There is an old comic strip with two aliens looking down on earth and seeing a man walking a dog, picking up the dog’s poop as he follows behind. The caption on the comic depicts the question one alien is asking the other: “Which one is master?”

Clearly the man is in the service of the dog and not the other way around.

I think about that comic when I consider the way our thoughts stream through our head. Many of the thoughts we have relate to either worrying about the future or regret of the past.

The thoughts are like a river that we jump in and get swept along.

Clearly we are at the mercy of wherever our thoughts take us. Which is quite unfortunate.

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We’re living in historic times. So much pain, disagreement, and the continual display of separate interests.

Yet it is also a time of incredible opportunity. The chance to grow, join, and transform the seeds of sorrow into a framework for happiness and success.

When I first began my career as a young, insecure engineer I walked into the office on my first day and was struck by the homogeneity of the place. All these old men wearing starched white shirts and ties. And by old, I mean 30 years old. I vividly recall thinking, “I could never imagine being that old.”

While 30 quickly came and went, the homogeneous nature of engineering (and corporate business) is taking far longer to evolve into a truly equitable environment where diverse ideas and passionate people are recognized and rewarded based on nothing but their impact.
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I get a lot of email. Usually on the order of 300 or so messages per day. And most of it is not spam.

Inside of every message is a little “surprise” for me. It might be a good message, perhaps informing me of some positive development in my world. Or it might be a negative message conveying some sort of bad news. And then there are the FYI messages – information that someone thinks I should know about.

I don’t know what kind of message it will be until I open it. Which is one of the aspects that makes email so potentially addictive.

While reading email, our emotions get taken for a ride. If it’s a good message, we might smile or breath a sigh of relief. And if it’s a bad email, we might get angry or sad or fearful – depending on the contents and implication of the message.

But where does the concept of “goodness” or “badness” come from? If fact, the closer we look, the more we realize that the message is inherently neutral – neither good nor bad.

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Know thyself.

That phrase, know thyself, has been around for thousands of years. It is one of the maxims thought to have been given by the Oracle at Delphi. And Plato used this saying quite a bit in his dialogues of Socrates.

That maxim is truly the gateway to happiness.

And yet so few people really understand its meaning.

Knowing oneself has nothing to do with looking in a mirror or understanding why we react in certain ways at various times. Nor does it have to do with digging into the root of our preferences, biases, and prejudices. And it certainly has nothing to do with our upbringing, childhood experiences, or even any past lives that might be elicited in therapy sessions.

Know thyself means one thing, and it is this: identifying with who we really are.

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Where do thoughts come from? Do they just arise in our head – the natural consequence of what’s going on in the world?

Have you ever tried to watch your thoughts?

We all seem to experience an endless stream of questions (how am i going to make enough money to pay the bills, what resolutions should I make for the year, what should i wear today, what am i going to eat for lunch, …).

Or judgments (next week’s meeting isn’t going to be fun, my head hurts, this person doesn’t like me, that other person is a jerk, it looks cold outside, …).

And all too often, fears (what if the lab result comes back this way, what will happen if i lose my job, this bad thing might happen to me or my loved ones, …)

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