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Then and Now

When I was a teenager I thought thirty-somethings were dinosaurs. Fossils. Relics. Now I think they’re teenagers. In the eighties I wanted to be a hundred kilos of muscle and five percent body-fat. Now I’m more interested in finding the ultimate cheesecake. When I was a kid I worried about my non-Catholic friends going to hell. The last time I went to mass was twenty eight years ago. I guess I’m over that. Once upon a time I wanted to please everyone. Not any more. At one stage, I thought I had pretty much figured out the whole God thing. I now realise how arrogant that was and how little I know. There was a time when I pursued society’s version of success. These days I’m more interested in my version. For a long time I chased happiness. Now I gratefully accept it. At one stage my life was full of problems. Now it’s full of lessons. For a while there I hated silence and solitude. Now I crave it. In my early twenties I thought that situations and other people created stress in my life. Now I know that I am the creator of stress. And calm. I once obsessed about what clothes I wore. Now I spend most of my life in ten dollar flannel shirts and army shorts. At one point in time, standing in front of an audience terrified me. Now it excites me. There was a phase when my body was my identity. Now it’s just where I hang out. Not long ago I had no idea what a blog was. Now it’s the vehicle by which you and I connect. The meaningless has become meaningful. But only because I made it so.

Opening the Door to Subjective Reality

It’s true to say that the world I inhabited in the eighties and nineties is not the one I inhabit today. And when I say world I am not talking about some physical place or point in time. Neither am I talking about our culture. Or economic climate. Or our collective mindset. Or societal standards. Or fashion. Or technology. No, I’m talking about the ever-changing landscape that exists inside my head. The world I create and the world I inhabit day to day. As I sit here alone in my home office, it is silent. There are no people and no distractions. Just me and my thoughts. But where I’m sitting right now is not my world, it’s my location; Craig’s office in Hampton, Australia. As you may or may not know, your house number and street name have nothing to do with where you live. The message I’m now sharing with you is coming from my world. My world being the place from where my creativity arises. My world being the filter through which I observe humanity, process information, consider my observations and interpret the behaviour of others. It’s my escape when the external noise is overwhelming. It’s the place where I can explore, listen, consider, choose, feel and create. It’s a world nobody can visit unless I invite them. It’s where ideas are born and dreams are turned into plans. It’s the one place where my singing sounds good, my jokes are hilarious and my body doesn’t ache.  And while my world is the place where thinking happens, it’s also where I can escape thought and discover who I am beyond the cerebral noise. It’s the place where I can overcome fear and the place where I can transcend the sum of my life experiences in the physical world. In my world I have the capacity to overcome conventional wisdom and to explore who and what I might become beyond the self-imposed limitations, beyond the group thinking and beyond the weight of expectation.

My world is unique. As is yours. My world is self-created. As is yours. Knowingly or not. Intentionally or not.

The Stories we Tell

While I am influenced and impacted by the three-dimensional world in which physical me resides, I am not determined by it. I will create and inhabit my own reality because I have that choice and that power. As we all do. Every day people tell themselves stories which help them deal with, process, react to and understand certain aspects of their life. In other words, they manipulate their internal reality in an effort to help them manage their external reality more effectively. Kids alter their subjective reality when they create an imaginary friend. To the adult looking on, the imaginary friend is nothing more than a childhood fantasy but to the child, the friend is a legitimate and very real part of their (self-created) world. So much so that the arrival of such a friend often brings an observable positive change in the emotional state of the child. Without ever being taught the skill, kids somehow find a way to make themselves happier. Now that is clever. That is powerful.

The Last Bit

Coming to the realisation that you have the ability to create your own personal reality - despite your situation, despite your circumstance, despite your history and despite your environment – is one of the most important, liberating and empowering discoveries you will ever make. When you choose to create your own reality, the sky is the limit. And no, this is not some weird-ass, abstract philosophical concept but rather, an invaluable skill – if you choose to make it that. On the other hand, if you decide that this message is nothing more than self-help mumbo-jumbo-fluff, that’s exactly what it will be. For you. Can you imagine living in a place where there are no problems, only lessons? Or a place where every day is a good day because you make that decision? Or what about a place where the only approval you need is your own? I know that for some of you this concept of finding your way to happiness and calm by learning to manage your internal environment might seem like an improbable, overly simplistic and somewhat impractical solution to (what appears to be) a very complex problem or situation. For a long time I was of the same opinion.

Now I know better.