There are Two Ways Human Beings Live

In the motivational book, The Light in the Heart, author Roy T. Bennett wrote, “If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present.” It’s a good message which is echoed by many on how to live.

Arguably, all a human being wants is to be happy and Bennett has presented exactly how to do it: be in the present moment and do not be in the past or future; or in other words, do not be in time. The present moment is beyond time because the time is now. The past or future is defined by time.

When I first came into contact with these notions years ago, I thought it was sort of silly and impractical. But I also would’ve benefited from these sentiments being broken down into more actionable steps and a more practical understanding.

Now I can clearly see the two choices one has on how to live one’s life: through allowing oneself to fully feel whatever happens or to filter what occurs through one’s mind. Allow me to explain by addressing the mind first.

When one is a child and something happens, it is typically a novel experience. One does not have a bank of memory to compare and contrast what is happening in the moment. But as we get older, we remember how certain events made us feel. Some were pleasant and some were painful.

The human being fancies itself the master of the natural world because when other creatures evolved to fly or to kill, the human being evolved to think. He or she could maximize pleasure and minimize pain through physical or psychological tools.

As you have probably seen, this has been a gift and a curse, much like how the hedgehog protects itself by having pointy hairs but cannot huddle with other creatures for warmth without the threat of impaling them.

So when bad things happen, the mind gets to work to ensure that that pain never occurs again. When one does this as a child, it will yield or will eventually yield success. One thinks themselves a bona fide genius. They have controlled their fate! And they will do it again and again.

As a result of this, the child grows into an adult who filters experiences through their mind. They aren’t really in the world. They instead hide behind their filters like shields to protect them from reality. But do you see a problem with this?

Sure, when something bad happens, it won’t sting as much. But they will always feel unprepared and fearful of the things in life that terrified and hurt them when they were younger.

Moreover, when these issues inevitably show up, the filter will show them a distorted view of reality. This is the catch-22 of human evolution. Sure, you’ll get to avoid your problem (for now) but it’ll cost you and that cost may be too steep in the long run. Not to mention the fact that this prevents healing from the issues that plagued one in their early years.

Why does it prevent healing? For starters, one isn’t taking in reality as much as they could, and so there is vital information that is missing that would be instrumental to seeing truth, seeing the reason to let things go or seeing how one’s perception was incomplete and flawed.

Secondly, people live through the mind and its filters in order to protect themselves. If the mind were to subside, they believe that they would be a sitting duck for pain and suffering. Therefore, they refuse to drop the mind and to embrace the other way to living life. This ironically continues one’s suffering.

Is it any wonder that people grow up to think that they are their mind? Is it any wonder that people grow up to fear emotions? Is it any wonder that people are afraid to live?

This is where we return to the other way to live life which is how we all originally lived: to feel whatever happens.

How did we stray from our default path? By trying to escape pain and suffering. Our technological advancements are a testament to this as technology is supposed to make life easier. But as good as that sounds on paper, it plays out a bit differently in practice.

We suffer from little to no connection, so we make social media to connect. It works until we use it to tear each other down, to create false realities to preserve our egos while making others feel insecure and to spread fearful propaganda.

We suffer from connection that is too slow and dangerous, so we use fossil fuels to power our new inventions that slash travel times. It works until we learn that we’re damaging the planet but we drag our feet on green technology for profit, ignore the green tech that already exists or create green tech by polluting the planet even more.

We suffer from a lack of inner connection largely due to experiencing life through the filter of the mind. We use drugs and it helps until we develop a dependency or habit and ignore the messages obtained from our temporary reprieve; or sometimes a chemical addiction develops that worsens our inner connection.

Probably the only lack of connection we have yet to explore as much as the others is the connection to nature and the vicissitudes of life that characterize nature; the connection to pleasure and pain; the changing seasons of the planet and of one’s life.

What technology do we need to employ here? It’s nothing fancy. One merely needs to embrace that pain and potential suffering are unavoidable eventualities of life. Because even if one tries to avoid them, they just show up in another way.

Human beings need to accept that this is the natural way and to quit avoiding the pain of life. By doing so, one leaves their emotional body fully exposed to the elements and to reality. The mind takes a back seat.

Emotion will not kill you. Rather, it is running away from emotion that will doom us all. When has running away from or ignoring reality ever benefited anyone? Hasn’t pain been at the root of human ingenuity? Would it be fair to say that to embrace suffering equips one to actually find solutions to problems? I believe humans have demonstrated this to be true.

So when one speaks of being in the moment, what they’re saying is embrace what is occurring right now, which happens to include how you are feeling.

It’s easy to embrace feeling good but it is integral to embrace feeling bad because when you allow yourself to feel it, it doesn’t stay stuck in your psyche and you are able to move on from it. You wouldn’t even need to consciously let it go because it falls off on its own.

And sometimes it isn’t easy to feel good because we become afraid that pain is just around the corner. This is living in the future; this is living in time; this is living through the filter of the mind.

Much like any connection that is wonky and unstable, we become desperate to improve it. It is improved when you connect to the 0s and 1s, the positives and the negatives, the pleasant and the painful.

Obviously, you are free to choose either of the two options. My only suggestion is to choose wisely.