“If you stop whatever you are doing and ask yourself, Am I happy? odds are, you won’t be as happy as you just were. The worst way to be happy is to ask yourself if you are happy.
The same goes for all kinds of desirable experiences.
The more you wonder if your relationship is the right one, the less likely you’ll find it is. When you’re at your best and everything is clicking, the moment you ask yourself, Am I in the zone? you are no longer in the zone, or at least not as much as you were. This is true in public speaking, athletic performance, the practice of medicine, and the bedroom.
Perhaps the most striking way to realize the experience-changing nature of judgement is via meditation. Any veteran meditator will have faced a situation that goes like this: you are settling deeply into a contemplative groove; your being begins to merge with your breath, or maybe even the universe; and then you wonder, Holy cow! Is this really happening? Am I really shedding my sense of self? Is this a transcendent moment? Yet the second you ask that question, it no longer is.”
This note from Brad Stulberg’s newsletter both made me pause and chuckle.
It reminded me of an Eckhart Tolle refrain – “Don’t take your thoughts too seriously.”
You never know if a good day is a good day anyway. Best to keep our focus on plugging away on things that matter vs. overthinking it.
