Full transcript
0:00What could you do to improve yourself?
0:02Well, let's step one step backwards.
0:05The first question might be: Why should you even bother improving yourself?
0:09And I think the answer to that is something like
0:11so you don't suffer anymore stupidly than you have to.
0:15And maybe so others don't have to either. It's something like that.
0:18You know, like, there is a real adjunction at the bottom of it.
0:20It's not some casual self-help doctrine,
0:22it's that if you don't organize yourself properly: you'll pay for it!
0:27And in a big way. And so will the people around you.
0:31And you can say: 'Well, I don't care about that!'
0:33but that's actually not true, you actually DO care about that.
0:35Because if you're in pain you will care about it.
0:38And so you DO care about it even if it's just that negative way, you know.
0:43It's very rare that you can find someone who is in excruciating pain who would ever say
0:48'Well, it would be no better if I was out of this!'
0:51This sort of pain is one of those things that brings the idea that it would be better
0:56if it didn't exist along with it.
0:58It's incontrovertible.
1:00So you get your act together so that there isn't any more stupid pain around you that necessary.
1:06So then the question might be: how would you go about getting your act together?
1:09And the answer to that -
1:10- and this is a phenomenological idea, too -
1:12it's something like: Look around for something that bothers you
1:17and see if you can fix it.
1:19So now you think, well...
1:22Let's say you go into...
1:24You can do this in a room, it's quite fun to do it.
1:27Just when you're sitting in a room - maybe your bedroom -
1:29you can sit there and just sort of meditate on it and think:
1:32'Okay, if I wanted to spend ten minutes making this room better,
1:37what would I have to do?'
1:38And you have to ask yourself that. It's not a command, it's like a genuine question.
1:42And things will pop out in the room like
1:45there's a stack of papers over there that's kind of bugging you
1:47and you know that maybe a little order there would be a good thing.
1:52There's some rubbish behind your computer monitor that you haven't attended to for like six months.
1:57The room would be slightly better if it was a little less dusty and the cables weren't all tangled up the same way.
2:03If you allow yourself just to consider the expanse in which you exist at that moment
2:11there will be all sorts of things that pop out in it that you could just fix.
2:15And you know I might say well, if you were coming to see me for psychotherapy
2:19the easiest thing for us to do first would just be to get you to organize your room
2:24You think: 'Well, is that psychotherapy?'
2:26And the answer is: it depends on how you conceive the limits of your being.
2:32And I would say: start where you can start!
2:35You know, if something announces itself to you
2:39- which is a strange way of thinking about it -
2:40as 'in need of repair' that you COULD repair
2:44then, hey! Fix it!
2:46You fix a hundred things like that, your life will be a lot different.
2:51Now, I often tell people too: fix the things you repeat every day.
2:55Because people tend to think of those as trivial.
2:58You get up, you brush your teeth, you have your breakfast...
3:01You have your routines that you go through every day.
3:04Those probably constitute fifty percent of your life!
3:08And people think: 'They are mundane, I don't need to pay attention to them.'
3:11No, no, that's exactly wrong.
3:13The things you do every day: those are the most important things you do.
3:17Hands down, all you have to do is do the arithmetic.
3:20You figured out right away.
3:22So, a hundred adjustments to your broader domain of being
3:27and there's a lot less rubbish around a lot fewer traps for you to step into.
3:34And so that's in keeping with Jung's idea about erasing the this...
3:39Once you got your mind and your emotions together and once you're acting that out,
3:44then you can extend what you are willing to consider your self
3:49and start fixing up the things that are part of your broader extend.
3:54Now, sometimes you don't know how to do that.
3:55Imagine you are walking down blur street and
3:58there is this guy who is alcoholic and schizophrenic and has been on the streets for ten years.
4:02He sort of stumbles towards you and incoherently mutters something.
4:07That's a problem!
4:09And it would be good if you could fix it but you haven't got a clue about how to fix THAT.
4:14You just walk around that and go find something that you could fix
4:18because if you muck about in that,
4:20not only is it unlikely that you'll help that person,
4:22it's VERY likely that you'll get hurt yourself!
4:25Just because you're experiencing things announce themselves as in need of repair
4:32doesn't mean that it's YOU right then and there that should repair them.
4:35You have to have some humility.
4:38You don't walk up to a helicopter that isn't working and just start tinkering away with it.
4:42You have to stay within your domain of competence
4:44but most of the time, if people look at their lives... You know -
4:49it's a very interesting thing to do.
4:51I like the idea of the room because you can do that at the drop of a hat.
4:55Go back to where you live and sit down and think: 'Okay,
4:58I'm gonna make this place better for half an hour - what should I do?'
5:02You have to ASK and things will just pop up like mad
5:07and it's partly because your mind is a very strange thing and as soon as you give it an aim
5:12- a genuine aim - it'll reconfigure the world in keeping with that aim.
5:16That's actually how you see to begin with.
5:18So if you set it a task... You have to be genuine about it
5:22which is why you have to bring your thoughts and emotions together
5:26and then you have to get them in your body so you're acting consistently.
5:29You have to be genuine about the aim
5:31but once you aim the world will reconfigure itself around that aim, which is very strange.
5:38It's technically true!
5:42The best example of that
5:44- you have all seen this video where you watch the basketballs being tossed back and forth
5:50between members of the white team versus the black team
5:53and while you are doing that a gorilla walks up into the middle of the video and you don't see it.
5:58If you thought about that experiment for about five years, that would be about the right amount of time
6:03to spend thinking about it.
6:04Because what it shows you is that you see what you aim at.
6:08And that - man! - if you can get one thing through your head as a consequence of even being in university
6:13THAT would be a good one: You see what you aim at.
6:16And so, because one inference you might draw from that is: Be careful what you aim at!
6:23Right? What you aim at determines the way the world manifests itself to you
6:28So if the world is manifesting itself in a very negative way
6:33one thing to ask is: Are you aiming at the right thing?
6:36You know I'm not trying to reduce everybody's problems to an improper aim.
6:41People get cut off at the knees for all sorts of reasons.
6:44They get sick, they have accidents.
6:46There's a random element to being, that's for sure, but -
6:49You don't want to take anything, even that particular phrase, too far
6:53You want to bind it with the fact that random things do happen to people.
6:57But it's still a great thing to ask.