I liked this article and poked around his website a bit. The author said I decided to expect everything to go well, for no reason at all.
He's made a major breakthrough in his life by monitoring his negative expectations. Expecting things to go well can be a sweeter self-fulfilling prophecy than expecting things to go badly. Perhaps at some point expectations themselves become unnecessary.
This is good advice, however I would get rid of the words "a lot". People think too much as it is, there's no reason to encourage more of it. But, people shouldn't focus on the negative. While it's good to be prepared, focusing on the negative becomes a chronic condition for some people. Focusing on a more positive future also can become a chronic condition, leaving people forever dissatisfied in their present moment -which is all we ever have. Positivity - good advice
Lots of focus on what you want - bad advice IMOthink a lot about what you want, and think only sparingly about what you don’t want.
Now I think what you just wrote is really interesting, I have the complete opposite view, people do not think enough. Perhaps its environmental but I certainly see people commonly making mistakes that could have been avoided with more forethought. It depends of course on the context. If it is naval gazing then yes we could all do less of that.
I would surmise that the vast majority of thinking that people do is completely useless. Most of the thinking that people do revolves around the future. Thinking about scenarios that will never occur out of fear or anger. A lot of people refer to this as daydreaming. I would never suggest that people should not think, and think carefully about real problems that present themselves in the now, or real problems that they know they will have to conquer in the future. This is a thoughtful approach to thinking (if that makes sense). Have you ever seen someone who was clearly mentally disturbed sitting by themselves and talking aloud as if they're speaking to someone? A lot of people's internal dialogue is no different. They constantly talk to themselves, create scenarios and generally think negative thoughts. The only difference between the crazy people and the sane people is that the crazy people do it aloud. But, being able to turn off your internal dialogue at will, using it to focus on problem-solving and goalsetting is a powerful thing. I'm not claiming that I have this ability completely, but there have been times in my life where I was able to do it more easily than others. Those times were my happiest and most productive.
I think that the key is to combine an effort to shift our idle, speculative thinking to be more positive with an effort to replace it with simple observation. Instead of constantly thinking about the future, take more moments to enjoy the present, too. Like you said, our present moment is all we ever have.
Might as well enjoy it.
Might as well enjoy it.
If you are truly in it, all you an do is enjoy it. I mean, unless you are being attacked or are under some real duress, we are almost always in a good place. The present moment is peace.