A short YouTube monologue by Brian Johnson offering a mental exercise to gain perspective on personal problems by imagining astronomical distances. He invites listeners to mentally travel to the Moon (240,000 miles), the Sun (93 million miles), and the nearest star (Proxima Centauri, ~4.2 light years / ~2.5 quadrillion miles) to reduce rumination and reframe challenges.
Questions this video answers
240,000 miles (roughly).
8 minutes and 20 seconds.
93 million miles.
4.2 light years, about 2.5 quadrillion miles.
About three days, traveling at an average of 3,333 miles per hour.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. Many moons ago, we explored some living, untethered wisdom from Michael Singer as we chatted about traveling at the speed of light. As you may recall, the sun is a staggering 93 million miles away. It takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds for the sun's rays to arrive on planet Earth. The next closest star, Proxima centauri, is. Is 4.2 light years away. That's 2.5 quadrillion miles away. Yes. My head just exploded as well. Insert the head exploding emoji. You know how many stars there are in the known universe? Billions. You know how far all of them are from one another? About that same distance, quadrillions of miles. You know how big that makes our universe? Unfathomably big. And the best part, it's all still expanding. If that doesn't lead to a series of exploding head emojis, I do not know what will. Now, I like to use that interstellar perspective to gain some perspective on my life challenges here on this little old planet Earth. I also like to throw the moon in to get perspective. You know how far away the moon is? 240,000 miles, roughly. You know how long it takes the sun's rays to bounce off the moon and hit your eyeball? One second. So here's my little perspective building practice. First, let's start with a really big problem you're currently facing. I mean, a huge problem. Wink. Now, if you feel so inspired, take a step back from that problem for a moment and let's put it in perspective. Start by creating just a tiny little space in your mind. Step back out of ruminating about your problem and see it from a slightly detached perspective. You got it. Amazing. You already dramatically reduced its toxic pull on your consciousness, and you're already much closer to solving it with that slightly more spacious perspective. Now, if you feel so inspired, strap on a jetpack or an Iron man suit or whatever you think would most powerfully and quickly get you up to the moon. Recall, the moon is 240,000 miles away. It takes astronauts about three days to get there, traveling at an average of 3,333 miles per hour. Thank you, Google. But for our purposes, you can travel at the speed of light. So your magical jetpack gets you to the moon in one second. Boom. You're there. Now, please look down at the Earth from the Moon and tell me about you and your huge problem. That's part one of the exercise. If you feel so inspired, let's continue our journey all the way to the sun. But before you go, please take a moment and grab the Earth in your hand. Yes. You're now very big. We're going to use the Earth as a baseball in three it into the sun. Note. I like to do a little copy paste of the Earth and then remove the people so I don't feel bad throwing the people on Earth into the sun. Now grab your copy of the Earth and get ready to fly 93 million miles to get to the Sun. We're going to fly considerably faster than the speed of light rather than the normal 8 minutes and 20 seconds. We're going to activate the super duper rockets on your jetpack and and get there in eight seconds. And almost there. We're there. And you're hovering far enough away from the sun to throw the Earth into its massiveness. You know how many Earths fit into the sun? Over 1 million of them. Yes. That's insanely huge. You're going to be busy for a while throwing 1 million Earths into the sun. Now take a break. See if you can look back from the sun and find the original Earth back there and remind yourself of your huge problem. And if you feel so inspired, continue the thought exercise by spending another four years traveling at the speed of light just to get to the closest star of billions of such space stars. And that's what I like to imagine when I inevitably get up in the middle of the night thinking about one of my huge problems. And I silently say to myself, 240,000 plus 93 million plus 2.5 quadrillion. And that's one way to get perspective on our challenges. And that's today's plus one. Here's to using every tool in our tool belt to live with wisdom, discipline, love and courage. Today.
