds very irresponsible.

Right?

This sounds like sacrilege.

How could you possibly live like this and accomplish anything at all?

Well,

The crazy thing is we totally accomplish everything we need to accomplish.

Right?

I'm not talking about not feeding the children or not going to work.

I'm talking about our soul's path.

Right?

I mean,

If I drive a car,

I'm going to I'm living in Newton's world.

Right?

I'm talking about my personal journey.

So the key is how do we actually navigate then?

If we close our eyes and we aren't watching,

What are we doing?

What if instead we're watching with this eye?

Right?

One of the beautiful things is there's this Newton's world.

Right?

Where everything is very simple.

It's like a car.

You can take a car apart and you have all the pieces in front of you.

And it's all very simple.

Right?

That's not the same with us.

You can't take all of our parts apart.

Lay them down in front of you and say,

OK,

Here's what we're made of.

Because,

You know,

As we've talked about before,

Like we're made of atoms and the atoms are 99% invisible.

I don't even want to say nothingness,

Dark matter,

Whatever we want to call it.

But we can't see it.

If you took all of your organs and laid them out,

You don't see your thoughts,

Your belief systems,

Your emotions,

Your memories,

Your hopes.

You don't see all that.

And that's what makes up 99% of our experience.

Those are the things that we're actually moving this vehicle through.

Where are our thoughts?

Where are all the things we experience all day?

They're not there.

Right?

And the wild thing is all of the parts that make us up are all interconnected.

Our emotions are connected to our hopes and our thoughts are connected to our memories and everything's connected.

Everything is connected.

So this becomes a chaotic system or a nonlinear system,

A non-Newtonian system.

We are our own brand of Oobleck.

I'd make a T-shirt about that.

Right?

That we're just not that simple.

So then how do we actually navigate?

It's all about intention.

So imagine,

For example,

My goal.

Let's say I was going to start running.

Apparently I'm going to start running again.

I don't know why I keep talking about it,

But I have to ask myself,

So what's my goal?

Do I have a goal?

Why am I running?

Why would I choose to run again?

If I sort of do the watching thing and say,

Okay,

Well,

I'm going to start running so that I can effortlessly run 5K or something.

That's sort of it.

Maybe that's a general enough intention.

Right?

But what if it's like,

Because I want to lose weight and I want to have a.

.

.

When I was young,

We used to like measure,

Right?

You know,

You had to have like a certain,

You know,

Chest measurement,

Waist measurement,

Hip measurement.

You know,

There's the ideal dimensions of a woman's body.

Hilarious the weird ideas that we've adopted as society.

Right?

But if you were to say,

Okay,

Because I want to have these measurements or something like that,

We're going to get into trouble.

But what if my intention was just like,

What's my soul's desire?

Like,

Why would I start to run?

Like if I was to genuinely ask myself this question right now,

Which apparently I'm asking.

I actually love the feeling of my body moving through space.

I love when my body feels fit.

Like I love that feeling of the muscles all working together.

I love that feeling.

Right?

If you ask my soul,

Why would my soul do this?

It likes that feeling.

So then imagine,

You know,

Tomorrow morning I wake up and I think,

I want to go running.

Oh,

I could have that feeling.

Does it matter how far I run?

Does it matter what it looks like or what?

No.

Will I achieve this measured outcome?

Maybe.

Maybe even more.

That's the crazy thing.

We think that if we take the measurement off,

We will not achieve what we wanted.

But what if when we take the measure off,

We achieve more?

Like not only in the physical.

I remember when I first started running,

It was back in 2010 and I wasn't a runner at all.

Like I like to swim.

I'm not a runner at all.

And I got convinced to run a marathon with my cousins.

The Disney Marathon,

Which,

You know,

You get to take pictures with Mickey and eat cookies and stuff along the way.

So that's kind of my kind of marathon.

And a friend of mine,

I talk about just,

You know,

Taking your eyes off of things.

And a friend of mine,

This really cool doctor guy,

He walks into my train station because I owned a train station then that I taught out of.

And he walks in and he looks at me and I'm like,

I couldn't run for 30 seconds,

Let alone a marathon.

And he said,

He says,

What's going on?

And I said,

I've been like hoodwinked into doing a marathon and I'm sunk.

Like I'm going to die.

This is not possible.

And he just looks at me and he says,

I've discovered something called natural running.

And he was really into chi running and all this kind of thing.

Right.

And I was like,

He says,

I'll teach you.

And I was like,

Really?

So anyway,

Next thing you know,

He and I are running three mornings a week.

Right.

And then he finds this great book called Barefoot Bob or something like that.

Running with Barefoot Bob.

No.

Barefoot Ken.

I don't know.

Something like that.

Well,

We start running barefoot.

Right.

Well,

The wild thing is the way he trained,

His goal was he wanted to still be running when he was 100 years old.

That was his overriding goal or why he was running or how he trained.

He didn't want to train for the short term.

He wanted to make sure his body was still healthy when he was 100.

So we would train and we would go out and we would sort of just sort of we would do anyway.

It was really cool.

The wild thing is we weren't measuring anything.

We were just out running in this really cool way.

Well,

Within two weeks,

I swear my running abilities expanded exponentially,

Like way more than if I had been like,

You know,

Watching a clock or requiring my body to do something.

There was something magical about what was happening.

And then all of a sudden I'm like running along and I'm doing my thing and I'm realizing you're just running.

You're just having fun running and the two of us are running barefoot like it was quite a there's nothing funnier.

Well,

There might be some things funnier,

But it's hilarious to run barefoot because when people see you running barefoot,

They think you're naked.

I don't know what it is,

But they look at you like you're naked.

I remember running in 5K runs and stuff and you're running along and people that these spectators are watching and they're like,

She doesn't have any shoes on.

I may as well be naked running with shoes on and that would have been less offensive.

So funny.

But anyway,

It was like a miracle to me.

I'd never been able to run in my whole life.

When I was young,

When I was in school,

I was that last kid in in gym class.

Like I just running is not something my body likes to do.

And here I was happily running like really happily and looking forward to it every time.

That's a miracle.

That's an absolute miracle.

So imagine there's something in your life that you'd really love to be able to do.

What if you just dig deep and you ask your soul,

Why do you want to do this?

Like,

Forget about the measurement.

Forget about the achievement.

Achievement.

There's a weird concept,

Right,

That being able to run 5K is an achievement.

And again,

You know,

Maybe it is,

But it's not really.

Right.

Most people who I know that running a certain distance or doing something like that,

The achievement isn't the measurement.

It's what it took inside to actually shift your life to make it happen.

It's standing up to people and saying,

No,

This is important to me and I need to take this time.

Like it isn't the measurement in the end anyway.

So imagine you look at it,

You look at whatever that question is and you ask your soul,

Why do you want to do this?

And then you just follow that.

Like you just follow joy,

No measurement.

Like,

And this is really radical in our world.

It's very radical to not have measurement.

But does the measurement matter?

Really?

You know,

If I choose to go running,

I don't know why I keep talking about running.

Right,

Because it's joyful.

That's a whole other thing.

If I decide to start getting up early because that feels like a really joyful thing,

Because I really want to experience that quiet of the ambrosial hours before the world wakes up.

That's cool.

As opposed to saying I have to do this because a good yogi does that.

It's funny,

Right?

Even the idea of miracles,

The idea of having your life filled with miracles.

Because people ask me this all the time because,

You know,

I've lived a really interesting life.

We've all lived interesting lives.

But just crazy things that have happened in my world.

But it isn't everything interesting that ever happened in my world that I can now tell the story.

They were like hunches.

They were just like something inside that made me think,

Yeah,

Let's do that.

I couldn't do the math on it.

I couldn't tell you the pros and cons list.

I couldn't even tell you how it was going to unfold.

But there was just this little guiding light,

This little North Star that said,

Move towards that,

Wherever it looks.

And what's interesting is when you have a point in the distance that are an intention like that,

It's okay if the path does this,

Right?

That's okay.

It doesn't have to be straight.

And then all of a sudden amazing things happen.

Like really amazing things.

And then afterwards you're sitting there thinking,

Wow,

I wouldn't have seen that coming for anything.

Right?

Where does practice and discipline,

The particle,

Fit with the wave of no measurement?

Discipline is interesting,

Right?

Because discipline,

The word normally means,

We have a punishment model about discipline that you have something on the outside saying,

You're going to do this,

You're going to do this.

But discipline actually comes from the root of disciple,

Where you take something and you want to grow in that experience.

So imagine you love music and music becomes your discipline.

It becomes that which you love,

That which you want to grow in.

So all of a sudden sitting down and playing the piano or playing the guitar or doing something like that,

This is your discipline because it's your place of joy.

There's no measurement.

You practice out of the joy because you bow to it.

Like this is like this is what is so passive.

You know,

For me,

I'll get all into quantum physics or how it affects consciousness or whatever.

It's a discipline.

It's a joy.

It's what exalts me.

It's what just expands me in every way.

No one has to tell me to practice.

Right?

But again,

This is a very different reality because a lot of our words have been skewed based on society,

Based on this idea of,

You know,

Forcing children to play piano because it's a good discipline.

It is a good discipline if it comes from within.

Right?

Following joy isn't to me,

It's not just like I'm only going to do it makes me feel happy.

It's not like some hedonistic thing.

I trust like so let's say today,

There's certain things I have to do.

I am here with you guys.

I have clients.

I have meetings.

But in between there,

I have sort of these to do lists or I have these things that I'm going to do.

But how I choose which ones get done today is by following joy.

And they're not necessarily like the happy things or the fun things.

Some of them that I have to do today are quite administrative.

They're a little tedious.

Right?

But I will literally sit like after we're finished our class,

I will sit and I will ask,

All right,

What's next on the docket?

And something will roll into my consciousness.

Maybe it's something super fun like calling my friend and going out for lunch.

Or maybe it's doing the administrative work that I need to do.

Or maybe it's writing or maybe it's something else.

But it actually to me feels like following joy.

Because something will as soon as I think I want to do that,

I need to do that.

The answer inside will go,

Yes,

Do that.

That's next.

So this following joy thing,

It's almost like following lightness.

It's following what's next.

And like to me,

It's,

I can't distinguish between intuition,

Joy,

Calling.

It's all the same.

And I might,

This morning I was sitting drinking my coffee.

I was really feeling obligated to write.

I write for medium.

Com.

And I wrote this article called Doing the Naked Macarena.

And it's totally going viral.

And it's so fun.

Like I'm so thrilled about it.

So of course there's this little measurement voice inside of me that says,

Katrina,

You need to write more.

And of course it gives me a breakdown of what people are interested in,

Who are reading it.

And of course it's all about sexuality.

It's like,

Katrina,

You got to write about sexuality.

You got to do this.

You got to do that.

And I'm sitting there drinking my coffee going,

I don't want to.

Not today.

But I was really pulled on this like,

Katrina,

Look at the effects.

You should do this.

And I'm like,

But that's not what's next on the path.

It's not just I don't want to.

It's like,

That seems like an interesting idea in the Newtonian model.

But,

Like even that,

Even that curious example.

So,

I don't know,

About four or five months ago,

I had this vision of this article called Doing the Naked Macarena.

And I thought,

Oh,

This is going to be so,

So popular,

Right?

I wrote it,

Published it.

It didn't go anywhere.

Like,

I swear,

I think like 10 people read it.

And it just sort of disappeared off the planet.

And I was like,

Hmm,

That's weird.

So then,

So I just let it go.

I mean,

I don't know.

I don't understand.

And then about a month ago,

Two months ago,

There was this new publication on Medium that was called My First.

And basically you were to write an article,

And the prompt was my first time doing something or whatever.

So,

Of course,

The first thing that came to me,

What felt like joy in the moment or what felt alive or what felt full was my first time on a nude beach.

So I wrote this article called My First Time on a Nude Beach.

And then I put a link at the bottom to,

If you want to read more about my naked escapades or something,

You can read Doing the Naked Macarena.

Well,

Next thing you know,

It wasn't even the My First Time at the Nude Beach that went wild.

It's doing pretty well,

Because on Medium we get paid for how many people read it kind of idea.

Next thing you know,

I literally,

I look on my Medium stats like as a writer,

And like 7,

000 people have read Doing the Naked Macarena.

Like it just,

Like talk about taking your eyes off of something and it's like,

What?

How did that happen?

It's not even possible.

And then I ended up getting a $500 bonus from Medium because I engaged so many writers with this article.

I couldn't believe it.

It was like,

Like you should have seen me.

I was like,

What?

What?

What are you talking about?

And I mean,

This is what I mean,

Like I tried to plan that.

I tried to do the thing and it didn't work.

As soon as I just kind of wrote a fun and silly article about the first time I went to a nude beach,

You know,

Some magical ripple effect happened.

And I swear that,

I'm not going to say all,

But a lot of the greatest things that have happened in my life were like that.

That it was like the minute I took my eyes off of it,

It just exploded behind me.

And I don't know,

So I find it a very fascinating thing to ponder.

Right?

Imagine the joy of letting go,

Right?

Of just releasing the performance,

Releasing the measurement,

Releasing all that.

And greater things happen than you ever could have imagined.

Like,

How much fun is that?

You know,

How much fun is living?

How much fun is just,

Because then imagine even your consciousness.

Imagine what you're thinking about,

Right?

It's like every day you wake up and instead of saying,

Okay,

I need to accomplish this and this and this,

It's like,

Let's do this today.

And then instead of checking your stats,

Whatever it is,

Whether it's weighing yourself or seeing your,

How many people read your article on Medium or whatever,

You just went,

Okay,

I've done that,

Now what am I going to do?

Okay,

Let's go do that.

Okay,

Now what am I going to do?

Okay,

Let's go do that.

And there's this wave happening behind you.

But you're just walking forward in joy,

Living,

Just being alive.

You know,

It's so interesting,

This weird thing about having to turn around and measure our accomplishment.

You know,

It's very curious.

It's hard for me to let go.

I feel pulled to accomplish a list and I'm anxious till it gets done.

Oh,

I think it's such a deep training,

Chaya.

Like,

It's just such a,

That's what I mean.

I think it's a very interesting thing.

And I think we're taught that,

Right?

We're taught that this is responsible.

It means you're intelligent.

It means you have great willpower.

You know what I mean?

You think of like,

Henry David Thoreau,

Who,

You know,

Back in the 1800s,

Kind of looked at the world and said,

You guys are wasting your life.

You know,

All these things you're doing all day long,

It's a waste of energy.

I was like,

I remember.

Sorry,

I'll get back to the Thoreau as I tangent off into something else.

I remember reading a story about Merlin and King Arthur,

Or Arthur when he was a child,

He went to stay with Merlin and he was to learn all he was meant to learn,

Right?

So,

Merlin said to him,

Okay,

I want you to go outside and dig a ditch.

And I want this ditch to be 20 feet long,

Four feet wide,

Four feet deep or something.

And Arthur's like,

What?

What?

Why do I just do it?

Oh,

Okay,

Well,

He knew he was supposed to be there to learn from the master,

Right?

So,

Out he went,

Dug the ditch,

You know.

Two days later,

He completes it,

He goes into Merlin,

He says,

Okay,

I finished digging the ditch.

What's my next task?

And Merlin says,

Okay,

I want you to go back out and I want you to fill in the ditch.

And Arthur's like,

What?

And he's like,

Just do it.

Okay,

Out he goes,

Fills in the ditch,

Goes back into Merlin.

Okay,

What's my next task?

And Merlin says,

I want you to go out,

I want you to dig a ditch that's 20 feet long and four feet wide.

Merlin's like,

I just did that,

Why do I have to do it again?

And he's like,

Just do it.

Well,

Anyway,

Thoreau,

Henry David Thoreau was basically saying,

All you guys keep doing is digging ditches,

Filling them in,

Digging ditches,

Filling them in.

What you're doing isn't actually accomplishing anything.

It's not accomplishing anything in the soul of man and it's not accomplishing anything in your spiritual growth.

And his whole theory was that the way we work,

And Buckminster Filler talked about this a lot too,

That most people's jobs absolutely don't contribute anything to the village at all,

Right?

And Thoreau was like,

Most of the things you're doing are a complete waste of time.

And the people said,

Oh,

No,

No,

This is what has to be done,

It has to be done.

And his whole point of going to Walden,

Going to the pond and building his little shack and living there was to prove to the world how little we actually needed to do in the day.

If you stop digging the ditches and filling them back in,

You have a lot more free time.

And that can be like a lot of things.

Maybe if you don't spend money there,

You don't have to make the money to spend it.

So,

Then you don't have to work as much.

And if I don't spend money there,

You know,

Da,

Da,

Da,

Da,

Da,

Da,

Da.

And that's really interesting,

Right?

It's really interesting to consider what our to-do lists really are.

You know,

How important are they actually?

Right?

It's just interesting.

It's an interesting personal question because sometimes our lives are filled with ditch digging and filling in.

Like it's,

And don't get me wrong,

I'm a list maker.

Like,

It's not that I don't make lists.

I love lists.

Like,

I really do.

But lists for me now,

Before they were my,

Not a measurement.

I just like lists.

There's nothing wrong with a good list,

Right?

But I remember,

I don't know who it was.

It might have been someone like Wayne Dyer or someone.

And he said,

You know,

The funniest thing about people who are perpetual list makers is that they make a list and they go,

Okay,

I need to accomplish A,

B,

C,

D,

And E.

And then it's almost like something in your soul thinks you've actually accomplished them because you wrote it down.

So then you go on to do F and G,

Which is totally me.

But what I do now is I do make lists.

I love lists.

And I love,

I always have like a million irons and irons in the fire.

Like,

I really am that way.

I'm not just a single,

You know,

I don't,

I'm not,

Single focus isn't how I'm wired,

Right?

And so it's really helpful to me to have a great ongoing list of things I want to accomplish and how they interact with other things and da,

Da,

Da.

But that's the list I sit with.

And it also,

It alleviates me from having to keep it all in my mind,

Right?

I don't want to keep all these things that I have to do in my head.

So I write it all down or I use some cool little app or something.

And then when I sit with my day,

You know,

I mean,

And I don't think of it like this,

But this really is what I do is I sit in the energy of the day and I look at the list and I say,

What's,

What's my joy today?

But I do use a list because otherwise it will disappear into the ethers.

Like I don't,

I love having things written down,

Right?

But then I just choose.

And then,

And some days I'm really challenged because something comes up and it's like,

Oh,

I was so going to accomplish all these things today,

But I really want to do this other thing.

And there's something weird about realizing that it didn't matter and that those things will still be there tomorrow or next week.

And here's the other really interesting thing that I've noticed with all my list making.

When there are things on my list that for some reason don't get done,

They just seem to keep getting pushed to the bottom of the next,

Next week's list,

The next week's list and next week's list.

There's always a good reason.

I just didn't know what it was.

Then all of a sudden something changes and something shifts and all of a sudden I find myself thinking,

Wow,

Am I ever glad I didn't do that a month ago because now I can do it better or now it is not even needed or someone else did it or I simply got new information or something.

And so I really trust now that if I meant to do it,

It'll just kind of shine off my list.

And if I'm not meant to do it,

I just won't have any heart for it.

And again,

This isn't necessarily just fun and creative things.

Some days I'm like completely called to just sit and balance books for the day.

Happy as anything.

Right.

So thank you so much for being here.

We'll see you soon.

Bye bye.

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