The other day I drove to nearby Palo Alto, home of Stanford University and the surrounding wealthy community in the heart of Silicon Valley. My plan that afternoon was to get hands on experience with the IPhone, which had been released the day before. After a wonderful experience using the device, I exited the store and sauntered up lovely University Avenue, a tree-lined street adorned with dozens of shops, ranging from boutiques and cafes to bookstores and technology centers. As I walked up the boulevard, I felt quite happy and relaxed. Adding to the lovely atmosphere was the perfect, cloudless, mild weather that graces the region this time of the year.
In the back of my mind, I thought about the idea of obtaining some form of sweet -- perhaps a candy bar. And yet I was enjoying my slow amble up the avenue too much to want to disturb matters. A few minutes later, I thought about the fact that I had 30 minutes or so remaining in my parking slot, which still gave me enough time to continue my leisurely walk. And so I continued happily on my way.
Then at one point, I realized that though I had walked a ways, I had still not yet found an outlet for the candy bar I was after, which in turn caused slight consternation. It was at that point that I decided not to waste any more time, and instead focused on finding a store that had the object of my desire. Not a second later, I looked up and saw a large Walgreen's outlet directly in front of me. It was precisely the store I was looking for, since it had the greatest variety of candy in the entire area! I was amazed that as soon as I thought of doing something about my situation, the store immediately appeared in my line of site! In fact, out of dozens of stores in the area, it was the only one that my eyes fixed upon when I lifted my head! And so without hesitation, I quickly headed over to the store and found what I was looking for. In fact, I was so excited about the subtle life response experience that I just had that I also purchased a small pad and some fancy pencils in order to capture the event that just transpired!
In essence, what happened was that when I changed my perspective about time, life instantly responded with sudden good fortune. When I shifted from allowing time to leisurely go by to focusing on creating results as soon as possible, the store instantly appeared before me. By changing my intention about time i.e. to create quick results -- I attracted a result that itself abridged time, as the store suddenly came to my attention.
When we make an effort to focus on, conserve, or condense time, life immediately responds with improvements in its conditions. In the above incident, I consciously tried to narrow time, to focus it, concentrate it, and life instantly moved in my favor, enabling me to obtain the object of my desire. This suggests that there is a profound relationship between our perception of time and our ability to accomplish in life; or, more specifically, our ability to accomplish suddenly and abundantly through the onset of a life response event.
Let me give you another example of this phenomenon. A number of years ago, the Christmas/New Year holiday season was fast approaching, which ordinarily meant that my contract consulting and training work would slow to a trickle. However, this time rather than accepting the social norm that business invariably must decrease during this period, I decided that it should flow like any other time of the year. Immediately after changing my psychological position, I was flooded with new work -- completely filling my holiday schedule! Keep in mind that I did not make any outer effort to precipitate this most unexpected turn of events. Life simply responded on its own to a change in my attitude. When I shed the old habitual belief, and embraced the idea that work could come at any time -- including the imminent holiday season -- life immediately moved in my favor. Or to put it another way, by conquering my own view of time, I opened the portals of possibility, enabling vast results to descend on me in virtually no time at all!
Most of us have perceived the subjective nature of time somewhere along the line. Though the clock may tick in regular, fixed intervals, in reality time is a rather subjective experience for us. Sometimes time appears to move quickly, while other times it can seem to last forever. Even modern science including Albert Einstein has told us that time is relative. For example, one day a friend tells me that she was bored at work, and so time seemed to drag on forever. Another day, she tells me that she was very busy, and so time seemed to just fly by! In this way, our experiences of time seem to depend on the quality of our perceptions and the way we interact with life. Here is another example: have you ever had a wonderful conversation with a person and then realized that several hours had passed by, when it only seemed like minutes? The enjoyment and mental stimulation affected our perception of time. In each of these experiences, the way time unfolds for us depends on our psychological state. When our emotions and thoughts are fully engaged in a work or matter, life seems to move swiftly, but when we are locked in a room with nothing to do, it seems to last forever.
My goal here is not so much to analyze the nature of time, but to show that through our psychological relationship with time, we can attract powerful positive results from the world around us. When I shifted my perspective and tightened my time perspective in the candy bar incident, life instantly responded with positive results. Likewise, when I shifted my time framework by embracing the idea that work could occur during the holiday season expanding my notion of what was productive time -- life also instantly responded, and brought work that filled up that completely filled up that timeslot. We see from such cases that whenever we shift our time perspective to the positive through more focused intent, by aspiring for its maximum use, or by expanding its productive capacity -- life tends to immediately respond in our favor.
For example, consider two other aspects of time that we are all familiar with punctuality and patience. If, I shift from being habitually late to work to being punctual -- a decidedly different relationship with time -- life quickly responds to that effort. E.g. out of nowhere, I am suddenly offered a higher paying position, or an email arrives informing me that a long delayed project has suddenly come to fruition. When we change our attitudes about time, time begins to work in our favor, by attracting the infinite possibilities of life into the here and now!
Likewise, if I shift from being impatient to being patient in a given situation -- another form of time shift -- life will also quickly respond. For example, just recently I was on line at the supermarket, and perceived that I was becoming slightly irritable due to the length of the check out procedure. However, being mindful in that moment, I was able to catch my disturbed feeling, and instead focused on being patient. Hardly a moment later, the woman in front of me bolted out of line when she realized that there were other items she needed to shop for, substantially shortening the line in front of me. In similar situations, I have seen a second bagger suddenly appear on the scene to speed up packing, or a stuck checkout conveyor belt suddenly start moving! In each case, the response from life came after a change in psychological reference -- from being caught in time (i.e. impatience), to moving outside the bounds of time (i.e. patience).
These episodes give further proof that that when we move to a higher plane of consciousness relative to time, we immediately gain the cooperation of life. In fact, the life response themselves come in a form that overcome the limits of time, as they rapidly, even instantaneously descend upon us!
The key to eliciting these powerful results is to be stationed in that place within where we are able to make the right psychological adjustments concerning time. When we shift our center of consciousness from the surface of life to a deeper poise within, we not only become mindful of the possibilities and choices unfolding before us, but we are able to make the right decisions in those moments including the right time-related decisions that quickly attracts powerful positive results.
There is also something we might call the final frontier of time. It is where we are able to bring the timeless dimension of life into the time-bound plane we live in -- changing the very nature of our existence. When we move away from our surface preoccupation with the visual and auditory sense data, and discover our deepest poise within -- culminating in discovering our very souls -- we reach a plane where time ceases to function. When we then act from that plane, -- i.e. when we bring the timeless energies into the details of our daily lives -- we become complete masters of the outer life. We have conquered time from within, and through that process, unleash the infinite potentials of life.
--Roy Posner 19:31, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
See also other Case Studies on Life Response
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