I’ll always remember the scene in the movie Reality Bites where Ethan Hawke answers the phone, “Welcome to the winter of our discontent.” Perhaps this is how we should all be answering the phone these days.

When I was in the early stages of conceiving my business and wealth creation plans, I thought that the level to which I was discontent with my results, earnings, bank balance, investment portfolio, lifestyle etc. was what was driving me. I even wrote “I am not content” on one of my personal vision development sheets. Now I’ve realised that it was one of the things that was holding me in a state of (almost) constant anxiety.

I have long been torn between The Buddha’s teachings regarding desire (read: yearning/clinging/grasping) being the root of suffering and wanting to build a better life for myself and my family. This is something that seems – on the surface – to be nigh on impossible to reconcile. However, with and little thought and a lot more non-thought I may have come to my own solution. Unfortunately, it’s not something new. In fact, Buddhist teachers have been teaching it more thousands of years.

So, here’s what I’ve come up with to reconcile all this in myself and cease that internal strife and anxiety. My plans remain my plans but they do not define me. They are part of the illusion that is my future. They have little effect on my now. It is my now that is solely important. It is all that I have. I now focus completely on my now and in so doing lay the path for my future. (I am by no means getting this right all the time but I’m giving it my all.)

I’ve spent too many years on focusing on what my future would hold. Too many hours of thought on how to achieve success. Too many days thinking of things that were not part of my immediate present. What a waste! Today, I focus on right now. I might be writing a plan for the future but I focus on writing the plan, on making sure that I get it right based on right now. And I’m happy to change the plan if needed without clinging to what I created in my past.

No doubt I’ve hugely influenced by what I’ve been reading (and listening to). And I should send out some positive vibes to:

• Ven. Eshu,
• Alan Watts, and
• Eckhart Tolle

I’m feeling a lot more freedom these days. Freedom to do. Freedom to be. Freedom to act.

And my personal vision ends with the words “I am content!”