Less Thinking Equals More Happiness
Thinking must be the most overrated activity on the planet. This incessant stream of bullshit is always getting in the way of my happiness. My thoughts function like a petty tyrant as they attempt to poison every moment with opinions, judgments, and demands. It is only by ignoring this cacophony that I can enjoy a beautiful sense of ease in the world.
Seeing the World Like a Young Child
It is probably a mistake to overly-glamorize the world of a young child. Kids can be unreasonable, moody, and erratic, but the one thing they are incredibly good at is experiencing the world as it is delivered to them. They have not yet fallen under the spell of the running commentary inside of their own heads, so they enjoy things for what they are.
I love watching how my son interacts with the universe. Timmy has just turned six and for him the world is still a magical place. He can watch the same cartoon over and over again, and he will enjoy it every time. My son is perfectly happy in our home and with his life, and he is not tormented by ideas about how things should be better. We live in the exact same environment, yet the difference in how we experience the world means we might as well be living on a different planet sometimes.
Adults have lots of responsibilities, and it seems to take plenty of thinking to keep our world functioning – so is it reasonable to suggest that we should be thinking less? When I play close attention to my own thoughts they are at best banal and at worst pretty vicious. All of the insights that help me make the most of my life occur when I hit a wall in my thinking – when I’m not trying to think of anything. It is like these insights are only able to make an appearance when the mind is still.
Thinking Less to Experience Flow
My periods of happiness always occur when I’m not caught up in the carnival of my thoughts. It is then that I’m just experiencing what is in front of me without all of the judgments and opinions.
Psychologists refer to this escape from thinking as flow, and it occurs whenever we become completely lost in an activity we enjoy. All of the greatest human achievements have been accomplished by people who were in flow. There is nothing magical about it – young kids seem to experience flow most of the time.
The secret of experiencing more flow in my life is to engage in less thinking. The way I do this is by refusing to entertain the bullshit in my head. Mindfulness techniques can be helpful for this, but all that is really needed is for me to be less gullible as far as my thoughts are concerned. It means letting go of the idea that the answers to my problems are going to come from thinking hard about them. I now try to treat all of my thoughts like little pain-bombs, and I mentally deflect them with the words ‘not now’. It is not easy, and I still miss far more than I catch, but the rewards of doing this make it well worth the effort.
Pain is my best teacher. It is only by clearly seeing how my thinking gets in the way of my happiness that I’ve become willing to stop kicking the hornet’s nest. I’ll probably never be able to regain the innocence of early childhood, but I can get to enjoy living in a world of magic again.
