Brian Johnson walks you through a thought exercise: imagine launching into space, watching Earth shrink, then zooming the Hubble on a pinhead of sky to see thousands of galaxies. The Sun fits 1.3 million Earths inside it. The point is to feel small enough that your problems stop mattering so much.
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93 million miles
1.3 million Earths
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. Not too long ago, we hung out with my friend Tripp Lanier, who helped us gain perspective via a little thought exercise that included us looking through the Hubble telescope at distant galaxies. I love that thought exercise so much that I've actually made it one of my go to tools. Here's how it goes. Feeling a little stressed and or overwhelmed by something in life? Try this quick perspective builder. First, imagine launching yourself off planet Earth into space. See yourself hovering somewhere near the moon. And look down at the Earth. Try to see yourself on that little blue ball. Quick question. Where are you and your huge problem? Can you see yourself in that unbelievably big problem from that bigger perspective? Now, being jumbo huge and all, pick up the Earth in your hand and fly to the sun. It's 93 million miles away, but we're super fast, so it'll only take us a second to zoom there. Now, just for fun, throw the Earth into the sun and watch it disappear. Then ask yourself, how many Earths can fit into the Sun? Look at this. You'd have to throw 1.3 million Earths into the sun to fill it up. Do that real quick. It'll only take another second. Seriously, imagine yourself throwing the Earth into the sun over and over and over again. Boom. Done 1.3 million times, then come back to Earth. Grab a piece of paper. Write a lowercase I on that piece of paper. You see that.in that I? Well, that's how big our 1.3 million Earth's eating sun is relative to the Milky Way galaxy. If it was the size of the Earth. Your brain blow up yet? Now to continue our nothing that's happening to us is that big of a deal. Perspective building tour. Let's grab a pin, hold it out at an arm's distance, right in the darkest part of the night sky. Imagine focusing your virtual Hubble telescope on that dark pinhead of sky. You know what you'll see? Thousands of galaxies. Now remind me again, how big is your problem? One more time. From a cosmic perspective, nothing is a big deal, period. And that's today's plus one. Let's get some perspective on whatever might be freaking us out. Not so we can avoid it, but so we can approach it with the calm confidence of a practicing lover of wisdom. As we give our best to our biggest challenges today.
