Brian Johnson uses a joke with his son about favorite temperatures to explain Michael Singer's idea that suffering comes from resisting what is. Practice acceptance by surrendering your preferences about everyday things like weather.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. This morning Emerson walked into my office zipping up his camo winter jacket to go with his camo pants. He told me, it's cold. It's 52 degrees out this morning. Fall arrived in a hurry out here in Austin. We went from the hundreds to the nineties too. For former Californians. Chilly quickly Now. Emerson and I have a new joke, which is why I replied by saying, oh, 52 degrees. That's my all time favorite temperature. To which he laughed and said, daddy, every temperature is your favorite temperature. Which is true. My favorite temperature. It's always exactly what the temperature is at that moment. Which gets us a little closer to the point of today's plus one. Let's step back for a moment and set some context. Michael Singer has become one of my absolute favorite teachers. Although I very much enjoyed the Untethered Soul, check out those notes. It wasn't until my friend Joe Okilberry sent me a picture of him and Michael that I picked up this book. Now, I didn't have to go far to pick it up as Alexandra had been raving about him for months. The book was literally on our kitchen table with the two of them extolling his awesomeness. I decided to join the party and I'm very glad I did. We'll talk more about Michael Singer and his wisdom soon. For now, as you know if you've read his stuff, the central big idea to all of his work is essentially to quit arguing with reality. As he says, and I quote, suffering is caused by the contrast between what you mentally decided you want and the reality unfolding in front of you. To whatever degree they don't match, you suffer. In our next plus one, we'll talk about something he calls low hanging fruit that will help us practice reducing our suffering by surrendering to reality. For now, one of my favorite prompts to practice is the weather. Arguing with the weather is one of the most ridiculous things we can do, which is why Emerson and I have that new joke. Here's the origin story. Emerson was telling me how much he loved the 80 degree ish fall temperature here in Austin. He asked me what my favorite temperature was. I told him the temperature right now is always my absolute favorite 102 degrees in Austin. Humid. Perfect. My all time favorite temperature. Free sauna, folks. 51 degree cold plunge. Perfect. My all time favorite temperature. Rebooting the nervous system. As the Bhagavad Gita beautifully says, reshape yourself through the power of your will. Those who have conquered themselves, live in peace alike, in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, praise and blame. To such people a clod of dirt, a stone and gold are the same. Because they are impartial, they rise to great heights. Who knew the weather could be such a powerful tool for. For our armamentarium? So what's your favorite temperature? Let's quit arguing with reality and use every opportunity we can to playfully practice our philosophies. Plus 102 degrees. Plus 52 degrees. And God bless those of you who live in minus X degrees and really get to practice.
