The meaning of life; being fully present; and the reconstruction of beliefs...

We talk much about "meaning" in life and wanting to be happy, but we learn little about how to actually do the latter and we don't actually seem to understand what "meaning" is.   (The Meaning Of Meaning.)

Here is a short video about this, from one of the great thinkers:

The Meaning Of Life - Sam Harris (6:00, youtube)

So, the question now is:


HOW DO WE CREATE "BEING FULLY PRESENT"?

Saying that we "should be" "present" is certainly a "good idea", but what we need is the "full program" (the steps) on what the sequence is that allows us to be present!!!

Although this might sound simplistic, and maybe trite, we must first realize that in order to be present we cannot be elsewhere - neither in the past nor in the future.  (Duh! Of course! It might be obvious, but, still, few people seem to focus on that in managing their lives.)

So if the two competitors are constantly filling the mind, we must "handle" them so that they do not fill our minds and take our attention away from the experience of fully being in the present and seeing everything in technicolor and in detail (because we have attention units available to see them!)  AND fully relating to another person without any conflicting thoughts or "needs".

Our two "enabling" objectives then are to eliminate:

1. Concerns about our past (what we did "wrong")
2. Concerns about our future (what could go wrong, what we think will go wrong)

If those are present, our brain MUST do its job that it evolved for:  work on solving those "threats" to our good survival. But note that it is not likely that a person will learn to control the automatic, subconscious process of the brain.

So, therefore, we might look for an alternative, workable approach.

It turns out that it is totally likely that a person CAN learn to see through the false concerns about his/her past and the false threats for the future (and thereby cut off, at the inception, the stimulus of negative emotions and preoccupation of the mind by them).  

Of course, to do that, the person must learn and then understand what is a true threat and danger and what is not - and then the person will also learn to see that at least 95++% of the "dangers" and "threats" are false.  (The introductory discussion on this is in Threats And "Fear" - Differentiating As To What Is A Legitimate (Real) Threat.).

While you must first "get" the truth of the fact that our primitive mind makes up all sorts of threat that are not at all real or true, we can only get the benefit of the idea by going down the path, doing the steps necessary to look at each belief of a threat, seeing if it is true (The Truth Test), and then revising it to what is true.  As one does this, one's life literally begins to transform in a sense and life lights up as each bit of negative (dark) thought is eliminated.  The process (or path) is in The Program For Upgrading Your Beliefs.


THE OTHER SIDE OF "MEANING" 

"Meaning" is, to the primitive lower mind (the human's reptilian brain and "monkey mind"), primarily, and by far more importantly, derived from handling what is a threat to survival.  In other words, meaning is related to survival of our DNA (believe it or not - your higher brain can see the meaninglessness, but the lower brains are simply "wired" for it!).  This is the first priority that will occupy the brain.  In other words, one cannot fill the brain with the good stuff if it has so much of the "bad" stuff that it is "pre"-occupied with.

The first priority is, then, I suggest, to eliminate the negative, so that we can reduce the subtractors from happiness, and thereby increase ("net") happiness

Once a human being learns to eliminate more and more of the beliefs related to false threats, the person opens up more and more space for the other side of meaning:  those things that make us feel good.  We evolved to feel good about relating, being in a tribe for more safety, cooperating and contributing.  Somehow appreciating beauty snuck in there, perhaps related to "feeling safe" (but I'll not explain why here).

The proposed question philosophically is to choose between doing something in fear or in love (for love).  But the "love" inclinations will be pushed out by fear...therefore the enabler of it all is to eliminate what the fear that gets in the way.  And since fear is based on threat, we must eliminate all or most false beliefs about threats and dangers.

Of course, identifying what you value and what will make you happy is a good thing to do, but one will have a battle and struggle to get those into place if the conflicting fear-based needs are squashing and occupying the space in one's mind, so I hope you'll consider the beliefs correction process as the first thing to do and get good at.  Even Socrates said "The Life Unexamined Is Not Worth Living" - see why this is true and what it means.

If you work at replacing all the false beliefs with true beliefs then you will have built a higher and stronger foundation for life and happiness.

I hope you choose this and choose to really become a master in this as it will be the primary basis for the great life that you will love.  You cannot possibly have a great life if you don't correct those negative, false beliefs!  Use the Beliefs Processing formats.

Bon voyage!

(And contact me if you have any questions or need direction or whatever, including letting me know the difference it has made in your life)