How to Enjoy Life While Chasing Your Goals | Eckhart Tolle

So at first the being dimension, you find it as separate from external activity or thinking. And then that's a good beginning. And then gradually you learn that it is not irreconcilable with external activities. Presence through movement is a good practice because you don't. You do not need to sit still to find stillness, which is another word for it, which people believe initially. Stillness also has kind of two meanings in English. There's, on the one hand, stillness means the absence of noise, but another meaning of stillness is the absence of movement. You say sit still, the absence of movement. He stood still. So it's. Stillness points in English to the absence of either noise or movement. So when we talk about stillness, you might think you have to. You can't move in order to be. To consciously sense the being dimension, you mustn't move. And then you learn you can actually move. And in fact it can be helpful. You begin with that, and then you can perform certain tasks and still be in that connectedness with being. Instead of completely losing yourself in the activity, you can have goals to pursue, which is in the realm of doing. It's good to have goals. Although there may be periods in your life when you don't need any goals, certainly if you reach a certain age, it becomes increasingly pointless to pursue goals. At least at the latest, by the age of 95, you don't need to pursue any more goals, unless for some reason you have to. But even before then, there may be time periods in your life when the pursuit of goals is not necessary and you can become more deeply immersed. Just be engaged in ordinary everyday activity without pursuing any particular big goal, big or small, working towards something. But on the whole, it said it's good to have goals. But again, goals belong to the realm of doing, and that's fine. The problem arises if the goal absorbs so much of your attention, meaning the desired outcome, the place you want to arrive at, whatever that may be, possibly passing an exam, achieving a certain position, acquiring mastery in some activity, whatever it may be, the desired outcome, if the desired outcome occupies a place in your mind that's overwhelming, or so you desperately need to arrive at that place. Then in the meantime, all the things that you do, the steps you take, the activities you undertake in order to arrive at your goal, are then simply a means to an end. And they are not enjoyable because you desperately want to have arrived already, to have attained that already. Some ambitious people are like that. They are. What's the expression? Consumed by ambition. This is almost literally true. And desperately need to. And in the meantime, they're very unhappy while they're working so hard or whatever they do to achieve their goal. And not only are they unhappy and full of anger very often and irritation when things don't go the way they want them to go, when little obstacles arise, as they always do, often in the form of people, so often they get angry. So the entire journey is a place of unhappiness and stress and turmoil and often toxic emotions. And not only do they make themselves happy, they make other people. Whoever is around them is also unhappy. The entire company, if it's a big business, the entire company is unhappy, basically, and stressed. And so although there is a saying that in order to achieve anything in life, you need to learn to. What's the expression? I think it's to delay gratification. There is some truth to that, some truth. You can have a young person, one young person studies to go to college and studies in the evenings and only goes out occasionally. The next door neighbor can't be bothered, wants immediate gratification and starts drinking and indulging in not only intoxicating beverages, but also in substances and whatever hangs out in clubs and drinks. And what's the point in doing anything? And a few years later, the one who delayed gratification achieves something. And so that seems to be true. The danger is, though, with that recipe of delayed gratification, is it becomes a mindset in you that you cannot get rid of. After a few years of practicing delayed gratification, you never arrive at gratification except very briefly. And then you have to delay again because you have another goal that consumes you. That's the danger. So the. And all that means there's an absence of that. It's not balanced. The life is not balanced by the being dimension. You're so obsessed with doing and arriving and achieving that you cannot appreciate whatever is here at the present moment. It's like you're on a hike and you want to go to the top of the mountain or whatever it is, the final destination. You're determined to do it in six hours. You're continuing to do it. I'm timing myself and I. I'm going to. On the way you see the most beautiful flowers and the sky and incredible marvels of nature. You don't see any of that because you desperately want to arrive. This is your task and finally you make it. But what was the journey like? It wasn't that great because you didn't see all the beauty around you. You couldn't stop it. As the expression goes, you couldn't stop and smell the flowers, because if you could stop for a moment, there's the being dimension. It's present moment. It's inseparable from the present moment, from acknowledging the present moment, that the portal or the entry point into the being dimension is the present moment. If you miss that, you might have certain successes as what the world calls success. You might have certain successes in life, but fairly pointless because the whole journey was a journey of unhappiness. And even when you arrive, you're still a stressed out being. I'm not necessarily saying everybody is successful. There may be some humans who are able to balance being. In fact, there are met a few who are very successful in the world, nevertheless are not lost in the activity, still being able to appreciate the present moment. And then what about the delayed gratification? Then how does that work? Well, is it possible to change your attitude and instead of saying, okay, I have to delay gratification, are you able perhaps to enjoy whatever activity you engage in that before you go delayed gratification, are you able to enjoy? If you start, let's say you're studying for an exam, or you're learning to play an instrument and you want to get good at it, and other people are playing around and you are practicing, are you able perhaps to experience gratification even with the practice, before you arrive at mastery, even at the very beginning? So it is possible to move. Many, many tasks can be performed in such a way that you don't need to delay gratification. Your attitude towards the task can change so that the task itself becomes satisfying already in itself. And then you don't need to delay gratification because the gratification can already be here in the present moment. Many things can be actually enjoyed. Although the world may tell you you're doing this in order to arrive, it's only a means to an end. And when that becomes a mindset, then your entire life becomes a means to an end. Where is the end? You never arrive. What is it? So you are transforming, converting, reducing the present moment to a means to an end. The one thing that only, the only thing that ever is real. You're saying, well, that's just. I'm just trying to get there. This is just a stepping stone. That's the unconscious pattern. I'm trying to get there. Here is never good enough. Why is it not good enough? Because the true goodness derives from that inner place, the recognition of being, that's the source of all joy or happiness.