Intentional Living!

Do we go through our days on auto-pilot? Reaching the end of the day or the week or month only to realize that nothing productive happened in the whole time?

An intentional act i.e. doing what we WANT to do is profound. Whatever is important to our lives is almost always OPTIONAL in the moment. Prioritizing our health is optional - exercising is optional, healthy eating is optional - until we fall sick!

Unmindful living leads to projecting what we WANT to do in the future. This contemplation is about making intentional living a default setting in our lives.

Transcript

What happens when we stop what we are doing and decide to be somewhere consciously? Like right now, I'm sure you must be doing something, Something else. When you dropped what you were doing or paused it and decided to sit down for this session, Something very profound happens with this kind of a small act, Small intentional act. How do we prioritize whatever it is that we have decided to do? Normally we are just running like a headless chicken throughout our day, Catering to whatever comes our way mindlessly, Either in panic mode or rushed mode or completely bombarded by whatever we are exposed to. That's why many days at the end of the day we would feel like, I don't know where my day went, I didn't do anything productive today. That feeling only demonstrates the lack of synchronization between what we did and what we wanted to do. It's like living on cruise control. Yes, We are going somewhere, But we don't have any input on where we are going. I mean we do have a feeling that we are heading somewhere, But it is more or less an accident. That is why a small act like deciding to pause and deciding to sit down for something and sitting down for a session like this is an optional activity. And that is why it carries more insight, Because when we decide to sit down for an optional activity, It demonstrates our commitment to it, Our prioritization of it. And I would say almost everything that we want to do for ourselves feels optional in the moment. Taking care of our mental health, Taking care of our physical health, Saying yes to healthy foods, Saying no to unhealthy foods, Working out versus staying in bed. These are all optional activities until we fall sick. For many people even after that it's optional. But you get my point. That the nature of anything profound related to our own well-being, Related to our own peace and happiness seems to be optional in the moment because there is time in the future. And that's how we cajole ourselves. That's why it takes a lot of courage to pick up something optional and prioritize it and show up again and again. Not because I'm saying it, But because we want to. And that's what makes it optional and that's what makes it profound. I remember my teacher defining what happiness and unhappiness are. Wanting what you have and not wanting what you don't have is happiness. Resisting what you have and desiring what you don't have right now is unhappiness. So when we are going about our day mindlessly, Being controlled by whatever is thrown our way, And as long as we are doing it unmindfully, We will have this feeling that this is not what I want to do. What I want to do can happen later in the day and the day ends. And we feel like we have not done something. And this happens day in, Day out, Week in, Week out, Month in, Month out, And years pass by. Deciding to sit down for an optional activity demonstrates to us that we have the capability of prioritizing whatever we want to do. Making room for whatever we want to do in our busy schedule. It is important for our minds to see this so that we don't tell ourselves, Or at least we don't believe ourselves when we tell ourselves that I don't have time. We are never super excited about waking up to do something mindlessly. So what we do is we set an alarm so that we tell the system that we are a part of to wake up, Wake us up at a certain time, So that our schedule runs our life. Our predetermined schedule, Whether at work or whether at home, Determines our life. Whereas, There are some people who wake up because they want to. Even though their schedule is packed, They wake up because they want to wake up and do something for themselves. And not let the schedule decide their life, But they are in charge of their own schedule. So it's not a mindless running of life, It's a very intentional use of schedules. Let's say you start your day with an intention of doing some tasks and you are encountered by something urgent and more important. That urgent and more important task is not in conflict with your predetermined list of tasks to do. If you are approaching it mindfully, You recognize the urgency and reprioritize your list and place that urgent task higher than everything else. So you are not fighting with what is presented. Instead, You are re-evaluating and still making it a mindful, Intentional choice. A choice that will be congruent to what we want and eventually leave us happy while making the choice, While doing the choice and after the choice has been made. The only time we are frustrated is when we are fighting and resisting what presents in front of us. Especially if it is apparently in conflict with what we wanted to do. Another personal example to drill down this idea would be, Let's say you have decided to work on something and somebody in your family falls sick. Of course, You stop what you are doing and take care of your family member, Especially if it is a kid. But in your heart, The sickness is not an obstacle in your day. It is your day. Everything else is an obstacle because you have prioritized this. But for everything else, We seem to be very frivolous with how we approach our prioritization or lack thereof. And we resist it. Resisting something that is happening, That is already happening. I am not saying about a hypothetical case which is probably going to happen. But I am talking about something that is already set in motion. Resisting that is a sure shot recipe for disaster or unhappiness or misery or frustration, Suffering. You either have to do what is necessary and if nothing is necessary, Then you don't have to do anything. Resisting is nowhere in the picture. It is an option that doesn't really add any value. Instead, It spoils the flavor of our life. Let's say you are in the gym and you are doing some difficult exercise. Let's say you are doing push-ups and after 15 reps, You have a choice to do the 16th one or not. You either want to do it or you don't. You don't want to resist the thought of doing the 16th one. That would be madness. And that is why the start of this session was about deciding to do an optional activity just to demonstrate to ourselves that we have a choice with optional activities. And just like that, We have a choice with non-optional activities. Albeit the choice is already made for us. That's what makes it non-optional. I remember someone wise once said, Choicelessness is freedom. If you don't have a choice to make, Which means you have to do what you have to do. And that is freedom. Resistance is this pseudo-choice that apparently gives us an illusion that there is a choice not to do it. But if there was a choice not to do it, You would have chosen it. But resisting it makes us feel as if we are in control. We have a choice that we were deprived of exercising. And that is how we create our own unhappiness and our own suffering by resisting something. This is a very subtle point that I'm trying to make. Hopefully I'm doing a good job at that. And the other aspect of resistance is this aspiring or desiring for what is not here. And again, This is not a hypothetical case of what could be or could not be. This is something that has already presented itself. And you want something else to present itself. Because we have an idea of what things should be like and the present is not like that. And that's why we create our own suffering because we are in the future aspiring for things. This is the flip side of the same coin of resistance. And if you look closely, There are no two sides. Eventually it is the resistance of what is which trickles us into aspiring for what is not. If we never resisted what is happening, We would never aspire for something else to happen. And all events, Almost all events in our life move from one flavor of this to another. Once this session ends, You have a choice whether to prioritize what has come your way or to discard what has come your way. Resisting or aspiring and imagining something else happening are only pseudo choices that are here to create conflict in your mind. I would really encourage you to see these as pseudo choices that we engage in without really looking into their real nature. Resisting something, Complaining about something, It's all socially accepted activities. And we all know and we all feel what complaining and resisting feels like. Especially if someone who we know constantly keeps complaining or resisting ideas and activities and events. They are just doing it at an amplified level, Aloud. And I want you to peek inside your mind and see how you choose everything. See how you handle everything. And can you see these as pseudo choices? Instead, Prioritize what is available to you. That is either to do it or not to do it. And if there is no option, Great. Which means you are all in. So on a daily basis, We are living a life that we want to live. There is no life in the future that we will get to live the way we want to live. Days become weeks and weeks become months and months become years and years become decades and decades becomes life. You don't want to live a life in the future, Which is filled with opportunities. You want to live a life that is exercised from freedom today. Every day, Every moment, Just like you demonstrated to yourself by deciding to come here today. And on days you cannot come, Know that you have prioritized not to come, Which is fine. That's the act of freedom. No regrets. We take the agency of freedom from external events and keep it with ourselves. The recognition of freedom, The exercising of freedom, The mindful, The intentional use of freedom is the recipe to live a free life. It might sound scary, Maybe overwhelming to some of us. But what is scary is not living your own life. Not exercising this freedom. Fighting, Resisting what is already happening. Wanting something that is beyond our control. That would be madness. Thank you.