5 Things Inception Taught Me About Self-Improvement (And No, I’m Not Dreaming)

I’m not a movie hyper. I don’t rush to the movie theater at the first trailer, shaking my head in an uncontrollable enthusiastic crisis. On the contrary. I saw Titanic 3 years after it was launched. Matrix, 2 years after (please forgive me for that, I still took the redpill). Even Fight Club came to my DVD collection pretty late. (There is one exception though: Kung-Fu Panda. That one was pretty hot when I saw it.)

Anyway, you got the idea. Well, knowing that, I was seriously taken by surprise by my own drive to go to see Inception. I really don’t know why I felt this urge. I don’t even remember in what context I first heard about it. I just know I did and from that moment I really, really wanted to see it. Now, after I saw it, I suspect that this movie was in fact launched a few years ago. Somebody came into my dream, planted a seed, and that seed grew into an uncontrollable desire to go see the movie… An inception to make me see Inception…

I’m joking, of course. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a few years from now, the marketing campaigns will start in our dreams first.

Anyway, fact is I really liked Inception. Not only I liked it, but, following my uncontrollable passion for self-improvement, I also isolated 5 things the movie taught me. As always, these things are just my own interpretation of the events, and may not be taken as a review of the movie. If we’re talking only about the artistic impression, suffice to say that I liked it. Now, let’s see what can we learn from it too.

1. Reality Is When You Say It Is

In the dream snatchers arsenal, one very important weapon is the “totem”. An artifact which behaves in a certain way, and it can only be witnessed by its owner. It’s your connection to reality and as such, it cannot be infected with other people (or projections) presence. It’s your own proof that you’re not dreaming anymore. Cobb’s totem is a spinning top. Every time he spins that top and the top behaves as expected, he knows he’s out of the dream. Back to reality, here comes gravity.

That made me think. Not the reality checking process in itself, which is pretty straightforward: you do something expecting a certain result and if it checks, voila, you’re in reality. But the mere fact of choosing that reality hook. I mean, you could be in a dream too when you pick that totem. It will still obey the rules of that specific dream-based reality. Every time it will check, it will of course enforce a reality, but that reality could be in fact, just a dream.

Reality is when you say it is. The moment you agree that a spinning top should go round and round until it stops, instead of breaking up into pieces, for instance, you sign a contract with that kind of reality. You anchor yourself in a certain time space continuum. That point will become the gravitational center of your entire world. And that’s because YOU made that decision.

Your world is built by you. You’re making the rules. If there are parts in your life which aren’t in sync with what you want, you have the power to make them disappear. Spin your top and see if it checks.

2. Time Is Irrelevant

For a dream snatcher, time is behaving differently. Time in a dream will flow slower than in reality. Time in a dream within a dream will be an order of magnitude slower. And a dream within a dream within a dream could make you spend there dozens of years. And for the dream character, that time would not be subjective, it will actually make that character older. It will have real effects.

Whenever you’re immersing yourself in something you really enjoy, like a dream you love dreaming, time will expand. Our perception is that it is slow down, somehow. Even more, every time we’re doing something we really enjoy, time will actually seem to stop. I’m sure you know the feeling: “oh my, god, I’ve been doing this for 5 hours? This couldn’t be!”… You will be in fact out of time in our normal, sequential perception.

We’re used to think that time “flows” in sequences of seconds, hours, days, weeks. But the deeper you immerse in life this perception of times weakens, and a new one, quantum based will take place. Time will manifests itself in bursts. A day can last a week. An hour can last a month. And a second can last a lifetime.  In a way, time seems to be our measurement unit for things we don’t enjoy. Because when we really like something, time will disappear. The more we love doing something, the less time we’re “consuming”.

Passion is the time killer. Passionately living makes you immortal, in the sense that time will become irrelevant. In other people’s realities you may be there for an hour, but within your passionate dream, you will be there forever.

3. You Live In A Web Of Relationships

Allegedly, a dream snatcher could sneak in, plant a seed into your mind while you’re dreaming, and that seed could expand into an idea. An idea that could change lives, build empires and reboot the world. That idea will feel like it’s emerging from your own consciousness. You will treat it like it was your idea. In a way, a dream snatcher could manipulate your consciousness through your dreams.

We’re not alone. We’re not individual entities, like we think we are. We’re interlinked in a web of relationships. We’re part of something way bigger than ourselves. We’re in a continuous interaction. And this interaction can lead to incredibly huge transformations. Every information you access is in fact a seed that could become an idea. All you have to do is to believe in it, like it was yours.

This has an incredibly impact on your life. Now, that you know that every interaction has the possibility to change your life, you will be much more careful. Or at least I hope you will. Every contact you made has the power to influence your dream. Every seed you plant into your brain can become reality, regardless of who let that seed there. Pick your peers wisely.

You can influence other people and other people can influence you. The smallest piece of information, like this blog post, could change your life. I may have planted a seed into your mind right this second.

4. What We See Is What We Project

If you enter somebody else’s dream, you will notice a lot of persons there. Those persons are not individuals, they are merely projections of that person subconscious. They have human shapes but they are in fact just projections of that persons fears, frustrations, ambitions or repressed feelings. Everything you have in your subconscious will take shape in a dream.

And the ugliest part is those shapes can have a life of their own. Everything which is not processed, dealt with, acknowledged, learned, will stay in your subconscious mind until you will confront it. To an extent, that would make sense: you will deal with those situations later. But it’s not that simple. Those projections, those lose ends, those stubs will interfere with your conscious reality. They will mix in. They will obfuscate your vision.

What we usually call reality is made almost entirely by our own projections. There is no such thing as an objective point of view. If two persons are looking at a flower, they will both see different things. Because they are projecting different subconscious messages to that flower. For one person, that flower could take the shape of a long time repressed frustration while the other one could see there just a flower.

We’re creating our reality by mixing in our own unconscious projections. The ultimate honesty is not to accept someone else’s point of view, but to understand that what we see is what we are unconsciously projecting. Other people may not even see what we’re seeing.

5. Kill Your Fears, Free Your Soul

In Inception, one of the main characters lived in somebody else’s mind, namely the main character, Cobb, a dream snatcher. Every time Cobb started to dream, he reactivated the presence of his lost wife in that dream. And, as I already mentioned, his lost wife had a life of its own. She often interfered with the other characters and made things really complicated for everybody in those dreams.

It took a lot of courage and patience for the main character to solve this mental presence. It took a lot of personal power to accept his own guilt and release that presence from his mind. But without this hurtful process, the remains of his own unsolved problems kept him prisoner in an endless power struggle. He couldn’t break free. He couldn’t even imagine his own freedom.

We’re not prisoners of walls, we’re prisoners of our own fears. And that type of captivity is much worse. We can’t even imagine how we could break free. All we know is that we’re facing an obstacle we can’t overcome. We take that obstacle for granted, we accept it, we even think we deserve it. By shame, by guilt or by social pressure. Until we can’t stand it anymore and take the courage to kill our own fears.

Every time you kill one of your fears, something will go away from you too. You will lose something in the process. But that’s the way it should be: the lost part is the part that kept you from flying higher.

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Are you still in my dream?

7 Reasons To Enjoy Life More

Too often we forget why we’re here. Caught in an endless, empty race without a real prize, we run each day trying to fulfill our own expectations, other people’s expectations, or just simply blindly following rules we don’t understand. We forgot what is the real reason of our existence: to enjoy it. To breathe life every second and thrill with it. Here’s a list of 7 simple reasons to enjoy life even in the fastest, emptiest, dullest and mindless race we chose to run.

Beginnings

Every little thing we start is a creation. A miracle by itself. Think for a second: before we activate the Universe to make it happen, there is nothing there. Picture a cup of coffee in your mind. Before you pour the water, add the brown powder and put some heat on it, there is nothing there. Separated pieces of matter, drifting around in your environment, without any intention to glue them together. It was you who changed this and manifested a cup of coffee where there was nothing before.

I am a big fan of beginnings. I am addicted to them. Every time I start something, I enjoy my creative super powers. Because there’s no need to start big, in order to enjoy your creative super powers, all you need is to start. Size has nothing to do with beginnings: even the biggest journey started with only one step. That atomic action, that infinitesimal shift in the current texture of the Universe, this incredible small intention, that is a magical thing. Putting together separated pieces of your environment and transform them into something new, that is enchanting.

Beginnings are filling us with enthusiasm, passion and eagerness. Every time we start doing something, being it a cup of coffee or a new relationship, being it a walk in the park or circling around the word, we’re using our divine, immortal persona. Just make sure you realize that next time you’re making coffee.

People You Love

You may be sad, but when they are around, you’re happy. You may be struggling with financial difficulties, but when you think at them, everything seems easy. You may  be stumbling in the darkest depression and yet, only by thinking at them, your path seem a little bit clearer. They are the people you love. They are the ones who’re making you abandon your own wishes, in an unspeakably happy surrender to something bigger than you. They are sometimes your only reason to live.

Have you thought what makes you love them? What are the reason behind your love? I hope you didn’t find the answer. Because you don’t need one. You just love them. Loving somebody is outside reason, outside logic, beyond our analytical understanding of the world. Love is our greatest mystery and the people we love are its messengers. They tend to arrive at impossible moments in our lives and destroy all the solid foundations we thought we had. Only to build new, better and stronger ones.

Life is not easy. It can pull you in different directions and suck the last drop of energy out of you. And yet, in the most desert period of your existence, you’ll still have somebody to love. The moment you stopped loving other people, you stopped loving yourself. And without love, yes, life is empty, dull and mindless.

Creating Value

You do have a talent. Something that is unique to you. It doesn’t need to follow social rules or be converted into a career. It’s just something you’re great at. Every time you do that, every time you’re performing that special talent of yours, you’re creating value. It may be just that you make people laugh. Or comfort them by speaking. Or dancing. Or writing. Something that just flows through you and reach other people almost effortless. Creating value is what gives you a sense of usefulness and presence.

I love creating value. I love mastering different skills. I love the feelings I have when something I did proves useful for somebody else. Lately, this happens on this blog. People email me and tell me they felt motivated by my writing. Sometimes, they are even old friends who almost lost contact and incidentally found me while browsing the net. Every time I have one of those moments I feel fulfilled. A deep, strong and almost explosive emotion, leaving me thrilled and filled with adrenaline.

Making yourself useful to other people is drastically underrated in our modern society. A sense of blind ego and empty performance has replaced this natural flow: it doesn’t matter how you can make people happy with what you do, but rather what you get in return. No wonder you can’t enjoy life in such a limiting mindset.

Enjoying Value Created By Other People

When was the last time you felt inspired while listening to good music? Or watching an excellent movie? Or just enjoying new, simple yet elegant clothes? Or eating out deliciously at a nice restaurant, on a magical summer evening? On any of these occasions you were enjoying value created by other people. Somebody else created that music, imagined those clothes, made that movie, prepared that dinner. Somebody else used his or her unique talent and made you feel special.

I love to enjoy value created by other people. It gives me a sense of connection and validation. I feel like I am part of something bigger. Somewhere, somehow, there is a master plan and I am part of it. I mean something. Somebody took his time and skills and imagination and created something for me. I am enriched by that thing. I am better and I feel better while enjoying it. And I am also sending my respect to the creators. Refusing this flow of good stuff that comes to me is just against nature.

Living a life of abstinence in the name of fake modesty is so frustrating. Disconnecting from other people while waiting to transcend some twisted, invisible layers of “limiting” pressure is simply stupid. I do experience some abstinence every now and then, but only as an appetizer: makes the whole thing taste so much better.

Your Current Moment

Being in the current moment is a magic experience. And like any other magic it doesn’t require more of this world, but rather less. In order to really be in the current moment, you don’t need to learn something new, but get rid of what you already know. Leave back your worries, your frustrations, your memories and just stay here. Enjoy what you see. What you feel. What you hear or touch. You are designed for this specific experience, not for worrying and stacking frustration over frustration until you crack up.

Being in the current moment doesn’t have anything to do with positive or negative emotions. Anger or joy are two faces of the same coin. Being in the current moment while you’re angry has the same result as being in the current moment while you’re joyful. Rejecting what you feel because it’s “wrong” will simply kill the current moment and replace it with some mental notion about it. Instead of living your moment, you’ll live your theoretical notion about what you “should” feel., repressing the genuine feeling. And that’s so tasteless and dead.

The current moment is the only moment you have. As fragile as it is, it has this enormous power of making you alive. Don’t suffocate it with unnecessary garbage from the past, or with volatile worries about the future. Everything you have and need is right here. Right now.

The Unexpected

One of the most popular and delusive hoaxes of all time is that life could be predictable. Life is not predictable. Life is what’s happening while you’re busy making plans. The unexpected is the key ingredient here. Trying to eliminate the unexpected in your life, making your path as safe as you can, will be the only sure proof way to die of boredom. If no challenge will be there for you, if no surprising events will shake your universe, if nothing unforeseen will pop up suddenly, then what’s left for you to do?

I used to fight against the unexpected. Especially while I had my business. Seemed the most reasonable way to manage a business. Eliminate all the possible bad outcomes and wait for the good ones to manifest. Sadly, it didn’t worked out. Apparently, the only way to enjoy a steady and healthy growth for my business was to embrace the unexpected and take advantage of it in every way I can. Without the unpredictable changes in the market, I wouldn’t have any growth whatsoever.

While I don’t reject a solid preparation for starting your days, I don’t think this by itself will eliminate the unexpected in your life. Fortunately. Being prepared when the unpredictable happens is something completely different than rejecting it. So much better to be hit by a wave, and enjoy it, rather than pretend the sea is still.

Endings

What goes up, must come down. Every beginning has an end. And I find as much thrill and joy of life in a healthy ending as I find in a genuine beginning. Every ending is a confirmation that what’s started has reached its maturity. The purpose have been fulfilled. It’s not the ending in itself that causes suffering, it’s the attachment. Yes, pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional. Most of the time, though, I find out endings are not painful at all. They’re most like reaching the top of a mountain: you did it, now go down and start another one.

People try to make things last for unbelievably long periods of time. It’s an unconscious attempt to beat time. What a waste of resources. Time allows us to exist, how can you think to beat something that allows you to be. It’s a contradiction in terms. You can’t beat your own context, you’re in it. For instance, people are struggling to make their relationships last longer. Longer than what? Every thing has a purpose, if the purpose has been reached, it’s time for a new beginning. Enjoy the ending and let go.

If you don’t allow endings, you’re blocking other things form manifestation. Making something last more than its original intention will just hurt everybody. Enjoy the end and welcome a new beginning. Like this blog post. It’s over now. Time for you to start something new.

Creating Value

Have you ever thought about the values you create? Ever crossed your mind to sit back and look out what exactly you give to the outside world in exchange for what you receive? Because this is how we, humans, are functioning: by a continuous exchange of values. The most popular value exchanged being, of course, money.

But despite its popularity, money is not the only value we exchange, is only the most popular. There are a lot of other values growing into our lives, floating around and finding their path, either inside or outside our person. Our society lives by exchange. Our incomplete nature makes for a giant commerce around the clock for getting what we need in exchange for what we give.

In today’s post I’ll share some of my thoughts about the values we create and exchange, especially the number of connections each of these values can have.

Sellers And Buyers

Every time you give something away, you’ll be the seller. And of course, every time you’ll get something back you’ll be the buyer. We play those roles all the time. We give away something valuable to the outside world and get something back in return. Sometimes we’re more in the seller’s shoes, sometimes we’re more like the buyer. And the values we trade are what defines us the most.

We give care to our family and receive emotional bonding and warmth. We give advice and compassion to our friends and get back support and gratitude. We give expertise and know-how to our clients and get back money and recognition. We give time and presence to our employers and get back money and appreciation (well, most of the time). We trade values.

Connection Values

Each of these values behave like an object, it can be picked up and stored, transported and used. And for that, it has handles. Or, to be a little more exact, connections. Each value we trade, either by selling, either by receiving it, has connections.

If you’re starting to look around in circles wandering where are those handles for the paycheck you get last month, stick around a little bit, I’ll try to explain more. It’s easier than it seems now.

The bigger the number of connections attached to each value, the higher the chance to find a potential user. If you create something with a single handle, you’ll be able to use that something only and only by that single handle. If, on the contrary, you created something with more handles, chances for that something to be picked up and used will increase by the number of the attached handles. (more…)