Possible In the Moment

Our greatest natural instincts, and hence the foundation of all of our strongest motivations, surround the requirement to survive and to ensure that we don’t end up extinct-as-the-least-fit. The more primitive parts of our brain have survival as their prime function. These parts of our nervous system rely upon direct sensory input from real world situations and events. However, we also have the neo-cortex which has great capacity for abstract thought and which can conceive of concepts in the imagination that bear little or even no resemblance to reality. This imagining can create all kinds of desires and if we fix upon a desire we then create a measurement point for our emotional guidance system. If we fulfil the desire then we create good and positive emotions. If don’t fulfil the desire then we create bad and negative emotions.

You Can’t Override Reality

Our imagination can create great and happy events so we generate some semblance of those emotions that we seek and we fix upon delivering those results in the expectation that once we have them that we will feel those emotions for real. However, if we don’t take great care in how we set up our desires then we can create great conflict within ourselves. The primitive brain deals more with our survival needs and it relies upon sensory feedback from reality to spark off emotions that tell us as an overall organism whether we do well or badly so that we can repeat the events and behaviours that create good results and steer clear of the events and behaviours that create bad results. The primitive brain acts as the great realist and the great pragmatist. It will happily let the neo-cortex indulge in whatever flights of fancy that it wishes and it will continue to generate emotions to give feedback on the fulfilment of these wishes. Since many of us feel disappointed quite frequently then that indicates that most of our desires prove incapable of fulfilment in reality. As long as we continue to plant those desires that we cannot fulfil into our emotional guidance system then we will continue to get negative emotions.

The primitive brain will let this continue indefinitely unless our survival comes under threat and doing the impossible threatens our survival. When I refer to the possible and impossible I want to make certain distinctions. I recognise that many things exist in the realm of absolutely impossible, such as defying gravity without the use of a flying device, or attempting to survive without oxygen. Many things exist in the realm of possible but I draw a crucial distinction between things possible right now, in the moment, and things possible but only through the fulfilment of all other possible and necessary steps that bring us to the juncture where we can make that thing happen. So, if I jump off of the balcony of my apartment on the sixth floor where I currently write this, I will injure myself horribly, with a good chance of dying because ‘in the moment’ flying, gliding, or descending safely, without devices that can assist me, will prove impossible. However the possibility exists that I could fly, glide or descend safely if had those things in place at the moment that I chose to take the plunge.

Our primitive brain assesses things in the moment and generally will not allow us to do anything that will harm ourselves, except under exceptional circumstances. When we set ‘impossible to do in the moment’ desires then we end up resisting attempting to fulfil those desires partly out of logic and partly out of a survival response. Sometimes we logically cannot do the things that we set out to do. Often though we know deep inside that we don’t have the competence to successfully carry out the fulfilment of the desire and rather than take a risk we falter.

Prepare to Make Things Possible

This distinction of ‘possible now’ and ‘possible with preparation’ has a dramatic impact on what we find ourselves capable of doing. The element of possibility drives our ability to act. If we design our desires, and the methods, organisation and processes that create the fulfilment of those desires, such that we make every single action possible ‘in the moment’ then we set free our massive potential for highly productive activity. If we design impossible desires then we end up depressed because we can never achieve them. Most of us though set desires that will prove possible if we carry out all of the intervening necessary and possible steps between where we find ourselves right now right through to the point of fulfilment only we don’t carry out those steps.

Naturally, this causes great perplexity. We can conceive of the desire and we can make sure that we only set desires possible in reality. Then most of us generally fail to do the detailed thought that goes into working out how to make each step possible. We end up immobilised because logically we can only do the ‘possible right now’ and if we don’t work out the ‘possible right now’ then we make a big fat zero in terms of progress. This lack of reasoning, lack of thought, lack of preparation and often very inefficient way of making any progress lies at the heart of procrastination and, to a large extent, to what creates references for our emotional guidance system. When we place major focus on setting possible desires and on making each step to fulfilment ‘possible in the moment’ then we achieve massive productivity, great increases in competence and good and positive emotions as a result. Focus on the immediately possible and your results will amaze you.

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