by Patrick Plaskett

Created on: January 07, 2007   Last Updated: June 29, 2009

"My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes, 90 percent of which never occurred." The author illustrated the primary cause of stress, anxiety, and depression in our society, which is putting our attention into fantasy.

Einstein said that the most important decision a person can make is whether they're living in a friendly or unfriendly universe. Yet most people don't live their lives directly, but instead by thinking about it. Children are more directly in touch with reality than adults are. In the enculturation process, the childlike innocence is driven out of us as we are taught to worry, feel remorse over mistakes instead of simply learning from them, and try to control all the variables in our lives by thinking about them. The brain begins to act like a machine that can't be turned off, so many people try to at least slow it down with drugs and alcohol. How many people do you know who take antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication?

We have a mental model of the world in our heads, which can be useful to help us make sense of the world. Yet it's only a model, and every person has a slightly different model. Unfortunately, many people have a very stressful model, which they keep their attention on. We try to think about everything at once, and suffer the feeling of overwhelm.

Cognitive therapy has been gaining acceptance by psychologists and psychiatrists to help people build a more realistic and less stressful mental model. The book "Feeling Good" by Dr. David Burns is an excellent self-help book, a do-it-yourself cognitive therapy manual. "The Power of Now," a book by Eckart Tolle, beautifully explains how a person can bring his or her attention into the present moment, where there normally are no problems, rather than putting attention into the past that is gone forever or fantasies of the future. Meditation practices also relieve stress by bringing attention into the here and now. "The Sedona Method" is a book by Hale Dwoskin, explaining how negative feelings and thoughts can be released, using a method crafted by Lester Levinson.

All of these methods are better than drugging one's brain into submission. You can use your mind, rather than having your mind use you. Life is lived one day at a time, we draw one breath at a time, we do what we can one task at a time, and we can only do what we can do. The rest can be accepted or let go. People that master this can live without needless stress and even die peacefully.

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