Chapter 18

The Next Indicated Action

Some mornings, I used to wake up (what do I mean, used to wake up? I still wake up!) thinking, “What can I do today to redeem myself and to be as big and powerful and important as I can? What can I do to permanently reboot my life so that no one I know is as important and rich and powerful as I am?” Or, I might just think, “How will I figure out what the hell I am doing here on this planet?” Or, I might think, “What can I do so that I can outwit the stock market?”

If I am smart about my life, I won't have many mornings like that from now on. In fact, I stopped having many mornings like that some years ago when I had a certain epiphany coming from a man at the fabulous 12-step meeting I used to attend regularly in Malibu. (This meeting was perhaps the best use of my time that I have ever experienced.)

The suggestion, coming straight from a famous book, was that I should just think about what I wanted to have for lunch that day instead of wanting to redeem my life and change the world––and then to DO THE NEXT INDICATED ACTION. That might be filing or writing a few pages of a book, or whatever small chore was in front of me.

This seems like surrender, but in fact it is more than a surrender––it is an acceptance of reality––and it makes no sense to fight reality. Maybe if you are Colonel Gaddafi or Benito Mussolini or Saddam Hussein you can defy reality for a time. But most of us cannot. We had better stop trying to do superhuman tasks, and just do what's in front of us. That might sound like the formula for a small life.

In fact, it is the formula for a sane, happy, calm life. And no life is happier than a calm life. No life is happier than a truly peaceful life.

Eat

Then again, there is the small matter of nutrition. I don't mean here trying to do some nutritional wonderwork that will allow you to live to 125. I mean just getting some food into you at sensible, regular hours through the day.

It is amazing to me how many people think they are doing themselves a big favor by starving themselves. They are not. They are throwing their whole lives and bodies off balance by not feeding their bodies and brains.