What to Do When Things Change

Everyone knows that things change. We learn about it in school, from our parents and from our experience. We notice yellow leaves grace the trees in the fall instead of green ones in the summer, we see the dark clouds when the storm is coming and we notice when one of our parents goes on the very long business trip.

Change happens because it is the way the universe works. Marcus Aurelius says "Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them." It is embedded into our daily lives, it applies to our neighborhood and to our city. It affects our neighbors, our compatriots and the human kind. If we pay attention, we will see the change. It is vitally important that we are aware of the changes around us, and more importantly - within us. 

When we notice it, change is something that we see as normal occurrence, and in the same time it terrifies us. It is in human nature, and we all react the same. People tend to avoid fear, and typical reaction is to run away from it. Sometimes we just stand still until it passes. When noting else works, we face it.

Some of the greatest minds in human history contemplated change and our role in it.

Lao Tzu (Lao Tzu in Wikipedia), author of famous book "Tao Te Ching" (Way of Life) writes:

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like."

In this quote Lao Tzu mentions resistance and its consequences. If you resist change you will be unhappy. He is very specific about it and leaves no room for interpretation. I will, though, clear something up - he is referring to changes that already happened, and are currently happening. He is not saying we shouldn't do anything to effect the upcoming changes in our lives.

What examples of resistance to change can I give you, that you will recognize instantly? Here are a few sentences that are illustration of thoughts we all have sometimes:

• "Why is this happening to me?"
• "I should have bought that dress."
• "That person is really annoying. I am so upset!"
• "Where are the parents of those annoying children?"
• "I hate this rain!"
• "I would prefer it is raining now..."

One of the most beautiful quotes from one of the greatest men in the history of humanity, Mahatma Gandhi:

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

Gandhi teaches us that we are the ones that are the only source of our sorrow. Nobody else can control our brains and produce anger, sadness, sorrow, distress and indignation. If you wish to live a peaceful life and to be content, you have the power to do so, and you alone! This amazing quote holds another tip from Gandhi - you are responsible to do the things properly, to work as hard as you can, to make reasonable decisions and to treat people nice. When you see someone doing a bad thing, instead of getting angry at that person, teach him or her politely the right way. When person refuses your words, again - do not get angry. Nobody is required to have the same values as you, to know what you do and to behave as you think is proper. Maya Angelou said "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

What about changes within us? Some people believe that they do not change. They always like the same food. They always support the same football team. They always love to go to the same bar. They always hang around with the same friends.

But they do not. Are there some friends in your life that were very close to you ten or twenty years ago, and you have not heard from them in five years. I bet you haven't. Would you give the same amount of money for that fancy sneakers you wanted so much when you were 15, now that you are 30? No, you would prefer that classy shoes to wear at work. 

People change daily, bit by bit, moment by moment. They might not notice it. Even the mountains change: a tree falls, land slides, a ditch forms from heavy rains and a badger digs a hole in the ground. And this happens all the time. If the mountains change, how can we believe for an instant that we can stay the same? There is scientific evidence that we change a big number of cells in our body, so we literally are becoming a different human being. Our brain cells are dying over the yeas, and are not replaced. It is biologically normal that we think differently than ten or twenty years ago. 

What to do when difficult change happens? Marcus Aurelius gives us a hint in his book "Meditations", in Book VII:

"Let external things affect, as they please, the things which can be affected by them; let those complain of them which suffer by them. But if I can prevent any apprehension that the event is evil, I am not hurt. And it is in my power to prevent it."

Recipe is simple - you are the one responsible for how you feel, and whatever happens it's up to you to handle it. 

Famous quote from Shakespeare's "Hamlet", when Hamlet talks with king Claudius spies Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, and discusses Denmark:

"Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison."

Hamlet is the prisoner of his own mind. For him Denmark is a prison, and he is unhappy. If you start thinking you are offended, distressed, wronged or angry - you become exactly that. 

The way to deal with change is to:
1. Acknowledge / see it. If you can not see it, your subconscious mind will, and will go to autopilot mode immediately. Then thinking spiral starts, and you are starting to ruminate. You can see the change only by paying attention to the present moment. That is really the only way.
2. Accept it. Even when you begin to see the change, acceptance process is starting automatically. If it does not, just stand back and observe your thoughts and feelings. Do not judge them, do not thing that you should not have those thoughts and feelings. You are having them, and that is just fine. That will lead to acceptance.
3. Let go of your thoughts and feelings. You had them, they were normal and good, but you do not want to let them run around your head like on a carousel. When observed from the distance, thoughts and feelings might go away.

This is not a guaranteed way to deal with change. Sometimes, the change will overwhelm you, and then you should just repeat the process as many times as required. You might want to meditate for a few minutes, following your breath, and returning to your breath when you notice your mind wandered. This will at least diminish your reaction, and help you make clear-headed decisions.

How do you deal with change? Please write in the comments section!

Why Past and Future Do Not Exist and What to Do About It?

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What is time? Searching Wikipedia I have found the definition: "Time is a dimension and measure in which events can be ordered from the past through the present into the future, and also the measure of duration of events and the intervals between them.", which sounds about right.

The key word in definition is "measure", which suggests that we use time to measure something. Is there any other measure that we use every day? We measure length using meters or yards, we measure temperature using degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit.

Therefore I conclude that measure is not a real thing, it does not exist in a real world. We can not catch, hold, buy, sell, bury or eat nor time or length. We can not throw temperature away when we feel hot or cold. Therefore, measures do not exist. We invented them, and use them chiefly to communicate. We can say that it is 32 degrees Celsius outside, and everyone knows that they should wear shorts and t-shirts. We can meet someone at the cinema exactly at 8 o'clock, so we can watch a movie together.

Marcus Aurelius talks about this in his brilliant book "Meditations", in book 6, paragraph 49:

"Thou art not dissatisfied, I suppose, because thou weighest only so many litre and not three hundred. Be not dissatisfied then that thou must live only so many years and not more; for as thou art satisfied with the amount of substance which has been assigned to thee, so be content with the time."

When we think about past and future, we are exploring non-existing things. "But I have memories, you can't tell me they are not real!", was my reaction when I read about this subject. I could understand this concept about future because it did not happen yet, but I could not deny the past.

In the book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle writes:

"Time isn't precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is."

What he is teaching us is that any point in the past was actually the present moment. The time, thirty years ago, when I was camping in Greece with my parents was the present moment then. The time my daughter was born was also the present moment. The same goes for the future. In ten minutes, it will still be now. Tomorrow will be now and anytime will be now.

I found this model a bit confusing at first, but quickly understood its value and its truthfulness. The logic is unbreakable. For me, the student of mathematics and Aristotle's logic, and on top of it a computer programmer - logic is obviously the key argument.

Following this logic, I accepted that past and future do not exist, and that all that exist is the present moment (Eckhart's "Now" with capital N). More so, every single point in the past and in the future was or will be - now. Everything that happened and will happen was or will be exactly now. To my amazement this led me to deduce that I live my whole life now, and that everyone else does, too.

As you can imagine, that conclusion destroyed my understanding of the past and the future, and eliminated time as a factor in my life. I understood that if I wanted to live my life I have to live it in the present moment. Every time my mind wonders in memories, or when it starts mindlessly thinking about what will be, I stop living. I become mindless.

I will quote Jon Kabat-Zinn's definition of mindfulness:

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; On purpose, in the present moment, and non judgmentally.”

This quote gave me the practical instruction how to live in the present moment - I have to be mindful. He also mentions the present moment, which is one of the key concepts of mindfulness. I will cover other parts of this definition in later posts.

Jon Kabat-Zinn also says:

"We take care of the future best by taking care of the present now."

He means that what we do now directly influences our future. One important thing - he talks about "taking care" of the present now. That implies action. That also implies that mindless thinking about the future is not what we should do.

Alas, we all do ruminate (definition of rumination). It is part of human nature. Whenever we are in a distressing situation we tend to obsessively think about our plight, sometimes planning ahead and sometimes thinking of the past trouble. You know when you think about some event in the future, some important business presentation to deliver. You explore every possible scenario. You rehearse endlessly what you will say and what people will ask you. You repeatedly do it, sometimes for hours. It's like a broken record playing in your head, and it is very difficult to stop.

The same thing happens when you are in a romantic relationship, particularly when there is some problem. Someone had offended you, done something wrong. You will endlessly think about what you should have said or did. You think about how you will repay the insult, over and over again.

We also react similarly in much less difficult situations, such as when someone cuts the line in the grocery store. We are feeling distressed, and think over and over what should you do. Sometimes, long after you get home, the incident comes back in your mind, and you ruminate again.

If we do not control this, it can lead to very serious conditions, such as depression disorders.

How can we avoid this? One of the methods is meditation. By meditating ten minutes a day, you can achieve to become more aware of your surroundings, your thoughts and your feelings. In this blog I will discuss some meditation techniques, in later posts.

One of the most common ways to practice meditation is to close your eyes and follow your breath. That's about it. Whenever your mind wanders, and it most certainly will, you gently bring back your attention to the breath. Try this for even three minutes, and you will see what I am talking about.

Mindfulness meditation by following your breath is extremely simple, but it is not easy by any means. You will need to practice it daily. This practice is very similar to common exercise, and the difference is you practice your brain instead your muscles. Note that I wrote "brain" and not "mind", since by meditating you are influencing your brain structure (in a positive way). 

Just to drop the possibility this is some mumbo jumbo, I will share a link to Psychology Today's article "Use Your Mind to Change Your Brain", written by  Rebecca Gladding, M.D. There is multitude of scientific proof available to substantiate meditation as a "real thing", and not some eastern religious Buddhist fabrication.

Conclusion is that we can live in the present moment, by practicing mindfulness. Return and read definition of mindfulness once more.

For me, it is beautiful way to live my life. I am by no means mindful all the time, as some meditation masters claim. I am just an ordinary guy, and I meditate daily at least 10 minutes. Even with that practice, I spend most of my day not mindful. For me it is difficult to be aware, but after a year of practice, I am living in the Now for longer intervals. I feel less stressed and I am able to "intercept" stressful thoughts and feelings and let them go. Not all of them, of course.

How I Discovered Mindfulness

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I live a frantic life at work, working for huge multinational corporation. Every day I wake up at 6 am, get ready for work, spend some time with my wife, wake up the kids for school. Then, get some breakfast and go to work. After work, I come home, watch some TV, eat dinner while watching TV, and then go to bed.

My whole family executes this pattern day in, day out, every working day. This routine is something we do on auto-pilot, without much attention. When I brush my teeth I think about my task list for the day. When I eat breakfast, I read the news articles or contemplate about upcoming project at work.

"This is how it should be," I was thinking for years. Everyone I know, my friends, relatives and colleagues live similar lives, doing the same routine, day in, day out - indefinitely.

First, what is mindfulness? The best definition was given by Jon Kabat-Zinn:

"Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and non judgmentally."

I will get back to this. Sentence is complex and consists of several key areas, which I will cover in later posts.

This depiction describes the exact opposite of my life. Ever since I discovered mindfulness, my life changed and in a positive way.

My first contact with mindfulness and meditation was last summer, when I saw a TED talk by Andy Puddicombe ("All it takes is 10 mindful minutes"). What Andy asked me, and all of his audience, is to do nothing for ten minutes. At the beginning of his talk Andy asked the question:

"I'd like you just to take a moment to think, when did you last take any time to do nothing? Just 10 minutes, undisturbed? And when I say nothing, I do mean nothing. So that's no emailing, texting, no Internet, no TV, no chatting, no eating, no reading, not even sitting there reminiscing about the past or planning for the future. Simply doing nothing. I see a lot of very blank faces." 

You can watch Andy's performance, and see for yourself.

This is the moment something just clicked in my mind, as I fearfully realized that I do not have an answer. This is where I have discovered mindfulness.
Next, I went to Andy's website Headspace, and browsed around, looking at his excellent short videos.

At this point, I downloaded Headspace Android application Headspace (on-the-go), and decided to try out his ten-day free meditation program. I whipped out my headphones and started with Day one video and audio recording. The experience was eye-opening, not to mention very satisfying. After first ten minutes of meditation I felt like a giant boulder just dropped from my hands. Experience passed after several minutes, but I made up my mind to continue the next day, with lesson number two.

Since Andy's program is not cheap (75 EUR for a yearly subscription), I embarked on a quest to find more affordable (meaning "free") material about mindfulness meditation, before coughing up money. Andy's material is so great that I eventually purchased membership.

Next stop was YouTube. As a repository of humongous number of videos, many of them of cats, it houses countless lectures about mindfulness, meditation and awareness. Here is a first video that I saw (Jon Kabat-Zinn - "The Healing Power of Mindfulness"):

If you want to learn more about Jon read about him on Wikipedia. In short, he is professor of medicine and founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine. He has a doctorate in molecular biology from MIT.

Video "The Healing Power of Mindfulness" was an eye opener for me. Here I found out that meditation is not some eastern religious ritual, but a scientifically studied practice. Jon's lecture is clear, and he has a lot to say about the matter.

Next video was Jon's talk in Google. Here I have established a feeling of credibility about Jon Kabat-Zinn, because if you pass Google's screening and get to talk to their employees, you sure have something important to say. As if previous talk in New Hampshire based Ivy League College was not credible enough.

In first video, Jon mentions some guy named Eckhart Tolle. He said we should read his books, so as a member of hyper-connected generation, I have first looked him up on Wikipedia (Eckhart Tolle on Wikipedia) and, afterwards, on YouTube. And lo and behold, I found the video called "Eckhart Tolle in Conversation with Bradley Horowitz | Talks at Google". Here it is:

Now I had another Google hosted talk about the same topic, this time much less scientific and more on emotional side.

Why I insisted on Google lectures? It is for personal reason - I am IT professional, and I am probably quite similar to people working at other IT companies, and have similar concerns, interests and skepticism as they have.

Third video I stumbled on was "Mark Williams on Mindfulness", by professor Mark Williams (professor of clinical psychology at the University of Oxford). For me, this was the best  of four video lectures featured in this post, as it is the most "scientific" of them all. It is more down-to-earth type of lecture, to the point and without excessive ramblings.

After watching the videos, it was high time time to get more serious! I needed to read some books, and since I was new to the field of mindfulness meditation, I struggled to find right book to start with. 

After browsing the web, and amazing website Goodreads (goodreads.com), I found the book "The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment" by Eckhart Tolle. Persuaded by Jon Kabat-Zinn lecture, I have read this book and I was dumbfounded. Eckhart talks about present moment, and proves very easily that present moment is the only moment that ever existed! What a paradigm shift. He explains that every moment in the past was present moment then. Exactly the same logic applies to future moments. He proved that past and future is illusion and that they do not exist. You can not experience or touch past or future, just what is now in this moment. I believe that this perspective change was the single moment that made me choose to continue my study of awareness, mindfulness and the present moment.

It was very important for me to understand the present moment, and to start noticing it in my life. Since I have continued Headspace meditation practice, I could finally understand the reason Andy was telling me to follow my breath and let my thoughts and emotions pass without getting angry with myself that I can not do such a simple thing. "Just gently bring back your attention to the breath", said Andy.

Next book I have read is "Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life" by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Jon's history and experience on subject convinced me to read his book. Inside the book, there are chapters about mindfulness meditation, laid out in straightforward way. His style is easier to read than Tolle's. He teaches us how to meditate. The main point for me was his explanation of the difference between "being" and "doing". He even explained to my corporate-driven, productive mind that I am "human being", not "human doing".

This is the end of my list and good starting point for everyone who wishes to learn about mindfulness and meditation. I have read more books, seen more lectures and tried other meditation techniques, and I intend to cover them in later posts.

Do you have any interesting book or video to share? Please write in the comments section below!