Using Small Things to Control Anxiety | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

I was putting away some clothes this morning, hanging up some clothes and folding something. And we talked yesterday about somebody asking a question about repetitive things. You get up in the morning, you do your repetitive tasks every day. And most of one's life consists of little tasks. There's rarely anything big, and if there is, it doesn't last long. What would be big? A wedding, a funeral, or in North America, Thanksgiving, turkey dinner, Christmas? A promotion? Or suddenly they write about you in People magazine. Hopefully something good or some big thing you're going to talk or give a talk to a few hundred people. But even a seemingly big thing consists of just one little thing at a time. Now if you had the idea this is just a little example, I'm coming back to the clothes in a little while. One could say that folding up clothes and hanging up shirts is an insignificant thing that one would only do in order to get somewhere else. And in this case, if I thought, okay, I have to get this done because this really big thing is waiting for me, all these people are waiting for me to talk, give a big talk. Then in the meantime, all the little things leading up to it would be regarded as something that you have to get out of the way or pay little attention to. Because I have this big thing coming up. And then this big thing coming up is a mind form, would become a mind form, big thing called big. People wanting me to say something significant. But who knows if I can say something significant. That would have led to not only not paying much attention to the little things, but also most probably to a sense of anxiety because the mind has created a big thing. Now if I had that, then it would not be enjoyable to do what I do because if every time I got anxious before a talk, that would be dreadful, I'd rather not do it. So why is there no anxiety? Because I realized even a so called big talk is consists of little things. You approach it, you take. They pick me up in a buggy and then drive. And then I step out and then it's still one step at a time. And then I sit in that little room for a few minutes and look around and breathe. And then I come here, it's still one little step at a time. And then I sit here. And then one word out and then another word comes out. That too is just small. It's only the mind that creates differences and says, I'm waiting for the next big thing. And for other people a big thing could be the next vacation they look forward to. In the meantime they're just trying to get to that future moment or the next, or getting married, looking for someone to get married, finding the right relationship, that would be the big thing, wouldn't it? If I could find that, the partner, the ideal partner for me. And then you're looking towards that. And in the meantime, little attention is paid to the intervening periods. But the strange thing is, most of your life is the intervening periods. 95%, 99% is something that happens while you wait for something else to happen. And it's an unconscious way to live. So as I was folding up my clothes and I realized how extremely pleasurable the activity is, and not because of the simple movements of putting it away, but there's an underlying stillness with it that goes with that. And so as you notice that as you do little things, in other words, 90 something percent of your life, if you're aware not only of what you are doing, of course, yes, that's part of present moment awareness is to give attention to what you are doing, so that the doing is not just a means to an end. The greatest fallacy and big dysfunction in people's lives is that almost all they're doing is a means to an end. That implies future, of course, is a means to an end. And unconsciously the end is regarded as more important than the means. But of course, the end which is in the future is always in the future. The moment it comes, it's the present moment. But the mind pattern that has lodged itself firmly in people's minds is always the next thing. And it's the thing that I really need to get to. So the moment the so called future comes, it appears as the present moment, something else. Almost simultaneously or very quickly afterwards, something else appears, looming up in the so called future. Oh, I need to get there. Of course there are things that you need to achieve and go towards, and that involves time and so on. But if that absorbs almost 100% of your attention, or even if it absorbs 80% of your attention, that you're out of balance. Because if future absorbs 80% of your attention, you only have 20% of your attention left for the one thing that is ever real in your life, which is the present moment. So the present moment is just okay. That's why very many, many people don't actually very rarely feel really comfortable with the present moment. It's rare for people to regard the present moment even in a friendly way. Many people live continuously in some kind of almost confrontational or denying relationship with the present moment. And then their entire life is then not aligned with the present moment, which is life itself. Because the only place where life can appear to you is in the present moment. There is nothing else ever. And so your life is not aligned. Your life with a small L is not aligned with life with a capital L. And that, out of alignment, creates an unhappy existence. And millions of people leading such an unhappy existence create an entire culture or civilization, every aspect of which reflects back to you that unhappy, basically unhappy state that all those millions are in. So all the things that the culture produces, the civilization produces, the structures, the economic structures, political structures, educational and so on, they will contain these elements of that state of consciousness that created them. So that's the dysfunctional element in politics, in economics, in educational system and so on, which all that, all those things that you can see are not working very well because they are products of a certain collective state of consciousness. And the collective state of consciousness is made up of millions of individuals that produces the collective state of consciousness. So as you try, if you try to tackle exclusively the products of that collective consciousness in the form of the economic structures, the political, educational system and so on, then you're working only on one end of the spectrum. And it's not the causal you're working on effect. And what you can do is limit it. Yes, you can initiate changes, but what is the state of consciousness in the individuals and in you as you try to initiate changes? So the causal is the individual, so that the individual no longer lives in a way that produces unhappiness and is dysfunctional. This mind made sense of self is also much more focused on the negative than the positive. To be free, you awaken to who you are beyond your history and your life situation. It.