The Tolle Trap

Hi, this is Brian with another mini chapter from A Philosopher's Notes. This one's called the Tolle Trap. In addition to having the world's greatest sweater vest collection, Eckhart Tolle has some really powerful ideas for optimal living. But I think a lot of people who get all horny about creating a new Earth via the power of now fall into what I call the Tolle Trap, where it's all about being in the moment. Dope. It's not. In his fab book happier the good, Dr. Tal Ben Shahar articulates four different archetypes that provide a useful model to help us conceptualize and address the problem. Here's my take on it. The Rat Racer. The typical Western mode of being always chasing goals we're told matter never really happy because we're never quite there. The Hedonist. The typical spiritual way of being, misreading Tolle. And the Gita thinking it's all about just being in the moment. Eek. And the nihilist bounces back and forth between those two, then flips everyone and everything off and becomes the cynic, AKA a disillusioned idealist. And finally the happy person realizes life is all about having goals that inspire us and loving this moment. As we take baby steps in the direction of our ideals. It's easy to bounce around all four ways of being. But let's not kid ourselves that we're either happy or or spiritual as we pretend to get it and just love, love, love the power of now. Fact is, even Tolle appreciates the importance of goals and provides some great advice on the subject. Telling us goals are important but that we want to make sure we don't let what he calls clock time slip into psychological time. The difference? Healthy human beings use clock time to set goals and organize their tasks accordingly. Unhealthy human beings slip into psychological time as they waste energy getting anxious about the outcomes of future events. Or they get their panties undies in a bunch with guilt and shame about past events. Or they lose their vitality and overall life mojo as they fall into the Tolle trap of trying to avoid goals altogether. Or they do all three. How about you? Where are you hanging out? How can you more consistently play in the happiness zone? Do you need more truly inspiring goals? More presence? Let's set some goals that inspire us, love where we're at and have fun taking the next step in the direction of our dreams. There you go. The Tollway Trap. This is one of my favorite little chapters. Had fun with this one? Hope you dug it let's hold the tension again between our ideals and our current reality and love that moment. Tall Bentrahar talks about it beautifully in his book Happier. If you're feeling it, check out that book for some more. For now, let's set those goals, love the moment, and enjoy the process. All right. Hope you're doing great. Look forward to sharing more with you soon.