Focus on Life™

Our belief structures define who we are and how we interpret
the world. They are our point of view and allow us to view the
world through rose-colored glasses. We adjust the external
world according to our beliefs. Beliefs are our world, and they
are us. Hence they are very powerful and have a great impact
on us.

When we interact with other people, we interact with their
belief structures. If these beliefs are aligned, we feel under-
stood and the interaction is a very pleasant experience. On the
other hand, if others’ beliefs do not fit into our world, they
can threaten or distress us.

We stick to our beliefs. We lock into our bunkers, and try
to keep the base safe as long as possible. This is very impor-
tant because otherwise we are bound to change our under-
standing of our existence, which often means giving up
something and adjusting our life accordingly. We have a huge
intolerance for change and uncertainty. Questioning our con-
ventional ways of categorizing and seeing the world imposes
an immediate threat for who we believe we are and how the
world is constructed according to our understanding.

Until we give up believing and creating thought structures,
we are tied up and imprisoned by them. They bound limits to
our lives and prevent us from experiencing the external world
without filters and mental handicaps.

We are conservative by nature. We tend to enclose ourselves.
Some of the fences we build are physical and more tangible,
while others are more abstract. We want to protect ourselves
from the outside world and its renewal.

External fences are easier to conceive. They have many
faces, from muscle building to creating physical security
measures, all the way to building wealth and monetary riches.
Mental fences are harder to pinpoint and the most difficult
for us to realize. We hide behind our own habits, traditions,
mental and conceptual principles and rules, ways of behavior,
and subconscious patterns. These mental barriers limit our
perception and understanding of the realities of the world.
They filter the outside world for us and give us our sense of
security and control. But by doing so, they also prevent us
from renewing and developing ourselves. Our existence is
based on our self-perception, and the fences are guarding us
from anything that is not known and familiar to us—the
unpleasantness of the external world.

Within a shelter,
Covered in a case,
Limited by boundaries,
Extended by nature.

Trapped in the illusion,
Bewildered at times,
Lacking the courage,
Bravery, and persistence,
Of final breakthrough,
Transcending for the unknown.

The common is the bliss,
Misery, and sadness,
Of known and accepted,
Which horrific would be to lose,
And be replaced by something new.

To stretch the limits,
Ignore the lines,
Forget the known,
Unlearn the rest,
Exist in full,
Here and now,
Wake from the drowse.

Our life can be compared to a project. Projects have a begin-
ning and an end. Its definition states that it is not perma-
nent—it has a definitive life span. It starts, goes on, and ends.
A project has no purpose itself—it is only the means for
something. It has a purpose and it is used as the vehicle, the
tool, for the objective. Temporal is an interesting term.
Something has an existence in time and, therefore, it has to
have a starting point and moment as well as have an ending
point and time. It is only temporal. Everything that exists in
time has its own tempo, time, and place. Nothing is perma-
nent.

Birth, living, and dying. Often the transition points are
interesting. In those points, something changes from one for-
mulation into another—a real drastic transformation hap-
pens. Still, our own life is mainly characterized by the middle
part—the continuation. We focus almost no attention on the
beginning or the end. For us, the living part is the only real
existence and we ignore the beginning and the end. But how
can we know what to do and where to go and, more impor-
tantly, where to target if we are not aware of all three charac-
teristics—the beginning, the continuation, and the end—of
temporal existence?

Facts are very important on our time. We live surrounded by
lots of information and knowledge. Most of the data around
us is not wisdom but more or less processed bits and pieces of
information. We are bound to make decisions and jump to
conclusions every day. Our understanding and perception is
limited, but still we draw conclusions. We pick sides and pres-
ent our truth as the universal one. Seldom, if ever, do we real-
ize that our subjective point of view is not shared face value by
anyone else. It is actually impossible, because everyone has his
or her own way of seeing and understanding the world. Our
own experiences and knowledge define how we interpret situ-
ations and items. Therefore, our own “truth” or rightness is
totally unique, subjective.

Still we assume that everybody shares the same values and
standards we do. Of course they understand things in a simi-
lar manner to the way we understand them. It is so obvious!
How can anyone not see the truth and the underlying issues?

This is why it is so easy to say that something is right or
wrong. We assume things that do not exist. Actually, it does
not matter, because everything is relative. What changes and
defines the value weighting are the assumptions out of which
the relative judgment is made. These we cannot explicitly
define and describe to others—they are embedded in us. If
only everybody had the same assumptions and objective facts
of the situations and issues, then we could consider making
value calls. This is not possible and, therefore, the world is full
of chaos and blaming. Everybody is right and wrong at the
same time—only in their subjective way. There is no objective
absolute truth from which to validate the real standing point.

Rightness is built deep inside us. We need to manifest
our excellence and cleverness. We want to demonstrate our
capabilities and knowledge. It is important to us to show
that we have acknowledged and understood the issue. We
want to gain acceptance and recognition from others.
Rightness is a very common and often hidden way of
achieving this. Seldom is it about the issues themselves—
they are just the means for the actual business of getting
self-satisfaction. Rightness is often about power struggle
and self-justification. We want to prove that we can win and
be superior to others, we were right!

A harder lesson to learn is how to acknowledge the right-
ness of a situation but let it go without having to prove it to
others. Another way to express this would be to say that we
feel that we have been mistreated or something is unfair. In
the situation, we did not have a chance to prove ourselves and
show what we regarded as the right thing or proper solution.
They may regard us as weak or stupid because we did not
claim our position and or stand up for ourselves. Few of us
have the guts and the wisdom to give way. The wise do not
have to prove anything. Being right itself serves no purpose. It
is totally useless and a waste of resources and energy. Why
bother with something we already know? Wouldn’t it be bet-
ter to focus on more important issues that bear real signifi-
cance? Next time you have an inner urge to be right, consider
why you are about to act the way you intend to act.Is it purely
to achieve the objective or, rather, to prove yourself?

To be right, to be wrong, and just to be. What is the right
way?

Money is just part of the framework. In itself, it is nothing. It
is only a convention between people. We have created the
concept called money in order to exchange and settle between
various activities and services. It is an enabler, not the purpose
itself.

Another way of defining money is to say that it is energy.
Notes and coins are energy in their physical material sense
because they are formed of atoms. But money can be seen as
energy concentration in another sense as well. Money pres-
ents, directs, facilitates, blocks, and absorbs lots of energy
from us. Sometimes we are tight with money and we are
struggling to collect every penny and cent to have enough to
survive. Collecting and getting money focuses and concen-
trates our mental and physical energy (effort) in the everyday
life, sometimes more, sometimes less. We might desire some-
thing that money enables us to achieve. We work hard and
long in order to collect enough wealth to do something with
it.In other words, we first absorb and accumulate energy and
then release it in some other form. While collecting and get-
ting the required amount of money, we are bound to make
choices and give up something else. We need to focus our
energy to gather money. In this case, money is a manifesta-
tion/representation of our accumulated energy.

Wealth can also demand energy from us. People who have
great amounts of wealth need to look after it. They have to
concentrate their efforts and focus to manage their wealth. It
creates obligations and liabilities. Naturally, it is up to us to
define these and live accordingly. This is especially demand-
ing when we do not understand the true nature of money and
wealth. Money may turn more into a burden than a facilitator.

Money is only what we make of it and how we place our-
selves in relation to it. It is neither a good nor a bad thing. It
is only a tool. The sole responsibility lies with the user of the
money. Do not mix up the means and the objectives. Money
is purely an enabler, nothing else. It does not define who we
are—only what we have. And everything we can ever have or
not have is only part of the framework. The real essence of life
is not about having, but about being. What is important is
what we are in relation to other living beings—not what we
are in relation to material things like money. A wise person is
the one who realizes this.

We are quick to have opinions about anything. Even when we
lack facts, we get strong feelings about things. We jump to
conclusions rather than consider carefully. Our mind works in
a manner that “forces” us to take sides. Undecided opinions
are not of much value, and you quickly “lose” the conversation
if the arguments are not clear and become tilted to one side or
the other.

Actually, opinions are totally useless. You can ask one hun-
dred people for their opinions and they will all have different
points of view. This is natural because we are all more or less
bound to imperfect understanding and perceptions of the
world. Therefore, our opinions are based on our own angle and
experience. Opinions do not need to be associated with objec-
tive facts or knowledge because we simply do not have access
to that type of information; we live in a world of imperfect
data and perceptions. That is why opinions are so frustrating.
We simply do not understand the rationale behind them, and
often there is none—we simply feel or “just think so.”

There is a big difference between opinions and firsthand
experience. The latter is based on our own wisdom—we have
knowledge about the issue. It is “true” to us and we have lived
through the experience; therefore, we have a stronger standing
point and more accuracy to describe the issue. Nevertheless, the
absolute truth may not be closer to our reality, but still we are
more certain than when talking about opinions. We like to learn
from people who speak from their own experience. We feel that
they have something of value to offer us. Opinions, on the other
hand, are pure lip service. They are recycled words that are not
considered and thought true by the speaker. Opinions have no
relevance—we could easily live without them. Let’s experience
more and repeat less what others have done.

We claim to be so busy. What does it really mean, and is it
actually possible?

Being busy means that we are occupied at the moment.
Therefore, we are intensively carrying out the task at hand
and focusing our undivided attention to accomplish this task.
If we really are occupied and in a hurry, we need to concen-
trate and get rid of the tasks one at a time in order to move to
the next one. A metaphor from the computer world would be
a processor who is either idle or busy, never in between.

In ordinary language, our busyness (any relation to busi-
ness?) means something else. We mean that we should do or
achieve a lot of things in a certain time period. Most of the
time, however, we are not actually occupied in a way that
requires our undivided concentration and attention. Our
busyness has nothing to do with achieving and accomplishing
things. We simply mean that there is something in the future
we would prefer to be doing than what we are doing at that
particular moment. For instance, we have been occupied in a
meeting and now we are headed to the next task. We get stuck
in traffic, but we are not occupied by the traffic because our
mind is urging us to jump ahead and skip this unproductive
moment. Being in traffic is something we would rather not
do—we would much rather be accomplishing the next task.
This is how we are kept “busy.” Similarly, when we are finally
taking care of the next task, we are often not occupied here
either, but thinking about yet another task on our list.

Busyness is our own creation. It has nothing to do with the
real world and actual accomplishment and achievement.
Busyness simply consumes our time and makes us worry
about the future. We trade the current moment for something
we have no influence and control over—the unknown future.

We ignore the now time and, above all, get stressed over
something we can, at that moment, do nothing about. “Being
busy” does not help speed up the traffic while we drive to
another meeting or fast forward the current appointment if
we would prefer to be at the next occasion. Paradoxically,
when we are really accomplishing something that requires our
attention, we cannot be busy—we have no time to think
about “being busy”—we just carry out the task. Therefore, we
should forget the whole concept of busyness and focus on just
doing the things we have at hand.

Looking at our daily life from the outset, we are not really
occupied. Most of our time goes to moving from one place to
another or physically doing something—seldom is our full
and undivided attention required to do something. We actu-
ally have plenty of time to enjoy the moment and observe the
world around us. Stop being busy and occupy yourself for the
actual moment—you might even learn something new.
Busyness directs our attention to the future, which is just an
illusion created by us—it’s not real since we can only live in
the moment. And you are not busy if you have time to think
about being busy.

Way to see,
hear,
taste,
feel,
know,
and live the world;
With good intentions,
limited knowledge,
poor perception,
lacking observation
but still trying.

Without shame,
or humbleness,
knowing,
acting,
and behaving
with certainty,
rightness,
a sense of pride,
and justification,
no shadow of doubt,
or sign of imperfectness.

The wise will know,
acknowledge,
and let go.
Help with patience,
love,
and kindness.

We will learn,
and see the world,
in a way of perfectness,
with no trace of selfishness.

We are used to living surrounded by information. Our schools
teach us the value of knowledge and details. TV is full of
quizzes and competitions to test for cleverness. Education is
emphasized everywhere we go. Each morning and evening,
people learn the latest news. It is important to know what’s
happening and the topics of the day. But what do we really
know?

Do we know what we know? Often we behave like we are
very knowledgeable and have all the facts. Most of us are very
keen on presenting our own points of view. We have opinions.
Seldom do we consider whose opinions we are really repeat-
ing. Have we considered the items thoroughly and find argu-
ments for and against the issue? Are we sure that our sources
of information are objective and provide the complete pic-
ture? On what grounds is our thinking based?

Usually, we come to the conclusion that the more we
investigate and study a subject, the less we know about it. Our
thinking is based on a structure that needs to categorize and
polarize items. We need straight and simple answers that are
based on comparing and contrasting. We call this “putting
things in relation to.” There is a need to prefer and value
something over something else. Otherwise we are said to be
undecided. What happens when we are urged to set things
into a relationship but we have limited knowledge and infor-
mation?

Our ignorance results from our limited perception and
understanding of issues. Also the need to value things (i.e.,
being able to “decide”) creates a lot of confusion and misinter-
pretations. Therefore, what we know is less important than
what we do not know. Unfortunately, most of the time our
knowledge does not expand enough for us to realize that we
do not know what we do not know. In other words, we may
act with the best of intentions, but what is more arrogant than
claiming to know something that we do not have a clue
about?

What can we do so that we know as much as Socrates? Be
humble. Humbleness rises from the knowledge and insight
that we are not omnipotent and, therefore, cannot know very
much of anything. We have to be sensitive and open-minded
to realize this. The greatest minds in the world have claimed
to know very little—how about us? What do we know?